MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

MEDIEVAL DRAMA

MEDIEVAL VERSE ROMANCE

MEDIEVAL BALLAD

MEDIEVAL PROSE WRITING

origins of English drama are to be found in the religious celebrations of Christian festivals.

episodes of Old and New Testament represented in the form of dialogues sung between a priest and a choir. At first in thenave of the church, then into the churchyard.

As the performances moved outside the church:

  • Latin replaced by English
  • Longer scripts + homely and comic characters and situations
  • scenic effects
  • people took the place of priests and monks

1210 Pope had prohibited the clergy to act in public

Mystery Plays

Miracle Plays

Morality Plays

Biblical stories

lives of the Saints

13th/ 14th/ 15th centuries

both performed on pageants
movable stage wagons

staged by trade guilds
each acting a pageant which represented a fraction of the whole story, people used to move from one pageant to another

performed during Feast of Corpus Christi

performed by amateur actors

focused on struggle between good and evil

invented plots didactic in content, allegorical in form

purpose: improve people's moral behaviour, to teach principles and values

characters = personifications of human vices and virtues

Performed by actors grouped under associations

EVERYMAN greatest morality play

story revolves around the title character who is informed by death that he must die. All his friends with allegorical names accompany him but progressively deserts him. in the end only Good Deeds remains. Everyman dies but his soul is saved.

ca 1500

characters personified abstract concepts

moral purpose: earthly things aren't useful to man at his death, except for good deeds made in life which can save him from perdition and guarantee heavenly afterlife

Oral narrative poem intended for common people, originally accompanied by music and dances

Most of them composed between
the 13th and the 16th centuries

decline with the introduction of printing

ANONYMOUS it's not certain if their authorship has to be attributed to individual poets or whole communities

composed by MINISTRELS

use of STOCK IMAGES

TRANSMITTED ORALLY from generation to generation

that explains why there is not a definite text, but always several versions

Classification

  • border ballads about rivalry between English and Scottish people
  • ballads of magic and supernatural events fairies, witches, ghosts
  • ballads of crime
  • ballads of love and domestic tragedy

outlaw ballads celebrate lives and actions of criminals

murder ballads the murderer is generally punished for his crime

  • religious ballads
  • historical and legendary ballads

ROBIN HOOD

Features

  • short and focus on a single episode / situation
  • structure in the form of questions and answers
  • alternation between dialogue and narration
  • open abruptly
  • little or no attention to the description of the setting and to the evolution of characters
  • simple language
  • usually divided into four-line stanzas rhyming ABCB or couplets with an alternating repetition of one or more lines (refrain)
  • impersonal the narrator /singer rarely interferes

ALLEGORY

a story, poem, picture.... in which the characters and events have meaning in themselves but also convey a second spiritual or philosophical meaning

Typical characteristics

  • presence of two levels of meaning
  • personification of abstract concepts virtues, vices, states of mind..
  • representation of historical personages and events
  • presentation of moral or philosophical issues
  • introduction of humorous elements

Ex Everyman on one level is simply a man facing death who has to account for how he has lived his life

On a second level, more philosophical, Everymen stands for all the men, and the problems he faces are those of mankind in general (mankind struggling with moral issues)

from the Latin word ballare = to dance

RH is a legendary English outlaw. He and his men lived in a forest, SherwoodnForest near Nottingham, where they attacked and robbed rich travellers. They became folk heroes because they did not injure their victims and never robbed from the poor. The legend of Robin Hood is not based on historical facts, although there is evidence that in 1230 law enforcers in Yorkshire tried to capture an outlaw called Robin Hood

ready-made images for example snow-white skin, bold knights, merry maidens

they were easy to memorise and gave the singer time to manipulate the story of the ballad

Familiar to the listener and easy to understand, original or complex imagery were instead difficult to interpret in the oral tradition

popular form of literature,
typical expression of chivalry : eroic adventures of courtly knights

classification

Metrical value:
establishment of a new prosody, modelled on French Medieval poetry

  • matter of France dealing with Charlemagne and his knights
  • matter of ancient Rome tales of classical times, also on Alexander and Troy
  • MATTER OF BRITAIN about Britain and its legendary kings

ARTHURIAN ROMANCES

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

Performed by ministrels

1st narrative account in GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH'S HISTORIA REGUM BRITANNIAE

Paraphrased in French and into English by Layamon as Brut

13-14th centuries all the knights made their appearance and Arthur progressively changed from a typical heroic warrior into a devotee of courtly love and later into a Christian hero (in search for the Holy Grail)

ca.1380 SIR GUWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT

Plot story of a mysterious Green Knight who appears at King Arthur's court and challenges any Knight to give him a blow with his axe and to be given one in return after a year. Sir Guwain, Arthur's nephew, accepts and beheads the Green Knight who retrieves his head and goes away but reminds him of the pledge. Later, searching the chapel where the Knight dwells, Guwain reaches a castle whose lord secretly tests his moral strength. G accepts to be kissed by the lord's wife, who gives him a magical green belt. In the end Guwain discovers that the Green Knight and the lord are the same person, scolding him for his moral weakness and explaining that he was sent by Morgana to test his pride and fame and those of other knights

WILLIAM LANGLAND
(1332-1386)

JOHN GOWER (1330-1408)

Features complex plot and rich language but most of all POWERFUL SYMBOLISM which has its roots in Celtic and Germanic folklore. Ex: the Green Knight interpreted as the Green Man of a Celtic legend

educated at the monastery in Great Malvern, Worcestershire, moved to London singing masses and copying legal documents.

PIERS PLOWMAN

allegorical poem in alliterative verse made up of visions or dreams

plot and structure divided into 2 parts. In the 1st the poet falls asleep under a tree near a stream and has a first vision. He sees a wonderful tower and a horrible dungeon. A plain lies between them, full of people from the poet's world come una sorta di Purgatorio. Later a lady appears in a new vision and tells the dreamer that the tower is the home of Christian Truth, while the dungeon is the Castle of Sorrow where wrong and falsehood live. The lady tells that she is the Holy Church, he falls on his knees and asks her to teach him how to love God and save his soul. The 2nd part includes several visions and is an answer to the poet's questions

features and interpretation it juxtaposes vision and actuality. Visions = history of Christianity. The poem offers a picture of Medieval England political and social situation: references to contemporary kings, Black Death, Hundred Years' War and Paesants revolt. Langland also attacks the corruption of the Church and the clergy.
influence of French works, revives Old English alliterative verse, allegory

One of major court poets of the 14 th century

personal friend of Chaucer who called him Moral Gower

Miroir de l'Omme

allegorical poem in French meditating on the fall of man and the effect of sin on the world

Confessio Amantis

narrative poems written in English. Prologue he introduces a lover overcome by lust for selfish pleasures and his confession to Genius, priest of Venus, who leads him through the seven deadly sins. At first it was requested by Richard II but then dedicated to Henry V when Richard was deposed by Parliament

GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH (1100-1155)

Historia Raegum Britanniae

Archdeacon of Welsh descent

Britain's history from its first settlements by Brutus (Britain's mythical founder, descendant of Aeneas) to the death of Welsh King Cadwallader 7th century

Written in Latin and based on previous Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum

not reliable historically

first narrative account of King Arthur's life

John Wycliffe (Lollardy)

treaties in Latin with politico-ecclesiastical ideas

  • church should not have any concern with temporal matters and clergy shouldn't have any properties
  • superiority and sufficience of the Bible
  • attacks on the papal authority

FIRST TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE INTO ENGLISH

Mystical Writers: Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich and Mergery Kemp

THOMAS MALORY

Le Morte d'Arthur
Cycle of Arthurian tales

published by CAXTON IN 1485

rise and fall of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. Material selected from French and other English Arthurian Romances and re-elaborated with great mastery

  • emphasis to the brotherhood of the knights and conflicts of loyalty provoked by the adultery of Lancelot and Guinevere that eventually destroy the fellowship
  • use of impressive language matching the nobility of both the characters and the theme discussed

later replaced by Interludes, shorter and more realistic theatrical pieces