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lines of two stresses each: the first or second stress, or both, must alliterate with the third; the fourth
is usually nonalliterative
Warriors society
The most important of human relationships is that between the warrior (the thane) and his lord.
• if one of his kinsmen had been killed by someone, a man had the special duty of either
killing the killer or demanding from him the payment of wergild („manprice”)
• blood feud – a very long fight between two families or groups in which each group kills
members of the other group in oreder to punish the group for earlier murders
HEROIC POETRY
• Beowulf – found in manuscript of the late 10th/ late 11th century (Beowulf manuscript)
• the time of its composition is not clear
• the action is set in the 6th century
BOASTING
• indicates the importance of fates
• FATE = WYRD, one of the Norns, female beings who rule the destiny of gods and men
• boasting is already testing fate
Deor's Lament
• Stanzas of 'Deor' end with a refrain, which is unusual for Old English poetry
• The refrain may be translated into modern English as “That evil ended, so also may this!”
The Wife's Lament - a lonely wife is exiled from her home, living in a cave and blaming her absent
husband for her fate
The Husband's Message - is an anonymous Old English poem, 53 lines long and found in the Exeter
Book. The poem is cast as the private address of an unknown first-person speaker to a wife,
challenging the reader to discover the speaker's identity and the nature of the conversation, the
mystery of which is enhanced by a burn-hole at the beginning of the poem.
Battle of Maldon - describes a defeat of the East – Saxon militia by Vikings in 991
NORMAN CONQUEST
Battle of Hastings 1066 – fought between the Norman army of William the Conqueror and the
English army led by Harold Godwinson
BAYEUX TAPESTRY (C.1070)
King Arthur, mortaly wounded during the battle with the forces of Mordred, is taken to the island of
Avalon.
According to Geoffrey's history, Stonehenge was built by the magic powers of Merlin.
Chivalric code
• A squire (giermek) was ceremonially dubbed by his liege – lord (more often his king) and
became a knight
• swore a binding oath of loyalty to his lord
• pledged himself:
1) to protect the weak (a group which included all women)
2) to right wrongs
3) to defend the Christian faith
Chrétien de Troyes
(French poet, late 12th century)
Perceval - the first velnacular (macierzysty) story of the quest for the Holy Grail
'Ricardian poets' (after Richard II, who reigned from 1377 to 1399)
• Gawain poet
• Geoffrey Chaucer
• John Gower
• William Langland
1. Common features:
• mainly narrative
• sophistication of style
• stress on moral and theological point of stories
The tales are in separate sections or fragments: there are 10 fragments, each containing from 1 to 6
tales
FRAGMENT 1:
• General Prologue
• The Knight's Tale (chivalric romance)
• The Miller's Tale
• The Reeve's Tale
• The Cook's Tale
“swyved for her sustenance” - “she fucked for a living”
1485 – the end of the Middle Ages, beginning of the Renaissance; the end of the War of the Roses
The Protestants Reformation begun in 1517 with Martin Luther's attacks on the Church
1521 – publishing of the Martin Luther's Passional Christi and Antichristi (Pope as the Antichrist
signing divulgances?)
Henry VIII established himself as both the head of the state and the head of the Church in 1533.
• the lands of the Catholic Church were taken by the Crown and sold off
• shrines were ransacked for gold and jewels
Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535) (he was accused of treason and executed)
Il Canzoniere (Song Book) – popularized the sonnet form. Its central theme is the poet's unrequited
love for Laura.
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503 – 1542) (the first successful translator and imitator of Petrarch)
Wyatt used the Italian sonnet form (ABBA ABBA “problem” CDE CDE “solution”
“Whoso list to hunt” (Who cares to hunt)
• Howard popularized the English sonnet form (ABAB CDCD EFEF GG)
• Wyatt and Howard were first printed together in 1557, in which is now known as Tottel's
Miscellany, in which two modern verse – forms reached print in England for the first time
• Sonnet
• an unrhymed iambic pentameter (blank verse), first used in Howard's translation of a
fragment of Virgil's Aeneid
• Sidney is the author of the first sonnet sequence in English, titled Astrophel and Stella,
written in 1580s and published in 1591
Spenser is the author of the sonnet sequence titled Amoretti (1595) (it consists of 89 sonnets)
• A rhyming pattern based on the fusion of both Italian and the English rhyming scheme:
ABAB BCBC CDCDC EE
• Unlike in traditional sonnets, the love presented is happy and successful one
• Sonnet 75
Shakespeare is the author of a sequence of sonnets consisting of 154 sonnets, published in 1609
EARLY DRAMA
• The first purpose-built permanent theatre was constructed in 1576 by James Burbage. It was
called “The Theatre”
• The Globe was built in 1599
• There were then 5 other big theatres in London of about 200 000 inhabitants
• Plays were performed rarely for more than 10 days
• In the Elizabethan times there were developed companies of actors under the patronage of
powerful or wealthy individuals
• There were usually 10 to 15 full members in such a group with 3 or 4 boys (they played the
females)
• No women were allowed to appear on the stage
• Shakespeare, who was also a leading actor of the time, belonged to a group called Lord
Chamberlain's Men
• The Spanish Tragedy or Hieronimo is Mad Again (between 1582 and 1592)
• It established a new genre in English theatre, the revenge play or revenge tragedy
• The main character is Hieronimo, a father determined to revenge the murder of his son
• Belonged to the so-called university-wits, a group of late 16th century English playwrights
who were educated at the universities
• Wrote 7 plays
• Pioneered the use of blank verse in drama
• Killed in what appeared to be a drunken fight
The tragical History of Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (c. 1592) (full title of Faustus)