3. Middle English 50v6c

Chapter 3: Middle English

MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD (1066—1485)

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his period is the name given to the transition period during which Old English was changing to Modern English. This period lasted from the middle of the 11 th century (1066) to the middle of the 16th century. The year 1066 is taken because in this year one of the most important events in English history took place, namely The Norman Conquest. This event is important not only because it completely changed the course of English literature but also significantly influenced the development of English language. The Norman Conquest was the last successful invasion of Britain. It was led by William, Duke of Normandy, later known as William the Conqueror. After defeating King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the Normans took power and William became King of England. He tried to bring peace to the country after many centuries of wars and invasions but did not always succeed. The arrival of the Norman introduced England to French (a language derived from Latin), better architecture, progress in painting and music. Not long after the conquest, the University of Cambridge and Oxford were established. Another impact of the conquest is the parallel use of both English and French. Soon after the conquest, French became the language used by educated people, i.e. in offices, royal courts, and also by poets. The Anglo-Saxon (Old English) was spoken only by uneducated people. This situation of two parallel languages in daily use in the same country lasted for more than 300 years. In the field of literature, we could say that the first hundred and fifty years of this period had little intrinsic worth, but it was historically important for the sake of the

William the Conqueror defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings, 1066

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evolution of modern English literature. There may be several reasons to the blank time of production of literary works. Firstly, the conquest has stunned English literature into silence. Secondly, the limitation of Anglo-Saxon language probably prevented it from further advance. Thirdly, the Norman, at the conquest, had no literature to offer, because at that time French literature was still at its infancy which later on become dominant in Europe during the 12th and 13th century. By taking the French literature as its model, English literature revived at the beginning of the 13th century. This process of assimilation, however, enriched English literature because the French, different from the Anglo-Saxon, which was humorous less in spirit, hard in vocabulary, and monotonous in alliteration (although it had more feeling and thought), was gay and colorful in spirit, soft in vocabulary and musical in its bright verse. The first valuable work produced on the French influence is Layamon’s Brut (1205). This voluminous poem, contains 30,000 lines, is a legendary history of Britain, named after Brut or Brutus, the grandson of Aeneas, one of the heroes of Troy. Brutus is supposed to be the founder of Britain and of new Troy of London. Layamon brings his down to Cadwallader, the last of the Celtic kings. This verse is a translation from French, but what makes it interesting is that it introduces, for the first time, the story of King Arthur. The most interesting of all works produced in the first quarter of the 13 th century is The Owl and the Nightingale, a verse debate between two birds mentioned in the title about life: to live morally or to live for pleasures. The two birds argue topics ranging from their hygienic habits, looks, and songs to marriage, prognostication, and the proper modes of worship. The nightingale stands for the joyous aspects of life, the owl for the somber; there is no clear winner, but the debate ends as the birds go off to state their cases to one Nicholas of Guildford, a wise man. The poem is learned in the clerical tradition but wears its learning lightly as the disputants speak in colloquial and sometimes earthy language. The Owl and the Nightingale is metrically regular (octosyllabic couplets) and uses the French metre with an assurance that is astonishing in so early a poem. In addition, it also important to note that it was during this era when English ballads, e.g. Robin Hood, began to appear. These ballads are initially in oral form, and they generally reflect daily life of lower class people in England at that time. Chaucer The use of two parallel languages in England ended in the 14th century, because the Middle English had been accepted as the only language used in all levels. This situation developed English literature of the middle period to reach its highest peak. The greatest literary figure of this time is Geoffrey Chaucer. He was influenced by many kinds of writing and used many European models. For example, his first poems were dream poems, using the Old English model: Troylus and Creyside (about I385) uses a story from classical Greek times; and The House of Fame (I370s) uses the Latin poet Ovid and the Italian poet Dante (I265--I32I) as its An Outline of English Literature (For EESP of UKI Use only)

Geoffrey Chaucer, oil on by an unknown artist. 11

Chapter 3: Middle English

influences. Chaucer was a European in outlook and experi ence, but his ambition was to make the literature of English the equal of any other European writing. Chaucer’s greatest work is The Canterbury Tales [tales = stories] (I387-I400). It is also the first major work in English literature. It is a series (never completed) of linked stories. In it a group of about 30 pilgrims gather at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, across the Thames from London, and agree to engage in a storytelling contest as they travel on horseback to the shrine of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury, Kent, and back. There are many aspects to The Canterbury Tales, both secular and religious. The time is spring (April) when the world comes to life again after the long winter; and the people are from every level of society, except the highest and the lowest —a wide range of the new middle class, including a knight [a soldier], a scholar of Oxford, a nun, the wife of Bath, a simple-minded peasant, and several religious figures and tradesmen. And the stories which they tell are also very different —some are classical, some modern, some moral, some the opposite. Chaucer took the idea of linked series of stories from the Italian writings of Boraccio, but he sets them clearly in the here and now of late fourteenth century England. He had planned for 120 stories, but only 24 of them were written. However, The Canterbury Tales is still the great mirror of its times, and a great collection of comic views of the life it describes. For example, the knight is seen as a figure from a past age who does not fit in very well with the new modern society. Chaucer uses irony to describe him as ‘a verray parfit gentil knight’ [parfit = perfect, gentil = gentle)—completely ferfect and gentle are high moral values which are difficult to keep. In his story, self -interest is one of the main themes: And therefore, at the kynges court, my brother, Each man for hymself, ther is noon oother. And therefore, at the king's court, my brother, Each man for himself, there is no other way. (‘The Knight’s Tale’) Chaucer is describing a society that is changing, and its people and their values are changing, too. Again and again the stories and the story-tellers contrast old ways of behaving and of thinking with more modern attitudes. So religion is less important than enjoying life, and making money is a new ambition: But al be that he was a philosophre, Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre; But although he was a philosopher, Nevertheless he had only a little gold in his coffer 1. (‘General Prologue’ 2 ) 1

box for storing things

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introduction

Some of the ideas in The Canterbury Tales sound very modern, and show that Chaucer was interested in wider themes: An Outline of English Literature (For EESP of UKI Use only)

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Chapter 3: Middle English

What is this world? what asketh men to have? Now with his love, now in his colde grave Allone, withouten any compaignye. What is this world? what do men ask for? Now with his love, now in his cold grave Alone, without any companionship. (‘The Knight’s Tale’) Another famous poet of this time is William Langland who wrote, among others,

Piers Plowman which uses the dream-vision form to write a long series of dream

stories. It is a social allegory which stress the importance of hard-workings and honesty in life. Many anonymous texts appeared in this era. The most popular are Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Night. Both of them also explore the themes of emotions and human weakness. The first is a dream a father has of his daughter who died. She is now perfect, in heaven, and the father can see how far she is from the human level. Sir Gawain is one of the Knights of the Round Table, from the court of King Arthur, and is expected to be brave, honest and honourable. One evening a huge green man enters the court and challenges a knight to cut his head off. But the knight must have his own head cut off one year later. Gawain accepts the challenge and cuts off the head of the green man. A year later Sir Gawain is looking for the Green Knight when he arrives at a castle. The lord of the castle has a beautiful wife who tempts Gawain. She gives him a magic belt which will save his life. When Gawain finally meets the Green Knight he uses the belt. He deceives the knight and so he does not accept the challenge with true bravery. The Green Knight is really the lord of the castle and when Sir Gawain accepts that he is not an ideal brave hero he is forgiven by the Green Knight. Gawain returns to the court of King Arthur and is praised for his braver y. Gawain is, in fact, a kind of anti-hero, and the poem is an ironic questioning of the value of the historical myth of heroism in those changed times, much as Chaucer questioned the old -fashioned values of his knight. Prose Due to the part that poetry was considered as a high class art, lower-class people of the middle age tried to take prose as their art. The most well -known figure in prose-writing in this era is John Wyclif (1324—1384). He was a scholar and a priest who was popular as a translator of the Bible. His prose-style put in the scripture was adopted by many people and gave a great influence to the development of english to its standard form. Another famous work of Wyclif is Mendelville’s Travel , the author’s reportage about his travels to various countries. Another great prose-writer of this era is John Gower. He wrote a great many books, in Latin and in French as well as in English. His most famous is Confessio An Outline of English Literature (For EESP of UKI Use only)

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Amantis , the confession of a lover. At the end the lover says he will give up love — but only because he is getting too old. Just like in The Canterbury Tales and Piers Plowman , there is irony in Gower’s works, and the subject matter is clearly very far from the heroism of Old English: emotions and human weakness are becoming more common themes in literature.

Drama The main writing of this period was in poetry, but the tradition of drama, in addition to prose, was beginning at this time, too. The original medieval dramas were set in and around the church at festival times, and they showed scenes from the Bible for an audience who perhaps could not understand the latin of the Bible. The play s were called mystery or miracle plays because they showed the mysterious or miraculous events of the Bible and the saints’ lives. The plays were usually performed on moving carts, by the businessmen of the city, and the texts which remains are often called by the name of the group of businessmen which first performed them. ( e.g. the Fishers and Mariners). Groups of these plays remain from the cities of York, Wakefield, and Chester in particular, and all have local differences in the stories they tell and the way they are told. Many of the theatrical effects were very impressive—Hell’s Mouth is the most famous example. These plays are an important step towards the great theatrical period at the end of the sixteenth century. Influenced by the work of Chaucer in England, a group of writers in Scotlans produced some major poetry. They came to be known as the Scottish Chaucerian, although the language they used was Scots rather than English. The names of these writers, the first great figures in Scottish literature, areRobert Henryson and William Dunbar. It is interesting that the King of Scotland, King James the First (1394 —1437) was also an important poet. His Kingis Quair [King's Book] (c. I425) is a book of love poetry written in the verse form which, because of his use of it, came to be known as ‘rhyme-royal’. The major event in literary in the fifteenth century was the invention of printing, by Gutenberg (1398-1468) in Germanv. The first books to be printed were Bibles, but when William Caxton and later his assistant, Wynken de Worde, brought printing to England in the 1470s, they began to print literary works, the first of which was a story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, called Le Morte d’ Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, published in 1485. The author had died several years before Caxton published the book—and it is nat even certain who Malory was. The book, centering on the legendary king Arthur (q.v.), is based on a Middle English alliterative poem in dialect from the century before, but Malory's t elling of the story is the one which has remained popular ever since. The book covers Arthur's birth, the adventures of his knights, and the adulterous love between his knight Sir Lancelot and his queen, Guinevere. This last situation and the quest for the Holy Grail (the vessel used by Christ at the Last Supper and given to Joseph of Arimathea) brought about the dissolution of the knightly fellowship, the death of Arthur, and the destruction of his kingdom. Since the story had already been familiar before it was published, it’s a part of the English national consciousness. It is almost the national myth, and has remained popular until the present day. An Outline of English Literature (For EESP of UKI Use only)

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Chapter 3: Middle English

An illustration for Le Morte d’Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory

The final figure in the late medieval period is John ,Skelton, a very individual poet who wrote short rapid lines of poetry about such subjects as drinking alcohol, a. pet bird, and low life. Here his pet bird, a sparrow, complains about cats: Vengeance1 I ask and cry By way nf exclamation On the whole nation Of cats wild and tame: God send them sorrow and shame! (`Phyllyp Sparrow')

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revenge

Skelton's humour, as well as his poetic style, are unique. He and his poetry are difficult to describe, and not many critics have written about him in literary history. But he brings together many of the themes of the middle English period: humour, and a different view on the values of the time, new verse forms and play with language and style, and a strong sense of English identity.

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