Medieval Literature - Test 3

About old english literature…

• Chief masterpiece: Beowulf

• Heavy use of alliteration rather than rhyme and kennings

• Themes: heroism, fate, loyalty, mortality

About middle english literature…

• Peak of creativity: late 14th c.

• Canterbury Tales, Piers plowman

• Themes: morality, chivalry, satire, Christian allegory

How much Old English material is there?

Not much. Only about 30,000 lines in entire corpus of poetry. Many words in O.E occur only once, leaves the meaning to guessing.

About Geoffrey Chaucer…

More obvious starting point for Middle English— Easier to read than other written works during the time, and the material is not as foreign to modern tastes as others.

What is Middle English?

Fusion of Old English, Norman French and Latin.

Why did Middle English form?

Norman warriors become England’s new aristocracy and do official business in Norman French, while Old English is excluded from positions of power. They combine to a sort of middle ground.

Writers of Pre-Carolingian Latin works…

• Augustine

• Boethius

• Gregory of Tours

• Bede the Venerable - Ecclesiastical histories

• Einhard - Biography of Charlemagne

The “Three Crowns” of Italian literature…

• Dante Alighieri - Divina Commedia

• Francesco Petrarca - poet laureate and “Father of Humanism”

• Giovanni Boccaccio - Decameron - A collection of 100 tales told by 10 people over 10 days as they shelter from the Black Death

About chivalric romance…

• Flourished in the High to Late Middle Ages.

• Tales of knightly adventure, courtly love, and moral quests

• Origin: 12th c. France

• Reflects the values of society as well as social structures.

What are the problems with medieval literary studies?

• Every generation re-interprets the past

• Huge quantities of secondary material

• New ideas received in different ways