Although texts in prose (historical, philosophical and religious texts) were abundant in the Middle Ages, the dominant genres were poetry and drama. Old English literature clearly shows the influence of Angle, Saxon, Jute and Viking culture, and its verse celebrates Germanic and Scandinavian warrior traditions. Its rules of diction and versification are those of the Germanic  and Norse oral poets (also referred to as "bards" or "scops"). They recited tales and poems by heart to the accompaniment of the harp or lyre in the village hall of their community.The most famous manuscript of Old English pagan verse which has come down to us is Beowulf. It is the epic story of a warrior and his fights with three monsters, set in Scandinavia but composed (sometime between the 7^th and 10^th centuries) and written down (c. 1000-25) IN England, probably in a monastic scriptoria. After the successful Norman invasion of 1066, Britain changed from a bilingual (Latin and English) to a tri-lingual country - Latin remained the language of the church and instruction, French became the language of Court and the nobility, while English was the language of the common people.

The most important poet writing in English was Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer has become known as "the father of English literature", in particular for his unfinished masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales with its extraordinary portraits of Medieval characters, written in vibrant and gently ironic language. The Tales follows a group of 29 pilgrims setting off on a pilgrimage to Canterbury and who will be the tellers of the tales in the collection. This story-telling forms the general narrative framework which links the 24 tales included the book- there should have been many more, but the work was not completed. The Wife of Bath is a good example of one of Chaucer's most vibrant and believable characters. She is a Medieval feminist -emancipated, lustful and ambitious, a successful business woman of the emerging middle classes. She promotes the point of view that men should always be faithful to and submit their wives, giving examples from her own numerous husbands and in her tale about a knight and an old woman who transforms into a beautiful young wife.

Two forms of popular oral poetry also flourished in the Middle Ages-the ballad and verse drama. Ballads were narrative poems, mainly created in the Scottish borderlands and highlands, on various themes such as love, outlaws, historical and local events and the supernatural. Mystery plays or cycles were enacted by townsfolk in front of churches or on pageants during festivals and represented episodes from the Bible. Morality plays, which developed a little later, were played by travelling actors in inn-yards or halls and showed personifications of vices and virtues.