Medieval Literature in the British Isles: 500-1500, Global Campus Nebrija Notes

Facultad de Lenguas y Educación

Dra. Elsa del Campo Ramírez Grado de Educación Literature and Culture

UNIT 1

MEDIEVAL LITERATURE IN THE BRITISH ISLES: 500-1500

GLOBAL CAMPUS NEBRIJAGLOBAL CAMPUS NEBRIJA Prof. Elsa del Campo Ramírez,

1. Historical introduction
2. Old English, Middle English and beyond
3. First works
4. Beowulf
5. Middle English literature (1066-1500)

Main genres

1. Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales
2. The arrival of printing

UNIT 1. MEDIEVAL LITERATURE IN THE BRITISH ISLES [2]

Sept. 2017GLOBAL CAMPUS NEBRIJA Prof. Elsa del Campo Ramírez,

Historical Introduction to Medieval Literature

Medieval literature in the British Isles covers a wide period of almost a thousand years, from the Fall of Rome (c.410 CE) to the Renaissance in the 15th and 16th centuries. This period is tumultuous, fascinating and heterogeneous. The term "Medieval literature" is simply a label which helps us to address a time-period in which cultural and literary manifestations were largely different and in continuous development. Thus, it would be a mistake to consider Medieval literature as a coherent, homogeneous entity. However, labels are very useful for study purposes and help us to establish a timeline and an evolution of language and literary forms. Besides, literature is almost inseparable from its context, so we need to address the historical context before we turn to the primitive literary forms in the British Isles.

At the beginning of the 5th century, Rome fell to the Visigoths. The fall of the great Roman Empire, that included most of Britain (Britannia), meant also an attack to the Christian faith, which had become the religion of the Empire in the 4th century under the emperor Constantine. The decline of Rome lead to the fragmentation of Europe. Without an empire, peoples migrated, new nation states were formed, and primitive versions of vernacular languages, such as German, French, Spanish, and English, acquired separated identities and started to record their literatures from the 7th to the 12th centuries.

The British Isles had been partially Christian during the last centuries of the Roman empire. The population was mainly Celt. Once the Romans had left the territory, in the 5th century there were different invasions by Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, and Angles, who came from present-day Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. Most of them had been initially invited by different Celt kings to assist them in their internal wars. With time, they would push the Celts to Ireland and the western fringes of Britain (Wales, Cornwall, and also Brittany, in present-day France).

These invaders, later referred as Anglo-Saxon, formed different kingdoms until the 10th century, when Britain as we know it was established.

To these different peoples we need to add the Viking population, Norsemen who had begun making incursions in Britain in the 8th century and eventually settled in different parts of the Isles. By the end of the 11th century, the boundaries of Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland, were well defined. Another major historical event was the Noman Conquest by William the Conqueror (1066). The Norman settlement had a deep impact on Britain and Ireland in terms of culture and society.

Literacy and bureaucracy increased with each passing century, and urbanization brought about the development of a professional middle class. Trade and travel became more common as the decades progressed, and scholarly and international exchange was part of this process. Towards the end of the medieval period (which came earlier in continental Europe than in the British Isles), composing literature could be a profession for some, with some authors like the Italians Petrarch, Dante, and Boccaccio making a particularly notable contribution to developing secularised literature.

UNIT 1. MEDIEVAL LITERATURE IN THE BRITISH ISLES [3]

Sept. 2017GLOBAL CAMPUS NEBRIJA Prof. Elsa del Campo Ramírez,

Old English, Middle English and Beyond

Regarding the development and evolution of the English language, historical linguists speak of different stages, among which it is possible to find:

• Old English (OE), 450-1100
• Middle English (ME), 1100-1500
• Modern English, after 1500

When we approach Medieval literature, we need to consider language in depth. What was the spoken language? What was the written language? At the beginning, most texts were written in Latin. But Latin was the language of the clergy and the administration. The commoners spoke Celtic languages (Irish, Welsh, and Cornish) and, after the Anglo-Saxon invasion and settlements, they turned to local variants of an Anglo-Saxon language, that academics have agreed to call Old English. In this sense, Old English was the language spoken in Anglo-Saxon England before the Norman Conquest (1066). Notice that Old English was not a unified language, but a set of dialects (West Saxon, Northumbrian, Anglian, Mercian and Kentish). Until that moment, non-Latin texts (inscribed mostly in objects) used runic symbols. From 600 to the Norman Conquest, Old English flourished and coexisted with Latin in the written word. Hundreds of manuscripts written in Old English survive, mainly from the 9th century onwards, when King Alfred of Wessex (d. 899) initiated a major educational reform and promoted OE as a written language (in the West Saxon version).

From 1066, this changed and French, the language of the Norman conquerors, became the language of the elites. The Normans would transform Britain, both culturally and linguistically. For over 300 years French was the language spoken by royalty, aristocrats and high-powered officials. French was used in political documents, in administration, and in literature. Latin was still the language of the church and of scholars, but most of the general population spoke English in their everyday lives.

French started to influence the different versions of Old English and, little by little, a new language emerged as a mixture of both. This is known as Middle English. Middle English is closer to Modern English (it is "readable" for a present-day English speaker, whereas Old English looks as a complete different language).

These are some of the progressive changes that Middle English adopted:

1. With the loss of Old English suffixes, English had a more fixed word order.
2. Many Old English words disappeared and many French words regarding the semantic fields of hunting, luxury, arts, and war were adopted. Similarly, Latin words regarding religion, law, and science were also incorporated.
3. Grammar was simplified

ME had no standard, but existed in various dialects. One of them, the East Midland dialect, spoken in the London court and by authors like Chaucer, became the "official" dialect. Middle English was consolidated, and a standard dialect of English had developed by the 13th century.

> See the historical and linguistic context in detail through this interactive timeline created by the University of Düsseldorf: http://timelines.phil.hhu.de

UNIT 1. MEDIEVAL LITERATURE IN THE BRITISH ISLES [4]

Sept. 2017GLOBAL CAMPUS NEBRIJA Prof. Elsa del Campo Ramírez,

First Works: Beowulf

There is a wide range of works in OE:

Poetry (about a 10% of the total production):

• i. Secular (mostly epic poetry)
1. Heroic poetry (elegies)
2. Battle poetry
• ii. Religious poems

Prose:

• i. Religious: sermons and saints' lives,
• ii. Secular: historical chronicles, medical, legal, and didactic texts

In this period, religion plays a central role. Literature and culture are mostly circumscribed to monasteries and abbeys. At the same time, there is an important oral tradition where the author is irrelevant. Most of the texts are anonymous.

Beowulf Epic Poem

Perhaps the most renowned work written in Old English, this anonymous epic poem (3,183 lines) was composed sometime between the middle of the 7th and the end of the 10th century. Poems of this kind were recited from memory by a court minstrel, to the accompaniment of a harp. The opening word of the poem is Hwæt ('Lo!', 'Behold!', 'Listen!', even 'So'). The storyteller uses it here to attract the audience's attention. It concerns the deeds of a Scandinavian prince called Beowulf. Although the poem was written in England, the event it narrates are set in Scandinavia, in a partly historical, partly mythical past.

Beowulf is written in unrhyming verse, without stanzas, with a caesura (pause) in the middle of each line. Caesuras were employed to represent the pauses that speakers normally use in everyday speech. That is why each line is divided into two parts called hemistiches. Each hemistich contains two stressed (accented) syllables and a varying number of unstressed (unaccented) syllables. You can see how this works in the opening lines:

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum béodcyninga þrym gefrúnon· hú đá æþelingas ellen fremedon.

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by And the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness. We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns. (Translation by Seamus Heaney).

Beowulf Plot Summary

Plot: A monster called Grendel is devastating the land of the Danes. Beowulf, a Geat warrior (situated in what is now southern Sweden), crosses the sea to the land of the Danes to aid them to kill the man-eating creature. He succeeds, killing the mother's creature in a second combat, and returns to his homeland where he rules as a king for 50 years. Then, a dragon terrorises the countryside and he is impelled to fight him. Aided by Wyglaf, he slays the dragon but dies in the fight.

UNIT 1. MEDIEVAL LITERATURE IN THE BRITISH ISLES [5]

Sept. 2017GLOBAL CAMPUS NEBRIJA Prof. Elsa del Campo Ramírez,

Beowulf Setting

Setting (time and place): Between 500 and 700 A.D. The action takes place first in a Danish kingdom ruled by Hrothgar, in his mead hall (his court: a mead hall was a gathering place for feasting and drinking), and in a lake, where Beowulf fights the monster's mother. Then there is a time-gap of 50 years and the scene changes to the land of the Geats in Sweden.

Beowulf Structure

Structure: Beowulf is divided chronologically into two main sections: one that focuses on Beowulf as a young man and one that focuses on him as an old man. In terms of action, the poem is divided into three main sections: one that introduces the characters and describes Beowulf's slaughtering of Grendel, one that describes Beowulf's defeat of Grendel's mother, and one that describes Beowulf's defeat of the dragon with the help of Wyglaf.

Beowulf Style

Style: Old English poems do not rhyme and rely heavily on alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words in close proximity. E. g .: "and find friendship in the Father's embrace"). This device adds a certain music to the poem.

Another device that often appears in Old English poetry is the kenning, a descriptive figure of speech that takes the place of a familiar noun. Kennings combine two words to create an evocative and imaginative alternative word, such as banhus (bone-house) - meaning 'human body', or beadoleoma (battle-light) - meaning sword.

Beowulf Point of View

Point of view: The poetic voice narrates the story in an omniscient third-person point of view from a Christian perspective. Though describing events taking place in a pagan culture, the poet credits the Christian God and the Christian ethic for the triumph of good over evil.

Beowulf Themes

1. Goodness always conquers evil. Beowulf represents goodness; the three monsters that he slays represent evil.
2. Solidarity: Beowulf risks his life to help a neighbour, King Hrothgar, who is in trouble. This is part of the heroic code of honour.
3. The meaning of glory in a warrior world: one must not hesitate to risk his life if this involves achieving great deeds.
4. Life is a continuing struggle. After Beowulf defeats Grendel, Grendel's mother seeks revenge. Beowulf kills her. Eventually, in old age, he faces still another challenge, this time from a dragon. He kills the dragon, too, but suffers a mortal wound. After he dies, new troubles loom on the horizon in the form of wars with neighbouring tribes.

Middle English Literature (1066-1500)

As mentioned before, this period begins with the Norman Conquest (1066), which meant a clear rupture in culture and literature. The latter half of this period contains the most representative works. This is not surprising, as Middle English has taken a most definite form by them.

Some literary features of this period can be distinguished:

UNIT 1. MEDIEVAL LITERATURE IN THE BRITISH ISLES [6]

Sept. 2017