Middle English literature

The Middle English period started in 1066 when the Normans defeated Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings and William the Conqueror was crowned the King and ended in 1516 with the publication of THOMAS MORE’s Utopia, a text which initiated the English renaissance. There were three languages used at that time. French was spoken by Norman nobility and was used for high culture. Latin was used by scholars and clergymen. Old English continued to by spoken by peasants. Old English language experienced its revival in the 14^th century and developed into Middle English with many French influences.

Normans brought new customs and enriched already existing heroic stories with chivalrous romance, love songs and the whole culture of troubadours. Troubadours were artists who with their lutes sang love songs to upper class ladies they could never reach from their social position. They also sang ballads = narrative songs.

The prominent genres were courtly epics (which included chivalry romances), religious and secular lyrical poems, drama, chronicles and legends. Exempla are short narrative tales told by a preacher to illustrate a moral point used during sermon. Allegory was a widespread genre especially in the 14^th century. It basically means “telling otherwise” = text is supposedly about something but meaning to be drawn from it is something different with a strong moral point hidden. At that time it was the most common device of explanation, especially during sermons.

Very specific were medieval tales, especially fable (with animals as characters, conveying moral or practical message) and fabliaux which were stories of low style but very popular since the main character was immoral and it was full of vulgarism and sexual notions. Surprisingly, these stories were written so that the audience would sympathise with immoral characters which shows a shift from religious to more secular understanding of the world.

Debate poem presented two sides of an argument and both parties presented their own view. It usually did not have a winner, the reader could decide which whom to sympathise In The Owl and the Nightingale birds are talking about quality of their singing but the meaning is metaphorical so in fact they are discussing two different cultures. An owl represents religious understanding of life, whereas nightingale represents love and pleasure.

Domesday Book was the first piece of Norman writing in England, a record of property commissioned by William the Conqueror to determine taxes.

When the Nightingale Sings is a love poem of an unknown author. The main theme is unrequited love, featuring a typical combination of love and nature.

WILLIAM LANGLAND was a contemporary of Chaucer and a follower of John Wycliffe so in his Latin works, he attacked the wealth of the clergy and corruption of the Church. He is an allegorist but we do not know much about him. He used alliteration which was having its revival in the 14^th century.

The Vision of William Concerning Piers Ploughman has the form of a poem which incorporated an aspect of a dream vision = a device used in allegories where narrator falls asleep and in dream he has a vision with deep religious moral vision. This one features a common shepherd who, exhausted by injustice, falls asleep and in a dream sees a simple ploughman called Piers who dedicates his life to hard work which represents an ideal simple Christian life. Since the text pays attention to the negative aspect of English life, the work was considered to be dangerous.

THE PEARL POET is a name given to an unknown poet, a Chaucer's contemporary. He wrote both Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and an alliterative poem Pearl. Pearl is a dream vision, a sad story about a father who lost his baby daughter and every day goes to cry on her grave. Once he falls asleep in the graveyard and in a dream across the river he can see a heavenly city where everything shines and a figure of his daughter. She tells him not to be sad for her since she is in heaven and married to a Lamb of God in all purity and happiness. She convinces him that he will go to the same place after death. When he wakes up, he knows it was a dream but the message remains = just believe in God, lead a simple Christian life and you can meet your dear ones again in heaven.

JOHN GOWER /gaur/ was in his time even more popular than Chaucer but whereas Chaucer’s work is still fresh, Gower’s became outdated. Chaucer and Gower were friends but as writers they were very different. Gower was more simple, serious, religious and moralistic and lacked the brilliance of Chaucer in characterization. His best known work is Confession of a Lover written in Latin about an old man who regrets sins of his life and is given A moral lesson.

JOHN WYCLIFFE was an early reformist in the Catholic Church. His fundamental belief was that the Church should be poor as in the days of apostles and as a head of Church he acknowledged only Jesus Christ. He also emphasised the necessity of translating the Bible from Latin into English and he did it - The Wycliffe’s Bible is clear to read since he believed that the Bible should be the common possession of all Christians, therefore, needed to be made available for common use.

SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE is the author of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, an adventurous travelogue which contains description of exotic lands. It was popular since people wanted to know about unknown lands, in addition, the traveller was a noble medieval knight.

JOHN LYDGATE was a monk and poet. Troy Book is a translation of Troyan history, a full-scale epic. The Siege of Thebes is also epic.

WILLIAM CAXTON was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England. He established his printing press in 1476 and printed works of Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate and Malory.

WILLIAM DUNBAR was a Scottish poet. He served as a makar which is a Scottish term for a bard, often though as a royal court poet. His major work, The Lament for the Makaris, is a poem lamenting the loss in literature of important makars. It is both a historical record and a personal meditation.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 – 1400)

Sometimes called the father of English literature, Chaucer is credited for using vernacular Middle English rather than French or Latin. Chaucer came from a wealthy family of a wine, a rich upper class, so he was accepter to the royal court and become a successful diplomat. Thanks to it, he travelled to Italy, France and Spain. He is understood as a forerunner of the English renaissance even though the Renaissance started a century after his death. It was because he met Renaissance writers like Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio in Italy where Renaissance was already in full bloom. They introduced him to medieval Italian poetry, the forms which he would use later in The Canterbury Tales which were inspired by Boccaccio’s The Decameron.

Under French influence, he wrote an elegy of his patron’s wife's death The Book of the Duchess. Under Italian influence, he created The Parliament of Fowls, a fable of birds acting like people that help to advise a female eagle whom to marry, written for the marriage of Richard II with Anne of Bohemia, the daughter of Emperor Charles IV.

He wrote also love poems full of courtly love with devotion to women exaggerated almost into religion. To Rosamund is dedicated to an exceptionally beautiful woman. The narrator describes the love as "salve for my every wound" and claims that "It suffices to love you." He feels like Tristan, making reference to another myth of love, and believes his "love will not grow old."

Merciless Beauty has a structure like a chain with repeating verses. The narrator describes that he fell in love on the first sight "your eyes slay me suddenly" and that the woman stole his heart which will wound unless "your word will heal" it. He depicts the lady as "such great beauty that no man may attain."

Morality poems are another side of Chaucer. Truth teaches that one should "flee from the crowd" since "hoarding brings hatred, envy and wealth blinds." Men should receive everything humbly, thank God for all and only then "truth shall deliver you, have no fear." The second part dedicated this moral lesson to a particular person you is advised to "cease your old wretchedness."

The poem Lack of Steadfastness is very similar, it complains that because of last of steadfastness, everything "turned upside down, virtue has now no domination, pity is exiled, no man is merciful." This moral lesson is dedicated to King Richard II whom the narrator begs to "cherish your folk and hate extortion."

In Nobleness, the narrator prompts those who desire nobility to follow footsteps of God, "the father of nobleness" and to do it by "loving virtue and all vice must flee."

The Canterbury Tales (written 1387-1392) are considered to be one of the best collections of English literature for its brilliant structure and characterization. All stories are connected because they are told by pilgrims on way to Canterbury and each pilgrim tells a story to pass time on way there and back and the winner of the best story would be given a feast. However, the collection is but a fragment, we do not hear all stories. The plan was to tell about 120 tales but Chaucer managed only 22. They are mostly in verse, some in prose.

Chaucer used simple language of common people, low style, insults but, at the same time, it reveals genius of his writing. He displays strong sense of human individuality, a renaissance aspect unknown to the Old English and Middle English cultures which focused on the community. The General Prologue is an introduction which gives a short account of each pilgrim in the group (a knight, nun, friar, poor parson, lawyer, clerk, merchant, miller, ploughman, a good wife of Bath...), serving as a summary of the whole English society. The stories narrated by the pilgrims seem to fit their individual characters and social standing. The order the pilgrims are introduced places them in a social order, describing the nobility in front, the craftsmen in the middle, and the peasants at the end.

Pilgrimage as a religious journey was very popular back then when it was almost the only recreation and the only chance for low class to meet the high class. In the Canterbury Tales, people of different social classes travel together to Canterbury Cathedral of the murdered Thomas Becket. He was Archbishop of Canterbury in the 12th century, engaged in a conflict with the king over the rights and privileges of the Church and was assassinated by followers of the king in Canterbury Cathedral. Later on he became a martyr and it became popular among people in 14^th century to pay respect to their favourite saint.

The stories are not named according to protagonists of the story but upon the one who tells the story, therefore, The Miller´s Tale is not about some Miller – it is told by Miller, a drunken humorous man who almost falls from his horse and others even did not want to hear his story but he tells it anyway – he represents the fabliaux of the low class. Courtly love of upper-class characters is presented in The Knight's Tale, fable with animals representing vices and virtues of human beings is shown in The Nun Priest's Tale, fairy tale featuring fairies or other supernatural beings in The Woman of Bath's Tale, religion sermon genre presents The Pardoner's Tale. Usually a following story is a reaction to the previous one so for example The Knight’s Tale is followed by The Miller’s.