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UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
September 2012 Examinations
Medieval to Renaissance English Literature
Time allowed:
3 hours, 15 minutes reading time during which notes may be
made on the question paper but NO ANSWER MAY BE
BEGUN.
Answer questions 1-4.
Read carefully the instructions on the answer pbook and make sure that the particulars
required are entered on each answer book used.
Do not substantially repeat material between questions on the exam.
1. Translate the following passage into Modern English Prose. (12 marks)
(approx. 20 mins)
‘Wolde ye, worthily lord,’quoth Wawyn to the kyng,
‘Bid me bowe fro this bench and stonde by yow there
That I withoute vilany myght voyde this table,
And that my lege lady liked not ille,
I wolde com to your counsel before your court rich.
For me think hit not semly, as hit is soth knowen,
There such an askyng is hevened so high in your sale,
Thagh ye yourself be talenttyf, to take hit to yourselven,
While mony so bold yow aboute upon bench sitten,
That under heven I hope none hawerer of wille,
Ne better bodyes on bent there baret is rered.
I am the wakkest, I wot, and of wyt feblest,
And lest lur of my lif, who laytes the soth.’
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
hevened: raised
talenttyf: desirous
hawerer: more ready
baret: strife
lur: loss, sorrow
laytes: seeks to know
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2. Write a critical commentary on ONE of the following passages. (24 marks)
(approx. 40 mins)
a) Than spak he thus, ‘O lady myn, Criseyde,
Where is youre feith, and where is youre biheste?
Where is youre love? Where is youre trouthe?’ he seyde.
‘Of Diomede have ye now al this feeste!
Allas, I wolde han trowed atte leeste
That syn ye nolde in trouthe to me stonde,
That ye thus nolde han holden me in honde!
‘Who shal now trowe on any othes mo?
Allas, I nevere wolde han wend, er this,
That ye, Criseyde, koude han chaunged so;
Ne, but I hadde agilt and don amys,
So cruel wende I nought youre herte, ywis,
To sle me thus! Allas, youre name of trouthe
Is now fordon, and that is al my routhe.
‘Was ther non other broch yow liste lete
To feffe with your newe love,’ quod he,
‘But thilke broch that I, with teris wete,
Yow yaf as for a remembraunce of me?
Non other cause, allas, ne hadde ye
But for despit, and ek for that ye mente
Al outrely to shewen youre entente.
‘Thorugh which I se that clene out of youre mynde
Ye han me cast – and I ne kan nor may,
For al this world, withinne myn herte fynde
To unloven yow a quarter of a day!
In corsed tyme I born was, weilaway,
That yow, that doon me al this wo endure,
Yet love I best of any creature!’
Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, Book 5.
holden in honde: encourage with false promises
othes: oaths
To feffe with: with which to endow, enfeoff
outrely: completely, utterly
b) The love which is imprinted in my soul
With beauty’s seal, and virtue fair disguised,
With inward cries puts up a bitter roll
Of huge complaints that now it is despised.
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Thus, thus, the more I love, the wrong the more
Monstrous appears, long truth received late,
Wrong stirs remorsed grief, grief’s deadly sore
Unkindness breeds, unkindness fost’reth hate.
But ah! The more I hate, the more I think
Whom I do hate, the more I think on him,
The more his matchless gifts do deeply sink
Into my breast and loves renewed swim.
What medicine, then, can such disease remove
Where love draws hate, and hate engendreth love?
Sir Philip Sidney, The Old Arcadia
c) This letter I have seen, of her [Elinor’s] own handwriting, and as therein the
reader may find great difference of style from her former letter, so you may
now understand the cause. She had in the same house a friend, a servant, a
secretary – what should I name him? Such one as she esteemed in time past
more than was cause in time present, and to make my tale good I will, by
report of my very good friend F.J., describe him unto you. He was in height
the proportion of two pigmies, in breadth the thickness of two bacon hogs, of
presumption a giant, of power a gnat, apishly witted, knavishly mannered, and
crabbedly favoured. What was there in him then to draw a fair lady’s liking?
Marry sir, even all in all a well-lined purse wherewith he could at every call
provide such pretty conceits as pleased her peevish fantasy, and by that means
he had thoroughly, long before, insinuated himself with this amorous dame.
This manling, this minion, this slave, this secretary, was now by
occasion ridden to London forsooth, and though his absence were unto her a
disfurnishing of eloquence, it was yet unto F.J. an opportunity of good
advantage, for when he perceived the change in her style, and thereby grew in
some suspicion that the same proceeded by absence of her chief chancellor, he
thought good now to smite while the iron was hot, and to lend his mistress
such a pen in her secretary’s absence as he should never be able at his return to
amend the well-writing thereof. Wherefore, according to her command, he
repaired once every day to her chamber, at the least, whereas he guided
himself so well, and could devise such store of sundry pleasures and pastimes,
that he grew in favour not only with his desired but also with the rest of the
gentlewomen.
Gascoigne, The Adventures of Master F.J.
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d) The piteous maiden carefull comfortlesse,
Does throw out thrilling shriekes, and shrieking cryes,
The last vaine helpe of womens great distresse,
And with loud plaints importuneth the skyes,
That molten starres do drop like weeping eyes;
And Phoebus flying so most shamefull sight,
His blushing face in foggy cloud implyes,
And hides for shame. What wit of mortall wight
Can now devise to quit a thrall from such a plight?
Eternall providence exceeding thought,
Where none appeares can make her selfe a way:
A wondrous way it for this Lady wrought,
From Lyons clawes to pluck the gripèd pray.
Her shrill outcryes and shriekes so loud did bray,
That all the woodes and forestes did resownd;
A troupe of Faunes and Satyres far away
Within the wood were dauncing in a rownd,
Whiles old Sylvanus slept in shady arber sownd.
Who when they heard that pitteous strainèd voice,
In hast forsooke their rurall meriment,
And ran towards the far rebownded noyce,
To weet, what wight so loudly did lament.
Unto the place they come incontinent:
Whom when the raging Sarazin espide,
A rude, misshapen, monstrous rablement,
Whose like he never saw, he durst not bide,
But got his ready steed, and fast away gan ride.
Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book 1, Canto 6
implyes: buries
quit a thrall: release a captive
gripèd: grasped
Sylvanus: Roman god of the woods
incontinent: immediately
3. Write an essay in answer to ONE of the following questions (32 marks) (1 hr)
a) Assess the relationship between magic and Christianity in Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight.
b) Explore the significance of descriptions of costume and clothing in Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight.
c) What does Chaucer wish to tell us about courtly love in Troilus and Criseyde?
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d) Explore the narrative patterns and symmetries of Chaucer’s Troilus and
Criseyde. What extra dimensions do they bring to the poem?
4. Write an essay in answer to ONE of the following questions (32 marks) (1 hr)
a) How seriously should we take Thomas More’s Utopia?
b) In what ways do Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey transform
Petrarch’s Canzoniere (sonnet sequence)?
c) Explore the representation of mutability and immortality in Shakespeare’s
Sonnets.
d) Discuss the relationship between fictionality and authenticity in Sidney’s
Astrophil and Stella.
e) Compare the experiences of Redcrosse and the reader as dual recipients of
religious education in Book One of Spenser’s Faerie Queene.
f) How well does rhetoric work in Marlowe’s Hero and Leander and Shakespeare’s
Venus and Adonis?
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