life and literature of the middle ages - mr....
TRANSCRIPT
Sully-sur-Loire, a
medieval castle visited by
(among others) Joan of
Arc, Louis XIV
Notre-Dame church in
Orleans, France
Giotto “Madonna and child”
Life and Literature of
The Middle Ages
PART I
Middle Ages
• Middle Ages/Medieval Period: 476 to 1453 C.E. Also known as the Dark Ages
• "Middle Ages:” term invented by Italian scholars in the early 15th Century.
• Renaissance means “rebirth”
– The humanistic revival of classical art, architecture, literature, and learning that originated in Italy in the 14th century and later spread throughout Europe.
– The period of this revival, roughly the 14th through the 16th century, marking the transition from medieval to modern times.
Ancient “Classical” Period Middle Ages Renaissance
Medieval Period in a Historical Nutshell
• Rome sacked in 476 C.E.
• The beginning of the Middle Ages is often called the "Dark Ages”
– Fall of Greece and Rome
– Life in Europe during the Middle Ages was extremely difficult.
– Most people were illiterate
– Only hope: strong belief in Christianity; heaven would be better than life on earth.
• In contrast:
– The Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa studied and improved on the works of the ancient Greeks
– Civilization flourished in sub-Saharan Africa, China, India, and the Americas.
• Great change by about 1450
– Columbus & America
– literacy spread
– scientists made great discoveries
– artists created work that still inspires us today.
– The Renaissance is the beginning of modern history.
The Renaissance
Middle Ages: General Timeline
476 C.E.
Fall of
Rome
1066 C.E.
Norman
invasion of
Britain
1095-
1291C.E.
Crusades
1306-1321
Dante’s Divine
Comedy
1386 C.E.
Chaucer
begins
writing
Canterbury
Tales
1455 C.E.
Printing
Press
Beowulf
Composed
sometime
between
c.750 C.E. 900 C.E. 1453
Fall of
Byzantine
Empire with
invasion of
Ottoman Turks
306 C.E.
Constantine
comes to
power in
Eastern Roman
Empire;
beginning of
Byzantine
Empire
1347
Bubonic
Plague
450 C.E.
Anglo-
Saxons
invade
England
1375-1400 Sir
Gawain &
Green Knight
With the Fall of Rome…..
• Barbarian tribes invade Britain and Western European lands
• Emperors became more like kings
• Feudalism: involuntary peasant labor on lands not their own; personal bonds and personal law begin to replace impersonal law common to large expanses of territory
• Medieval Guilds develop
• the Catholic Church, provides spiritual and moral direction, as well as leadership and material support, during the darkest times of the early Medieval period.
Barbarian was originally a term applied to any foreigner, one not sharing a recognized
culture or degree of polish with the speaker or writer employing the term. The word derives
from the Greek, and expresses with mocking duplication ("bar-bar") alleged attempts by
outsiders to speak a "real" language.
Key Concepts of the Middle Ages
War
ReligionTURMOIL
Crusades
Feudalism: The
social order of the
Middle Ages
• Church became deeply involved in government
• Christianity provided the basis for a European "identity," unified
in a religion common to most of the continent until the separation
of Orthodox Churches from the Catholic Church in 1054.
• Crusades: Popes, kings, and emperors unite and defend
Christendom from the perceived aggression of Islam
• From the 7th century onward, Islam had been gaining ground
along Europe's southern and eastern borders.
Feudalism• Feudalism: system of loyalties and protections during the Middle Ages. As the
Roman Empire crumbled, emperors granted land to nobles in exchange for their loyalty. These lands eventually developed into manors. A manor is the land owned by a noble and everything on it. A typical manor consisted of a castle, small village, and farmland.
• During the Middle Ages, peasants could no longer count on the Roman army to protect them. German, Viking and Magyar tribes overran homes and farms throughout Europe.
• Serfs would often have to work three or four days a week for the lord as rent. They would spend the rest of their week growing crops to feed their families.
Key facts about feudal society:
• The absence of a strong central authority of government
• Economy based on agriculture, with limited money exchange
• The strength of the Church: Church had the right to a share (tithe) of society's output as well as substantial landholdings. In return, the church was obligated with specific authority and responsibility for moral and material welfare.
The Church
• Christianity became the universal faith of almost all of the people
of Europe.
• The Church was often the only way to get an education.
– It also allowed poor people to escape a dreary life and possibly rise to
power.
– Religious workers are called clergy.
– In the Middle Ages, the Pope ruled the Christian Church. Other clergy
included bishops, priests, nuns, and monks.
• Monks: men who lived in monasteries, or small communities of
religious workers.
– devoted their lives to prayer
– Monasteries produced many well-educated men prepared to serve as
administrators for uneducated kings and lords.
– Monks were responsible for keeping the Greek and Latin “classical”
cultures alive. Monks copied books by hand in an era before the printing
press. Though few in number, monks played a significant role in the Middle
Ages.
Illuminated Manuscripts
• Illumination was a complex and frequently costly process. It was usually reserved for special books: an altar Bible, for example. Wealthy people often had richly illuminated "books of hours" made, which set down prayers appropriate for various times in the liturgical day.
• In the early Middle Ages, most books were produced in monasteries, whether for their own use, for presentation, or for a commission.
Sully-sur-Loire, a
medieval castle visited by
(among others) Joan of
Arc, Louis XIV
Notre-Dame church in
Orleans, France
Giotto “Madonna and child”
Life and Literature of
The Middle Ages
PART II
Medieval Literature
• Beowulf is the oldest surviving epic poem in what is identifiable as a form of the English language. (The oldest surviving text in English is Caedmon's hymn of creation.) The precise date of the manuscript is debated, but most estimates place it close to AD 1000.
• The story came to England at a time when the Germanic peoples were still part of the same cultural sphere and spoke what really were just dialects of the same language.
• It is known only from a single manuscript, kept in the British Library. The manuscript suffered some irreversible damage in a fire in 1731.
• The manuscript was written in Old English. Some Old English words and sounds closely resemble modern English. Today most readers read a version of the poem translated into modern English.
Beowulf
• Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon epic poem which relates the adventures of
Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero who saves the Danes from the seemingly
invincible monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel's mother.
• He then returns to his own country, Geatland, and dies in old age in a vivid
fight against a dragon. The poem is about encountering the monstrous,
defeating it, and then having to live on in the exhausted aftermath.
Grendel
The Canterbury Tales• Englishman Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The
Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories in a frame story, between 1387 and 1400.
• Story about of a group of thirty people who travel as pilgrims to Canterbury (England). The pilgrims, who come from all layers of society, tell stories to each other to kill time while they travel to Canterbury.
• Chaucer intended that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back. He never finished his enormous project and even the completed tales were not finally revised. Scholars are uncertain about the order of the tales. As the printing press had yet to be invented when Chaucer wrote his works, The Canterbury Tales has been passed down in several handwritten manuscripts.
• The Canterbury Tales is written in Middle English.
http://academics.vmi.edu/english/audio/GP_Hanks.html
Canterbury Taleshttp://www.librarius.com/cantlink/audiolk.htm
1 Whan that Aprill with his shoures sooteWhen April with its sweet-smelling showers
2 The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,Has pierced the drought of March to the root,
3. And bathed every veyne in swich licourAnd bathed every vein (of the plants) in such
liquid
4. Of which vertu engendred is the flour;By the power of which the flower is created;
5. Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breethWhen the West Wind also with its sweet breath,
6. Inspired hath in every holt and heethIn every holt and heath, has breathed life into
7. The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonneThe tender crops, and the young sun
8. Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,Has run its half course in Aries,
9. And smale foweles maken melodye,And small fowls make melody,
10 That slepen al the nyght with open yeThose that sleep all the night with open eyes
11 (So priketh hem Nature in hir corages),(So Nature incites them in their hearts),
12 Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,Then folk long to go on pilgrimages,
13 And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
And professional pilgrims (long) to seek foreign shores,14 To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;To (go to) distant shrines, known in various lands;15 And specially from every shires ende
And specially from every shire's end16 Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
Of England to Canterbury they travel,17 The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
To seek the holy blessed martyr,18 That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
Who helped them when they were sick.
The Canterbury Tales• Chaucer began work on The
Canterbury Tales about 1387
– and intended for each of his thirty pilgrims to tell four tales, two while traveling to Canterbury and two while traveling from Canterbury.
– However, only twenty-three pilgrims received a story before Chaucer's death in 1400.
• Chaucer's Tales gained mass popularity the early fifteenth century.
• “ all of humanity moves through its pages.”
• Presents humor, at once friendly and satirical.
This facsimile is from the first reproduction ever made of this manuscript, considered a prime authority for the text of The Canterbury Tales.
Canterbury Tales
• A rich, tapestry of medieval social life
– combining elements of all classes, from nobles to workers, from priests and
nuns to drunkards and thieves.
• When The Canterbury Tales were written:
– Christianity was the dominant social force throughout western Europe,
including England.
– In the 1380s, while Chaucer was working on the tales, a change occurred in
the way that Christianity was perceived and practiced.
– John Wycliffe, an English reformer, released a version of the Bible
translated into English. For the first time, people from the lower classes,
who had not been educated in Latin, could read the Bible themselves
instead of having its word interpreted to them by members of the clergy.
Canterbury Tales
• The General Prologue consists of character sketches of each member of the
group that is going to Canterbury, as described by Chaucer, who is also a
character in his own novel. Any other characters in The Canterbury Tales are
created by one of the pilgrims, in stories within the novel. Therefore, these
lesser characters are so numerous, that it is counter-productive to give them a
character sketch.
• Since the General Prologue and the main characters overlap almost completely,
the character summaries will be combined with the General Prologue, but
elaborated on by use of other parts of the text.
• Chaucer: He is a character in his own novel, and
he writes in the first person as an outside
observer traveling with the pilgrims on their
way to Canterbury.
Canterbury Tales- some of the characters• The Knight: a warrior who relies on the code of chivalry.
Represents the romanticized standards of the feudal system
• The Prioress: A nun, named Madame Eglantine. She makes every effort to be refined and elegant, and she cannot bear to see any harm come to any of God’s lesser creatures, like mice. However, when it is her turn to tell a story, hers is violent and full of blood and sorrow.
• The Merchant: The merchant is obsessed with his wealth, and talks about money constantly.
• The Wife of Bath: A well-traveled middle-aged woman who has been married five times, not counting other lovers she did not marry. She has a large amount of knowledge from experience, and when she questions the authority of the bible, she does it with a very good background from which to debate it.
• Poor Priest: lived truly poor and in the service of God. An example of how a traditional priest should live in Chaucer’s time, following the life of Christ.
• The Miller: a large and strong man, and is one of the best at telling vulgar stories.
• The Pardoner: A clergyman who is outwardly corrupt. His main motivating factor was money, and so if the sinner had the gold, the Pardoner would favor the sinner and help pardon him.
Arthurian Legend
• Arthurian legend has become the mirror of the ideal of medieval
knighthood and chivalry. Arthur:
– Was the illegitimate son of Uther Pendragon, king of Britain
– Became king of Britain by successfully withdrawing a sword from a
stone.
– Possessed the miraculous sword Excalibur , given to him by the
mysterious Lady of the Lake .
• Arthur's enemies: sister Morgan le Fay and his nephew Mordred.
Morgan le Fay was usually represented as an evil sorceress,
scheming to win Arthur's throne for herself.
• Mordred (or Modred) was variously Arthur's nephew or his son by
his sister Morgawse.
– He seized Arthur's throne during the king's absence.
– Later he was slain in battle by Arthur, but not before he had fatally
wounded the king.
• Most invincible knights in Arthur's realm: Sir Tristram and Sir Launcelot of the Lake.
• Sir Gawain, Arthur's nephew, who appeared variously as the ideal of knightly courtesy and as the bitter enemy of Launcelot.
• After 1225 no significant medieval Arthurian literature was produced on the Continent.
• In England, however, the legend continued to flourish. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c.1370), one of the best Middle English romances, embodies the ideal of chivalric knighthood.
• The last important medieval work dealing with the Arthurian legend is the Morte d'Arthur of Sir Thomas Malory , whose tales have become the source for most subsequent Arthurian material.
Sir Gawain & The Green Knight (ca 1370)
• This poem tells the story of Gawain, a knight and member of King Arthur’s Round Table
• A perfect example of the idealism and romanticism of chivalry
• Plot Overview
– During a New Year’s Eve feast at King Arthur’s court, a strange figure, referred to only as the Green Knight, pays the court an unexpected visit.
• challenges the group’s leader or any other brave representative to a game: The Green Knight says that he will allow whomever accepts the challenge to strike him with his own axe, on the condition that the challenger find him in exactly one year to receive a blow in return.
– Arthur hesitates to respond, but when the Green Knight mocks Arthur’s silence, the king steps forward to take the challenge.