LITERATURE 207GAZZARA

The Middle Ages (to ca. 1485): A Comprehensive

Overview

Introducing the Period

Treasures from the oldest Writers of English Ancient Celtic poets of England and its neighboring lands Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Potter… Characteristics of modern heroism and heroic

plots/stakes

Strengths of Medieval Poetry

Powerful storytellingMoments of riddling witMoral and political challengesIncantatory patterns of soundSurreal landscapesPiercing invasions of the supernatural

Pagan and Christian

Germanic art of writing post conversion 597 Pope Gregory the Great to southeastern

kingdom of Kent Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English

People From illiterate cowherd to poet

Predominance of religious works comprise preserved works from Anglo-Saxon/medieval period Produced and preserved by Church, where

literacy thrived Christianity used Germanic poetry for its own

purposes

“Quid Hinieldus cum Christo?”

797 Alcuin’s letter to the bishop of Lindisfarne

“What has Ingeld to do with Christ?”Alcuin’s “Ingeld” = “heroic poetry” recited to

the monks “We have heard of those princes’ heroic

campaigns.”A little versus A lot.

Beowulf hints…

Knowledge of Germanic mythology and heroic literature = limited

Archaeology and Beowulf (a Christian conception of paganism)

Alcuin’s letter Beowulf poet HEARD and adapted oral poems

Scholars think, though, that writing of the poem occurred (not oral first)

The Legend of Arthur

History and RomanceThe French barons rulers in the Twelth

CenturyBritannia versus Anglo-Saxon invaders“The Britons told stories…”: LEGEND BORN

Medieval Sexuality

Idealization NOT as motiveSexual love heavy in medieval romance“Courtly love” idealizes women but

emphasizes their difference (“mercy”)LOVE AS SERVICE (slavery, religion, politics)

= women as objects of erotic-worshipUsually presented as extramarital

Old English Epic and Bede

Celebrated the deeds of heroes in a warrior society

Psychodynamics of orality (Walter Ong); possible in Twitter age?

Similar traditions in GermanConnections between epic and history: “We

have heard…” Remember that Bede was a scholar of rhetoric—