B List

Question 1

Old English Verse: Form

Answer 1

Line structure is according to number of accented syllables only, unaccented syllables not counted.
Rather than rhymes, lines alliterate across a mandatory central pause (cesura). Falls into disuse by 1100.

Question 2

Middle English Verse: Form

Answer 2

Old English fully gives way to Middle English around 1350, but literary production picks up, verse are similar to Old English verse (no formal central cesura).

Alliterative verse revival - William Langman [Piers Plowman], Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Question 3

Beowulf: Background (ca. 750)

Answer 3

• Sung by scops (Anglo-Saxon bards) for centuries before being put on paper.
• Strong stress verse, characteristic of Old English verse.
• Internally organized by alliteration.
• Not based on accentual-syllabic meter but only number of stressed syllables.
• Gap in the middle of line is caesura.

Question 4

Beowulf: Synopsis (ca. 750)

Answer 4

Swedish hero Beowulf at the request of Danish king Hrothgar slays monster Grendel (and his mother). Beowulf is made rich and respected, becomes king of the Geats. A dragon appears and he kills it but becomes mortally wounded, a young warrior Wiglaf proves his worth and made successor.

Question 5

Beowulf: Characters (ca. 750)

Answer 5

Beowulf: Swedish hero who is good at killing
Grendel: a devil like creature whose arm is ripped off
Grendel’s mother: a hag-like creature whose head is chopped off
Hrothgar: Danish king who receives Beowulf’s help
Beaw: Perhaps another name for Beowulf…?
Scyld Scefing: The poem starts with his funeral and he is Hrothgar’s great-grandfather.
Heorot: Hrothgar’s magnificent mead-hall
Wiglaf: Young warrior that proves his worth

Question 6

William Langland [Piers Plowman] (ca. 1380): General

Answer 6

Eight allegorical visions in Will has dreams of seeking out Truth. Written at the same time as Geoffrey Chaucer’s [The Canterbury Tales], but unlike it, written in alliterative verse (revival of the alliterative verse form)

Question 7

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): Points

Answer 7

General Prologue is important - recognizing characters and the tales. Also make sense of Middle English (this is written in Middle English, NOT Old English)

24 pilgrims including the author journey to the religious shrine at Canterbury. “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” is important.

Written in several different meters depending on the person telling the tale, but rhyming couplet form from the General Prologue predominates.

Question 8

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Knight

Answer 8

Valorous, chivalrous, polite. His tale is first.

Arcite and Palamon are friends held in a tower as prisoners of war. They fall in love with Emily outside the window. They organize an enormous battle wherein Arcite prays to Mars and Palamon to Venus. Arcite wins the battle but dies, leaving Emily with Palamon.

Question 9

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Prioress (description)

Answer 9

Dainty, materialistic, sentimental about her little dogs. Well-pleated wimple, rosary of coral, golden brooch with “Love conquers all”.

Staid rhyme royal.

Question 10

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Prioress (synopsis)

Answer 10

A little boy sings Christian hymn [Alma Redemptoris] while in a Jewish neighborhood. His throat is slit but he keeps singing and reveal the murder (“murder will out”).

Question 11

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Prioress (criticism)

Answer 11

Some people suggest Chaucer intended to critique the prioress, but stories of Jewish atrocities were standard fare at the time (convenient pretexts for Christians’ periodic slaughter of Jews)

Question 12

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Nun’s Priest(s) (general)

Answer 12

A nun and three priests are mentioned as pilgrims accompanying the prioress, Chaucer seems to have decided two of the priests were superfluous.

Popular with the test.
Mock-heroic (parodies some conventions of classical epic poetry - The Iliad)

Question 13

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Nun’s Priest(s) (synopsis)

Answer 13

Chaunticleer, a handsome vain rooster who is good at singing, dreams he will be eaten by a strange creature (a fox). His favorite hen Perteltote says he’s a coward who believes in dreams. Sir Russell flatters Chaunticleer into singing with his eyes closed, snatches him, gloats, loses him, fails in duping him again. Both he and Chaunticleer rebuke themselves.

Question 14

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Merchant (description)

Answer 14

Wears a motley and a beaver heat, talks mostly of profitable business concerns. Actually in debt, but bears calculated dignity that no one suspects it.

Question 15

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Merchant (synopsis)

Answer 15

Old knight January marries beautiful young May. At first he enjoys her in the bedroom by night and in the garden by day. Suddenly goes blind and keeps May in arm’s reach at all times.

May and her young lover Damian have sex in a tree while January holds onto the trunk. Pluto restores January’s sight and May convinces him she committed adultery to restore his vision.

Question 16

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Wife of Bath (appearance)

Answer 16

Deaf, gap-toothed, plump, ruddy. Not bad-looking in her preposterous way.

Scarlet stockings and an enormous hat, comfortable riding a horse and swapping jokes with the boys.

Had five husbands not counting other company in her youth.

Question 17

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Wife of Bath (analysis)

Answer 17

Outsized vision of womankind. Somewhat grotesque, redeemed by unselfconscious gusto in her part. Uniquely feminist philosophy of love, sex, (re)marriage.

“If you folks have enough, why care you how merrily the other folks fare? For certain, old dotard, you’ll have the fill of my thighs come evening. The man’s too great a miser who won’t let another man light a candle at his lantern. For he’ll have no less the light, by heaven.”

Question 18

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Wife of Bath (synopsis)

Answer 18

One of Arthur’s knights rapes a maiden, Arthur sentences him to death, his queen and some of her ladies protest, Arthur lets the queen deliver justice. The queen says the knight’s life will be spared if he finds what women desire most.

Knight encounters a repulsive witch who will reveal the answer once he marries her. Answer is sovereignty and the witch turns into a beautiful maiden.

Question 19

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Miller (description)

Answer 19

Huge and strong, hard-drinking, rough-talking and fight-picking… unpleasantly coarse. Shovel-sized red beard and a big hairy wart on nose.

“I am drunk, I know it by the sound of my voice”

Question 20

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Miller (synopsis)

Answer 20

Rich carpenter with pretty young Alison as wife has a boarder “Handy” Nicholas. Nicholas is good-looking and clever, respected as one learned in astrology. He tells carpenter to spend the night on the roof in the washtub, to prepare for apocalyptic flood.

Absalom comes crooning at the window, Alison lets him kiss her bottom, Absalom brings a hot poker and sticks it on Nicholas’ butt. Nicholas cries “Water! Water!” and the carpenter comes clattering down.

Question 21

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Pardoner (description)

Answer 21

Thin, vain, smooth-skinned blond with pardons “all hot from Rome”. Host calls him a pretty boy (isn’t “all man”).

Bits of the true-cross, scrap of St. Peter’s sail, holy sheep bone that turns water into cure-all potion.

Question 22

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Pardoner (prologue)

Answer 22

Due to ribald tales, host tells pardoner to tell an edifying story. Pardoner’s admission of hypocrisy is by itself hypocritical, he claims his bogus dealings make him an expert on his theme: Radix malorum est Cupiditas (The love of money is the root of all evil)

Question 23

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Pardoner (synopsis)

Answer 23

Three immoral drunkards try to find Death because Xe took one of their drinking friends. They are told to find Death under a tree but instead finds treasure. They kill each other while trying to get at it.

Question 24

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Pardoner (aftermath)

Answer 24

The pardoner tries to get the host to pay for the opportunity to handle the relics. Host says he’d rather have the pardoner’s cut testicles to bury in pig excrement. The pardoner is furious then due to the knight’s intervention reconciled with the host.

Question 25

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Franklin

Answer 25

The Franklin, a wealthy landowner.

Romantic tale about lover Aurelius, faithful wife Dorigen, and her husband Arveragus.

Question 26

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Reeve

Answer 26

The Reeve, an administrative overseer.

Greedy miller named Simkin has his wife and daughter enjoyed by John and Alan whom he had swindled earlier. Reeve used to be a carpenter, story is his response to Miller’s story about the cuckolded carpenter.

Question 27

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Clerk

Answer 27

Griselda, a patient wife, endures trials of her needlessly jealous husband Marquis Walter.

Question 28

Geoffrey Chaucer [The Canterbury Tales] (1387): The Doctor

Answer 28

Virginia has her father kill her so that sh won’t fall into the clutches of Apius, an evil judge.

Question 29

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ca. 1380): Synopsis (What is the green knight’s challenge?)

Answer 29

An enormous green knight interrupts New Year’s banquet at Arthur’s table and sets out a challenge - Any knight present can strike off his head, but if he survives it, the knight who failed should come to him exactly one year lately and be beheaded in turn. Gawain accepts the challenge and watches as the green knight put his head back on.

Question 30

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ca. 1380): Synopsis (What is the test Gawain undergoes?)

Answer 30

Gawain is taken in by a lord and given hospitality, during which the lord’s wife attempt (and fail) to seduce him. She still manages to make him keep her girdle which she claims will protect him from harm. After three days, he is told the way to the Green Chapel.

Question 31

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ca. 1380): Synopsis (How does the story end?)

Answer 31

Because Gawain did not return the girdle, the knight cut Gawain’s neck slightly, but spares his life.

Question 32

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ca. 1380): Form

Answer 32

Body of each stanza is made of long alliterative lines, they end with “bob and wheel”.

“bob” is very short line, one or two unstressed syllable then one stressed.

“wheel” is quatrain of trimeter lines, rhyming ababa (including the bob).

Question 33

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ca. 1380): Author

Answer 33

The unknown poet is also believed to be author of “Pearl” “Patience” “Cleanness”. Sometimes referred to as “the Pearl poet”.

Question 34

Sir Thomas Malory [Le Morte D’Arthur] (1470)

Answer 34

Late Middle English, written while Malory was in prison. Drawn from English sources as well as the “french book” Is prose, so can be differentiated from [Sir Gawain and the Green Knight].