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MEDIEVAL LITERATURE, 13th/ 14th/ 15th centuries - Coggle Diagram

- - - - 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
  - - - purpose: improve people's moral behaviour, to teach principles and values
    - - characters personified abstract concepts
    - - 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.
        
        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
      - ca 1500
      - 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
        
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        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)
- - - - 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
        
        1st narrative account in GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH'S HISTORIA REGUM BRITANNIAE
        
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        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
        
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- - - - 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
    - - that explains why there is not a definite text, but always several versions
  - - - ballads of magic and supernatural events fairies, witches, ghosts
        
        ballads of crime
        
        ballads of love and domestic tragedy
        
        religious ballads
        
        historical and legendary ballads
        
        outlaw ballads celebrate lives and actions of criminals
        
        ROBIN HOOD
        
        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
        
        murder ballads the murderer is generally punished for his crime
  - - - 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)
        
        1 more item...
- - - - 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
        
        not reliable historically
        
        first narrative account of King Arthur's life
      - Written in Latin and based on previous Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum
  - - - 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
  - - - 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
- - - - 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