General introduction:

Before 450 - Iberian peninsula; peoples immigrated around 500 B.C, called Celts

·        Several tribes, Brythonic to Britons moved eventually up to present-day England

·        Julius Caesar invaded 55. B.C.; subjugated the Celts to Roman rule; built roads, aqueducts, and baths, huge structures that brought 'civilization' to the indigenous tribes. 

·        412 - Last of Roman legions have been withdrawn; Celts left defenseless; at mercy of 'savages' from Scotland; turned to Jutes, Germanic Tribe, for help.  Hengist and Horsa come into SE England to assist; call in Angles and Saxons who together with Jutes, took over Briton.  Becomes 'Angleland'

·        As well as they couold, wiped out evidence of Roman occupation

·        A few Celtic bands fled to Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Others fled across the channel to France, settled in Britanny [or 'Briton-y']

Social characteristics: A warrior society

·        Thanes - highest social allegiance is to King; Thanes, or Lords, pledge they will fight to the death; in return the King bestows gifts and protection

·        Comitatus - a band of men; the king's or lord's companions-in-arms

·        United in local groups; no national  king

·        Constantly defending against raiding Germanic and Scandinavian tribes

·        Cultural Ideals

·        A Hero is an avenger; true heroes seek vengeance for wrongs committed to them, their lord, or their people.  Loyalty - to the lord above all else, to the death

·        great love for personal freedom;

·        honored truth;

·        Repressed emotion or sentiment

·        Physical prowess - might makes right

·        Male-dominated,

·        sister's son the most important relative

·        women revered as bearers of the race.

·        Life short and nasty

Literature/Culture:

·        A cultural flowering in Northumbria in the seventh and eighth centuries

·        Begun with the spread of Christianity and literacy; combined the Celtic myths and legends with those brought by the Germanic tribes from the Continent.

·        This ended with the Danish invasions of the nine century

 <o:p></o:p>

·        Old English literary center then shifted to Wessex in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries,  a kingdom unified under Alfred the Great, [849-899] who promoted literacy and education.

·        Encouraged translation from Latin of religious works, such as Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People; Boethius' consolation of Philosophy.

·        He commanded the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a compilation of English history beginning with Caesar's invasion in 55 B.C and carried through to A.D. 1154

·        Language

·        OE Dialects: Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon, Kentish

·        By end of 14^th c. West Saxon emerges as the supreme, London dialect.  Scholars unable to translate OE until 17^th c.

Anglo-Saxon Literature:

1.      Pre or Non-Christian

·        Polytheistic paganism; very little pagan poetry of religious nature extant.

·        Ex. Charms or chants, prepared by women.  [545]

·        Gnomic verses - [label from the Greek tradition] aphoristic, moralistic, sententious; short poems that convey secular wisdom; didactic [512]

·        Most pagan poetry is secular in nature.  No love songs in OE although they were being written in France

·        Most is elegaic

·        "Deor's lament" repetition of one line suggest a particular stanza form.  But most OE has no stanza form.  Deor is a scop who has lost his position and laments this, but realizes that this, too, shall pass.  It's a poem about the transitory nature of life.

·        "The Seafarer" 8^th century.  Speaker is a seafaring man, poem contrasts joys of living on land and hardship of life at sea.  Essentially pagan

·        "Wife's Lament" and "The Husband's Message" usually found together and expression of sentiment that is extremely rare in OE poetry.

2.      Heroic Tradition

·        Arises from oral tradition

·        Designed to be sung, originally unwritten; passed by the scop of the tribe on to the next minstrel

·        Chief ingredient of OE heroic poetry is gloom; life temporarily lifted by moments of glory.  Sure way to guarantee Valhalla was to die in battle, do deeds of valor.

·        Intended to present an heroic incident in life of a great man who is physically strong.  A great hero must be very strong and 'strength' here refers to physical attributes rather than mental acuity.

3.      Christian Tradition

·        Most written in Latin; Venerable Bede wrote an ecclesiastical history in OE and Latin of Eng speaking peoples.  Wrote about a monk [Caedmon] who wrote a 9 line poem: "Caedmon's Hymn"; first OE author we know by name

4.      Only a few MSS extant for study. 

·        Most of the poetry found in only four MSS, compiled around 1,000 A.D., in the West Saxon dialect, they contain poems of much earlier date:  the Beowulf MS, Junius MS, Exeter Book and Verceli MS

5.      Direct and powerful language

·        Wyrd = fate; much concern with this; in Germanic tradition, always harsh and cruel/blind and pitiless

·        tone is stern;  life subject to nature's whims, particularly the sea

·        Out of the oral tradition; meant to be accompanied by a harp -

·        formulaic, repetitious formulas used as aids to memory; helps the person reciting the poem and helps the listener envision quickly the images as stock types used

·        kenning - stereotyped figurative phrase as a synonym for a simple noun.  Ex. "the ringed prow,' the 'foamy-necked', the 'seafarer' for a ship. The 'whale-road' for the sea. 

6.      Types:  Accounts of heroic tales, epic, elegaic, commemorations of battles, religious poems

·        Latin verse and prose of this period is usually didactic, consisting of biblical commentaries; moral, philosophic, and scientific treatises; devotional poems; and histories.

·        Old English is the vernacular; Latin the international language and that used for religious, academic, and legal purposes

7.      Modern Texts: Editor's role crucial; scholarly literature full of commentary

·        No real way to pin down exact meaning or pronunciation

·        Alliterative; lost to us in translation, but preserved in original..

8.      Versification:

·        Accentual only; based on a count of accents or stresses in each line, with the unstressed syllables varying in number.  Ordinary line had four stresses, two on each side of a heavy caesura [pause]. 

·        Usual mode of presentation was by a Scop, or minstrel, who would strike a chord on a harp either in conjunction with the stresses, or at rests between them. 

·        No unit larger than the line

·        In place of end rhyme, OE poetry used alliteration, with normal line alliterating on three or sometimes two or all four of the stressed syllables.

·        This system prevailed from about 500 - 1100 A.D.

 The Venerable Bede

·        A monk at the Northumbrian monastery at Jarrow; he wrote over thirty works of history, grammar, science, theological commentary.  His best known work is the Latin Ecclesiastical History of the English People, from the roman invasion of England to 731.  It was translated into Old English under King Alfred and also provided the material for the early part of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

·        Within Bede's work we find the story of a monk who wrote a nine line poem "Caedmon's Hymn."

Caedmon [died approx. 680 A.D.] - Old English poet

·        According to Bede he was an illiterate herdsman who received divine inspiration in a dream to write religious poetry; he is the first author writing in Old English of whom we are aware.

·        The OE verse found in the "Caedmonian MS" ascribed to him contain only one hymn known certainly to be composed by him.  The others may be the work of several authors.

 Dream of the Rood - 9^th c./found in Junius MS

·        Rood = 'cross' 

·        Short dream vision, a genre that developed importantly during the later medieval period.  A fragment of it is inscribed on an early eighth century stone cross in Scotland, and the Vercelli MS  has a complete version.

·        Dreamer beholds cross on which Christ was crucified.  Narrated by the cross itself, tells of its life as a tree, etc.

·        A fusion of Anglo-Saxon and Christian traditions; good for use in converting the 'heathen' to Christianity. Appeals to the warrior code while promoting Christian values.

·        Harrowing of Hell - important in later medieval poem "Piers Plowman."  Christ presented in the final lines of the poem as battle leader, his disciples = commitatus

Beowulf

Scholarly issues:  dating, authorship, pagan/Christian mixture

·        Some say the text was written by one author during the 9^th c., a Christian who took an heroic poem, but shaped it from a Christian viewpoint.

·        Most scholars believe it was written over a long period of time; multiple authors, probably composed around 752 AD

·        Originated as a Norse text, transmitted orally

·        Passed to England in the late 8^th c.

Its value as literature

·        Great historical value as it is the longest OE work we have extant.

·        Structure: medial pause in line, four stresses per line, no rhyme, heavily alliterative (initial consonant sounds).  This evidence from Beowulf structures assumptions about OE poetry in general, and allows a reconstruction of the language.

·        First epic in English [Spenser's Faerie Queen and Milton's Paradise Lost follow; the only Folk epic [from the people; begun as oral composition; many 'authors' and passed down through generations] composed in English.

·        Provides insight into Germanic customs and ideals

·        Well unified poem: three major exploits of Beowulf.

·        Exhibits early regard for Nature.

·        Narrative moves swiftly; lots of good action; stately speeches characteristic of English poetry.

Epic structure and conventions, derived from Homer's Iliad:

·        Great dignity and magnitude of subject

·        Always in poetic form designed to be recited orally; early ones probably changed with musical accompaniment.

·        Always concerned with exploits of a hero in an age when physical prowess is important.

·        Hero is always well known to an audience.

·        Only those exploits that make the hero memorable are included.

·        He must be put in conflict with an adversary of equally heroic proportions.

·        The conflict must be between two similar cultures.

·        The conflict between cultures is symbolized by the struggle of heroes of both cultures.

·        Victory is symbolized by killing of one of those heroes.

·        Epic exaggeration; the greater the odds, the greater the struggle, the greater the victory.

·        Always a tragic death occurs after great struggle.

·        A true epic must come from the legends of a particular people.

·        A clear statement of purpose early in the epic.

·        Grand similes; elaborate comparisons

·        Catalogues and listings.

Uses of the Epic

·        Serves an historical function: commemorates events; records them in the communal memory

·        Preserves cultural values by valorizing particular behaviors

·        Serves as 'acceptable' form of commentary: Beowulf the first to question the warrior code.

·        The Beowulf poet represents the pagan values as limited and doomed.

·        Characters are governed by the duty of blood vengeance. Destructive feud mentality evident in Beowulf's speech about a political marriage between Hrothgar's daughter and King Ingeld:

Middle English

Chaucer - Medieval background

Social theory

·        Three Estates:  nobility, church, commoners

·        These traditional lines of demarcation breaking down rapidly

Chaucer's life

·        Son of prosperous wine merchant

·        Lived in cosmopolitan environment; many lingual; spoke/read Latin

·        Got a position as page in one of the great aristocratic household [countess of Ulster married to Prince Lionel, second son of Edward III].  This prepared him for a professional life beyond what he could have hoped for as a middle class son of a wine merchant.

·        Work life:

·        Page and member of King Edward's personal household

·        Diplomat to Spain, France, and Italy

·        Controller of customs on wool, sheepskins and leather: audited/kept books on export taxes, one of Crown's main sources of revenue.

·        Justice of the Peace and Knight of the Shire for county of Kent.

·        Clerk of the King's works: maintained royal residences, parks and other holdings; oversaw construction projects.

·        Records often show he was pressed by creditors and obliged to borrow money

·        Put him into close contact with the nation's most powerful families/men: Lionel and his brother, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

·        His wife Phillipa was of higher birth than her husband; she served in the households of Edward's queen and of John of Gaunt's second wife, Constance, daughter of the king of Castile.

·        Chaucer's sister-in-law, Kathryn Swynford, served in John of Gaunt's household, where she became the duke's mistress, and after the death of Constance, his third duchess.

·        Diplomatic missions to Italy in 1372 introduced him to the Italian Renaissance--influenced his writing and his conception of literature.  There he may have acquired MSS of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio--latter two still alive while he was there.

Chaucer's corpus:

·        Earliest models were works by French writers: Guillaume de Machaut [1300-1377] and Jean Froissart [1333-1400] who wrote lyrics and narratives about courtly love, often cast in the form of dream visions, a very important genre from medieval literature.  La Roman de la Rose is the most famous.  Chaucer translated part of this work into English.  His first important work was The Book of the Duchess, an elegy in the form of a dream vision inspired by the death of John of Gaunt's first wife, whom Chaucer would have known personally.

·        The House of Fame, a dream vision.  Eagle take the poet to the celestial palace of the goddess of Fame.

·        The Parliament of Fowls.  A dream vision; birds meet to choose their mates.  Like the Tales in that it comments about a variety of human responses, this time to love, and humans are disguised as birds.

·        Troilus and Crisseda [ca. 1385]  a poem of the love of Trojan Prince Troilus for Criseide who is lost to the Greek warrior Diomede.  Chaucer's adaptation of Boccaccio's Il Filostrato (The Love Stricken).  A masterpiece.

·        Legend of Good Women.  Another dream vision; courtly love themes.  Ostensibly written to balance Chaucer's characterization of women with the character Creseide.

·        Translated Boethe's Consolation of Philosophy.  This book became a medieval favorite; echoes the contemptus mundi theme prevalent.  Emphasizes the transitory nature of corporal life on earth and its corruption by worldly activities; looks to the reward of heaven for the faithful.

The Canterbury Tales

·        Because Chaucer was born a commoner, raised himself to aristocratic circles, he had a foot in both worlds. Additionally, since his professional duties took him to many foreign places and brought him in contact with a wide variety of folk, his view was both more tolerant and cosmopolitan than the average person.  Since he was an "outsider" to both worlds, he had a perspective on it that others could not have.  This duality of viewpoint gives his work a complexity that others of the same age don't have.  His work, in comparison to other medieval texts, seems far more complex and sophisticated, almost modern sometimes in its attitudes and perspective.

·        Original plan was for 120 stories: two for each pilgrim to tell on the way and two for the way back.  Only 22 remain.  The pilgrims never even get to Canterbury!

·        Incorporates many of the most important medieval genres

·        A chivalric romance - Knight's Tale

·        A fable - Nun's Priest's Tale

·        A sermon - Parson's Tale

·        Fabliau - bawdy stories; a triangle, old husband and buxom wife and another man [usually a student or a priest]:  Miller's and Reeve's Tales

·        Exemplum - illustration of a biblical text - Pardoner's Tale

·        Fairy tales - Wife of Bath

·        The pilgrimage was a framing device.  Frame stories were common well into the Renaissance, as vehicles for a core story.  Most famous medieval frame story is Boccaccio's Decameron.

·        The Tales resonate on two fictional fronts:  the individual tales themselves and the characterization of the teller assigned to the tale.  The links between tales help set up the characterizations of the tellers.

·        Eighty surviving MS.  The Ellsmere MS order often taken as the correct order of the tales.  Our anthology follows that order.

Medieval Romance:

·        The hero encounters versions of self--certainly true for SG&GK, where characters in the story repeatedly remark on the appearance of Gawain and who he is reported to be; one of Gawain's major struggles is to reconcile his public and personal 'selves.'

·        Heroes often meet up with some form of the 'other' especially an erotic partner who helps him achieve his quest and ambitions OR subverts, questions is identity and/or social position.

·        Romance, then, both created and reflected the ideals of chivalry

·        It rises our of Anglo Saxon warrior culture

·        It is controlled by militaristic values

·        Social ideals:  courtly love and religious chivalry

·        Romance is concerned with the ways that individuals relate to the social order.  A quest usually improves the hero.

 The Wife of Bath's Tale

 Social Theory:

·        Women: instrument of the devil/temptress and impediment to salvation

·        Cult of the virgin; ideal woman; worshipped and adored

·        Working class women

·        Assistant to husbands/fathers who were craftsmen

·        Not recognized as members of  Guilds, but often ran business if widowed

·        Femme Sole - a single or widowed woman working on her own.

·        Seldom recognized for their work.

·        Peasant women

·        Worked even harder than the men

·        Very important role in the family

 Sources for Tale

See Larry Benson's commentary at http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/canttales/wbt/

The Wife of Bath's tale is a brief Arthurian romance incorporating  the widespread theme of the "loathly lady," which also appears in John Gower's Tale of Florent. It is the story of a woman magically transformed into an ugly shape who can be restored to her former state only by some specific action -- the feminine version of "The Frog Prince" in fairy tales. For example, the Lady of Sinadoune in the Fair Unknown romances is transformed into a serpent (in some versions with a lady's face) who can be transformed only by a kiss (see stanzas 175ff. in Libeaus Desconnus).

This is a feature retained in Gower's tale but not in Chaucer's. The Wife of Bath's tale in this respect belongs to those versions of the "Loathly Lady" story in which the lady herself controls the transformation, as in the fourteenth-century The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell Chivalry

Chivalry may be thought of as the overarching controlling principle that infused three social ideals, reflected in medieval literature:  militaristic, courtly love, religious chivalry. Courtly love represented a kind of chivalric behavior.  The militaristic strain mirrored courtly love in that the devotion to duty that characterized a man's behavior towards his beloved was reflected in military venues instead.  The religious strain can be seen in the language and sorts of attitudes mirrored in Gawain's behavior in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

 <o:p></o:p>

Courtly Love

·        A philosophy of love and a code of lovemaking

·        Flourished in medieval Europe, first in France and later in other countries, esp. England

·        Origin uncertain, but believed begun by Provencal troubadours and ideas drawn from the Orient, Arab traditions in Moorish Spain, and classical lit of Ovid.

·        Feudal society and veneration of virgin Mary both tended to give anew dignity and independence to women

·        Debate or soliloquy by which courtly love finds expression in lit was probably indebted to scholastic philosophy.

·        The system:

·        Falling in love accompanied by distrubance; the lover is bewildered, helpless, tortured by mental and physical pain and exhibits certain "symptoms": pallor, trembling, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, sighing, and weeping.

·        He agonizes over his condition and indulges in endless self-questioning and reflections on the nature of love and his own wretched state.

·        His condition improves when he is accepted and this inspires him to great deeds.

·        He and his lady pledge each other to secrecy; they must remain faithful in spite of all obstacles.

·        Andreas Capellanus, late in the twelfth c. wrote a treatise, The Art of Courtly Love, that summarized prevailing notions of courtly love through imaginary conversations and through his 31 rules. Scholars now suggest that Capellanus was only trying "to be funny," when he wrote the treatise, and it should not be taken as a serious recommendation for relationships between men and women in the middle ages. See Benson's further definition of courtly love at: http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/lifemann/love/

·        True love was held to be impossible in the married state, so courtly love was illicit and sensual, but a sort of Platonic idealism soon appeared and is found in the usual literary presentation.

·        See also C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love.

 <o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight<o:p></o:p>

·        Part I - Opening passages:

·        Places Gawain in historical context; links him to Roman hero Brutus, and the epic tradition begun by Homer and Virgil; elevates his status

·        Reference to King's location at Christmas commonplace notation in medieval chronicles

·        Description of Arthur's court lavish and detailed; the Gawain poet builds a slightly different picture of the court of the Round Table than readers might expect.  Reputation of Arthur and his legend, although pre-Malory's tradition, nevertheless well known.

·        Green Knight - echoes ancient vegetation myths

·        Pride: one of the seven deadly sins

·        Part II - Gawain's quest

·        His journey described in exquisite physical terms; highly detailed [ll. 725 ff.]

·        The inhabitants of Bercilak's castle expect much from Gawain because his reputation precedes him.  [ll. 915ff.]

·        Part III - The Castle of Temptation

·        Bercilak greets Gawain very cordially; extends the utmost hospitality.  The contract to exchanged "gains" at the end of three successive days is made.  Gawain described as "safe at home,"  [l. 1470] while Bercilak is out on the strenuous hunt.  Ironic:  Gawain is no safer than the castle's Lord; while Bercilak's body may be in danger, it is Gawain's honor which is under attack, as it happens.  The lady's 'hunting' of Gawain parallels her lord's pursuit of the deer, boar, and then fox.  The contrast between physical endurance required during hunt and self-discipline required by Gawain is symbolized by the particular kind of hunted animal; each is more ferocious and/or difficult to bring down than the last.  In the end, the fox is 'wily' and thinks by cleverness to have thrown off the hounds [l. 1711].  Gawain, like the fox, will need to use his wits to extricate himself from the hunt.  Like the fox, Gawain is 'trapped'; in order to honor her request for secrecy, he must [must he?] lie about having taken the lady's girdle

·        Part IV - the oath satisfied

·        The GK strikes once, but Gawain shrinks from fear [l. 2267]

·        The GK strikes again, but this time to taunt and torment Gawain

·        The GK strikes a third time [once for each of the three days of the game], and this time nicks Gawain's neck, but does not kill him.  Gawain's lie is revealed; he is mightily shamed [ll. 2371]  He names himself "cowardly" [ll. 2374]  He wears, ever after the girdle as symbol of his shame.

 <o:p></o:p>

The Chester Play:  Noah's Flood<o:p></o:p>

Medieval drama falls into two categories: 

·        Miracle/mystery plays: name comes from the Latin mysterium, a reference to the guilds that underwrote the performances.

·        Earlier form; enactment of church pageants during the festivals of Easter and Christmas. 

·        Performed earliest by the choir in the nave, they soon outgrew their limits and were produced on the church porch.

·        14^th c. guilds presented them in cycles on Corpus Christi Day; the plays of York, Wakefield, and Chester are most famous extant plays.

·        First probably dramatizations of miracles of saints; later developed into biblical stories acted by the guilds

·        Morality plays<o:p></o:p>

·        Allegorical characters such as Everyman, Death, and Conscience appeared; began with the 14^th c paternoster plays acted by crafts in York, Lincoln, and Beverley. 

·        Treated subjective, moral, and ethical themes: the summons of Death, the salvation of man, the fall of pride; taught spiritual lessons in abstract terms.

·        The classic morality play is Everyman

York Cycle consisted of 48 guild pageants performed on wagons throughout the whole city on Corpus Christi Day.  Longest of the mystery cycles,; performances already mentioned in 1378 as being traditional.

·        City fathers attempted to assign appropriate crafts to the various plays; thus in the Chester Play, the waterleaders and drawers performed the story of Noah and the Flood. 

·        Humor in these plays ranges from domestic squabbling to macabre raucousness.

·        General tone meant to appeal to taste and temperament of medieval bourgeois audience.

 <o:p></o:p>

Social Theory

·        These plays were one type among a variety of 'mobile rituals'; formalized jousts, tournaments; royal entries into cities often accompanied with recitations, music, tableaux vivants; religious processions out of the church and into the spaces of commerce and production.  The sacred and secular less clearly divided as in our time--the same for people who shared cramped living spaces.  Less "private" space in every area.

·        Middle English biblical dramas enacting the story of creation, fall, and salvation, developed in thriving towns of the East Midlands and north, all enriched in 14thc by traded, esp. in wool.

·        Guilds:

·        religious [for establishment of chantries and prayers for members' souls after death]and

·        secular [for members of various crafts and trades

·        Guilds often supplied staging and actors directly, while the texts seem to have come from clerical hands.

 <o:p></o:p>