Michael D. Cherniss (Professor of English at the University of Kansas) has written a number of books and articles on medieval literature, principally that in Old and Middle English. His continuing interest in the infl uence of oral tradition on Old English literature is refl ected in several of his earlier writings, such as Ingeld and Christ: Heroic Concepts and Values in Old English Christian Poetry, as well as in his current work in progress on Beowulf.