02medievalliterature.ppt

8/14/2019 02Medievalliterature.ppt

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2. THE MIDDLE AGES 1066-1450

THE SECRET OF CHAUCER’SCANTERBURY PILGRIMS.

“EVERYMAN”



MEDIEVAL LITERATURE (1066-1400)

Feudal system: king, lords,

yeomen, serfs, the sheriff

represented the king Split between Anglo-Saxons

and Normans

Loyalty of the knights to the

lord and the lords to the

king; 40 days of armyservice, later shield money

to pay professional

mercenaries




Education improved in schools,

abbeys. 12th -13th centuries

Oxford and Cambridge. Inns of

Courts for lawyers

Changes in the language:

Germanic inflections dropped,

new French words, Londondialect becomes the basis for

Modern English



The Canterbury Tales

Middle English

Whan that aprill with his shoures sooteThe droghte of march hath perced to the roote

Modern English

When in April the sweet showers fall

That pierce March's drought to the root and all




Religious works

Non-religious poems (The

Cuckoo Song, The Fox andthe Wolf- a satirical beastepic )

Romances (tales of heroic

deeds of knights): King Arthur in The Matter ofBritain, Sir Gawain and theGreen Knight



The Cuckoo Song

Summer has arrived,Sing loudly, cuckoo!

The seed is growing

And the meadow is blooming,

And the wood is coming into leaf now,Sing, cuckoo!



The Cuckoo Song



Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400)

a successful London gentleman

prisoner of war in France in 1359

diplomatic missions in Italy,

where he became familiar with

Dante´s work and may have met

Petrarch and Boccaccio



WORKS

period of French influence (1359-1372), workswritten in octosyllabic couplets: The Romance ofthe Rose, The Book of the Duchess

period of Italian influence (1372-1386), works

written in heroic couplets: The House of Fame, TheParliament of Fowls, Troilus and Criseyde, TheLegend of Good Women

the English period (1386-1400): The Canterbury

Tales




'The Wife of Bath's Prologue', undercomputer scrutiny

a computer generated family tree showingthe relationships between 58 differentfifteenth century versions of this Tale

Chaucer's original text was not a singlecomplete one, but a working draft containingalternative passages as well as Chaucer'sown notes of sections to be deleted or added




framed narrative

collection of portraits from knight to ploughman

different categories ( monk, nun, miller, merchant, physician,etc.)

personality carefully revealed

detailed descriptions

archetypal characters

humour, tolerance, love holiday spirit, April

Alistair Fowler: encyclopedic diversity of genres, skepticism,contemptus mundi, interchange of divine and human standards



THE PROLOGUE to the CANTERBURY TALES

When in April the sweet showers fall

That pierce March's drought to the root and all

And bathed every vein in liquor that has powerTo generate therein engendering the flower;

When Zephyr also has with his sweet breath,

Filled again, in every holt and heath,

The tender shoots and leaves, and the young sun

His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run, And many little birds make melody

holt= forest , heath=uncultivated land, shoot=bud, sprout



THE PROLOGUE to the CANTERBURY TALES

That sleep through all the night with open eye

(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)

Then folk do long to go on pilgrimage, And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,

To distant shrines well known in distant lands.

And specially from every shire's end

Of England they to Canterbury went,

The holy blessed martyr there to seek

Who helped them when they lay so ill and weak.

to ramp=act violently palmers=pilgrims

Read in M.E. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0MtENfOMU



THE WIFE OF BATH



THE WIFE OF BATH

There was a housewife come from Bath, or near,

Who - sad to say - was deaf in either ear. At making cloth she had so great a bent

She bettered those of Ypres and even of Ghent.

In all the parish there was no goodwife

Should offering make before her, on my life; And if one did, indeed, so wrath was she

It put her out of all her charity.

wrath=furious



THE WIFE OF BATH

Her kerchiefs were of finest weave and ground;

I dare swear that they weighed a full ten poundWhich, of a Sunday, she wore on her head.

Her hose were of the choicest scarlet red,

Close gartered, and her shoes were soft and new.

Bold was her face, and fair, and red of hue.

kerchiefs=head covering hose=trousers



THE WIFE OF BATH

She'd been respectable throughout her life,With five churched husbands bringing joy and strife,

Not counting other company in youth;But thereof there's no need to speak, in truth.Three times she'd journeyed to Jerusalem;

And many a foreign stream she'd had to stem; At Rome she'd been, and she'd been in Boulogne,

In Spain at Santiago, and at Cologne.

to stem=to oppose



THE WIFE OF BATH



THE MEDIEVAL DRAMA

Mys tery / Miracle Plays 13th – 16th centur ies

Based on the Bible or the life of saints 180 to 700-800 lines

Performed on pageants or wagons moving

around; fixed audience

Supervised by guilds

Cycles: York, Chester, Coventry, Wakefield



Character ist ics

Nonverbal elements predominate

Flexibility, spontaneity, constantrewriting

Performed in churches, inn yards,streets, college halls, private houses,moving or fixed stages, outdoors andindoors



EVERYMAN, 1495

Everyman: Gramercy, Good-Deeds,

now I my true friend see;They have forsaken me everyone;

I loved them better than my Good-

Deeds alone,

Knowledge, will you forsake me

also?



EVERYMAN

Knowledge: Yea, Everyman, when ye to deathshall go;

But not yet for no manner of danger.

Everyman: Gramercy, Knowledge, with all myheart.

Knowledge: Nay, yet I will not from hencedepart,

Till I see where ye shall be come.



EVERYMAN

Everyman: Methink, alas, that I must be gone,

To make my reckoning and my debts pay,

For I see my time is nigh spent away.

Take example, all ye that this do hear or

see,How they that I love best do forsake me,

Except my Good-Deeds that bideth truly.



EVERYMAN

Good-Deeds: All earthly things is but vanity:

Beauty, strength, and discretion, do manforsake,

Foolish friends and kinsmen that fair

spake,

All fleeth save Good-Deeds, and that am I.



“Jederman” a play by Hugo von Hofmannstahl based onthe medieval morality play "Everyman“

Written in 1911, it is performed every year at the SalzburgFestival

Music composed by the Swiss composer Frank Martin

Monologues from "Jedermann" Nr. 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4ppX-lBsdo

The Theatre of the Middle Ageshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdRbDgFGcC8





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