Medieval/Renaissance Texts at COVE Studio

The King James Bible

The Book of Genesis
The Book of Judges
The Revelation of Saint John the Divine
The Gospel According to Saint Mark
The Gospel According to Saint Luke

Drama

by Elizabeth Carye

The Tragedie of Mariam

by Thomas Kyd

The Spanish Tragedy

by Christopher Marlow

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

by William Shakespeare

Hamlet (Folio 1)
Henry V
Macbeth
The Merchant of Venice

Much Ado about Nothing
Othello
The Tempest
The Two Noble Kinsmen

by John Webster

The Duchess of Malfi

Poetry

by Anonymous

"Barbara Allen" (folk song)
Beowulf
(trans. A. S. Kline)
Cleanness (wr. circa 1400)
"The Dream of the Rood"
Everyman
Pearl (wr. circa 1400)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
"The Wanderer"

by Margaret Cavendish

"The Hunting of the Hare"

Chaucer, Wife of Bathby Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue (wr. circa 1387-1400)
The Canterbury Tales: The Cook's Prologue and Tale (wr. circa 1387-1400)
The Canterbury Tales: The Knight's Tale (wr. circa 1387-1400)
The Canterbury Tales: The Miller's Prologue and Tale (wr. circa 1387-1400)
The Canterbury Tales: The Nun's Priest's Tale and The Epilogue of the Nun's Priest's Tale (wr. circa 1387-1400)
The Canterbury Tales: The Reeve's Prologue and Tale (wr. circa 1387-1400)
The Canterbury Tales
: Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale (wr. circa 1387-1400)
The Legend of Good Women (wr. circa 1386)
Romaunt of the Rose (trans. from the French circa 1360s)

by John Donne

"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning (Modern Translation)"
[Batter My Heart, three person'd God]
"Elegy 19: To His Mistress Going to Bed"
"Holy Sonnet 1" (Modern Translation; "Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?")
"Holy Sonnet 5" (Modern Translation; "I am a little world made cunningly")
"Holy Sonnet 10" (Modern Translation; "Death, be not proud, though some have callèd thee") (3)
"Holy Sonnet 13" (Modern Translation; "What if this present were the world's last night?")
"Holy Sonnet 18" (Modern Translation; "Show me, dear Christ, thy spouse, so bright and clear")
"Song ["Go and catch a falling star"]
"The Flea"
"The Sunne Rising"

by John Gower

Confessio Amantis, Prologue (wr. circa 1390)
Confessio Amantis, Book 7 (wr. circa 1390)

by George Herbert

"Affliction (1)"
"Death"
"Denial"
"Discipline"
"Easter Wings"
"Love (3)"
"The Altar"
"The Collar"
"The Windows"

by Robert Herrick

"Delight in Disorder"
"To The Virgins, to Make Much of Time"

by Thomas Hoccleve

The Regiment of Princes (wr. circa 1411-20)

by William Langland

Piers the Plowman, Prologue (wr. circa 1377)
Piers the Plowman, Passus 1 (wr. circa 1377)

by John Lydgate

A Complaynt of a Lovers Life (wr. circa 1400-1429)

by Christopher Marlow

"The Passionate Shepherd to his Love"

by Andrew Marvell

"The Definition of Love"
"To His Coy Mistress"

Paradise Lost book coverby John Milton

Paradise Lost (1, 2, 9)
Paradise Lost
, Book 3
Paradise Lost, Book 4
Paradise Lost, Book 5
Paradise Lost, Book 6
Paradise Lost, Book 7
Paradise Lost, Book 8
Paradise Lost, Book 9
Paradise Lost, Book 10
Paradise Lost, Book 11
Paradise Lost, Book 12
"Sonnet 19: When I Consider How My Light Is Spent" (1673)

by Francesco Petrarca

Rima 61, [Benedetto sia 'l giorno]
Rima 140 [Love, who lives and reigns]
Rima 190 [A white doe on the green grass]

by Katherine Philips

"A Married State"
"On the Death of My First and Dearest Child, Hector Philips"

by William Shakespeare

The Rpe of Lucrece
Sonnet 2 [When forty winters shall besiege thy brow]
Sonnet 3 [Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest]
Sonnet 4 [Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend]
Sonnet 5 [Those hours that with gentle work did frame]
Sonnet 18 [Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?]
Sonnet 19 [Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws]
Sonnet 20 [A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted]
Sonnet 25 [Let those who are in favor with their stars]
Sonnet 26 [Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage]
Sonnet 29 [When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes]
Sonnet 36 [Let me confess that we two must be twain]
Sonnet 43 [When most I wink then do mine eyes best see]
Sonnet 57 [Being your slave what should I do but tend]
Sonnet 93 [So shall I live supposing thou art true]
Sonnet 98 [From you have I been absent in the spring]
Sonnet 116 [Let me not to the marriage of true minds]
Sonnet 130 [My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun]
Sonnet 142 [Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate]
Sonnet 143 [Lo, as a careful huswife runs to catch]
Sonnet 144 [Two loves I have of comfort and despair]
Sonnet 152 [In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn]

by Thomas Wyatt

"Stand whoso list"
"The long love that in my thought doth harbor"
"They flee from me"
"Whoso list to hunt"

Prose

by Bede

"The Story of Cædmon and Cædmon's Hymn"

by Margaret Cavendish

The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World, excerpts

by Margery Kempe

The Book of Margery Kempe, excerpts

by Richard Ligon

A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados

by Sir Philip Sidney

"The Defense of Poetry," excerpts