Unit 3 The Period of Middle English

(1066—1485)

l       Key Words: Medieval Period, Ballads, Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales

l       Target: This unit introduces the literary history between Roman Conquest and the end of the Wars of Roses and the literary contribution: The Canterbury Tales.

l       Study Points:

1.       Historical Background;

2.       Romance and Ballads;

3.       Geoffrey Chaucer;

4.       The Canterbury Tales

5.       Appreciation. 

I. Historical Background

1.     Norman Conquest—marks the establishment of feudalism in England

Time: 1066 A. D. William the Conqueror (Hasting Battle: Harold)

Influence: ① the bringing of Roman civilization to England;

② the growth of nationality i.e. a strong centralized government (The high feudal society [distinction between two classes: landlords and peasants])

③ Language: By the end of the 14th C, when Normans and English intermingled, English was once more the dominant speech in the country. But it became something different from the old Anglo-Saxon.

2.     The Rising of 1381

Ø       English peasants lived a misery life. A disease called Black Death swept over the country (1348—49), and 1/3 of the population perished of the terrible plague.

Ø       Hundred years war between England and France (1337—1453); peasant heavily taxed;

Ø       Rising of 1381 led by Wat Tyler and John Ball.

3.     The Founding of the Tudor Dynasty (都铎王朝)

① Civil War: the Wars of the Roses (1455—1485) between the House of Lancaster and the House of York;

② The King of England assumed great power than before. Henry VII (1485—1509), taking advantage of this situation, founded the Tudor Dynasty. (1485—1603). 

II. Literature 

1.     Introduction

Ø       The literature which the Normans brought to England is remarkable for its bright, romantic tales of love and adventure, in marked contrast with the strength and somberness of Anglo-Saxon poetry. (English literature is a combination of French and Saxon elements.)

Ø       The Subject Matters in this Period:

① the matter of France;

② Matter of Greece and Rome (fabulous tales about Alexander, fall of Troy, etc.);

③ Matter of Britain tales (Arthur and his knights of the Round Table)

2.     Romance and Ballads

① Chivalry: the spirit of knights

The romances were composed for the noble, of the noble, and in most cases by the poets patronized by the noble.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (hero Arthur)

② Ballads

A ballad is a story told in song, usually in 4-line stanzas, with the second and fourth lines rhymed. They are mainly the literature of the peasants and reflex the outlook of the English common people in feudal society.

Robin Hood Ballads: royal complex

Robin Hood is an outlaw, but he only robbed the rich and never molested the poor and needy. His particular enemies are the upper ranks of nobility, but he is king’s friend which reflexes his royal complex. Even though, John Milton, the most revolutionary writers in English history, he seldom criticize the royal family in his works.

3.     Geoffrey Chaucer (?1340—1400)

l         Life

Ø       Geoffrey Chaucer, the founder of English poetry, was born, about 1340, in London. (Son of a wine merchant who had connections with the Court.)

Ø       He served as page to Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster.

Ø       He went to France in 1359 on one of the campaigns of the Hundred Years’ War, and was taken prisoner. On his return, he married Philippa, a maid of honor to the queen and relative of John Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster.

Ø       Several times he was sent to the Continent on diplomatic missions, two of which took him to Italy. (King Edward III)

Ø       In 1373 , he received the post of a Comptroller of Customs in the port of London.

Ø       He was M.P. for Kent in 1386.

Ø       He died on the 25th of October 1400 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, thus founding the “Poets’ Corner.”

l       Works

He was a great humanist and realist. (“incomparable observer of human nature and teller of tales.”) His works include:

        1)  works translated from French;

        2)  works adopted from the Italian;

        3)  purely English works

Some people say that Geoffrey Chaucer is a mixture of old and new.

        He adopted an attitude of opposition against Catholicism and attacked the corruption of the contemporary church government in his poetry.

Ø       The House of Fame (《声誉之堂》)

Ø       Troilus and Criseyde (《特罗勒斯与克丽西德》)—romance

Troilus and Criseyde (C. 1383)is Chaucer’s longest complete poem (about 8,000 lines) and his greatest artistic achievement. The story is taken from a poem by Boccaccio. It tells of the love of Troilus, a son of the king of Troy, for Criseyde, a beautiful widowed daughter of Calchas, a priest who, foreknowing the fall of Troy, had fled to the Greeks but left his daughter in Troy. Criseyde returns the love of Troilus and her uncle Pandarus acts as go-between. For three years the two young people are united in mutual love. Then in an exchange of prisoners Criseyde must go to her father in the Greek Camp. She leaves, swearing fidelity to Troilus and promising to return in ten days. But she never returns. A handsome Greek warrior, Diomede, has caused her to change her mind, and she gives her love to him. Troilus, left in despair, is at last killed in the war.

Ø       The Canterbury Tales (1387—1400) （《坎特伯雷故事集》）

The Canterbury Tales was the first stories in English literature. These stories were written in poetry rather in prose like modern short stories.

It contains 24 stories (The Prologue). According to their scheme, there should be (32-1)*4=124 stories.

1）Significance: ① faithful reflection of the life of common people in English Feudal society.

② from the point of view of rising Bourgeois;

③ humanism (i.e. emphasis of men and opposite to Christianity)

In The wife of Bath, he described a sketch of woman who succeeds in controlling her husbands. In this way, he emphasizes the women’s position in society (humanism).

2）Artistic feature: He introduces from French the rhymed stanza of various types, esp. the rhymed couplet of 5 accents in iambic meter (the “hero couplet”)

He is the first great poet who wrote in the English language (now called Middle English). His production of so much excellent poetry was an important factor in establishing English as the literary language of the country. And Chaucer did much in making the dialect of London the standard for the modern English speech.

l       Foot and Meters

Ø       In English poetry, the norm of unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable is called Foot. It has four kinds:

① iamb (抑扬格)  —  /  iambic;

② trochee (扬抑格)  / —  trochaic;

③ anapaest (抑抑扬格)  —  —  /  anapaestic;

④ dactyl (扬抑抑格)  /  —  — dactylic

Ø       A foot makes a meter. It can be either a rising (iambic and anapaestic)or falling (trochaic and dactylic) meter. In a poetic line, the number of meters varies from one to eight, i.e, monometer, dimeter, trimester, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, heptameter and octameter. In the form of hero couplet or sonnet, the iambic pentameter is used. 

III. Homework

Ø       Recall what we have learned today;

Ø       Read Selected Readings of General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales;

Ø       Preview the Elizabethan Age.

l      Reference Books:

1.    Baugh, Albert C., Thomas Cable: A History of the English Language, London: Routledge, 1993

2.    Freeborn, Dennis: From Old English to Standard English, London: Macrmillan Publishers Ltd, United Kingdom, 1998

3.    Liu Bingshan: A Short History of English Literature, Zhenzhou: Henan People’s Publishing House,2000

4.    Wu Weiren: History and Anthology of English Literature, Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1998

5.    王佐良， 丁往道：《英语文体学引论》，北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2001

||  Learning Zone || Last || Next || Literature || Literature Forum ||