British Literature: Week 7 - 9 Vocab

• Feudalism: a method of organizing society consisting of three estates: clergymen, the noblemen who were granted fiefs by the King, and the peasant class who worked on the fief
• Great Chain of Being: the metaphor used in the Middle Ages to describe the social hierarchy believed to be created by God
• Chivalry: the code of conduct that bound and defined a knight's behavior
• Mystery Plays: a play depicting events from the Bible
• Morality Plays: play depicting representative characters in moral dilemmas with both the good and the evil parts of their character struggling for dominance
• Medieval Romance: a narrative, in either prose or poetry, presenting a knight and his adventures
• Pearl Poet: the unidentified author of Pearl, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• Alliterative Revival: a resurgent use of the alliterative verse form of oral Old English poetry such as Beowulf
• Bob and Wheel: a group of five short lines at the end of an alliterative verse rhyming ABABA
• Green Man: a character in ancient fertility myths representing spring and the renewal of life
• Courtly Love: rules governing the behavior of knights and ladies in a ritualistic, formalized system of flirtation
• Crags: rugged mass of rocks
• Heaved: pull hard
• Barrow: mound
• Gnarled: twisted
• Cleft: split
• Befall: happen to
• Kirk: church
• Cleave: split
• Scythe: hooked blade
• Dawdle: be slow
• Whetting: sharpen a blade
• Reproof: expression of disapproval
• Daunted: intimidated
• Winced: involuntary shrink away
• Aloft: lift overhead
• Efficacious: effective
• Staunch and Doughty: loyal and brave
• Reproved: scolded
• Covetousness: envy
• Penance: payment for sin
• Frame Story/Framework: a narrative that contains another narrative
• Links: conversations among the various pilgrims between the stories to tie the stories together

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