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Middle English literature - Coggle Diagram
Middle English literature
secular literature
chivalry romances
written by minstrels in French, who were in the service of kings or wandered about country reciting their works from memory
-legends of Charlemagne
-legends of ancient Greece and Rome
-King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
ideal of country love — the knights and the heroes persuaded adventorouse deeds for the sake of a lady, to archieve honour and purity of heart, not for the sake of glory, conquest of fidelity to a tribal king
Middle English
Norman invasion of Britain in 1066 was crucial
Norman French became the official language of England in governmental, administrative and legal matters
Old English gradually transformed itself into Middle English, but only in 1326 ENglish was used for the first time in Parliament
1399 King Henry IV re-established English official language of the courts and Parliament
Nonetheless, English had not prestige
14th Geoffrey Chaucer gained status of English to a literary language
weakening of the inflexional system as well as the introduction of French loan-words
five main dialect areas: Northern, East Midland, West Midland, South-Eastern and South Western
King Richard II English slowly began to re-emerge after two centuries of French domination
there wasn't a standard literary English, in fact writers wrote in different dialects
Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in the East Midland dialect spoken in the London areas
gradually a standard english developed based on the east Midland dialect, due partly to the growing importance of London and partly to the fact that it was the simplest dialect in terms of grammar and syntax
rapid expansion of its vocabulary: some words came from latin other from French (ask-OE
question-F
interrogate-L)