J. W. H. Atkins 
English Literary Criticism [PDF ebook] 
The Medieval Phase

In England literary consciousness had its beginning in the middle ages, and this book, originally published in 1943, describes and illustrates the first phases of the growth of a tradition of criticism. It does not confine itself to writers whose interest was in the vernacular, for there was a larger European movement of which English criticism was a part. It embodied much of the ancient teaching, but it shows recurring efforts to arrive at the nature and art of poetry; it provides a key to contemporary literature and is of great help in understanding what really happened at the 16th Century Renaissance.