Medieval Period
Literary Styles
General Purposes
• Narrative
– to tell a story
• Didactic
– to teach a lesson
Literary Styles
• Poetry
– Ballads
• Religious works
• Medieval romance
– Arthurian romance
• Drama
– Religious in nature (mystery, miracle, morality)
Ballad
• First appeared during 12th century
• Passed on through oral tradition for centuries
• English and Scottish folk ballads
– Originated in the wild border country between
England and Scotland
• Areas where a formal written literature had yet to
develop
• Areas where people’s lives did not permit books and
reading
– Sung in Scottish dialect
– Songs of the people
Ballad
• Presents a single dramatic episode/event
• Told through action and dialogue
• Little characterization, description, or
motivation
• Contains a refrain: repeated line or stanza
• Meant to be sung
Ballad
• Closed form poem: a poem with specifically
prescribed elements (such as rhyme, meter, stanza
division, etc.)
• Narrative
• Consists of four-lined stanzas (quatrains),
usually rhyming abcb or abab
• Rhythm:
– Lines 1 & 3: iambic tetrameter
– Lines 2 & 4: iambic trimeter
Drama
•
•
•
•
Origins
Beginnings in church
Teaching the illiterate
Easter Sunday Mass
– Dialogue of the two Marys at the tomb of Jesus
• Moved outside
• Pageant wagon
Drama
• Why drama in church?
– To get control of unknown
– To present role models
• Types of Plays
– Mystery—about the stories in the Bible
– Miracle—about the lives of the Catholic saints
– Morality—about the way one should live in
order to please God and the consequences of sin