This course examines representations of the Apocalypse in especially but not exclusively the literature of England. It pays particular attention to the visual symbols of Apocalypse, asking how these often sensational images were used by medieval authors to convey an extraordinary range of personal, political, and theological concerns. It explores, for instance, how the Anglo-Saxons used Apocalypse to represent the death of a culture, how authors like Jacobus de Voragine used Apocalypse to represent the value of animal life, and how William Langland used Apocalypse to dramatize social crisis and the need for reform. Along the way, it also examines the ways that medieval authors used humor and parody to resist the urgency of apocalyptic discourse. In exploring the wide variety of medieval responses to Apocalypse, this course also poses a broad methodological question: how should scholars of the Middle Ages understand the relationship between religious belief and poetic expression? We investigate the nature of this relationship in part by asking how medieval authors, from Bede to Chaucer, used apocalyptic imagery to represent the thrills and disasters of everyday life.