SUMMARY.

Romances

The Normans, conquered England in the Battle of Hastings. Henry II acquired vast provinces in southern France through his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, the divorced wife of Louis VII of France.
Four languages co-existed in the realm of Anglo-Norman England: Latin remained the "international" language of learning, theology, science, and history; the Norman aristocracy spoke French, but intermarriage with native English nobility and everyday exchange between masters and servants encouraged bilingualism; Celtic languages were spoken in Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany.
Many literary texts written in Anglo-Norman England were adapted from French and Celtic sources. Romance, designating stories about love and adventure, was the principle narrative genre for late medieval readers.
The influence of French literature also affected the poetich form and by the year 1200, both poetry and prose were being written for sophisticated and well-educated readers whose primary language was English.

The Arthurian Legends

The book "Historia Regum Britanniae" by Geoffrey of Monmouth had an enormous influence on English and French literature, because it provided the subject matter of many French and english romances.

It describes the heroic life and the deeds of King Arthur and his knights and it is mention even the famous "round table" made by the magician Merlin.
This story inspired Brut by Layamon so he wrote the first national English epic poem which traces the story of Britain from its foundation, afer the fall of Troy, up to King Arthur' reign.

Middle English

The term "Middle English" refers to the English language spoken from 1150 to 1500; compared with Old English, it had a wider vocaboulary but a simpler structure. There were several varieties of English, but since the "Middle Englsh" was spoken in different important areas of England (London, Oxford, Cambridge) and in different situation (education, law, government and trade) it established its supremacy.
In addict it was the dialect used firstly by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Chaucer travelled a lot as a diplomat, spent most of his life as a civil servant in the courts and was also a writing poetry.
His decision to write in English was really revolutionary and his works reflect continental influneces in particular from Petrarch's and Boccaccio's works.

His most famous play is "The Canterbury Tales"

It is a not completed work about a group of 29 pilgrims setting off on a pilgrimage to Canterbury that are the tellers of the tales in the collection. There are 24 tales actually, included in the book as it stands.
It is mainly written in verse, even if there are parts in prose, and the predominant form is the the rhyming couplet.

The story-tellers represent various classes of English society of the later Middle Ages; each one has an own economic, social and moral dimension.
The tales often have the aim to illustrate better aspects of the story-tellers' personalities.
The work is a masterpiece of vivid and realistic description, of skilful narration and humor, that is why he is condidered the first humanist in English literature and the first realist in portraying personal and social relations; he is also referred as "the father of English poetry" because of the several metrical innovations he introduced.

Ballads

When poetry was no longer anonymous, this anonymiti continued only for those poetic works which originated among the common people ore derived from oral tradition.
Ballads were among the most popular forms of poetry of the period. They were anonymous songs committed to memory and handed down orally from generation to the next.

This poem had a simple sotryline usaually developed in regular four-line stanzas rhyming abcb; the origins of this poetic form are mystery. Someone suggested that many were inventend by wandering poets; others that they were the product of a shole local community.

DRAMA

Drama was firstly used to give illiterate peasants a religious education in teh mysteries of faith and the bible, to involve the congregation in choral celebreation and to celebrate the festivals of Christmas Easter.

Religious performances moved out of the church when a new religious festival was introduced. In time everything developed into a new form of drama which took place outside the churches.

The Mystery plays were single episodes strung together in a Mystery Cycle. The subjerct were biblical stories, or events from the life of Christ. They were written in English (spoken by local people). The setting was the Yorkshire or some other English country.
Each play was performed on a movable stage wagon called "pageant" in the central square or next to the town hall; its pageant had its own audience.

The manuscripts of various versions of the complete Mystery Cycle have been preserved.

Other forms of popular drama were the Morality Plays.
They were also anonymous and at first they were played by professional companies on a platform built in an open space, but later they moved into the banquet halls of noblemen or into the comon room of universities.
Theese plays usually told an allegorical tale.

"Everyman" is the finest Morality play which has come down to us. The title of the play is given by the name of it hero who is a character representing mankind. The story offers a moral lesson for the salvation of man's soul; but its characters express themselves with such vivid individuality that people forget their allegorical significance.

Medieval drama was important in the development of the genre because it added a human element to the themes of the Mysteries and created characters corresponding to English social types.