English Literature

Verse forms in Middle English Period

1- The Old Alliterative verse

2- Meter and rhyme enter English verse from France from 12th century

syllable and stress meter

the repetition of a certain combination of stressed and unstressed syllables

_/_ /_ /_ /_ /

rhyme

-------------root

-------------soot

Matter of Britain

stories and medieval romances about King Arthur

Geoffrey of Monmouth: History of the Kings of Britain

first collection of stories based on Arthur

Latin prose

history and fiction

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Wace: Roman de Brut

Anglo-Norman poet

French poem

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Layamon: Brut

first treatment of Arthurian legend in Englin France: Chretien de Troyes:

created new fictional form: Arthurian romance

Arthur's story was taken to France, was turned into a romance, and was taken to England; and led to lots

of translations and retellings.

Aeneas: Trojan hero, son of Venus, founder of Rome

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Brutus: father of the British race; founder of Britain

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Arthur: freed Britain from Romans; was defeated by Anglo-Saxons

early British (Celtic) King

Arthur married to Guinevere

her affair with Lancelot

Perceval

Gawain

The greatest Arthurian romance in verse: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

(14th century alliterative poem)

greatest in prose: Sir Thomas Malory: Morte d'Arthur

(translation of the cycle of earlier French verse romances)

The Alliterative Revival

last quarter of 14th century

first great age of primarily secular literature

Middle English literature flourished in 3 poets.

They used all the characteristics genres of the age most artistically.

1- Geoffrey Chaucer

2- The Gawain poet

3- William Langland: Piers Plowman

A- genre: Dream Vision: the story turns out to be the narrator’s dream.

technique: frame: a minor background story on which the main story/ies will be set;

an excuse for telling the main story

B- central technique: allegory of ideas

1- personification

2- Piers: represents peasants--------turns into a Christ figure

3- didactic: teaches a Christian how to reach salvation

C- satire on the corruptions of the Catholic Church

(satire: a technique which criticizes something through ridicule)

D- satire on contemporary social problems

E- realistic picture of contemporary life and manners

F- old alliterative verse

In a 'summer 'season \\ when 'soft was the 'sun

Geoffrey Chaucer

tintroduced the Renaissance into English literature

his job as a wine merchant and as a courtier: He enriched his work with his knowledge of

different classes of English people.

Through his foreign travels as a diplomat, he got to learn the innovations in contemporary

foreign literature and was influenced by the Renaissance.

his gifts: humor

storytelling

creative: outdid his models

far ahead of his time: irony, characterization

At a time when most poets and writers wrote their works in Latin or French, Chaucer wrote his works in

Middle English; the dialect that he chose became the root of modern English.

Life:

the son of a wine merchant

as a boy, he served as a page in the household of the prince and got to know the upper class from an early

age

continued his father’s profession

remained in court and became a trusted friend of the King and his sons

his wife was one of the members of the Queen’s household

was sent on diplomatic missions to France and Italy

had several official posts, including M.P. for Kent

1- His French Period

He is influenced by contemporary French literature

he mostly translates and imitates

translation of Roman de la Rose: a 13th century allegorical poem

The Book of the Duchess: an elegy for the death of the prince's wife:

2- The Italian Period

he comes under the influence of the Italian Renaissance

he gets to know the works 3 Italian poets: Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch

he learns a lot from them: new subject matters, ways of story-telling

gains more maturity as a poet

he wrote a parody of Dante's Divine Comedy

Boccaccio had the greatest influence on him

Parliament of Fowls: all birds have gathered in Venus' temple to choose a mate;

allegorical: each type of bird represents a class of society: the work shows how each class thinks about

love and marriage: their different standards for the choice of mate

Troilus and Cressida

an adaptation of Boccaccio's love poem

theme: the faithlessness of women

Chaucer is reprimanded for his previous work by an eminent person and ordered to write

a work celebrating good women in history:

Legends of Good Women: a number of verse stories about famous faithful women in

history and myth who were betrayed by false men and died for love

“legend”: a saint's life

3- The English Period

called English because he writes about English lcollection of stories mostly in verse

20 stories and 4 unfinished ones

in heroic / rhymed couplets: iambic pentameter rhymed couplets

uses alliteration

only 2 in prose

a framed narrative

the frame: is by Boccaccio's frame in Decameron: a pilgrimage

31 pilgrims travelling to Canterbury to visit the shrine St. Thomas a Becket

they decide to tell stories on the way

many stories are directly taken from Boccaccio's work

the variety in their genres and subjects matters

each pilgrim is a type and represents the people in a job or class; this is shown in their names:

the Miller

the Monk

The Sailor

the Knight

the Merchant

the Priest

the Cook

the Clerk

the Man of Law

the Priest

the Weaver

real people in real life

a realistic picture of Middle English society: he describes Middle English people from all classes and

jobs

satire: criticizes the corruptions in each class or profession, e.g. the churchmen

irony

the general prologue introduces the pilgrims: characterization

up to this:

Chaucer outdid his teacher in his usage of frame

up to that time, frame was just seen in the beginning and the end of works.

frame---- -----

the story

frame-----------------------

tales------------------------

the close relatedness of frame and tales in Canterbury Tales; they proceed alongside each other and

are closely linked.

A- pilgrim------the tale that he tells

the pilgrim’s job, class, life, character--------the genre, theme, or subject of his tale

the Knight: romance

the Priest: a sermon

the Prioress: a miracle story

the Nun's Priest------------a beast fable about a rooster with several henB- Because of the way the tales affect the pilgrims, the tales makes a chain of cause and effect, each

leading to the next logically and naturally.

Whan that April with his showres soote

The droughte of March hath perced to the roote

And bathed every veine in swich licour

Of which vertu engendered is the flowr;

Whan Zephyrus eek with his sweete breeth;

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre cropps and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne

And small fowles maken melodye

That sleepn all night with open ye

So priketh hem Nature in hir corages

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

Renaissance elements in Chaucer’s works

mythological allusions, classical stories

real people in real life

secular subjects: love, marriage,

funny stories

Popular / Traditional / Folk Ballads

one of the secular, poetic genres in Europe during the Middle English Period

a kind of song: melody + words

a kind of narrative poem telling simple stories

“ballad” means a dance-song

a kind of popular verse; a folksong: produced by common people, often the illiterate villagers

-------) contains much “folklore” (knowledge of simple people); e.g. myths, superstitions, magic, etc.

------------) style: colloquial

a kind of oral literature---------) anonymous

-------------) it has been subject to many changes

-------------) there are different versions for most ballads (because of the migration of people and the

different changes that have been made to the ballad in each area)

------------) repetitions that help in remembering the lines

Some ballads are shared by several countries.

Subject Matter

tragic subject matter

most common subjects: love (the dark side: betrayal, separation, death caused by love, jealousy, etc.)

historical events and characters

ballads based on folklore: myths, folktales, superstitions; often contain

supernatural elements; sometimes contain animism: the primitive belief that everything has a spirit: e.g.

trees, clouds, rocks are seen talkinbrevity: ballads are very short

--------) deal with the climax of the story briefly (exposition, characterization, explanations, descriptions,

etc. are omitted

the story is told in dramatic form (often a dialogue between 2 persons)-----------) brevity

tone is objective or detached and impersonal (speaker does not express his personal feelings and ideas;

there is no comment or judgement)----------) brevity

Form

quatrain or couplets

quatrains rhyming abcb

repetitions: refrain: the exact repetition of a line / group of lines

incremental repetition: repetition of a line / group of lines with an addition that forwards the story

alliteration

repetition of nonsensical syllables

functions of repetitions: being musical, creating suspense, and helping in remembering the lines.

History and Collectors

The greatest ballads date from the 15th century.

Sir Walter Scot and Bishop Thomas Percy are great collectors of the genre.

Types of Ballads

Ballads deal with various subjects such as Robin Hood, Christian and medieval stories, etc. and they mostly

belong to the oral tradition. The only ballads that belong to the written culture are literary ballads, written

by famous poets in imitation of folk ballads; they are often very long, but use the usual subjects and

techniques of the original ones.g and having human feelings)