Medieval and Renaissance
English Literature
Middle English Literature 1.
Natália Pikli, PhD
ELTE
Middle Ages cc. 1000-1600: dark or glorious?
England: 1066 - end of 15th c.,
Middle English Period
• Norman Conquest: influence of French and continental
culture
• French, Latin, English (Middle English: dialects!)
• Crusades: ideals of knighthood, courtly love (fin’ amors)
• Christianity: expansion and glory (Gothic cathedrals) vs
the Great Schism (1387-1417) and heresies (Lollards,
John Wycliff: Bible!)
• Secular poetry and themes (Sumer is icumen in)
• universities: Oxford and Cambridge (13th c.)
• Wars: the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453), 14th c.:
peasant revolts (Wat Tyler, John Ball), 15th c. Wars of
the Roses
• Black Death
Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eyeSo priketh hem Nature in hir coragesThanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunturbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for the seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.
(G. Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, General Prologue ll. 1-18.)
Innovations in literature
• ornamental (end) rhymes
• iambic feet /metrical versification (stressed and
unstressed syllables) – The Canterbury Tales: iambic
pentameter
• new themes: romances, lyrical secular poetry: Sumer is
icumen in – outspoken, love, worldy pleasures, The
Harley lyrics
• alliterative revival in the North (Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight) – stanzaic form
• Drama: mystery plays and morality plays
• SOURCES: manuscripts (Auchenlick MS – Sir Orfeo,
MS Harley, BL Cotton Caligula A II. – Sir Launfal, MS
Cotton Nero A x- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,
Ellesmere MS – The Canturbury Tales, etc.)
Hans Memling: The Last Judgement
(Gdansk, 1467-71)
triptych, cathedrals, hell, allegories, visions
Religious poetry 1.
• Wycliffite Bible (New Testament by Wycliff, Old
Testament by associates)
• poems on nativitiy, Christ’s passion, Mary, carols
• I sing of a Maiden,
• Mother, stand firm beneath the Rood(dialogue)
• Debates: The Owl and the Nightingale, c. 1200
• Purity, Patience – homiletic poems
• (often together with secular poems in the same
Harley MS)
Religious poetry 2.
allegorical narrative, dream vision
William Langland: Piers Plowman
1360-87 narrative allegorical
poem (Will=dreamer, tower on
a hill v donjon in the valley v
folk in the field, PP: guide to
Truth, Dowel, Dobet, Dobest)
social criticism!
Pearl (Gawain-poet) alliterative
dream vision (also end rhymes
in 101 stanzas), 14th c. –
garden (earthly and
otherwordly), river, heavenly
Jerusalem, ‘pearl’
Secular love – fin amors
• Roman de la Rose
(British Library digitised
manuscripts): ‘art of love’
• Guillaume de Lorris and
Jean de Meun, 1235-75
• Over 150 MSs (Chaucer!)
• enclosed garden / garden
of pleasures
• Lover/ Rose/ allegorical
characters (Beauty,
Ugliness, Faux
Semblance/False
Seeming, Vielle/Old
Bawd, etc.)
Secular literature:
courtly love / fin amors
• troubadur, minnesänger
(Walter von der Vogelweide)
• jousts, tournements
• Chrétien de Troyes (12th c.)
• Breton lays:
– Sir Orfeo, to be recited (King
Orfeo, Queen Heurodis, Fairy
King, loyalty and singing,
rhyming iambic tetrameter)
– Sir Launfal (Round Table,
disgrace and love, Guinevre,
fairy Triamour)
Secular Literature: romances
(vernacular) and lays
• Alexander the Great, Trojan
war, Charlemagne, Roland,
King Horn
• Arthurian legends: G. of
Monmouth: Historia Regum
Britanniae (1137, ‘greatest
forger’), Breton lays, Sir
Launfal, Malory: Le morte
d’Arthur (15th c.)
• King Arthur, Queen Guinevre, Sir
Launcelot, Merlin, Sir Gawain, Sir
Galahad, Mordred, Morgan Le
Fay
• Welsh, French, English and Latin
works
• ALLEGORY/Spirituality: quest,
code, Holy Grail
• Prowess and largesse: trowthe
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• 14th c. North-West Midlands
dialect, alliterative revival
(‘rum-ram-ruf’), bob and wheel
stanza
• Pearl poet
• The longest English Arthurian
verse romance
• Christmas, beheading, Green
Knight, year, Bertilak and the
Lady, tests, 3x, girdle, humble
vs perfect
• Numbers: 3 and 5, Celtic and
folklore elements
14th century: ‘golden age’ and
‘troubles’
• William Langland, the
Gawain/Pearl poet, Gower
writing in 3 languages
• Geoffrey Chaucer (13431400): ‘synthesis’/’father of
English literature’
• Life: ‘civil servant’, 3 kings,
Italy/France: diplomat, writing:
pastime, audiences: readers
and/or listeners, writing in
English! (London dialect),
popularity: CT- 80 Mss
Sources at seas
• Primary readings (not all!)
• http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/KallayGeza/index.html /
Medieval and Renaissance English Literature (BA)
• Handouts
• http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/KallayGeza/index.html /
Medieval and Renaissance English Literature (BA) Handout
• Lecture slides to lectures 1-4
• http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/PikliNatalia/index.html /
Medieval and Renaissance English Lit: Lectures