Lecture 3

1. Lecture 3

3. Teaching Objectives and Requirements 1 Help the students know about the history and characteristics of literature in the Middle English Period. 2 Help the students know clearly about Geoffrey Chaucer and his work The Canterbury Tales.

5. In 1066 the English king Edward the Confessor died without an heir and the energetic and ambitious William, Duke of Normandy, decided to conquer England. The divided English were completely defeated at the Battle of Hastings. The Norman Conquest ended the purely Anglo-Saxon period and started the medieval period in England.

6. After they invaded England, William and his followers brought their new social organization new laws and new speech to England. The Norman Conquest accelerated the development of feudalism in England. The first thing William did after conquering England was to claim his right to every inch of English soil. He took away land away from the Anglo-Saxon owners and granted large areas to his lords, who in return promised their absolute loyalty to him. The lords could grant land to the knights, who in return should fight for them in battle. At the bottom of the society were serfs, who farmed on the borrowed land. They could barely make a living.

7. The three centuries following the Norman Conquest saw the introduction of medieval French culture, including French modes of customs, manners, literature, and especially the Norman-French language into England on a large scale. For almost two hundred years after 1066 three languages—native English, Norman-French and Latin, existed side by side in England.

8. The native English language, which descended from Anglo-Saxon or Old English, was the common speech of the overwhelming majority of the ordinary people, while the Normans, Lords and courtiers used French. Latin was used among the scholars in churches and courts. In the exchange of cultures throughout some four centuries the English language gradually underwent profound and extensive changes. The language in this transitional stage from old English to modern English is generally known as Middle English.

9. The effects of Norman Conquest on England can be summarized as: the bringing of Roman civilization to England; the growth of nationality, i.e. a strong government, instead of the loose union of Saxon tribes; the new language and literature, which were proclaimed in Chaucer.

10. 1.2 Characteristics of the Medieval Period

11. Medieval life was harsh for the common people and for the aristocrat alike. Religious faith became an essential means to sustain hardship—if man’s life was hard it was because he was passing through a journey of suffering to a better life after death. Geoffrey Chaucer captured the spirit of this age just as it was ending.

12. 2 Middle English literature

13. English literature is also a combination of French and Saxon elements. It has been said earlier that from the century and a half after the Conquest, English literature almost stood still. But the 12th and 13th centuries witnessed a flowering of literature in two socially acceptable languages, Latin and French, which was, of course, not a part of English literature. The narrative poems fell roughly into three subject groups: “The Matter of Frances” (tales about Emperor Charlemagne), “The Matter of Britain” (adventures of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table) and “The Matter of Rome” (tales of antiquity, from the Trojan War to the feats of Alexander the Great.).

14. About 1200, when the first pieces of English writing appeared, they were chiefly sermons, homilies, prayers, lives of saints, retelling of Biblical tales, and other religious writings. Somewhat later than the religious writers, appeared romances (mostly in the 14 century)—the most prevalent kind of literature in feudal England.

15. The flowering of Middle English literature came in the second half of the 14th century. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Pearl, Piers the Plowman and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales are considered the four great contributions to poetry during this period. The 15th century saw the development of popular literature, chiefly popular ballads, and miracle and morality plays in the later part of the century.

16. 2.1 Romances A romance was a long composition, in verse or in prose, describing the life and adventures of a noble hero. It generally concerns knights and involves a large amount of fighting as well as a number of miscellaneous adventures. In the tales of adventure, knights, or distressed ladies, experienced various tests and had their wishes eventually fulfilled. The reasons for their adventures could be love, religious faith, or the mere desire for excitement.

17. The most important romance of this period is about King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table. It was written in Latin. The first English version of the Arthurian legend is Layamon’s Brut. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the best of Arthurian romances; the most attractive and beautiful romance of chivalry, and one of the finest pieces of artistry of the English Middle Ages.

18. 2.2 Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales 2.2.1 Geoffrey Chaucer Chaucer’s Life Chaucer’s Literary Career

19. Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340-1400), the greatest poet of the Middle English period is the father of (modern) English poetry. He was born of a wine-merchant’s family in London in about 1340. In 1357 he began his life as a court page in a nobleman’s household. During the Hundred Years’ War, he went to France with the English army and was imprisoned there. After his release in 1360 he returned to England. He married Philippa, a maid of honour to the queen and sister of the Duke of Lancaster, who later became his patron. In 1367 he entered the service of King Edward II, who sent him to the European continent on several diplomatic missions, two of which brought him into contact with the new renaissance trends in Italian literature. In 1373 he became the post of a comptroller of customs in the port of London. In 1386 he was elected member of parliament for Kent. But in December of the same year he was dismissed from his office due to the intrigues of his enemies. He seems to have known poverty at that time. However, in 1389 he was appointed clerk of the King’s works at Westminster and Windsor, and the new King Henry IV granted him a pension. The poet died on the 25th of October 1400, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, thus founding the “poets’ Corner”. The varied experiences of Chaucer’s public life—his connections with the royal household; his contacts with Londoners and country folks—gave Chaucer a wide range of knowledge about people from different walks of life.

20. Chaucer’s Literary Career Chaucer’s literary career is conventionally divided into three periods: the French, the Italian, and the English. In his French period (1360s~1372), which exhibits the French love of skill and artifice, he wrote The Book of Duchess (1369~1370) and The Romaunt of the Rose, a translation of the French Roman de la Rose. In his Italian period (c. 1372~1385), when Chaucer wrote under the influence of the great literary geniuses of early Renaissance in Italy—Dante, Petrarch. and Boccaccio, he finished three long poems: The House of Fame (c. 1372~1380), Troilus and Criseyde (c. 1380~1386), and Legend of Good Women (c. 1380~1386). The Canterbury Tales (c. 1387~1400), his masterpiece, and a few short poems comprise Chaucer’s English period (c.1385~1400).

21. 2.2.2 The Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Tales is Chaucer’s monumental success. It is a collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, where the famous Saint Thomas Becket was assassinated. Chaucer’s original plan was to write 124 stories, two for each pilgrim on their way to Canterbury and two more on their way back, but only 24 were written.

22. 2.3 The Version of Piers Plowman The Version of Piers Plowman, the most popular poem of the 14th century, was attributed to William Langland.

23. 2.4 Popular Ballads (ageless narrative folk song) Ballads are anonymous narrative songs that have been presented by oral transmission. Whatever the origin, popular ballads were literature of common people. Ballads are mostly written in quatrains with the first and third lines in iambic tetrameter, and the second and fourth lines in iambic trimeter, and a rhyme scheme of abcb or abab. The Bakes in the Wood (of simple domestic tragedy), Get up and Bar the Door (of humor), Robin Hood (legendary) are popular ballads.

24. Reflection Questions and Assignments 1 Summarize the contributions of Jeffrey Chaucer to English literature and English language. 2 Pre-read Chapter 3 of the textbook A New Concise History of English Literature and Hamlet in the textbook Selected Readings, think about the questions in the book Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1, Lines 55-86). 3 Comment on the character Hamlet in Hamlet.