UNIVERSITATEA ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA, IAI

FACULTATEA DE LITERE
CATEDRA DE LIMB I LITERATUR ENGLEZ

CONF. DR. IULIA MILIC

ENGLISH MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE LITERATURE

ANUL I, ENGLEZA

PRELIMINARIES

MIDDLE AGES (adj. MEDIEVAL): is a period of European history extending broadly over a period of
1000 years, from the 5th (476 the year that the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus
Augustus, abdicated) century up to the 15th century. Different writers accept different endings for this
period, such as Gutenbergs printing press (1455), or the Battle of Bosworth (1485) which marks the end
of the War of the Roses and the beginning of the Tudor Dynasty. The name designates what the Italian
Humanists of the 14th century refer to as an intermediary age, in their desire to return to the values of
the Antiquity.

MEDIEVAL ENGLAND: PERIODS

1) THE ANGLO SAXON PERIOD: OLD ENGLAND (the 5h century: the invasion of the Anglo-
Saxon tribes, the establishment and the flourishing of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, the Danish
invasions)
2) THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066: the Norman Invasion, the rule of the Norman Kings: the
Plantagenet Dynasty the 13th century: the loss of Normandy, the establishment of the Parliament)
3) THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD (late 13th century: the reign of Edward I 1485: the Battle of
Bosworth and the end of the War of the Roses)

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 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Levitchi, Leon, Istoria literaturii engleze si americane, vol. 1, Editura All , 1998
2. Sanders, Andrew, Scurta istorie Oxford a literaturii engleze, trad. de Mihaela Anghelescu-
Irimia, Editura Univers, Bucuresti, 1997
3. Daiches, David, A Critical History of English Literature (Volume 1), Mandarin, 1960
4. Carter, Ronald and John McRae, The Routledge History of Literature in English, Routledge,
1997,
http://library.aceondo.net/ebooks/English_Language/the_routledge_history_of_literature_in_engli
sh_britain_and_ireland_Ronald_carter.pdf
5. Albert, Edward, History of English Literature, Oxford University Press, 1979.\

INTERNET SOURCES
The Norton Anthology Online:
https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/middleages/welcome.htm
Medieval Literature, Arts and Humanities (Course Syllabus with links)
http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/medieval/index.html
Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature: http://www.luminarium.org/
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: http://www.bartleby.com/cambridge/

LITERARY TEXTS:
Beowulf, translation by Seamus Heaney,
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4zKvvcjF6UAZTM1ODQ1ZTYtZDk0Ny00MDQ3LTliMzUtZ
WM4ZWIyOWY0NGY5/edit?pref=2&pli=1
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Marie Boroff,
http://jhuntela.weebly.com/uploads/9/1/3/6/91369904/sir_gawain_and_the_green_knight_-
_marie_borroff.pdf
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, Translation by Michael Murphy (A Reader-Friendly Edition
put into modern spelling, http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/webcore/murphy/canterbury/)
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The General Prologue, an interlinear translation,
https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/gp-par.htm
Shakespeares Plays
http://shakespeare.mit.edu/
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/
http://www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/?chapter=4
No Fear Shakespeare : http://nfs.sparknotes.com/ (original text with a translation in modern English)

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 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE

THE PECULIARITIES OF THE ENGLISH LITERATURE

No other European state remained within the same boundaries for such a long time
Most European powers were broken up by war, internal strife or conquest. England survived the
Norman Conquest and was never broken up.
Few other European cultures have literary specimens that are so old.
No other European culture has such a rich collection of vernacular literature.
Christianity was more influenced by the Anglo-Saxon society than by the Romano-Christian
artistic repertoire as it happened on the continent.

THE ANGLO-SAXON WORLD

A. STAGES IN THE HISTORY OF THE ANGLO-SAXON RULE IN ENGLAND

1. MIGRATION AND SETTLEMENT (cc. 5th and 6th centuries)
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells that the Anglo-Saxons were called to the Island by the Britons to help
them in the conflict with the Picts. Seeing the worthlessness of the Britons and the excellencies of the
land, they called others and so, the migration started. [see the fragment taken from Bede at the end of
this chapter]
2. CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY (6th -7th centuries)
In 597 Augustine is sent by the Pope to convert the Anglo-Saxons and he becomes the first Archbishop of
Canterbury
667: the Council of Whitby regulated the differences between the Irish Christian Church and the Roman
Church in favor of the latter.
As a result of the conversion, the centuries that followed (7th and 8th centuries) were marked by a
development of monastic culture, leading to a flourishing period for the arts and literature that resulted in
exquisite artifacts (such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, or Codex Amiatinus the early 8th century) and in the
important work of the monastery scribes who copied in manuscripts pagan and Christian literature.
Consequences of the conversion to Christianity:
A sense of unity of the English people fostered by Canterbury, the site of the Archbishop and
an important cultural centre.
The development of a vernacular literature due to the specific type of conversion that occurred
in England, through the two channels: a) Rome and its missionaries, among whom, of a great
importance was Theodore, a Greek coming from the Eastern church with a more open-minded
and tolerant attitude regarding the preservation of the native languages and cultures than the
representatives of the Western Church (Rome); and b) the Irish missionaries whose idea of
conversion was grounded in the integration of the pagan beliefs (such as the cult of the
ancestors) and of the pagan religious sites (converted into Christian chapels) and who
contributed to the preservation of pagan poetry. The fact that the secular (pagan) heroic poetry
reflected the lifestyle and the values of the warriors (the aristocracy) from whose ranks many
abbots and abbesses were chosen, also led to the preservation of their literature since the
Church needed the support of the king and of the nobility to enforce the new religion.
3. THE VIKING RAIDS (800-900). The Vikings attacked and plundered the rich monasteries and the
country was plunged into a period of cultural darkness
4. THE REVIVAL OF THE ANGLO-SAXON CULTURE. Under the rule of King Alfred the Great
(849-899), the English repelled the Vikings and reorganized the country into a powerful kingdom.
The king was also highly interested in developing the culture and he encouraged the translation of
important works into English.

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5. THE END OF THE ANGLO-SAXON WORLD. The Viking raids were renewed and the English
kings had to pay a tribute (the Danegeld). The English king made an alliance with the duke of
Normandy for protection which justified the invasion of 1066.

B. SOURCE OF INFORMATION REGARDING THE ANGLO-SAXON CULTURE AND

LITERATURE
1. Archeological discoveries
2. Written histories such as Gildas, On the Ruin of Britain, the 6th century (which offers the
perspective of a Briton on the raids of the Anglo-Saxons and their cruelty), The Venerable Bede
(7th century), Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastic History of the English
People) and The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (the 9th century) the Anglo-Saxon perspective.
3. The literature that is preserved in the manuscripts

C. THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.

When he referred to the Germanic tribes, Tacitus spoke of the comitatus that could be defined as
companionship or warband [which] defines the relationship between the lord (hlaford) and his warriors
(thegns) based on the loyalty of the warriors who had to fight in battle for their lord who, in return,
provides for them food, mead, loan of weapons and armour (Wheeler
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_C.html). Though this type of organization might have been valid at
the time of the invasion, the situation changed over the centuries, the tribes growing into more powerful
kingdoms with a complex social structure and hierarchy. Thus, at the beginning, the society was more
egalitarian, grouped according to kin bonds, the leaders being chosen from the worthiest warriors, in time,
due to stability and wealth that increased the power of the nobility, the society became more stratified and
the role of the aristocracy increased. Nevertheless, some features remain important for the Anglo-Saxons
throughout the centuries:
The warrior is a model of the society and is characterised by bravery, loyalty to his lord and kin.
Any injustice, especially death, must be avenged or paid in gold.
The lord/king has to guarantee that the rights and the welfare of his subjects are preserved. The
king gives rewards to his thegns for their loyalty and protects those who cannot protect
themselves (merchants, messengers, travellers, foreigners, missionaries)

ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE

The Anglo-Saxon literature is the result of two opposing cultural movements:

1. The heroic world of the Germanic tribes and their military culture
2. The products of Mediteranean (Christian) culture resulted in histories, annals, works of philosophy, etc.
Unlike other European culture that became estranged from their pagan roots and embraced the Christian
culture, the English literature is the result of the fusion of the two movements. Thus, though some texts
are more obviously pagan, or, at least, they appear to have roots in the pagan culture, while others are
clearly Christian, they are all the results of this fusion. The pagan texts, such as heroic poems, elegies,
riddles and charms, are copied by monks in monasteries and, often, there are Christian intrusions in some
of them, while the Christian poems reflect the heroic world that is gradually converted to a new religion
or Christian artefacts have runic inscriptions.
The Old English literature was preserved in manuscripts and today only four manuscripts seems to have
passed the test of time:
A. The Junius Manuscript: religious poetry, Old Testament paraphrase and lyrics on Old and New
Testament themes.
B. The Vercelli Book: six religious poems and homiletic prose
C. The Exeter Book: a collection of poetry, both religious and secular
D. The Beowulf Manuscript: monster tales

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These manuscripts, dating mostly from the 10th or 11th centuries, contain the body of Anglo-Saxon
literature, either secular or religious.
Anglo-Saxon poetry was at first oral, transmitted by minstrels (scops) who used to travel from one court
to the other and entertain the people with poems that were usually sung. With the conversion to
Christianity and the development of monastic culture, the texts were written and included in manuscripts.
These manuscripts did not record only Christian literature, but also pagan literature. The long lines of the
poems were divided in the middle by a breath-pause or caesura and united by alliterations that made
them musical. In order to fulfill the requirements of alliteration, the poems appealed to kennings,
metaphorical compounds that employed figurative language in the place of a more concrete depiction.
However, it is believed that they were not metaphors used at the whim of the poet, but, in time, acquired a
conventional meaning that the listeners could easily recognize. Other techniques were used: repetitions,
formulas, as well as traditional themes or story-patterns, conventional patterns, to help the scop deal with
long poems and the audiences follow the long poems. These texts do not have titles, and the titles by
which we recognize them today were given by critics and editors. These techniques had a remarkable
stability in time and so, it is very difficult to date them. We can only date the manuscripts in which they
were copied and, for some, guess the date of composition by connecting them to historical figures and
events (such as the case of Beowulf and some other heroic poems).
Definition Box:
Alliteration: A figure of speech in which consonants, especially at the beginning of words, or stressed
syllables, are repeated.(J. A. Cuddon, The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory)
Kenning: a figure of speech used 'to express or describe one thing in terms of another' (J. A. Cuddon), a
metaphorical compound used especially in Old Norse and Old English (ex. helmet-bearer for warrior,
ring-giver for king, swan-road for sea)

ANGLO-SAXON POETRY
1. LAY/ SECULAR POETRY
Heroic poems (Beowulf)
Lyrical poetry: Elegies
Charms and riddles
2. RELIGIOUS/ CHRISTIAN POETRY
The Dream of the Rood
Caedmon
Cynewulf
ANGLO-SAXON PROSE (chronicles and translations/rewritings of religious texts)

LAY/SECULAR POETRY
HEROIC POEMS tell of battles and deeds of valor, out of which we can distinguish the spirit of
the Anglo-Saxons, a warrior culture that valued courage in battle, loyalty and heroism. Out of these
poems, the modern reader learns of a society organized around its leader (King), chosen from among the
worthiest warriors (see Beowulf) and to whom the lords (thanes) pledge loyalty. The duty of the warriors
is to serve their King, be brave in battle, be truthful and honorable. The Anglo-Saxons hated treason
which was justly punished. Thus, revenge is one of the main rules of the society.
Very few heroic poems survived, among which the most famous are Bewoulf, The Battle of
Brunanburh and The Battle of Maldon. The number of surviving heroic poems is rather small in
comparison to the importance of the warrior in the Anglo-Saxon culture and could possibly be connected
to the choices made by the monks who copied them in monastery manuscripts.
1. BEOWULF
The great English epic and the oldest European epic poem
The shortest epic poem (around 3000 lines)

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 A pagan poem with Christian insertions (probably coming from the scribe who copied it in
manuscript)
The action of the poem might have taken place in the 4th or 5th century (taking into account the
historical names that appear in the text: like Hengest the Jute or Scyld of Scylding), but the poem
itself might have been composed later and even later written down in manuscript.
The poet seems to have a very good command of Germanic literature and mythology as well as of
Germanic history, giving a sense of authenticity by including many historical figures and events.
It is written in the style and meter of the old Germanic poems and it can be considered a masterpiece of
early Germanic poetry (Fred C. Robinson, Beowulf in The Cambridge Companion to Old English
Literature, CUP, 1991, p. 142), but it was composed by an English writer and, as such, it can be seen as
an exploration of the Anglo-Saxon unconscious through a return to the pre-English roots, of their
primeval selves by a Christian author trying to understand the remote origins of these people (Robinson
143). Beside the mention of a Hengest, there is no other Anglo-Saxon name, however, the balanced
manner in which all the Germanic nations (Franks, Danes, Frisians, Geatas) are presented, seems to
suggest that they were aware that they shared a common culture (Robinson 144) and the Anglo-Saxons
were also part of this common culture. At least, the Anglo-Saxon audiences might have felt a closer
connection to their Germanic roots, than the modern audiences and they might have appreciated
differently the difficult historical references and by-stories in the text.

Definition box:
Epic poem: An epic is a long narrative poem, on a grand scale, about the deeds of warriors and heroes. It
is a polygonal, 'heroic' story incorporating myth, legend, folk tale and history. Epics are often of national
significance in the sense that they embody the history and aspirations of a nation in a lofty or grandiose
manner. Basically, there are two kinds of epic: (a) primary - also known as oral or primitive; (b)
secondary - also known as literary. The first belongs to the oral tradition and is thus composed orally and
recited; only much later, in some cases, is it written down. The second is written down at the start.(J.
Cuddon)

STRUCTURE
1. Introduction: the origins of the Danish dynasty, the glorious reign of Hrothgar and the building of
Heorot
2. the battle with Grendel. Heorot is attacked by a troll-like creature, Grendel, envious of sounds of
feasting in the meadhall, at King Hrothgars court. Beowulf comes from Geatland to offer his help. He
tears off Grendels arm and so, the creature runs to its cave in pain, to die there. (Feasting and receiving
gifts)
3. the battle with Grendels mother. Grendels mother comes to revenge her sons death and kills
Hrothgars chief counsellor. Beowulf follows her to her underwater den and kills her with a sword forged
by the giants. He decapitates Grendels corpse and brings the head. (Feasting and receiving gifts). After
the battle, the Danish queen, Wealhtheow, gives Beowulf a gold necklace which is fated to be lost by the
Geates in a future battle thus re-enhancing the idea of fate and inevitable loss of fortunes and of
happiness. There is also the speech delivered by the queen in favor of her children. Thus, Beowulfs
moment of triumph is undercut by foreboding clouds of misfortune and defeat consistent with the dark
and elegiac atmosphere of the other poems and with a population believing in unforgiving, cruel gods and
controlled by an implacable fate.
4. the fight with the Dragon. Beowulf becomes king and rules for fifty years until the country is attacked
by a dragon. The dragon is stirred by a fugitive Geatish who steals a gold cup. He is left by his retainers
except for a young relative, Wiglaf, and he eventually kills the dragon but is injured to death himself. A
dooming fate is predicted for the Geats who deserted the king. Beowulf is burnt on a pyre and then
interred in a tumulus with the dragons treasure, although he asked Wiglaf to use the treasure for the
people.

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PAGAN ELEMENTS
Elements pertaining to the heroic world:
the overpowering Fate (the poem is interspersed with pessimistic forebodings, such as the burning of
Heorot and further dynastic strife as well as the loss of the gifts Beowulf received from the Danish
queen in a battle in which the King of the Geats is killed.
the belief in the fleeting life, the fifty years of Beowulfs reign are presented in a few lines.
the belief in monsters, witches coming from the nightmarish visions of the Norsemen and from the
Germanic mythology. However, only monsters have supernatural powers. Beowulf is very strong, but
there are limits to his powers and physical strength. The poem was also connected to 7th -8th century
manuscript entitled Liber Monstrorum (The Book of Monsters) that presented more than 100 monsters
dividing them in three categories: a) humanoid; b) bestial, and c) serpentine, matching the three
monsters presented in the poem.
the care for weapons., other elements pertaining to Germanic culture: feasting, the giving of rewards,
vengeance, burning the dead, reading omens.

CHRISTIAN ELEMENTS
Grendel is a descendent of Cain, cursed by God like his ancestor, and so, he is a true manifestation of
evil (on the other hand, though, he belongs to the Northern mythology).
Allusions to the events of the Old Testament such as the Flood, Cain and Abel.
There is, however, a clear-cut distinction between the characters, who are pagan and never allude to
Christian elements and the poet who intersperses his story with Christian allusions. However, in spite
of the presence of numerous pagan elements, the poem does not depict prayers to Wotan or other
Germanic gods, or other pagan rites that would have shocked Christian readers. References to the
Germanic gods are vague: the almighty (se celmibtiga), the ancient creator (ealdmetod) or the
ruler (wealdend). The poet therefore celebrates the pre-Christian heroes and does not deny their
faith, but he does not encourage a return to the old ways. The Anglo-Saxons, though Christian, took
pride in their ancestors and many of the virtues that these pagan heroes display (self-sacrifice, loyalty
bravery, generosity) are also valued cherished by the Christians.

THEMES
An exploration of our primal selves, suggesting the curiosity of the Christian Anglo-Saxon poet
about the remote origins of his people.
A pessimistic vision on life, controlled by FATE
Contrast between HUMAN SOCIETY and the WILDERNESS
Fight between the INDIVIDUAL and the UNKNOWN/ TIME/ DESTINY
HEROIC VALUES: the ideal warrior and the ideal king
The self-sacrificing hero (the Christian intrusion)
[see the fragment from Beowulf in the handout or at the end of this chapter]

2. OTHER HEROIC POEMS

The Battle of Brunanburh (referring to a battle in which the English won a victory over the armies of the
Welsh, the Irish and the Scots in 937) and The Battle of Maldon (that was a battle fought against the
Danes in 991) are heroic texts but clearly created in a Christian culture and referring to real historical
events. However, the same heroic values visible in Beowulf are reflected here.
[see handout]

LYRICAL POETRY
The spirit of the Anglo-Saxons was a melancholic one, the hardships of their lives and the unfriendly
weather, the perils of their times and the violence and insecurity surrounding them left their mark on their
spirit, and consequently, on their poetry. Their lyrical poems are mostly elegies, united by common

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themes, such as uprootedness, solitude, sadness and lamentation, exile or social disgrace. They lament a
life of isolation, exile, emptiness and the transitory character of life and glory. They saw their lives
dominated by an unforgiving fate or wyrd (Fate remains wholly inexorable in The Wanderer; Fate
goes ever as she shall! in Beowulf). The main themes of these poems are:
The implacable Fate and the changing nature of everything: nothing is stable and certain
Unhappiness and pessimism. Happiness never lasts
Separation, isolation, loneliness seen as either physical separation from kin and love, exile, the
death of the lord or of those dear.
Widsith(The Far-Traveler), Deors Lament is the lament of a minstrel replaced by a rival.
The Ruin is a poem of sad contemplation of the ruin of an ancient burg which allows for a meditation on
the flow of Time, destroyer of glory and splendor.
The Wanderer is the story of a man who lost his lord, being now alone, prone to dangers from the
outside, and sadness due to lack of friends and comfort.
The Seafarer describes the perils of those who travel the sea, but the main idea is that solitude and exile
are good for the soul, when they are embraced voluntarily, making a willing sacrifice for the love of God.
[see handout]

RELIGOUS POETRY:
This type of poetry drew its sources from the Bible, the lives of saints, visions coming upon people.
Although they are rewritings of Biblical stories, the main preoccupations of the Anglo-Saxons still
pervade the religious poetry that focuses on courage, military conflicts and battle victories. Christ himself
becomes a warrior fighting the forces of darkness (Christ and Satan), whereas Judith (Judith) is a fierce
female warrior fighting the Grendel-like monster, the invader Holofernes. In the Genesis, Adams fall is
depicted as a transgression not unlike the betrayal of a thane to his lord.
The atmosphere of these poems is similar to that of the secular poems, reflecting a world of danger and
darkness, people being continuously attacked by the devil, just as they had to fight monsters in the earlier
times. The difference with the new religion is that it offered hope and solace. The devil can be defeated
with courage as well as with faith and, after a life of hardships and unhappiness, there is the promise of
heaven for those with a virtuous life of faith. Thus, the saints and the Biblical heroes and Christ himself
take the role of the pagan heroes, fighting against the devil with the same courage displayed by the heroes
of old. The magic does not disappear from the world because the saint are expected to perform miracles,
that could be paralleled to the magic perfomed in the pagan world, but used, now, for the protection of
people against the devil.

The Dream of the Rood is considered one of the most exquisite poems in Anglo-Saxon literature. It is
included in The Vercelli Manuscript , dating from the 10th century, but fragments from the poems, written
in runes, were carved on a stone cross, from the 8th century discovered in Scotland. This artifact is known
today as the Ruthwell Cross and suggests the fact that the poem is much older than the manuscript. The
poem tells the story of the rood, the cross on which Christ was crucified using the trope of prosopopoeia
(the inanimate object speaks, in this case, the cross tells its story). The technique used is the dream-
vision poem (or visio), a device widely used in medieval literature in order to minimize the role of the
poet who is a mere channel through which God transmits his words/ teachings to the world. The dreams,
in fact, allows the poet access to a deeper truth. It is very often connected to allegory. In this particular
text, the poet falls asleep and dreams that the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified speaks to him.

STRUCTURE
I. The poet dreams the sacred tree beaming with light and adorned with gold and gems and has a vision
of the beauty of the tree and the suffering of Christ before he realizes that it is the rood
II. The story of the crucifixion: the tree was cut down and taken from the forest (notice the use of a typical
Anglo-Saxon theme: the exile and the separation from the kin and community) and brought by enemies to
the hill (departure from the scriptures). The rood presents an image of Christ as a mighty king and the

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cross bears the calvary with him. Later the crosses were buried in a pit and then rediscovered and decked
in gold.
III. The interpretation of the crucifixion by the cross and its urging to the poet to tell the true story of the
crucifixion.
The poem is written in the Anglo-Saxon literary style used in the secular/ pagan poem and not in the Latin
style of Christian poems in Europe suggesting that it was intended to make the listeners attentive to the
Christian message by veiling it into a form familiar to them. There are also other elements that fit the
Anglo-Saxon warrior culture. Thus, the cross appears like a thegn (thane) and Christ is the lord, and so,
the cross has to protect and obey the lordeven when he asks the cross to assist him in his death. Christ is
represented as a valiant warrior courageously embracing his death, whereas the cross is, alternatively, an
object bedecked in jewels and an instrument of torture covered in blood.

Caedmon (second half of the 7th century), according to Bede, was the first known Anglo-Saxon poet. He
was a simple, uneducated man who could not sing. During a feast, says Bede, he received a vision from
an angel of God who told him to sing and praise the Lord. Scholars do not know for certain which poems
were his, but they connected Bedes mention of Caedmons creations with the poems they found in the
Junius Book. (Genesis A and B, Exodus, etc.).
[see Caedmons Hymn in the handout]

Cynewulf (? 750-? 825) almost certainly wrote The Fates of the Apostles and Elene in the Vercelli Book,
and Christ and Juliana to be found in the Exeter Book, since all these four poems share the same stylistic
and thematic characteristic. He is the first to sign his poems by adding runes in the text that was written in
Latin alphabet.

PROSE
The prose writing in the Anglo-Sxon period was mostly religious or historical.
The Venerable Bede (672-735) was a Benedictine Monk who spent most of his life teaching and writing.
The amount of writing is remarkable, proving his erudition and talent and making him one of the most
impressive figures not only in Anglo-Saxon culture, but also in the European religious context: Bede
stands an eminence on the landscape of the eighth century; there is no other writer comparable. Gregory
of Tours in the sixth century and Isidore of Seville and Aldhelm in the seventh century preceded him, and
Alcuin of Tours followed at the end of the eighth century, but as a scholar Bede is supreme. In all Europe
no contemporary matches his talents and influence (G. Hardin Brown, A Companion to Bede, The
Boydell Press, 2009, p. 1). It is even more interesting that he spent his entire life isolated from the great
religious centers in Europe, living in the Wearmouth-Jarrow monastery, where he taught himself by
avidly reading the books in his well-provided monastery library and educated himself up to the point of
becoming one of the most erudite figures of his age and possessing an almost unmatchable style in prose
and poetry writing in Latin. His writings, though all connected to religious life, are varied and impressive,
ranging from biblical exegesis, the operations of the natural world, lives of saints and a history of abbots,
language, rhetoric and the art of poetry, hymns, epigrams, a collection of letters and historical writings
(Hardin Brown, passim). The most famous work, however, is Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum
(The Ecclesiastic History of the English People) which remains the most important source of information
for the early Anglo-Saxon period. It is organized in five books and tells the history of England from its
early beginnings to the 8th century (731). One of the most famous stories is that of the conversion of the
Northumbrian king. Bede tells what one of the kings counsellors replied when asked by the king if this
new religion seems interesting to them: The present life of man upon earth, O king, seems to me, in
comparison with that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the house
wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your ealdormen and thegns, while the fire blazes in the midst,
and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at
one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest; but after a
short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter into winter

9
again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know
nothing at all. If, therefore, this new doctrine tells us something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to
be followed. (Bede, Historia..., Book II, Ch. XIII, translation by Stevens and Giles). As a result, the
king and his followers decided that this new religion offers more answers to the important questions, such
as the meaning of life, and they decided to accept it.
Bedes style is direct and straightforward and he relies a lot on examination and investigation of sources,
stating where he believes his sources to be unreliable The historical events are given a religious
connotation, as all things happen from the Divine will, and so, he often mentions miracles or divine
punishments for sins and transgressions. Bede gives the impression of a united kingdom which was not
the case in his time when the territory was divided among different chieftains or kings. The problem,
however, is solved by the word ecclesiastical (religious unity).

King Alfred the Great (849-899, king from 871 to 899) was one of the most famous and important
Anglo-Saxon kings. He was a great political ruler, uniting the Anglo-Saxons and organizing the army in
order to defeat the Vikings. He also brought important achievements in the cultural field by:
i. improving the Latinity of the country: he called scholars from Europe to teach Latin and
write in Latin,
ii. encouraging writing in English: he started a program of translation of key texts (such as
Bede, Pope Gregory the Great, Orosius, Boethius, etc.) from Latin into English. He also
provided Prefaces written in English in which he explained why they were important.
iii. starting a chronicle: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the oldest vernacular history except the
Irish chronicles.

10
 ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE
TEXTS

I. HEROIC POEMS

Beowulf (Fragment: the fight with Grendel, translation by F. Gunmere)

Now many an earl
Of Beowulf brandished blade ancestral,
Fain the life of their lord to shield,
Their praised prince, if power were theirs:
Never they knew as they neared the foe,
Hardy-hearted heroes of war,
Aiming their swords on every side
The accursed to kill, no keenest blade.
No fairest of falchions fashioned on earth,
Could harm or hurt the hideous fiend.
He was safe, by his spells, from sword of battle,
From edge of iron. Yet his end and parting
On the same day of this our life,
Woeful should be, and his wandering soul,
Far off flit to the fiends domain.
Soon he found, who in former days,
Harmful in heart and hated of God,
On many a men such murder wrought,
That the frame of his body failed him now.
For him the keen-souled kinsman of Hygelac
Held in hand; hateful alive
Was to each other. The outlaw dire
Took mortal hurt; a mighty wound
Showed on his shoulder, and sinews cracked,
And the bone-frame burst. To Beowulf now
the glory was given, and Grendel thence
Death-sick his den in the dark moor sought,
Noisome abode; he knew too well
That here was the last of his life, an end
Of his days on earth.

Fragment from The Battle of Brunanburh

Here King Athelstan, Lord of earls
Ring-giver to warriors and his brother Edmund also
Won life-long glory in battle, by the edges of swords,
around Brunanburh.
Those heirs of Edward split the shield wall
Hewed the war-shields with the leavings of hammers
Because their nobility came to them from their ancestors,
They defended the land against each of enemies,
Protected the treasure, and the homes.
Fragment from The Battle of Maldon
The mind must be the firmer, the heart must be the braver, the courage must be the
greater, as our strength grows less. Here lies out lord all cut to pieces, the good man on
the ground. If anyone thinks now to turn away from this war-play, may he be unhappy
forever after.

II. ELEGIES
Deor (frag.)
..................
A man sits alone in the clutch of sorrow,
Separated from joy, thinking to himself
That his share of suffering is endless.
The man knows that all through middle-earth,
Wise God goes, handing out fortunes,
Giving grace to many - power, prosperity,
Wisdom, wealth but to some a share of woe.
Let me this story about myself:
I was a singer and shaper for the Heodenings,
Dear to my lord. And my name was Deor.
For many years I was harper in the hall,
Honoured by the king, until Heorrenda now,
A song-skilled shaper, has taken my place,
Reaping the rewards, the titled lands
That the guardian of men once gave me.
That passed over and so can this. (translated by
Craig Williamson)

11
 The Wifes Lament (frag.)
I tell this story from my grasp of sorrow
I tear this song from a clutch of grief.
My stretch of misery from birth to bed rest
Has been unending, no more than now.
My mind wanders my heart hurts.
My husband, my lord left hearth and home,
Crossing the sea road, the clash of waves.
My heart heaved each dawn not knowing
Where in the world my lord had gone.
The Wanderer (frag.)
The one who is forced to go a long time
without the counsel of his beloved lord-friend
knows this:
When sorrow and sleep together
bind the wretched loner again and again,
he imagines in his mind
that he embraces and kisses his lord,
lays his hands and head on his knee,
just as he did before
when he enjoyed the gift-giving
in days gone by.
But then he awakes again.
The friendless man sees before him dark waves,
sees the seabirds bathing, spreading their feathers,
sees the frost and snow falling, mingled with hail.
Then the hearts wound, aching for his beloved,
is even heavier. And sorrow is renewed
when the memory of his family
turns through his mind:
He greets them joyfully
eagerly scans through the mens companions . . .
But they swim away again
the heart of those floating ones
does not bring many songs of his dear ones.
Sorrow is renewed for the one
who must again and again
send his weary heart over the tossing waves.
[...]
12
I followed, wandering a wretched road,
Seeking some service, knowing my need
For a sheltering home. I fled from woe.
His cruel kinsmen began to plot,
Scheming in secret to keep us apart.
They forced us to live like exiles
Wretched, distant lives. Now I lie with longing.
(transl. by Craig Williamson)
Where has the horse gone?
Where has the young man gone?
Where has the treasure-giver gone?
Where has the feast-seat gone?
Where are the joys of the hall?
Alas, bright goblet!
Alas, armed warrior!
Alas, glory of the prince!
How that time has passed,
grown dark under nights covering,
as if it never were.
Left behind after the beloved troop
a wondrously tall wall stands alone,
decorated with snake-like images.
The power of spears,
slaughter-greedy weapons,
and mighty fate destroyed the warriors.
Storms strike against the rocky cliffs;
howling winter, an attacking snowstorm,
binds the earth. Then the darkness comes:
the night-shade grows dark
and sends a fierce hailstorm from the north
in hatred against men.
All is full of hardship in the kingdom of the earth;
fate changes the world for the worse under the
heavens.
Here wealth is only loaned;
here the friend is loaned;
here the man is loaned;
here the kinsmen is loaned.
This place on the earth will become completely
empty!
 The Ruin (frag.)
Wondrous is its wall-stone laid waste by the fates.
The burg-steads are burst, broken the work of the
giants.
The roofs are in ruins, rotted away the towers,
The fortress-gate fallen, with frost on the mortar.
Broken are the battlements, low bowed and
decaying.
Eaten under by age. The earth holds fast
The master masons : low mouldering they lie
In the hard grip of the grave, till shall grow up and
perish
A hundred generations. Hoary and stained with red,
Through conquest of kingdoms, unconquered this
wall endured.
Stood up under storm. The high structure has
fallen.
Still remains its wall-stone, struck down by
weapons.
They have fallen
Ground down by grim fate
Splendidly it shone
The cunning creation , from its clay covering is
bent;
Mind the swift one drawn.
The bold ones in counsel bound in rings
The wall-foundations with wires, wondrously
together.
Bright were the burgher's homes, the bath halls
many.
Gay with high gables a great martial sound.
Many mead-halls, where men took their pleasure,
III. CHARMS AND RIDDLES
Garmund, God's servant,
find those cattle, and fetch those cattle,
and take those cattle, and keep those cattle,
and bring those cattle home.
So he have no land to lead them off to,
nor solid ground to stand them up on,
nor any house in which to hide them.
If any should do so, may it get him nowhere.
Within three nights I will know his might,
his strength and his skill, and his style of
protection.
May he be withered as wood is consumed,
as frail as a thistle,
he who devises to drive off these cattle,
or thinks to steal anything of mine.
Amen. (Charm for the Theft of Cattle)
13
Till an end came to all, through inexorable fate.
The people all have perished; pestilence came on
them:
Death stole them all, the staunch band of warriors.
Their proud works of war . now lie waste and
deserted;
This fortress has fallen. Its defenders lie low.
Its repairmen perished. Thus the palace stands
dreary,
And its purple expanse; despoiled of its tiles
Is the roof of the dome. The ruin sank to earth.
Broken in heaps there where heroes of yore.
Glad-hearted and gold-bedecked, in gorgeous
array,
Wanton with wine-drink in war-trappings shone:
They took joy in jewels and gems of great price,
In treasure untold and in' topaz-stones.
In the firm-built fortress of a far-stretching realm.
The stone courts stood; hot streams poured forth,
Wondrously welled out. The wall encompassed all
In its bright embrace. Baths were there then,
Hot all within a healthful convenience.
They let then pour
Over the hoary stones the heated streams,
Such as never were seen by our sires till then.
Hringmere was its name .
The baths were there then; then is ... .
That is a royal thing
In a house
Riddle:
I am a lonely being, scarred by swords,
Wounded by iron, sated with battle deeds,
Wearied by blades. Often I witness war,
Perilous fight, nor hope for consolation,
That any help may rescue me from strife
Before I perish among fighting men. (A Shield)
 IV. RELIGIOUS POEMS

The Dream of the Rood (frag.)

Then best wood spoke these words:
"It was long since--I yet remember it
that I was hewn at holt's end,
moved from my stem. Strong fiends seized me there,
worked me for spectacle; cursd ones lifted me .
On shoulders men bore me there, then fixed me on
hill;
fiends enough fastened me. Then saw I mankind's
Lord
come with great courage when he would mount on
me.
Then dared I not against the Lord's word
bend or break, when I saw earth's
fields shake. All fiends
I could have felled, but I stood fast.
The young hero stripped himself--he, God
Almighty--strong and stout-minded. He mounted
high gallows,
bold before many, when he would loose mankind.
I shook when that Man clasped me. I dared, still,
not bow to earth,
fall to earth's fields, but had to stand fast.
Rood was I reared. I lifted a mighty King, Lord
of the heavens, dared not to bend.
With dark nails they drove me through: on me
those sores are seen, open malice-wounds. I dared
not scathe anyone.
They mocked us both, we two together All wet
with blood I was, poured out from that Man's
side.

Caedmons Hymn
(translation by Cosette Faust and Stith Thompson)
Now shall we praise the Prince of haven,
The might of the Maker and his manifold thought,
The work of the Father and what wonders he wrought,
The Lord everlasting, when he laid out the worlds.
He first raised up for the race of men
The heavens as a roof, the holy Ruler,
Then the world below, the Ward of mankind,
The Lord everlasting at last established
As a home for man, the Almighty Lord.

V. PROSE

Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People

The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons:
From the Jutes are descended the people, of Kent, and of the Isle of Wight, including those in the
province of the West-Saxons who are to this day called Jutes, seated opposite to the Isle of Wight. From
the Saxons, that is, the country which is now called Old Saxony, came the East-Saxons, the South-
Saxons, and the West Saxons. From the Angles, that is, the country which is called Angulus, and which is
said, from that time, to have remained desert to this day, between the provinces of the Jutes and the
Saxons, are descended the East-Angles, the Midland-Angles, the Mercians, all the race of the
Northumbrians, that is, of those nations that dwellon the north side of the river Humber, and the other
nations of the Angles. The first commanders are said to have been the two brothers Hengist and Horsa.
Of these Horsa was afterwards slain in battle by the Britons, and a monument, bearing his name, is still in
existence in the eastern parts of Kent. They were the sons of Victgilsus, whose father was Vitta, son of
Vecta, son of Woden; from whose stock the royal race of many provinces trace their descent. (Bede,
Book I, Ch. XV, Stevens)

14
 MEDIEVAL ENGLISH LITERATURE

A. THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066: the Norman Invasion, the rule of the Norman Kings: the
Plantagenet Dynasty the 13th century: the loss of Normandy, the establishment of the Parliament)
Major changes occurring up to the 13th century:
Stability of political conditions founded on the feudal system, based on the ownership of land and
on the loyalty of vassals;
An important change in literary tastes and styles: the preference for courtly literature with a
taste for luxury and extravagance replaces the old epic while the rhymes poems replace the alliterations
and the kennings specific for Anglo-Saxon literature;
The development of gothic architecture and the rise of the monastic culture. New religious orders
coming with a new religious sensibility (especially expressed in the cult of the Virgin Mary);
Revival of the taste for classical literature (the 12th century Renaissance);
Development of trade and agriculture, development of towns and the gradual rise of the
bourgeoisie;
Development of education in cathedral schools and later in the first universities (Paris, Oxford);
The Mediterranean Sea becomes more open to the Europeans (the beginning of the Crusades)
who become acquainted to the Muslim world and, through them, with the Greek world, resulting in the
rediscovery of Aristotle and the start of the age of scholasticism.
Major linguistic changes: the language of the Anglo-Saxons, especially in the realm of politics,
administration, law and culture was replaced by the French language spoken by the new king and his
lords and by Latin, the language of the church. Therefore, for several centuries, literature was trilingual,
as French, Latin and English were used. Many families were, for a while, bilingual, as they needed to
learn the language of the conquerors while they kept their own dialect

B. THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD (late 13th century: the reign of Edward I 1485: the Battle of
Bosworth and the end of the War of the Roses)
Internal Wars.
Conflicts between the king and the barons
Conflicts with the Welsh (Edward I conquers the Welsh) and continuous conflicts with
Scotland
Dynastic conflicts: Richard II is deposed in 1399 by his cousin who becomes King Henry
IV.
The Hundred Years War (1337-1453)
defining national identity: the military conflict enhances the idea of Englishness and
English nation in a country that had long been influenced by the French language and
culture.
the beginning of the end of chivalric warfare, due to the introduction of new weapons and
tactics, the knights heavy armors becoming practically inefficient.
The Black Death (1348-1350).
Social changes: decimating the population of the Middle Ages and altering the structure
of the society through radical diminution and dislocations within the medieval structure
Economic changes: the agricultural depression caused by the lack of land-workers, the
ruin of much of the aristocracy and peasant revolts.
Mental changes: the medieval mind became obsessed with illness and death.
The Peasants Revolt (1381) led by Watt Tyler signals the decay of feudalism and serfdom in
England. Even though it was a failure, being crushed by the king, it however led to an increasing
awareness of the imperative to reform.

15
The terrible events of the 14th century led to very important social changes that were reflected in
literature, among which, the fall of the aristocracy and peoples loss of faith in the Church.
THE FEUDAL SYSTEM:
The feudal system, introduced in England after the Norman conquest was, in many ways, similar to
the Anglo-Saxon focus on loyalty that the thanes owe to their lord, but it was much stricter in relation to
the individuals place in society.
The feudal system introduced by the Norman conquerors is such a hierarchical system based on two rules:
1. the ownership of land; and 2. the loyalty of vassals. The king was connected, as if through a chain
to all his people since, at each level of the society, a man had to promise loyalty and service to a lord.
This homage meant that, in return of the land given by the lord, the vassal promises service and goods,
namely military service or rent and products. The lowest group of people were the serfs, who did not have
any land and were bound to the land of their lord, being little more than slaves.
This strict hierarchy of the medieval society leads to the creation of three major groups, each one having
its own role. These groups were the oratores, bellatores and laboratores, namely the clergy, the
noblemen / warriors and those who work. This division of the society and the justification for the unequal
separation of people in social groups is given by religion, the social inequality being part of Gods
hierarchical ordering of the universe from Him down to angels, men, women, animals, plants and
minerals. In this system, called the chain of being, the King is the most important person, having the
loyalty of this subjects and the support of the Church that has the power to ordain him, the King being,
therefore, the representative of God in the human system.

CULTURAL AUTHORITY
The culture and mentality of the time were dominated by a number of institutions: the King and the
noblemen, the Church and the Universities.
A. The Kings court as well as the courts of some powerful noblemen became centers of culture. The
kings commissioned artists, poets, musicians to their court. Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122 or 1124 1204 ),
king Henry IIs wife or Richard II (1357 1400) were rulers who encouraged art, their courts becoming
cultural centers setting the trend in literature and art. The kings and the noblemen became patrons of art
and artists could create under their support and protection.
B. The Church was, however, the most influential institution in the promotion of literature and art.
The growth of literacy was dependent on the schools founded by monasteries, so learning was mostly
religious. Other branches of art such as architecture, sculpture, wood-carving, wall-painting, stained glass,
enamel, jewelry, embroidery, book production, writing, illumination and music could develop under the
patronage of the church. Medieval drama developed from the performances destined to various church
celebrations and they were reenactments of biblical tales meant to spread the gospel to the laity. The
chronicles were written by monks, keeping the record of the historical events of their time. There is no
wonder, therefore, that some of the best writers and writings of the time were religious, such as
Langlands Piers the Plowman, or Julian of Norwich.
C. The Universities: Starting with the 12th century, the intellectual initiative passes to Universities.
Oxford university was founded in 1167 and Cambridge around 1284.

LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES

NON- DEVOTIONAL LITERATURE: ROMANCES

Definitions
1. Romance was the dominant non-devotional genre of Middle English literature (Christine
Chism, The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature)
2. The genre of romance is resistant to definition, nowhere more so than in its manifestation in
medieval England. Gestes, if the term refers to epic narratives, can be seen as too heroic, the
layes of the Breton tradition too lyrical. It is the principal secular literature of entertainment of
the Middle Ages. (Rosalind Field, The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature)

16
 3. Romance, a fictional story in verse or prose that relates improbable adventures of idealized
characters in some remote or enchanted setting; or, more generally, a tendency in fiction opposite
to that of realism. Medieval romance is distinguished from epic by its concentration on courtly
love rather than warlike heroism. (Chris Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary
Terms)
4. ROMANCE. In Old French romaunt/ roman meant approximately, 'courtly romance in verse'
or any popular book'. Thus romances in verse (and to start with most of them were in verse) were
works of fiction, or non-historical. In the 13th c. a romance was almost any song of adventure
story be it of chivalry or of love. Gradually more and more romances were written in prose.
Whatever else a romance may be (or have been) it is principally a form of entertainment. It may
also be didactic but this is usually incidental. It is usually concerned with characters (and thus
with events) who live in a courtly world somewhat remote from the everyday. This suggests
elements of fantasy, improbability, extravagance and naivety. It also suggests elements of love,
adventure, the marvelous and the 'mythic'. For the most part the term is used rather loosely to
describe a narrative of heroic or spectacular achievements, of chivalry of gallant love, of deeds of
derring-do. (J.A. Cuddon, The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms)
Alternative Genres:
a) 1. LAY/ LAI (Breton lai). A short narrative or lyrical poem intended to be sung. The oldest
narrative lays are the Contes of Marie de France (c. 1175). They were stories of romance
believed to have been based on Celtic legends. The lyric lays were Provencal and usually had
love themes. The term 'Breton lay' was applied to 14th c. English poems with a Breton setting and
similar to those by Marie de France. A dozen or more are extant in English, the best known being
Sir Orfeo, Haveloc the Dane, Sir Laanval and Chaucer's Franklin's Tale.) (J.A. Cuddon, The
Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms)
b) 2. CHANSON DE GESTE: describes the adventures of the Carolingian noblemen, their wars
with the Saracens or among themselves, intrigues and rebellion.
As a conclusion, all the romances, be they chansons de geste, Breton lai or romance, are based on a
code of chivalry reflecting the ages conception of the ideal relationship between the lord and the knights
connected with both social and religious duties.
Themes and motives: The Romances often follow a typical narrative trajectory: exile leading to return,
loss redeemed by restoration, complacency goaded by instructive ordeal, innocence riven by experience,
the construction of careers and the fall of kingdoms. Its gestures and motifs are equally identifiable the
knight errant, the beautiful endangered lady, the lost heir, the trial of prowess or virtue, the pact gone
wrong, the monstrous, magical, and/or disguised challenger, the journey to the otherworld, the joyous
return of the prodigal, and the reintegrative celebration. (Christine Chism)

Romance vs. Epic: The preference for romance characterizes the passage from the Anglo-Saxon world,
with its heroic epics to the Norman civilization. The epic describes heroic battles and the heroes need to
fight monsters to save their kingdoms/communities. The idea of the hero includes that of savior of his
nation or tribe or clan. He needs to be valiant, skilful, honorable, just and loyal and he fights because he
must; there is no other choice to save his nation. The romances pertain to a more refined age in which the
quest, the adventure and the danger in facing supernatural beings is a matter of choice not of instinct of
survival. The romance is a form of entertainment of the aristocracy, and the hero no longer fights for his
nation, but for an ideal.
The romances can be classified in courtly romances and popular romances.
1. COURTLY ROMANCES
The romance was closely associate with courtly love. The idea of courtly love was a widely-spread
conception of the Middle Ages that envisaged the love between the chevalier / the knight and the
mistress as being led by a set of complicated rules. In an aristocratic world in which marriage had nothing
to do with love, being often more influenced by politics, the fulfillment of these emotions would be
possible only between unmarried individuals. The complicated behaviors required by courtly love are

17
connected with the behavior accepted within the feudal system between the lord and the knights. In other
words, the relationship of loyalty and obedience established between the lord and his knight is transferred
to the relationship between the knight and the lady he loves, the latter having the superior position of the
lord. The knight, therefore, has to demonstrate that he is worthy of the ladys love through honorable and
courageous deeds, and by doing whatever is required of him. The texts combine love with the spirit of
adventure. As far as the English literary context, the Arthurian legends are the most popular texts
connected to the spirit of love and adventure required by courtly literature.
Henry IIs wife, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, was the one who brought this conception to the English
court, by encouraging the presence of poets and troubadours to sing these love romances. Some of the
most important writers present in Eleanor of Aquitaines court were Marie de France and Chretien de
Troyes. Generally speaking, the English romances are rewritings and reinterpretations of the French
romances. Henry IIs wife, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, was the one who brought this conception to the
English court, by encouraging the presence of poets and troubadours to sing these love romances. It is
very likely, therefore, that French writers such as Marie de France and Chretien de Troyes might have
written some of their texts in England. Marie de France wrote one text explicitly referring to the Arthurian
cycle, entitled Lanval, whereas Chretien de Troyes Yvain, Lancelot, Perceval or Le Conte du Graal,
became so famous that they were translated in English and influenced later writers of the Middle Ages,
such as Chaucer, Gower, or Thomas Malory.

THE COURTLY ROMANCE AND THE ARTHURIAN MYTH [see the handout at the end of the
chapter]
The Arthurian myth belongs to the Celtic legends, since Arthur was supposed to be a king of the Britons,
a Celtic king who fought against the Anglo-Saxons and tried to stop their invasion. When the Anglo-
Saxons invaded England, they were not interested in the legends of the natives, but the Normans, enemies
of the Anglo-Saxons, revived these old stories. The monk-chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth (1100-
1154) wrote about King Arthur in his Historia Regum Britaniae (The History of the Kings of Britain)
which, though it is a compilation of various more or less reliable sources, from history to legends and
inventions, was considered an authoritative text for a long time, providing sources of information for the
writers to follow such as William Shakespeare. The legend gained importance and it was taken up by
other writers: the Anglo-Norman poet Wace (c. 1100-1170) in his Roman de Brut, Marie de Frances (c.
1160-1215) lays and Chretien de Troyes (late 12th century) who wrote at the court of Elonor of
Acquitaine.
The first Middle English writing to discuss the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
was LAYAMONs Brut (c. 1200). It was influenced by the French Roman de Brut composed by the
Norman poet Wace, who, in turn, based his text on Geoffrey of Monmouths History of the British Kings.
The title character is the legendary Brutus of Troy, grandson of Aeneas and founder of Britain, allegedly
named after himself. A part of the poem is dedicated to the life and exploits of King Arthur, a courageous
and noble warrior, defender of Christianity, of law and order, generous, courteous and sensible, with a
wondrous birth and a mysterious death. Layamon tried to unite the old and the new, adapting the
sound of the Old English verse to the new requirements of rhyme and rhythm. Layamon retains the Old
English tradition being also, the first one to make extensive use of the French material.
The most important and the most exquisite Arthurian poem is the anonymous SIR GAWAIN AND THE
GREEN KNIGHT (late 14th century), though it is not a typical Arthurian romance.
The author of the poem is generally known as the Gawain poet and he also wrote Pearl, an elegy, and
Purity and Patience, verse homilies or religious meditations. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the
alliterative renaissance, which was a fourteenth century revival of the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative
poetic tradition.
Style:
the imagery that he uses in his poems is complex and sophisticated, sometimes employing
concrete images for abstract ideas (like the hunted animals in Sir Gawain as symbolic for the three
qualities of his souls).

18
 allegory, drawing on the allegorical religious writings.
Sophisticated symbols (for example, Gawains shield: on the outside it has a five-pointed star,
the Pentangle, or endless knot, a symbol perfectly appropriate for Gawain. Each point represents five
virtues: he is faultless in his five senses, unfailing in his five fingers, devoted to Christs five wounds
(received on the Cross), and supported by the five joys of Mary, and he is a master of five virtues
generosity, good fellowship, purity, courtesy, and charity. (The pentangle is also, traditionally, a symbol
used to ward off black magic.) On the inside of the shield he has an image of the Virgin, who gives him
strength in battle. This symbol does not point only to Gawains virtues but calls to mind the virtues of
chivalric life and the conflict between Christian virtues and love depicted in the poem). The Gawain-
poets work abounds with sharply defined images, powerfully conceived scenes, richly sensuous details
colors, scents, textures. He is a master of suspense, irony, humor. His castles are the noblest, most
dazzling in English poetry; his gloomy woods are the gloomiest; his ladies are the most alluring. In
addition to all this, his poetry is the most ornamental successful poetry in English. In Pearl, lines both
alliterate and rhyme, and verbal echoes link the stanzas. In all his poems he echoes his opening lines in
his closing lines; and his alliteration within individual lines or groups of lines is ingenious. His
organization of each poem is remarkably complex, yet flawless, scene balanced against scene, image
balanced against image. (John Gardner)
Story: Sir Gawain, King Arthurs nephew is, probably, alongside Perceval, the most famous knight in the
Arthurian cycle. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, he appears as an ideal knight, an embodiment of
chivalric values, loyal, honest and courteous. During the story, Sir Gawain needs to past through a series
of trials that test different virtues that a knight is supposed to possess.
The story begins with Gawain proving his loyalty to king Arthur, by accepting, in the place of his
king, a game set by a mysterious Green Knight and thus save the kings life while putting his own in
danger.
Would you grant me the grace,
To be gone from this bench and stand by you there,
If I without discourtesy might quit this board,...
I am the weakest, well I know, and of wit feeblest;
And the loss of my life would be least of any;
That I have you for uncle is my only praise;
My body, but for your blood, is barren of worth;
And for that this folly befits not a king,
And 'tis I that have asked it, it ought to be mine,
And if my claim be not comely let all this court judge,
in sight. (Norton Anthology)
This is the first glimpse of his character, in which he demonstrates his loyalty to the lord as well
as his modesty.
The year passes quickly and saddened by the prospect of going to death, he takes his horse and
armor. He roams the country in search of the Green Chapel and he fights monsters and foes, but the worst
foe is winter as he needs to sleep in his armor. He reaches a castle and is welcomed by the lord of the
Castle, Bercilak/ Gawain has to accept a game of exchanging gifts with Bercilak whatever each wins in
his adventures must give it freely to the other. There are three days and tests, and while the host hunts
deer, boar and fox, the lady tempts Gawain. First, lured by the lady, receives a kiss, then two, then three.
When the host returns, he exchanges the kiss(es) but does not tell how he got it. The lady persuades him
to accept a gift, a magical sash or green girdle who is supposed to protect the wearer. Even if he swore to
exchange gifts, Gawain does not give Bercilak the green girdle, thus failing to keep his oath. On the New
Years Day, Gawain leaves the castle to go to the Green Chapel. He wears the girdle not out of vanity, but
to save his life. The Green Knight does not kill him and reveals himself as Bercilak . reveals himself as
the Green Knight and says that the girdle was his property. However, he forgives Gawain for failing the
test, saying that he is an honorable man and that he was only trying to do whatever he could to save his

19
life. However, Gawain is devastated and ashamed. The whole trick was planned by Morgan le Fay, the
old lady, who wanted to frighten lady Guinevere by sending the Green Knight to Camelot.
Upon his return home, King Arthur and the other knights do not condemn him for this failure,
considering that he emerged victorious from the tests. However, Gawain holds the standard of knightly
perfection extremely high, and he is unable to forgive himself and to be rid of the sense of shame and of
failure. The green girdle that he received as a sign of Bercilaks forgiveness for his trespassing is, for him,
a symbol of his failure:
"But your girdle, God love you! I gladly shall take
And be pleased to possess, not for the pure gold,
Nor the bright belt itself, nor the beauteous pendants,
Nor for wealth, nor worldly state, nor workmanship fine,
But a sign of excess it shall seem oftentimes
When I ride in renown, and remember with shame
the faults and frailty of the flesh perverse,
How its tenderness entices the foul taint of sin;
And so when praised and high prowess have pleased my heart,
A look at this love-lace will lower my pride.
But one thing would I learn, if you were not loath,
Since you are lord of yonder land where I have long sojourned
With honor in your house-may you have His reward
That upholds all the heavens, highest on throne!
How runs your right name?-and let the rest go."

The real test for Sir Gawain is not the test that one knight would expect, a test in courage and
valor; he would have passed such a test. It is a test of his virtues, a moral dilemma that he needs to solve:
remain true to the promise made to his lord or honor the requests of the noble lady, both being rules in the
chivalric code that he is supposed to obey. His failure suggests the frailty of human constructions, Sir
Gawain being disillusioned not only by his own reactions and mistakes, but also learning that everything
was a ruse set by Arthurs step-sister and enemy, Morgan le Fay, who created a test for King Arthurs
court. So, in the end, everything was a game, but that game revealed to himself his weakness and made it
impossible for him to forget his own transgression. By losing his blind trust that the chivalric code will
always support him and help him find a solution to any danger or dilemma, Gawain loses his innocence.
The laughter of the King and of the knights at the end, when he presents the girdle and confesses his sin
as well as their decision to all wear green girdles sound rather ironic and seem to contradict Gawains
sincere distress and loss of faith in his own worth.
[see also the seminar handout]
The only important text in fifteenth century, creating a link between Chaucer and the great Renaissance
writers, is Sir Thomas Malorys (c. 1405-1471) prose text entitled MORTE DARTHUR (1470) and
referring to the Arthurian cycle. It is not a typical romance, but a prose writing referring to the story of
King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. During the unstable and bloody time of the War of the
Roses, Malorys text appears as the last story of chivalrous ideals and brave deeds, against the
background of a world that has already given up such ideals. It is also the last medieval Arthurian text
remaining, to our days, a standard for all later versions. The main sources are: Geoffrey of Monmouths
Arthurian stories, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a stanzaic Morte Darthur of the same period, an
alliterative Morte from Lincolnshire in the 15th century. The text was printed by Caxton in 1485, who
edited it and divided it in 21 sections. Malorys original text divided in only 8 sections was discovered at
the beginning of the twentieth century.
The story follows Arthurs life from his conception and birth, through his glorious deeds and
great reign to his death and the decay of his kingdom. Long sections are dedicated to Lancelot and his
love to Guinevere, to Gawain, Tristan or to the Holy Grail. The story insists on the elements that seem to
be missing from the historical times in which it was written.

20
 The style appears simple, almost childlike, but at a closer look, it deserves its name as the greatest
prose writing of its time. The text flows with a specific cadence and musicality, never becoming tedious
or monotonous, and being adapted to the content, to the point of tension, the climaxes, or the endings. It is
not the vernacular of the day, neither some old language, and so, it reflects its content: that of a story
mixing reality with fantasy. The vocabulary is predominantly Anglo-Saxon, the Latin or French words
being very scarce. With its more modern and easy to read manner, it is the link between the great writers
of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern stage of the English culture.

2. POPULAR ROMANCE
If the courtly romance offered entertainment mainly for the upper classes, the popular romances
had a wide circulation among the lower classes. They are anonymous and rely more on adventure and less
on the complicated rituals of courtly behaviour. They were probably sung or told as they rely on the use
of formulas and episodic units to allow the audiences to follow the story. Many of these romances
heighten the tensions between the ideas of chivalry and the realities of medieval life and, by often having
minor nobility as protagonists, give a sense of hope regarding a rise in status and importance to this class.
Some such romances are: King Horn (c. 1225), followed by Floris and Blanchefleur (early 13th century),
Guy of Warwick (13th century), Haveloc the Dane (c. 1300), Bevis of Hampton (c. 1300) and Sir Orfeo
(c. 1300).
Many of these stories were retold in prose in the 15th and 16th century and they shaped the modern
novel with an insistence on moral development. They also influenced modern popular culture with its
interest on magical objects and creatures, adventures and quests.

MEDIEVAL LYRICS
Poetry was the genre in which the linguistic change as well as that in artistic taste was the most
evident. The old alliterative style was replaces by regular lines, containing a precise number of syllables
and an end-rhyme. As far as the tone and atmosphere are concerned, the somber, melancholic vision of
the Anglo-Saxons was replaced by a more joyful spirit, a brighter view of life indebted to the French love
and adventure poems. The hundreds of poems that remained in manuscripts can be only roughly dated,
but the authors are unknown. In general, they are popular songs and poems on different topics
The poem The Cockoos Song (c. 1250) is believed to be the earliest English lyric and it is a good
example of the shift in tone and atmosphere from Anglo-Saxon poetry to medieval lyrics.

SUMER is icumen in, Summer has come in,

Lhude sing cuccu! Loud sing cuckoo!
Groweth sed, and bloweth med, Grows seed and blows mead
And springth the wude nu-- And blossoms the wood now
Sing cuccu! Sing cuckoo!

Awe bleteth after lomb, The ewe bleats after the lamb,
Lhouth after calve cu; The cow lowes after the calf;
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth, The bullock leaps, the buck jumps,
Murie sing cuccu! Merily sing cuckoo!

Cuccu, cuccu, well singes thu, cuccu: Cuckoo, cuckoo, well singeth thou,
Ne swike thu naver nu; cuckoo:
Sing cuccu, nu, sing cuccu, Never cease now;
Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu! Sing, cuckoo, now sing, cuckoo,
Sing, cuckoo, sing, cuckoo, now
The change in the spirit of the poem is evident, the dark view of nature that was visible in poems
such as The Seafarer, is replaced here with the beauty of spring and of the rebirth of nature, the joy
produced by the blossoming of woods and meadows, the spirit of youth and the energy transmitted

21
through the presence of playful animals and the regeneration of nature with the mention of sheep and cow
with their babies. Formally, the drop of inflections allows the possibility of end-rhymes, whereas the
poem is organized in stanzas, with lines of approximately equal number of syllables.
The poems had different topics. The Song of the Husbandman (c. 1350), for instance, is a satire
against lords that own the land and impoverish the country. It was probably connected to the spirit around
the Peasants Revolt (1381).
For might is right,
Light is night,
And fight is fight,
For might is right, the land is lawless,
For light is night, the land is loreless,
For flight is fight, the land is nameless.

DEVOTIONAL LITERATURE
The devotional literature in the Middle Ages had a great variety of forms: sermons, lives of saints,
allegorical writings, mystical or meditative writings, etc. Often, there is an overlap among genres which
leads to a difficulty in classification.
The writers of these texts were mostly clerics, and, at the beginning, the intended audiences were also the
members of the clergy. However, towards the end of the Middle Ages, the audiences diversified, shifting
towards secular audiences. This process also suggests the rise of the middle class whose members were
rich enough to buy books and were also literate and so, they start forming an urban elite. Many such
books belonged to middle-class women. The purpose of such texts was mostly educational, but it also
provided entertainment, and so, for instance, the lives of female saints were particularly appealing to
women readers.

A. Debate and Dialogue: the debate/dialogue form was very common, continuing an Old English
tradition and extending to the Renaissance.
The most well-known debate poem is the The Owl and the Nightingale (late 12th century). an anonymous
poem from the middle of the 13th century (c. 1250) epitomizes the medieval spirit, with its scholastic
philosophy, based on debate and analysis, the preference for allegory and the beast-fable form. The debate
between an owl and a nightingale is a debate between the old and the new, asceticism and joie de vivre,
isolation and social life/ love, religious writings and romances. It is not precisely a religious poem, but it
puts forward the most important dilemmas of the age, such as the conflict between pleasure and
asceticism, art and philosophy, passion/love and wisdom/prudence. The interesting fact is that the poet
does not choose a path, the poem remaining without a solution to this problem.

B. MYSTICAL AND MEDITATIVE WRITINGS

In a world dominated by the Church, spiritual writings were, naturally, abundant. The Middle
Ages are a period of development of the religious fervour, encouraged by the construction of monasteries
that become centres of culture and by the foundation of new monk orders. Spiritual writings had existed
in England since The Dream of the Rood. The term Middle English mystics applies to a group of
writers whose theological works are directed towards the search for salvation involving a contemplative
or experiential knowledge of God. This knowledge involves a complicated initiating passage described by
these writers in their works, that is why, these texts become spiritual guides. The most important mystical
writers of the Middle Ages were Richard Rolle (c. 1300 - 1349), Walter Hilton (d. 1379), the author of
The Cloud of Unknowing (14th century) or of Ancrene Wisse/ Riwle (A Guide for Anchoresses) (early
13th century). It is remarkable that two women become very influential in this gallery of mystical writers:
Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe.
One of the most famous English prose writers of spiritual writings was Julian of Norwich (c.
1343 c. 1413/1427). Her biography is little known, and the little information we have comes mainly
from her texts. She said she had her Revelations during a very serious illness when she was thirty. Her

22
work, Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love, is an expanded version of the three visions of Jesus Christ she
received during her illness.
Nowadays, she is considered one of the finest mystic writers before George Herbert. She is called
a mystical theologian because she does not give us an autobiographical account of the way in which she
started her spiritual journey, neither does she offer a lesson, or solution, or path to follow for salvation.
Instead, her Revelations are dense and emotional encounters with the mystery of God. It is only deep faith
that can lead people towards an understanding of Gods mystery that is not immediately evident since the
human world is fallen and, therefore, limited in its perception of Gods plan. According to the mystic
theologians, therefore, redemption or understanding of God cannot can through simple human effort, but
only if the human being is subjected to extraordinary forms of prayer or contemplation (such as private
revelations or visions).
During her illness, she prayed God for three things: These Revelations were shewed to a simple
creature unlettered, the year of our Lord 1373, the Thirteenth day of May. Which creature [had] afore
desired three gifts of God. The First was mind of His Passion; the Second was bodily sickness in youth, at
thirty years of age; the Third was to have of Gods gift three wounds. (trans. by Grace Warrack). In other
words she wants: 1. remembrance of His Passions some feeling in the Passion of Christ, or a more
intense knowledge of the bodily pains of Jesus and of the compassion of His Mother, to suffer with him;
2. a terrible and painful sickness to hasten her union with Him and to help her understand Jesus pains and
receive grace; 3. contrition, compassion and longing for Him, seen as three wounds to be received from
God. She receives these revelations, or, as she calls them, showings, in the form of visions of Christ, of
the Virgin Mary, of the blood of Christ falling from the skies, like raindrops, etc. She has an optimistic
vision, in the sense that she believes that God is love, and everything He does is out of love. Even human
suffering, illness and pain are nothing but tests for the love of God and the apparent disorder and chaos of
human life (she lived during the Black Death and the Peasants Revolt) are only a matter of wrong
perception, beyond them laying the great mystery of God, based on love: And in this love he hath don all
his werke; and in this love he hath made all things profitable to us; and in this love our life is
everlestand.
While Julian of Norwich was an anchoress who dedicated her life to God, Margery Kempe (c.
1373 after 1438) was a housewife from Kings Lynn who received a vision after the birth of her first
baby. She belonged to a prosperous family, she was married and had fourteen children and she travelled
widely, on pilgrimages and other spiritual journeys to holy places in England, to Jerusalem, Rome,
Santiago de Compostella and Germany. Her book, The Book of Margery Kempe, can be considered the
first autobiography in English literature, being also included in spiritual writings or writings of council for
women. In fact, according to the medieval tradition, the purpose of a book was to educate, to be of some
use to the readers and so she talks about her life, her struggle to fight off sin and the lures of life, her
pilgrimages and her visions.
Women are, in Margery Kempes mind, the intended recipients of her book and she established a
connection with her reader by appealing to elements familiar to them: illness, pain, depression, the
dangers of childbirth but, at the same time, reassuring her readers in their path towards salvation.

C. ALLEGORY AND DREAM-VISION

William Langland (c. 1330-c.1386): Piers Plowman or The Vision of William Concerning Piers the
Plowman (1360-80)

Literary forms, Structure, Versions

A dream-vision poem, but unique in English literature because it has a succession of dreams,
not only one. It is written in an alliterative style.
Allegory
Pilgrimage narrative and romance conventions (tests and trials, narrative profusion and
divagation)

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ALLEGORY
The term derives from Greek allegoria, 'speaking otherwise'. As a rule, an allegory is a story in verse or
Prose with a double meaning: a primary or surface meaning; and a secondary or under-the surface
meaning. It is a story therefore, that can be read, understood and interpreted at two levels( and in some
cases at three or four levels). It is thus closely related to the fable and the parable.[...] The origins of
allegory are very ancient, and it appears to be a mode of expression (a way of feeling and thinking about
things and seeing them) so natural to the human mind that it is universal. Its fundamental origins are
religious. Much myth, for example, is a form of allegory and is an attempt to explain universal facts and
forces. (J.A.Cuddon )
In a novel, the meaning arises naturally and unobtrusively, from the world of the fiction. In the
allegory, the meaning comes from understanding both levels. In Langlands allegory, the virtues and vices
are personified: they are embodiments of human qualities or flaws such as Patience, or Conscience, or
Wrong. However, they are not real, novel-like, complex characters. The constituents of the human nature
are broken into pieces and these personifications represent a single facet of the human personality. The
meaning of these allegories does not come simply from a static presentation, but rather from their
interactions. They move, speak and react to one another, making their purpose clear and visible. The
usefulness of such methods, actually, lies in the fact that people, by following such simplified schemes of
human behavior, are able to understand the allegory by breaking it into easily-identifiable constituents.
Thus, the purpose of the allegory is not to entertain, but to assist the Christian in his spiritual journey
towards redemption.

DREAM-VISION
This form of literature was very popular during the medieval period, being, very often, closely connected
to the allegory. This type of convention was used since the Old English Literature (The Dream of the
Rood) and it thrived in the Middle English Period being associated with different other literary forms. The
convention is that the narrator falls asleep and has a dream in which he sees either real people or
personified abstractions involved in various activities (J.A.Cuddon).
Medieval dream poetry is rooted in classical and biblical concepts of dream and vision that imbued
dreaming with the potential for august, profound, even divine meaning. (Hellen Phillips, The Blackwell
Companion to Medieval Literature and Culture). In this way, the author of the text is effaced, pushed into
a secondary position, functioning like a channel receiving a divine message or inspiration.

Versions:
1. The A version: three visions divided into ten sections (passus) and a prologue (2,500 lines)
2. The B version: eight more dreams and ten more passus, 7,700 lines
3. The C version: extensive reworking on the previous version and a different division, ending up
with 22 passus, adds only 350 more lines.
All the versions have a primary, religious message, but they are also very critical towards the medieval
English society and towards the Church and its corrupt practices.

Structure:
1. Prologue + Passus I-IV: Wills dream of a field full of folk, a real pageant of medieval England, with
the good and the bad
2. Passus V-VIII: the vision of Piers the Plowman and the penitents he is required to lead in search of
Truth (God)
3. Passus IX-XII: the search for Do-well, Do-better, Do-best. The narrator is attacked by hunger and
fever.
Passus = a) a step (indicative of this pilgrimage/ initiating narrative); a pass through moundains or
woods (suggestive for the trials and tests the pilgrim in search for salvation is subjected to); c) a section
of text

24
 Evidence of a trilingual culture: the West of England dialect (the English language was not
standardized) with the use of frequent religious Latin quotes and sometimes French quotes.

Will, the narrator, sets off to see the wonders of the world but falls asleep and dreams of a field full of
folk overlooking the Tower of Truth and close to the Dungeons of Hell. He dreams of the Lady Holy
Church who urges him to set out on a journey for salvation.
Will:
1. Self-referential (William) the story becomes a personal quest for salvation. Interesting enough,
the poem ends in the failure of Will, lost in his dream, missing the right path, attacked by Old
Age, hunger and fever, lacking Piers power to connect and lead people towards the Tower of
Truth
2. Allegorical: Will = volition, conscience and deliberate action. He thus sides a whole gallery of
allegorical characters such as: Reason, Conscience, Need, Lady Mead, Lady The Holy Church,
etc.

Piers the Plowman is a character in Wills dreams, and he is the one who will gather the people who
want to find grace and lead their pilgrimage.
1) The Apostle Peter, the rock on which the Church was founded, the one who was given
the keys of Heaven: Piers has the charisma and the power to gather people around him
and lead them to salvation. He is also very critical towards the Church as an institution
and to the practices of the Church, such as selling pardons.
2) The plowman: Piers is a working man, the lowest in the medieval hierarchy, but closer to
salvation and purer at heart.
3) The poem ends when with Conscience deciding to look for Piers that Pride might
destroy. He appears to be the only one capable to offer assistance in this search for
grace.

The poem is colloquial, its verse rough and its architecture Gothic, abruptly changing from direct social
satire to symbolic allegories of salvation. Langland does not want to reform the structures or ideals of
Church and society, but our hearts and behaviour. This was the hope of those who shouted lines from
Piers Plowman in the Peasants Revolt. What is new in his work is its Gothic existentialism, its dizzying
structure, and its deep engagement. In atmosphere, though not setting and convention, it parallels
Dostoevskys Brothers Karamazov (1880). Its scheme is like that of Bunyans Pilgrims Progress (1684),
but less straightforward; its sweep like that of Ezra Pounds Cantos (1917-59), but theological. This very
English poem, more of its time than Chaucers, is often hard work, but it seizes its audience. Evangelical
and prophetic, it breathes in theology and breathes out the Latin of the Vulgate and the liturgy. (Michael
Alexander, A History of English Literature)

D. MEDIEVAL DRAMA
The drama is believed to have developed out the of the Catholic religious services as dialogues in the
form of questions and answers between the priest and the believers (antiphones and responsories) and
from the short and rudimentary plays that reenacted scenes from the Bible and were staged at important
religious celebrations, especially Easter. It is very difficult today to clearly grasp the importance of
medieval drama since we are left with disparate written piece of an art which was largely unwritten and
which testifies of a rich and imaginative performative culture.

MYSTERY PLAYS and MIRACLES were religious plays drawing inspiration form the Bible (The
Mystery Plays) and from the lives of saints (the Miracles). They were played by the guilds that staged
their play on a pageant and toured the streets. There are several cycles known: the Chester cycle, the
Wakefield cycle, the N-Town cycle (an unknown town) and the York cycle.

25
MORALITY PLAYS showed the fate of a single person that becomes symbolic for humanity, the
Everyman and were played by travelling companies. The religious plays were suppressed by the advent of
Protestantism.

INTERLUDES and FARCES are of a later date and, at the beginning, they are moral plays staged
between the courses.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER (C. 1343(THE EARLY 1340S) - 1400)

Geoffrey Chaucer was named the Father of English Poetry and this fame was evident even
during his lifetime. He had a tremendous influence in the establishment of the literary English as well as
the establishment of a valuable English literature in accordance to the standard imposed by the other
European cultures, especially French and Italian. In a literary landscape dominated by French forms, he
managed to create a personal style, by adapting the existing literary forms to the requirements of the
English language and the English setting. His characters come from all the walks of life, giving the reader
a rich and living image of the England of the Middle Ages.
His works bear the mark of the milieu in which he lived and worked, of his travels and readings.
Life at the noblemens court and at the Kings court as well as the time spent at the French court or the
court of Aquitaine familiarized him with the artistic tastes of the aristocracy and the literary genres that
they preferred, such as the courtly romance. The travels to France and Italy opened his literary horizon,
introducing Chaucer to the great European literature and literary tastes. His administrative jobs enlarged
his circle of acquaintances, as he met people from all the walks of life, from aristocrats, wealthy
merchants, lawyers to the simpler people, all of them being vividly presented in his works. His literary
career comprised three phases coinciding with his travels and the evolution of his style according to the
literary contacts: a) the French phase; b) the Italian phase (especially influence by Dante, Petrarch and
Boccaccio, as Chaucer tries to transfer Italian models to the English literature); c) the English synthesis.

A. Short Verse. His first short poems are exercises in translation, adaptation and verse form,
especially in conventional forms of composition. He was interested in copying and adapting the dominant
poetic forms of the time. He was the first one to have adapted the French ballad, which was different from
the English folk ballad. He probably envisaged an aristocratic audience, and such poems were forms of
court entertainment. (To Rosemonde, An ABC, Unto Pity, etc.)

B. Translations: in the effort to adapt and learn new poetic forms, Chaucer was also interested in
translation.
1. Le Roman de la Rose is a French allegorical poem written by Guillaume de Lorris (1237) and
continued by Jean de Meun (c. 1280).
2. Boethius (c.480-524): De Consolatione Philosophiae (Consolation of Philosophy). Though
Boethius wrote both in verse and in prose, Chaucer prefers to keep his translation in prose, to make its
meaning more accessible to his readers.

C. Dream Poems
1. The Book of the Duchess is an occasional poem written to commemorate the death of Blanche,
the first wife of Chaucers protector, John of Gaunt. Critics generally agree that the poem was written
before 1371 (Blanche died in 1368). The text is a dream poem, the vision dream of the narrator, and its
main purpose is to explore the feelings of grief, loss and regret and the desire to remember the loved and
lost one.
In this poem, Chaucer seems to be interested in the way in which memory is supposed to
function. The memory of White and of the knight-lover is kept alive through poem and song, and so
remembrance lives in literary or artistic creations. The mind, therefore, is like a book, in which memory

26
writes the pages, but it is not a copy of the truth, memory being a re-created process that mingles the
events to be remembered to the rememberers reaction to them.
2. The House of Fame (around 1379-80) explores again the meaning of memory, yet not personal
memory, as in The Book of the Duchess, but collective memory. The narrator searches for the Goddess
Fame and eventuallt realizes that the way in which fame is granted is a matter of chance and caprice
rather than merit. Moreover, any kind of memory/fame relies on the existence of people to tell the story.
3. The Parliament of Fowles is thought to have been another occasional poem, composed to
celebrate the wedding of Richard II with Anne of Bohemia, and so the poem might have been composed
between 1377 and 1382. This poem shows an evolution in Chaucers style whose writing becomes more
flexible, no longer copying artificial French genres, but developing his own interests and preferences of
poetic shape and content.

D. Troilus and Criseyde written between 1381 and 1386, is considered by many critics one of Chaucers
finest works and he pays tribute to the great Italian writers that influenced his work, such as Dante,
Petrarch and Boccaccio. At the end of the poem, he pays respect to the great Ancient writers, placing
himself and his book among them. The poem also mentions Gower and to another of his
contemporaries, Ralph Strode, as people of importance in the judgment of literary works and shaping
the literary tastes.
Go little book: go, my little tragedy: O moral Gower, this book I direct
let God, to your maker yet, before he die, to you, and you, philosophical Strode,
send the power to make a comedy! to warrant, and where need is, to correct,
But, little book, do not go in envy, in your benignity and zeals good.
but be subject to all poesy: And to that true Christ who died on rood,
and kiss the steps where you see pace with all my heart for mercy ever I pray,
Virgil, Ovid, Homer, Lucan and Stace. and to the Lord right thus I speak and say (Book
(Book V, 1786-1792) V, 1856-1862)

The poem is highly indebted to Boccaccios Il Filostrato, but it is not a translation of the Italian
poem. It is an independent poem, much longer than the original and, in the opinion of not few critics,
much richer.
Following the tradition of courtly poems, Chaucer preferred a Trojan subject, dealing with the
love between Criseyde, the daughter of the Calchas, the Trojan priest who defected into the Greek camp,
and Troilus, one of Priams sons, and so a brother of the hero Hector, and the lover Paris. The ending is
troubling for a love poem, since the final lines are dedicated to the futility of the struggles or pain of
lovers:
And when he was slain in this manner, And in himself he laughed at the woe
his light ghost full blissfully went of those who wept for his death now past:
up to the hollowness of the eighth sphere, and damned all our work that follows so
leaving behind every element. on blind lust, which can never last,
And there he saw, clear in his ascent, when we should all our heart on heaven cast.
the wandering planets, hearing harmony And forth he went, briefly to tell,
in sounds full of heavenly melody. where Mercury appointed him to dwell.

And down from there he spies
this little spot of earth that with the sea
is embraced, and begins to despise
this wretched world, and hold it vanity
compared with the true felicity
that is in heaven above. And at the last
down where he was slain, his gaze he cast.
Such ending has Troilus, lo, through love:
such ending has all his great worthiness,
such ending has his royal estate above,
such ending his desire, his nobleness,
such ending has false words fickleness.
And thus began his loving of Cressid,
and in this way he died, as I have said.

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As far as the style of the poem is concerned, Chaucer is at his best. Even if there are voices that may
reproach that there is too little action and too much talk, as far as the quality of the poetry is concerned,
his mastery of rhyme, the variety of diction, the excellence of his style, everything is at its best.

E. Collections of Tales
1. The Legend of Good Women. According to the text, this collection of tales about
love is written as a penance for the disparagement of love in other texts. The tales retell
love stories in whose center are famous women such as Cleopatra, Thisbe, Dido, Ariadna,
Medeea. Most of these tales are tragic, seven of the ten women dying, four through
suicide. This collection of stories is an experiment, taken up later with The Canterbury
Tales, of putting together a variety of tales and trying to unite them in such a way as to
make a coherent whole.
2. The Canterbury Tales (started in 1387 and continued till Chaucers death) [see
the seminar handout]

1. Collection of tales (24 tales, some having a prologue of their own) + General Prologue
(presentation of the participants: 29 pilgrims )
2. Context
framed story, a convention used before by Boccaccio, The Decameron, G. Sercambi, John
Gower and even Chaucer in The Legend of Good Women. The frame is the pilgrimage to
Canterbury, to the shrine of Thomas Beckett, in spring. The pilgrims gather at Tabard Inn
and, and are prompted by their Host, the owner of the inn, to tell stories on their way to
Canterbury.
The idea of pilgrimage is a pretext for gathering people who, otherwise, would not have been
found together, people of different classes, occupations, level of education and interests.
They are isolated and interact only among themselves. They are not individual characters,
but TYPES, representatives of different walks of life, different estates, from higher classes
to lower, from the clercy to the lay, men and women, but excluding the aristocrats or the
lowest, the beggars. There are only three women in the group of pilgrims: two are nuns (The
Prioress and a nun, but only the Prioress tells a story) and the other is the Wife of Bath.
The upper layer: the Knight and the Squire.
The gentry: the Franklin, the rich Merchant, the Wife of Bath
People who take care of other peoples assets, but make sure the gain is theirs: the
Reeve and the Manciple
Working people: the Miller, the Shipman, the Cook and Guild members: a
Haberdasher and a Carpenter, a Webber, a Dyer and a Tapiser. T
Learned, educated men: the Lawyer, the Physician, the Oxford Clerk
The clergy, or people connected with the Church: the Monk, the Prioress and the
Nuns, the Nuns Priest, the Parson, the Friar, the Summoner and the Pardoner.
The lower classes: the Knights Yeoman and the Plowman, the Parsons brother.
The narrator, named Chaucer, but who, ironically, is not a very good story teller and
the Host, a large man, cheerful but hot-tempered
The sketches of the pilgrims draw on social satire. The characterization is not constant,
ranging from very short descriptions (the Cook 9 lines) to very long (the Friar 61 lines).
Sometimes there is a focus on the exterior depiction of the characters (the Knight), in other
cases, we have access to the characters inner thoughts (the Monk). The standards of
judgment are shifting, moving from social satire (the pretensions of the Merchant), to fine
irony (the Prioress), criticism and condemnation (the Pardoner), appraisal (the Parson). The
portraits are built on memorable details.

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 The portraits in the General Prologue is subtle and diverse, Chaucer adapting the style of the
text as well as the manner of portrayal to the type of character, insisting either on physical
portraits, on clothes, or on psychological aspects. The language and imagery are likewise
adapted to the character. The tales are also in keeping with the status and the temperament of
the story teller
The tales represent the literary traditions of the time, while allowing Chaucer to experiment
or enrich on existing patterns.

Portraits in the Prologue Tales

The Knight (Cavalerul) -
The Squire (Scutierul)
The Yeowman (Arcasul)
The Prioress (accompanied by a Nun, a The Prioress Tales: a religious tale (against the Jews)
chaplain and three priests) (Stareta, o The Nuns Priests Tale: Fable about a Cock (Chaunticleer) and a
maica, o diaconita si trei preoti)
The Monk (Calugarul)
The Friar (Fratele)
The Merchant (Negustorul)
Courtly romance: the story of Palamoun and Arcite
Courtly romance or lai (unfinished because it is interrupted)
Fox.
The Second Nuns Tale: The life of St. Cecilia
A collection of short stories mixing biblical, historical and
contemporary figures.
Appearing as a fabliau, it is closer ot exemplary sermon, with the
protagonist, the summoner, representing certain vices.
Fabliau about an old man January who married a young woman
May
fabliau [fab-li-oh] (plural -liaux), a coarsely humorous short story
in verse, dealing in a bluntly realistic manner with stock characters
of the middle class involved in sexual intrigue or obscene pranks.
Fabliaux nourished in France in the 12th and 13th centuries.. They
were imitated in English by Chaucer, notably in his Miller's Tale
and Reeve's Tale. Many fabliaux involve satire against the clergy. A
standard plot is the cuckolding of a slow-witted husband by a crafty
and lustful student. (The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms)

The Clerk (Diacul din Oxford) Allegory taken from Boccaccio and Petrarch (the story of Griselde)
The Sergeant of the Law (Notarul) A religious tale, romance, Saints lives: the story of Custance
The Franklin (= a freeholder not of noble Lai about marriage and freedom
birth) (Razesul)
Skilled Tradesmen: a Haberdasher, a
Carpenter, a Webber, a Dyer, a Tapiser (un
Mamular, un Boiangiu, Dulgherul, un
Tesator, Tapiterul - Breslele)
The Cook (Bucatarul) Unfinished story/fabliau about an apprentice and a man married to a
prostitute
The Shipman (Corabierul) Fabliau about a monk, a rich merchant and his wife
The Doctor/ Physician (Doctorul) A tale from The Romance of the Rose
The Wife of Bath (Targoveata de la Bath) Lai: the story of a knight accused of rape.
The Parson (un Popa) A religious sermon and allegory on the Seven Deadly Sins
The Plowman (the Parsons brother) (un
Plugar)
The Reeve (=an administrative officer of a Fabliau: a story about a miller and two students
town or district, a superintendent or a
person of high rank representing the

29
Crown) (Logofatul)
The Miller (Morarul) Fabliau: A story about a carpenter tricked by a student, his lodger
and a parish clerk
The Summoner (Aprodul) Fabliau about a Friar
The Pardoner (Vanzator de iertaciuni) Parable about three man looking for and eventually finding Death.
The Manciple (=a buying agent for a Fable of explanation: why the crown are black
college, an inn, an association of lawyers)
(Economul)
The Poet Sir Topas, a parody romance (unfinished), Melibee, a moral tale,
which is a translation from a French version of a Latin book Book
of Consolation and Advice
The Host (Hangiul)
_________ The Canons Yeomans tale (Argatul Avei) (canon= one of the
bodies of dignitaries attached to a cathedral). A humorous tale about
trickery through alchemy

Their tales are usually connected of reflective of their personalities. Some of the tales have
their own prologues, beside the introductory general prologue.
The frame is dynamic, some stories being answers to other peoples stories, some are
criticized for their pessimism, others are interrupted, sometimes violently. The order
attempted by the Host is overturned by the participants, like the interventions of the drunken
Miller.

Chaucers Canterbury Tales are interesting as single stories, but, though harder to grasp, it is more
rewarding to see the relationships among them and to understand that their bewildering appearance is, in
fact, the image of the reality that the writer wants to reveal to his readers. There are critics who consider
that the Tales describe a nation unsure of its identity, distrustful of traditional authority, and torn by
ambition and materialism into separate spheres of interest. For both, the drives and interactions of
individual personalities express a loss of central control, a failure of hierarchy which affects society at all
levels. (Winthrop Whetherbee, Chaucers The Canterbury Tales. A Students Guide). It is the image of a
society in transition where new social types redefine the old social roles and interactions. It is a fictional
world with no center, defined by oppositions between realistic and idealistic, worldly and religious,
traditionalist and individualist points of view. (idem 2)

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 MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
SAMPLE TEXTS

A. KING ARTHURS DEATH

THE MYTH OF ARTHUR'S RETURN
(The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1)

Folklore and literature provide examples of a recurrent myth about a leader or hero who has not really
died but is asleep somewhere or in some state of suspended life and will return to save his people.
Evidently, the Bretons and Welsh developed this myth about Arthur in oral tradition long before it turns
up in medieval chronicles. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, and Layamon, and subsequent writers about
Arthur, including Malory, allude to it with varying degrees of skepticism.

GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH: From The History of the Kings of Britain

But also the famous King Arthur himself was mortally wounded. When he was carried off to the island of
Avalon to have his wounds treated, he bestowed the crown on his cousin Constantine, the son of Duke
Cador in the year 542 after the Incarnation of our lord. May his soul rest in peace.

WACE: From Roman de Brut

Arthur, if the story is not false, was mortally wounded; he had himself carried to Avalon to be healed of
his wounds. He is still there and the Britons expect him as they say and hope. He'll come from there if he
is still alive. Master Wace, who made this book, won't say more about Arthur's end than the prophet
Merlin rightly said once upon a time that one would not know whether or not he were dead. The prophet
spoke truly: ever since men have asked and shall always ask, I believe, whether he is dead or alive. Truly
he had himself taken to Avalon 542 years after the Incarnation. It was a pity that he had no offspring. He
left his realm to Constantine, the son of Cador of Cornwall, and asked him to reign until his return.

LAYAMON: From Brut

Arthur was mortally wounded, grievously badly;
To him there came a young lad who was from his clan,
He was Cador the Earl of Cornwall's son;
The boy was called Constantine; the king loved him very much.
Arthur gazed up at him, as he lay there on the ground,
And uttered these words with a sorrowing heart:
"Welcome, Constantine; you were Cador's son;
Here I bequeath to you all of my kingdom,
And guard well my Britons all the days of your life
And retain for them all the laws which have been extant in my days
And all the good laws which there were in Uther's days.
And I shall voyage to Avalon, to the fairest of all maidens,
To the Queen Argante, a very radiant elf,
And she will make quite sound every one of my wounds,
Will make me completely whole with her health-giving potions.
And then I shall come back to my own kingdom
And dwell among the Britons with surpassing delight."
After these words there came gliding from the sea
What seemed a short boat, moving, propelled along by the tide
And in it were two women in remarkable attire,
Who took Arthur up at once and immediately carried him
And gently laid him down and began to move off.
And so it had happened, as Merlin said before:

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That the grief would be incalculable at the passing of Arthur.
The Britons even now believe that he is alive
And living in Avalon with the fairest of the elf-folk,
And the Britons are still always looking for when Arthur comes
returning.
Yet once there was a prophet and his name was Merlin:
He spoke his predictions, and his sayings were the truth,
Of how an Arthur once again would come to aid the English.

SIR THOMAS MALORY: From Morte Darthur

Thus of Arthur I find no more written in books that been authorized1, neither more of the very certainty of
his death heard I never read,5 but thus was he led away in a ship wherein were three queens: that one was
King Arthur's sister, Queen Morgan la Fee, the t'other was the Queen of North Wales, and the third was
the Oueen of the Waste Lands. * * *
Now more of the death of King Arthur could I never find but that these ladies brought him to his burials,
and such one was buried there that thehermit bore witness that sometime was Bishop of Canterbury. But
yet the hermit knew not in certain that he was verily the body of King Arthur, for this tale Sir Bedivere, a
Knight of the Table Round, made it to be written. Yet some men say in many parts of England that King
Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place. And men say that he shall
comeagain and he shall win the Holy Cross. Yet I will not say that it shall be so, but rather I will say,
Here in this world he changed his life. And many men say that there is written upon his tomb this verse:
Hie iacet Arthurus, rex quondam, rexque futurus.2

1
That have authority
2
Here lies Arthur, who was once king and king will be again.

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