EN1210
University of Warwick
September Examaminations 2015
Medieval to Rennaissance English Literature
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3 hours, 15 minutes reading time.
First-year students should answer questions 1-4, in 3 hours.
Honours-level students, and whole-year visiting students taking the module at
Honours level, should answer questions 1 and 2, in 1 ½ hours.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. Translate the following passage into modern English prose. (12 marks)
(approx. 20 mins)
Then he carped to the knight, criande loude:
‘Ye han demed to do the dede that I bid.
Wil ye holde this hes here at this ones?’
‘Ye, sir, for sothe,’ sayd the segge true,
‘While I bide in your burgh be bayn to your hest.’
‘For ye have travayled,’ quoth the tulk, ‘towen fro fer,
And sithen waked me with, ye arn not wel waryst
Nauther of sostnaunce ne of slepe, sothly I knowe.
Ye schal leng in your loft and lye in your ese
Tomorn while the messewhyle, and to mete wende
When ye wil with my wyf, that with yow schal sitte
And comfort yow with compayny til I to court turne.
From Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
demed: agreed
hes: promise
bayn: obedient
towen: journeyed
waryst: recovered
while the messewhyle: until the time of Mass
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2. Write a critical commentary on ONE of the following passages. (24 marks)
(approx. 40 mins)
a) ‘For, John’, seyde he, ‘als evere moot I thryve,
If that I may, yon wenche wil I swyve.
Som esement has lawe yshapen us,
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Continued
For, John, ther is a lawe that says thus:
That gif a man in a point be agreved,
That in another he sal be releved.
Oure corn is stoln, sothly, it is na nay,
And we han had an il fit al this day;
And syn I sal have neen amendement
Agayn my los, I will have esement.
By Goddes sale, it sal neen other bee!’
This John answerde, ‘Alayn, avyse thee!
The millere is a perilous man,’ he seyde,
‘And gif that he out of his sleep abreyde,
He myghte doon us bathe a vileynye.’
Aleyn answerde, ‘I counte hym nat a flye.’
And up he rist, and by the wenche he crepte.
This wenche lay uprighte and faste slepte,
Til he so ny was, er she myghte espie,
That it had been to late for to crie,
And shortly for to seyn, they were aton.
from Chaucer, The Reeve’s Tale
swyve: have sex with
esement: compensation
neen: no, none (northern)
sale: soul (northern)
abreyde: awake
aton: at one, together
b) There are different forms of religion throughout the island, and even in
individual cities. Some worship as a god the sun, others the moon, and still
others one of the planets. There are some who worship a man of past ages
who was conspicuous either for virtue or glory; they consider him not only a
god but the supreme god. The vast majority, however, and these by far the
wisest, believe nothing of the sort: they believe in a single power, unknown,
eternal, infinite, inexplicable, beyond the grasp of the human mind, and
diffused throughout the universe, not physically, but in influence. Him they
call their parent, and to him alone they attribute the origin, increase,
progress, changes, and ends of all things; they do not offer divine honours
to any other.
.. [this] one supreme power, the maker and ruler of the universe .. they call
in their native language Mithra. Different people define him differently, and
each supposes the object of his worship is that one and only nature to
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whose divine majesty, by the consensus of all nations, the creation of all
things is attributed. But gradually they are coming to forsake this mixture of
superstitions, and to unite in that one religion which seems more
reasonable than any of the others...
Continued
But after they had heard from us the name of Christ, and learned of his
teachings, his life, his miracles, and the no less marvelous constancy of the
many martyrs whose blood, freely shed, has drawn many nations far and
near into the Christian fellowship, you would not believe how eagerly they
assented to it, either through the mysterious inspiration of God, or because
Christianity seemed very like the religion already prevailing among them.
But I think they were also much influenced by the fact that Christ approved
a communal way of life for his disciples, and that among the truest
communities of Christians the practice still prevails.
from Thomas More, Utopia, Bk II
c) Stella, the fullness of my thoughts of thee
Cannot be stayed within my panting breast,
But they do swell and struggle forth of me,
Till that in words thy figure be expressed.
And yet, as soon as they so formed me,
According to my lord love’s own behest,
With sad eyes I their weak proportion see,
To portrait that which in this world is best;
So that I cannot choose but write my mind,
And cannot choose but put out what I write,
While those poor babes their death in birth do find:
And now my pen these lines had dashed quite,
But that they stopped his fury from the same,
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Because their forefront bare sweet Stella’s name.
Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet 50
d) Suddein upriseth from her stately place
The royall Dame, and for her coche doth call:
All hurtlen forth and she with Princely pace,
As faire Aurora in her purple pall,
Out of the East the dawning day doth call:
So forth she comes: her brightnesse brode doth blaze;
The heapes of people thronging in the hall,
Do ride each other, upon her to gaze:
Her glorious glitterand light doth all mens eyes amaze.
So forth she comes, and to her coche does clyme,
Adornèd all with gold, and girlonds gay,
That seemd as fresh as Flora in her prime,
And strove to match, in royall rich array,
Great Junos golden chaire, the which they say
The Gods stand gazing on, when she does ride
Continued
To Joves high house through heavens bras-pavèd way
Drawne of faire Pecocks, that excell in pride,
And full of Argus eyes their tailes dispredden wide.
But this was drawne of six unequall beasts,
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On which her six sage Counsellours did ryde,
Taught to obay their bestiall beheasts,
With like conditions to their kinds applyde.
Of which the first, that all the rest did guyde,
Was sluggish Idlenesse the nourse of sin;
Upon a slouthfull Asse he chose to ryde,
Arayde in habit black, and amis thin,
Like to an holy Monck, the service to begin.
from Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Bk 1, canto 4
Aurora: goddess of dawn
brode: abroad
ride: climb upon
Flora: goddess of flowers
chaire: chariot
Argus eyes: Argus, a hundred-eyed monster
With like conditions to their kinds applyde: i.e., each bestial rider gave
commands to his beast appropriate to its particular nature
amis: hood worn by monk
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3. Write an essay in answer to ONE of the following questions. (32 marks) (1 hr)
Do NOT write an answer on a text on which you have already commented in
question 2.
a) How successfully does Sir Gawain and the Green Knight balance compelling
narrative with moral instruction?
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b) Explore the role of material objects (food, clothing, tapestries etc) in Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight.
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c) What attitudes towards adultery can be seen in The Canterbury Tales?
Examine at least two tales in your response.
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Continued
d) Discuss the use and/or misuse of the Bible in any two or more of The
Canterbury Tales.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4. Write an essay in answer to ONE of the following questions. (32 marks) (1 hr)
Do NOT write an answer on a text on which you have already commented in
question 2.
a) ‘What is to prevent one from telling the truth as he laughs?’ (Horace). How
might this statement be applied to More's Utopia?
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b) Does idealism or cynicism prevail in the poetry of Thomas Wyatt?
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c) ‘But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, / All losses are restored and
sorrows end’ (William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30). To what extent is love a
source of comfort and happiness in Shakespeare’s sonnets?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------d) ‘Of all writers under the sun the poet is the least liar’ (Sir Philip Sidney, The
Defense of Poesy). In what ways, according to Sidney, do poets tell the
truth?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------e) In what ways are the external appearances of characters used to aid the
reader’s understanding of The Faerie Queene’s allegorical messages?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------f) ‘He that loves, / The more he is restrained, the worse he fares’ (Hero and
Leander). Discuss the portrayal of frustration and delay in Hero and Leander
AND/OR Venus and Adonis.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------END
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