02-04-2012 / 04-04-2012
ORAL TESTS.

Epic Potetry.
1) What do we mean?
Epic poetry is a poetry that deals with great deeds of a hero, which is the mouth-speak of a civilization.

2)"Beowulf" is the expression of the Anglo-saxons' society. He express the quality of solidarity, bravery and other values.
The values of Anglosanons' society are loyality, genrosity and honour (when you keep to the word you say).

Romance.
Romance is a kind of poetry that comes from France.
They were written after the 11^th Century, after the Normann Conquest, which is a conquest made by the Normans. They were a population lived in the north-west of France.
Romance deals with knights.

The Arthurian Legends.
"The Arthurian Legends" is a cycle of legends.
When we speak about legends we refer to a corps of stories that are most fantastic and not true and that deals with legendary characters.
"The Arthurian Legends" is the most important legend cycle. It takes its name from the main character King Arthur, the king of Brittany, a place which mixes Britain adn France.
King Arthur belongs to aristocracy in which kings and knights rapresent its values: honour, loyalty and be ready to fight for the king and high ideas.
Whenever a knight demonstrates his values he do it in the honour of a lady.
A lady was a woman supposed to be cultured. The lady was the reason the knight has to demonstres his values, it was a corner of transformation and improvement, both spiritual and mental.

The most important part of the cycle is the search of the Holy Grale.

Merlin was a magician. He makes spells. He is endowed on peculiar powers not tipical to common men.
He was kept responsable for creating the Round Table, the centre of the power.
The Round Table was the image of a society composed by people ready to fight for their ideals.


Stories --> si avvicinano molto alla realtà
The Roman --> Romanzo --> molto vicino alla realtà
The Romance --> Non c'è un riscontro con la realtà.
Romance --> legend; legendary sets; Function: entertain people giving a message to the reader.
To provide= fornire
"Brut"= opera molto importante
whose= possessivo riferito a persone
CONTESTO--> Spazio e tempo definito

During the Middle Ages women depended on men.
What kind of roules were there? Weadow, wife, maids.
Roule--> statues of a person--> requires a title ---> The women' roules were being a wife, a nun or a prostitute.

ROMANCE
Romance is a word different from Novel. In English people used the word "novel" to refer to a forme of prose writing that has a strict adhearance to reality; in a way or another it tells about facts, events or situtations that MAY happen in real life.
Romance goes to the other way round; the subjcet of romance are the deeds of knight. It envolves match-fighting, romantic love and many extraordinary and often supernatural events.

In short it includes most of what we now would define as ROMANTIC. It includes exotic places (no nella realtà in cui si vive) and fantastic journeys.

The great age of the Medieval Romance was the 12^th and early 13^th Centuries.

It was the expression of HIGHLY-CULTURATED aristocratic society of France (ex.: the sophisticated case of Chretienne).
The word "romance" means "written in a language derived from the language of the ancien Romans", that is LATIN, in this case the French in which romances were firstly composed.

CARACTERISTICS OF ROMANCE

The Romance of the Middle Ages is a portrail of a feudal-knighthood.

Exterior Aspects: they conserve clothing, fashion, etiquete, how to love correctly and how a true knight should be.

Ethically: The knight is bound in his absolute duty to God , his king and lady_: it is for them that the knight departs in search of the adventures, defending the weak against the evil. The feudal made described in romances turns around certain roules of shiverly and courtley love.

MEDIEVAL WOMEN

Women occupied a subordinated position and were defined as daughter, wife, widow, nun, or prostitute. Their power had a fixed life cycle: as maids it grew with the inheritance of a land, as wived it diminshed with marriage since their lands went to their husbands, as widow it increased again since they were at the head of their household. That means that they depended on men.

Public sphere--> men

Private/domestic sphere--> women

-2 opposed stereotypes of women:

1) Eve and her sexuality;
2) The Virgin Mary.

- Romances--> a chaste woman obedient to her lord.
- Fabliaux--> in women are embodyied all the negative qualities and women are accused of deceit, materialism, vanity, meanness.

Page 21 and page 22.

• Knight essentially soldiers (1066, William the Conqueror; Normann Conquest)

• Culture of KNIGHTHOOD, introduction of a feudal system.

• A knight was employed by a lord.

• The lord gives to knight the necessary to fight.
  The knight served the lord as a vassal.

• In order to become a knight:

  • Serve his master and do tasks (at age of 7)

  • Training for battle (at age of 14, they even become "squire"

  • Knighted ad 21 years old if from noble family; wait until afford and necessary equipment or impress the king.

• Cerimony of investiture:

1. First bathed--> in order to wash sins away.

2. Dressed with a white t-shirt, crimson robe and brown hose.

3. He was given a sword.

4. He was given a symbolic blow of the hand/sword on his shoulder/head.

• Knights' values:

  • courage

  • loyalty

  • heroism

COURTLY LOVE
The lady inspires feelings and undertakings is an angelic, idealized and perfect female image and the source of all the Christian values.