Middle English Flashcards
Norman Conquest
- Political, social changes, new ideals, changes in literature by arrival of French Normandy (defeat of the last Anglo-Saxon king, Harold II)
Introduced the Romance vocabulary, which made English more beautiful and apt for poetry. Introduced taste for exclusive aristocratic forms tropes, subjects that shifted the writing towards a broader, shared, Western European pattern.
Two languages affected: French (upper class), Latin (clergy, law).
Chivalric romance
1200-1500
Prose, verse narrative popular in Noble Courts.
- fantastic stories about marvellous, bizarre, improbable adventures
- chivalric knight-errant with heroic qualities on a journey/quest
- lack of mimetic-dimension
- courtly love: conventionalized medieval tradition of love between a knight and noble woman developed by French troubadours. The knight performs deeds for her.
With time it developed further from epics. Emphasized love and courtly manners rather than masculine military heroism.
Chivalry
system of honourable conduct expected of a knight. Gentle nobleman, involving military service to Christ and the king. Protects the weak, and avoids villainy.
Romance
13th c. -> almost any adventure story. England - ab 1100.
Both prose and verse.
Deals with love and heroic adventures.
Remote from ordinary life, distant time and place, court world. Often - fantasy, improbability, supernatural
English romance examples
‘Le Morte d’Arthur’ 1485 by Sir Thomas Malory
prose ab King Arthur, Merlin, Knights of the Round Table etc. Reworking of tales about them from various sources.
‘King Horn’ ‘Havelok the Dane’ ‘Floris and Blancheflour’
‘Bevis of Hampton’ ‘Sir Orfeo’ ‘Guy of Warmick’
guy who developed English historiography
Geoffrey of Monmouth. ‘The history of the Kings of Britain’ in Latin.
Robert Wace - Norman poet; ‘Roman de Brut’ 1155, based on ^, first poem written in any vernacular (native, spoken informally) language, no rhymes.
earliest example of debate poetry
‘The Owl and the Nightingale’ debate about morality, salvation, afterlife
first known Norman woman poet
Marie de France
wrote chivalric romances and lais (lyrical, narrative poems in octosyllabic couplets ab adventures, romance)
French poet who first wrote about Lancelot
Chre’tien de Troyes. Poem ‘Lancelot’
Ricardian poets
the big 4 of Middle English poetry, active during the reign of Richard II
the Gawain-poet/Pearl-Poet
William Langland
Geoffrey Chaucer
John Gower
The Gawain/Pearl Poet
author or ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’:
alliterative poem, chivalric romance in Arthurian setting, technically brilliant and with brilliant vocabulary.
“Pearl” poem: late 14th c., one of the most important. Elements of medieval allegory, dream vision genre, alliterative, psychological dimension, religious content
‘Patience’ ‘Cleanness’
William Langland
- Worcestershire English
‘Piers Plowman’, allegorical narrative poem, influenced ‘Canterbury Tales’. References Robin Hood.
Geoffrey Chaucer 1342-1400)
‘The first founder of our language’
- established southern dialect as England’s literary language
- variety of genres, styles, and subjects
- humour & serious, philosophical questions
The Canterbury Tales - unfinished (from 1387 until his death in 1400): most famous work in ME, complex dramatic narrative.
-> frame narrative: larger story contains many other (pilgrimage to a shrine)
-> ‘Nun’s Priest’s Tale’ parody of epic poetry, courtly romance. stylistically much more complex than its simple plot suggests
Geoffrey Chaucer 1342-1400)
‘The first founder of our language’
- established southern dialect as England’s literary language
- variety of genres, styles, and subjects
- humour & serious, philosophical questions
The Canterbury Tales - unfinished (from 1387 until his death in 1400): most famous work in ME, complex dramatic narrative.
-> frame narrative: larger story contains many other (pilgrimage to a shrine)
-> ‘Nun’s Priest’s Tale’ parody of epic poetry, courtly romance. stylistically much more complex than its simple plot suggests
John Gower
3 major works: ‘Mirour de l’Omme’, ‘Vox Clamantis’ ‘Confessio Amantis’ long poems in French, Latin and English, united by common moral and political themes
Secular prose
Creative, pseudo-scientific writings.
John Trevisa - translator, writer into English from Latin
Sir John Mandeville ‘Travels of Sir JM, about his travels, fantastic nature
Ralph Higden ‘Polychronicon’
Spiritual writers
Richard Rolle: mystic, religious writer ‘The Form of Living’ ‘Ego Dormio’
‘The cloud of Unknowing’
Walter Hilton ‘The scale of Perfection’
Margery Kempl
Julian of Norwitch
Vernacular dramas
in language of local people rather than Latin of Church. Originate in church, but all gradually lost some of the elements that connected them to it
Mystery plays
Miracle plays
Morality plays
Miracle plays
- lifes of saints, their miracles
- both fictional and actual plot
- developed in church in 10th c. for religious feasts and festivals, left the church and were performed onat public festivals , included non-Church elements.
‘Mary Magdalene’ ‘Conversions of St Paul’ survived in English
Morality plays
Allegorical stories to teach a moral message, Christian teachings, way to salvation.
- personification of characters who represent abstract qualities.
- central character: ordinary human, flawed, represents humanity, tries to achieve salvation on their way to death
- temptation vs salvation
- epilogues, prologues
‘Everyman’ 1510 regarded as the best/ God, Death, Fellowship, Goods, Knowledge, Kindred… Only Good-Deeds stay with EM when they meet God (only GD can help people get to heaven)
‘THe Pride of Life’
‘The Castle of Perieverance’
‘Mankind’
Mystery Plays
Corpus Christ plays-first Thursay after Trinity Sunday in Jule/July, church’s summer festival.
25-50 individual plays pageants) grouped in a cycle. (biblical events)
Produced by the trade guilds (mysteries) which were given biblical scenes that logically proceeded from their type of business (Bakers-last supper, Glovers - Kain and Abel)
Cycles: The York Cycle (1376), The Chester Plays (1377) Wakefield Plays (1410)
Often in pageants (wagons)
Interludes
‘something between’. Short entertainment put on between the course of a feast/acts of a play.
Performed at court or ‘great houses’ by professionals or amateurs.
Mostly sketches of nonreligious nature, didactic, allegorical.
‘Nature’ by Henry Medwall ‘The world and the child’ ‘Youth’
