Romances
● After the Norman conquest, English literature did not produce anything until the year 1200.
● At that time French was the language of the Norman ruling class, Latin that of literate people and English that of illiterate common people.
● In the 13th century, the nobility favoured the French form of romance ( anonymous narrative poem, telling the adventures of noble knights, love stories and wonders).
● English romances flourished in great number.
● New elements in the structure: rhyme developed with the alliterative line, the number of syllables per line acquired more importance  complicated stanza forms.

The Arthurian Legends
● A book written in Latin about 1130 by Geoffrey of Monmouth: Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the King of Britain).
● Cycle of legends: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table  describes the heroic life and deeds of King Arthur and his knights who used to banquet at the round table (made by the magician Merlin).
● Chief: Sir Lancelot
● Purpose of them: search for the Holy Grail, the cup which received Christ's blood at the Cross.

Middle English
● 1350, French and English amalgamated.
● "Middle English": English language spoken from 1150 to 1500. It had a wider vocabulary but a simple structure.
● There were several varieties of English but the dialect spoken in London, Oxford and Cambrigde and in the South East established his supremacy  importance of these place (contres of education, trade, law and government).
● Dialect used by Goeffrey Chaucer, who set a literary model followed by other writers.

Goeffrey Chaucer
● He was a civil servant in the courts of Edward III and Richard II.
● He received a good education, he knew Latin and could speak French and Italian, and he travelled as a diplomatic.
● He was also writing poetry.
● His decision to write in English was a revolution.
● His works reflect influences from Petrarch's and Boccacci's works.

The Canterbury Tales
● Chaucer's main work, were begun in 1387.
● Composed of 24 tales, but the work was not completed.
● It is mainly written in verse, although there are parts in prose and the predominant form is the rhyming couplet.

Chaucer's Characters
● The Canterbury Tales represent various classes of English society of the later Middle Ages: the military, the clergy, the middle class, the trades.
● The tales are often a means to illustrate aspects of the personalities of the tellers more clearly.
● Most famous characters: Wife of Bath, an emancipated and successful business woman, representative of the middle class.

Chaucer's Humanism
● He is probably the first humanist in English literature and the first realist in portraying personal and social relations.
● The work is a masterpiece of vivid and realistic description, of skilful narration and humour.

Metrical Innovations
● He introduces several metrical innovations: classic English verse line.
● He imported from France the 10-syllable line, the pentameter, and used it with great freedom.
● He made the lines rhyme in pairs and used alliteration only occasionally.

Other poems
● English Dialect: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, an Arthurian Romance, and Piers Plowman, a religious allegory.
● Scottish poetry.
● Religious and love lyrics types of poetry.

Ballads
● Ballads were the most popular forms in the poetry of the period.
● They were anonymous songs committed to memory and handed down orally from one generation to next.
● From England and Scotland came the traditional folk ballads.
● This form had a simple storyline usually developed in regular four-line stanzas rhyming abcb.
● Subjects: everyday life, conflict between English and Scots, legends of Robin Hood.
● The origins of this poetic form are a mystery.

Origins of Medieval Drama
● It emerge from the rituals of the Church.
● It was used to give illiterate peasants a religious education in the mysteries of faith and the Bible.

Mystery Plays
● They took place outside the churches and consisted of a number of plays dealing with stories of the Old and new Testament.

The Subjects
● They were single episodes strung together in a Mystery Cycle.
● The subject are: biblical stories, events from the life of Christ.
● They were written in the English spoken by local people.
● The setting was Yorkshire or some other English country.

The Performance
● Each play was financed and performed by the trade or craft guilds of the town.
● Each play was performed on a movable stage wagon called "pageant" in the central square or next to the town hall.
● Performances went on from early morning until late evening.

The Manuscripts
● The manuscripts of various version of the complete Mystery Cycle have been preserved.
● They are called the York, Chester, Wakefield, Coventry and Lincoln cycles.
● Their authors were anonymous.

Morality Plays
● They were anonymous.
● They told an allegoric tale.
● Their characters were allegorical personifications of abstractions from theology or symbols of various aspects of the human condition.

Everyman
● The hero gives the name to the title of the play.
● The hero is a character representing mankind.
● The story offers a moral lessons for the salvation of man's soul.

The Importance of Medieval Drama
● It added a human element to the religious themes of the Mysteries and created characters corresponding to English social types.