Handouts for Medieval English Literature
The Medieval World View
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THE MEDIEVAL WORLD VIEW: A BACKGROUND TO READING MEDIEVAL
LITERATURE
1. Common Misbeliefs and their Refutation
1.1 The Dark Ages?
1.2 Loss of the ancient heritage?
• Aristotle, the Philosopher
• Roman literature as elementary school texts
• 12th-century renaissance
• John of Salisbury: Policraticus
• Boethian translations
1.3 An assessment of medieval literacy
• Bookish culture
• The value of manuscripts
• Books of hours
1.4 Intellectually closed?
• Authorities: new and old
• Faith and science: Roger Bacon
• Empiricism and mysticism
1.5 Children and Family
• High infant mortality
• Large number of children
• Exaltation of Virginity and Widowhood
• The cult of the Virgin Mary as mother
• The late medieval cult of family
• Representation of the private (mothering, milking)
• Family also as something else than an economic unit
1.6 Prudish? – The Embarrassing Encounter
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Handouts for Medieval English Literature
The Medieval World View
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2. The Medieval Cosmos
2.1 View of the universe
2.2 The human microcosm – Correspondences of the macro- and microcosm
2.3 The ordered universe
2.3.1 Order in nature
2.3.2 Social order: The idea of estates
2.3.3 The order of sciences and knowledge
3. Forces of good and evil
3.1 Psychomachia: The cosmic struggle between forces of good and evil
3.2 The concept of teleology
3.3 The intermediary existences
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Handouts for Medieval English Literature
The Medieval World View
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4. The literature of the English Middle Ages
4.1 The chronological frames:
- Old English (from the first literary documents to 1066)
- Middle English (1066-1485?)
4.2 The birth of poetry in Bede’s account
- Cf. The story of Caedmon from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation
- Caedmon’s Hymn:
Now we must praise the Guardian of Heaven,
the might of the Lord and his purpose of mind,
the work of the Glorious Father; for He,
God eternal, established each wonder,
He, Holy Creator, first fashioned
heaven as a roof for the sons of men.
Then the Guardian of Mankind adorned
This middle-earth below, the world for men,
Everlasting Lord, Almighty King.
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