Essays on Ricardian Literature develops issues and themes first broached in John Burrow's ground-breaking book Ricardian Poetry and incorporates a bibliography of his published writings, which have revolutionized critical appreciation of medieval literature.

The contributors to this volume, all leading scholars in the field, explore such areas as the status of Anglo-Latin and the influence of French culture on the Ricardian court, offer radical rereadings of some more familiar works, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Patience, and demonstrate how closely the literature of the period is bound up with political and social conditions. Written in honour of John Burrow, to mark his deep and beneficial influence upon the study of medieval literature, the 15 essays in this volume combine to provide a detailed and thorough examination of medieval literature, from the Middle English romance and Italian Trecento poetics to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Langland's Piers Plowman.