The Middle Ages

During the Middle Ages all the forms of art were highly influences by religion. Everybody has as a final aim the on to gain salvation.

The literary forms developed during this period were the ballads and the poems and the most important author of the period was Geoffrey Chaucer.

Both poems and ballads were originally oral forms of poetry, so Medieval literature was mainly oral and has been handed over orally until the 18th century. Literary products had to be easy to remember to be better and more efficiently handed over. For this reason, the authors resorted to many sound devices. For example they used repetition, incremental repetition, alliterative lines, assonances and consonances. Farther tried to give to their composition a strong rhythm. All these poetical features can be notice in the transcribed texts, too.

The main topics of ballads and poems in the Middle Ages were religious and popular. Religion, as said before, had a very important role in Medieval society, and popular topics were also incentives to learn: people were mainly illiterate so they could learn things, listen to facts of war and hand over their knowledge through ballads and poems.