Literary History 2018

• — Anglo-Saxon arrival (5th century)

• — Scandinavian invasions (late 8th-11th century)

• — Norman conquest (1066)

• Jutes: from the north of the Danish peninsula

• Angles: from the south of the Danish peninsula (modern-day Schleswig- Holstein)

• Saxons (south and west of the Angles, roughly between Elbe and Ems)

Old English period (449 AD to 1066)

— In Old English:

• –  Caedmon and Cynewulf; Beowulf; “The Seafarer”, “The Wanderer”

• –  Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, saints’ lives, homilies, translations of Latin

  texts

— In Latin:

• – Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum

• Anglo-Norman period (1066-mid13th c.): triglossia

  — In French: romances, courtly literature, verse histories, legal texts, saints’ lives, chronicles

  —  In Latin: theological, philosophical and scientific works

            —  In English: religious prose

• Late medieval period (ca. 1250-1500)
  — English is established as a literary language (Chaucer)

• Printing press: William Caxton, 1476, Westminster

• Beforehand: texts were written, and copied, by hand (Latin

  manus) manuscripts

• Different production of texts, circulation of texts (numbers, audiences), mutability of texts

Two missionary movements in the sixth century:

• Irish mission (via North)

  • —  Irish Christianised ca.500

  • —  Irish mission (“solitary ideal”) throughout Europe as of 550

  • —  St. Columba, Iona -> Scotland (6thc.) -> Northumbria (7thc.)

• Roman mission (via South)

  • —  Pope Gregory I (the Great) sends Augustine to evangelize Kent 597 AD

  • —  King Ethelbert of Kent converted first

  • —  Synod of Whitby (664) declares pre-eminence of Roman church over Irish church

• Introduction of the Latin alphabet as a side-effect of Christianisation (from runic Futhorc to Latin alphabet)

• Monastery of Jarrow in Northumbria (powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom)

• Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical history of the English people) in five books, finished AD 731. Records the growth of the English church, in Latin.
  End of the ninth century translated into OE under King Alfred.

• Bede on the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons: Anglo-Saxons were invited by the king at the time, to help against northerners but then stayed

• recounted Cædmon’s Miracle: First poem in English (Bede recorded this poem in Latin, but some early MS of Bede’s works include an English version), praises God’s creation

• Exeter Book: Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501

• Vercelli Book: Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare CXVII

• Junius Manuscript: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 11

• Beowulf Manuscript: BL Cotton MS Vitellius A. XV

• French-speaking barons appointed, bringing their retinues

• Bishops and abbots, religious houses under French-speaking control

• Anglo-Norman is the language at court, the language of government administration and the language of law. It is also the predominant literary language

• For the first 150 years after the Norman conquest, the kings of England did not speak English

• Latin continues to be the language of the church, education and some government business

• Most of the literature in Middle English for religious men and esp. women

• After the Norman Conquest, English undergoes significant changes:
  
  —  French loan-words, heterogeneous vocabulary (Latin, French, OE, Scandinavian)
  
  —  English becomes simplified (Normans struggling with it), loss of inflections, English turns from a synthetic to an analytical language

• Old English period (5th century to 1066)

  — In Old English:
  – Caedmon and Cynewulf; Beowulf; “The Seafarer”, “The Wanderer”
  – Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, saints’ lives, homilies, translations of Latin texts
  
  — In Latin:
  – Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum

• Anglo-Norman period (1066-mid13th c.)
  —  In French: romances, courtly literature, verse histories, legal texts, saints’ lives, chronicles
  —  In Latin: William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum (1125); theological, philosophical and scientific works
  —  In English: religious prose, e.g. the Katherine Group; Layamon’s Brut (c.1220),

• Late medieval period (ca. 1250-1500)
  — English as a literary language

Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1340-1400)
> The Canterbury Tales

John Gower (c.1330-1408)
> Confessio Amantis

William Langland (c.1332-c.1386)
> Piers Plowman

Anon.
> Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late 14th century) Thomas Hoccleve (c.1368-1426)
> Regiment of Princes

Margery Kempe (1373-1438)
> The Book of Margery Kempe

Julian of Norwich (1342-c.1416)
> Revelations of Divine Love

• From the 12th century onwards, English used more frequently

• English becomes the official language of court (1362: English used for the opening of parliament)

• Henry IV first King whose native language is English (reigned 1399-1413)

• Chaucer (late 14th century): ca. 43.000 lines of poetry, breadth and variety of language

• In the mid-15th century, English becomes standardised. The variety that becomes the basis is that used by the merchant classes in the East Midlands (covering London, Oxford and Cambridge), the one that would have been used by Chaucer.

Innovation of poetic form

• Breaking away from the tradition of accentual-alliterative verse and using accentual-syllabic verse instead

• First English poet to use the octosyllabic line and the iambic pentameter, which was to dominate English poetry.

• First English poet to use rhyming couplets extensively. Used the heroic couplet

• Introducing metrical variation by using words of different syllabic value: French polysyllables, e.g. “noblesse”, “sovereynetee”

Attention to character and the individual

Variety of genres, tones, styles (dream visions, romances, philosophical reflections, epic poems)

--> Canterbury Tales: kaleidoscope of characters, voices, genres, styles and poetic forms and images

• Individual Tales

• The storytellers: multiplicity of voices

• Includes representatives of the three estates: Those who pray, those who fight, those who work

• Medieval estates satires „aim to give an analysis of society in terms of hierarchy, social function, and morality.

• Ideal representatives: Knight, Parson, Ploughman. Most of the others are deeply flawed.

Assigning each storyteller the story of an appropriate genre, along with its fitting subject matter and style:

Prioress: a miracle of the virgin
Miller: a fabliau
Knight: a romance

Reasons given for the relative paucity of texts written by women:

• authorship was incompatible with femininity

• the lack of educational opportunities, the lack of skill in writing, and the lack of access to the scholastic institutions of literacy and learning.

• domestic responsibilities, including the “lack of a carrel [private cubicle], of pens and parchment, of peace and quiet”.

1. Margery Kempe finds scribes who record her visions. --> Authorship is debated among scholars.

2. Julian of Norwich presents oneself as a mouthpiece of God

• Serious illness in 1373, a series of visions

• Lack of authority as a woman

• Manuscript culture

• Features of Old English literature

• Impact of Christianisation (Latin alphabet, Latin texts, religious writing)

• Literature affected by cultural contact (e.g. verse form, language)

• Triglossia

• Some of the most important authors

• Chaucerian innovations

• Female writers: facing and overcoming obstacles

• Genres allow us to classify compositions within the larger canon of literature.

• a category of literature, identified by form, content, style, or purpose (see OED)

• The sense of what constitutes a genre changes over time

• Sometimes the title of a work gives away the genre

• poetry

• drama

• narrative prose / narrative fiction

  SUBGENRES, such as

• Epic poem, lyric

• Tragedy, comedy

• Novel, novella, short story

Genres may be distinguished by

• form of communication:

  lyric: uttered in the first person, written as his or her own experience (persona)

  epic (or narrative): narrator and characters

  drama: characters

• mood (e.g. satire, complaint)?

• content (crime)

• aesthetic effect (e.g. horror, laughter)

• Giedd (song, speech, proverb)

• Spel (story, sermon, narrative)

• Sang / leod (song, poem)

The majority of texts is religious:

• — Sermons
• — Saints’ Lives
• — Bible and Apocrypha - translations and paraphrases

Historiography

• — Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
• — Bede’s Eccesiastical History of the English People

Legal writings

“Collections of Knowledge”  - Works on

• — Grammar

• — Medicine

• — Geography

• Heroic poetry

• Religious poetry

• Elegiac poems

  Genre boundaries very difficult to draw. One and the same poem could be analysed under the headings of difference genres. E.g. Judith: religious and heroic.

FABLIAU

• presents cunning and folly

• it concerns basic human functions, such as sex or excretions

• characters are non-aristocratic: members of the bourgeoisie, peasants, clerks

• set in the contemporary everyday world, in the here and now

ROMANCE

• presents vices and virtues

• it concerns ideal love

• characters are aristocratic

• set in a world far away and long ago

• Chaucer introduced the term into the English language

• Chaucer: first author in post-classical times to consider himself as a composer of tragedies

Meditations (prose or verse): VERY POPULAR

• teach the reader / listener how to meditate and present the objects of meditation at the same time.

• Greek dran: to do, act, or perform

• Greek theatron: a place for viewing, theasthai to behold 

• Theatre: from the classical lexicon (not in use until the 17th century for performance act)

• Performance: since 18th c.

• Play: ludus: any kind of game.

• Drama and dramatic: rarely used before 17th c.

• Picture frame stage / fourth wall

• Proscenium Arch

• Apron (used for asides etc.) protrudes through and beyond Proscenium Arch

• stage where the actors are located in the middle whilst the audience watches from all sides

• actors are on a wagon, public is located much lower

• temporary stages