Romances

-        Development in a society divided in three classes:

o   Normans > French

o   Literate people  > Latin

o   Illiterate people  > English

-        First in French then even in English

-        Content:

o   Heroic adventures

o   Love stories

-        Influence of French literature on poetic form (rhyme + alliteration, more importance of syllables)

 

The Arthurian Legends

-        Latin book (Historia Regum Britanniae, Geoffrey of Monmouth, 1130) started the Arthurian cycle

-        Adventures of King Arthur and the Knight of the Round Table

-        Romances both in English and French

 

Middle English

-        English spoken from 1150 to 1500

-        Mixture of Old English and French

-        Supremacy of the dialect spoken in the South East of England (London, Oxford, Cambridge)

 

Chaucer

-        Servant in the courts

-        Good education: he knew Latin, French and Italian (influences of Petrarch and Boccaccio)

-        The Canterbury Tales:

o   Collection of 24 tales with narrative framework (similar to Boccaccio's one)

o   Mainly in verses (even parts in prose)

o   Predominant form  > rhyming couplet

o   Characters:

§  Representing various classes (the military, the clergy, the middle class, the trades)

§  The tales often describe the personalities of the tellers

-        Emphasis on human beings, their life and world  > first English humanist

-        Metrical innovations (classic English verse line,10-syllable line, pentameter)

 

Drama

-        Origins of British drama from the rituals of the Church

-        Purpose: give illiterate people a religious education

-        Added a human element to the religious themes and character from English social types

-        Mystery plays:

o   At first played outside the Church, then in central square or next the town hall

o   Dealing with stories of the Bible (Mystery Cycle)

o   Written in English

o   Financed and performed by the trade or craft guilds

o   Performed on a movable stage wagon ("pageant")

o   Some manuscripts have been preserved

-        Morality Plays:

o   Travelling professional companies

o   Allegorical tales

o   Purpose: improve common people's religious and moral education

o   Most important play: Everyman