Chapter Two Medieval Period Geoffrey Chaucer

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Chapter Two Medieval PeriodGeoffrey Chaucer

• Pre-Elizabethan age Thomas More
• A Brief Introduction to Elizabethan age

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Contents

• The Middle (Medieval)English period
• Historical background
• The literary scene of the period
• The formation of Middle English
• Geoffrey Chaucer
• Life experience
• His literary career
• His major works
• His contributions to English language and poetry
• Analysis and appreciation of the General Prologue
  in his masterpiece The Canterbury Tales

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Medieval Period(1066-1400)

• Historical backgroud (P7-8)
• Norman conquest In 1066, French-speeking
  Normans came under William the Conqueror.
• The establishment of the feudal system
• The 1381 peasant uprising
• The completion of the Doomsday Book?????
• The launching of the Crusade
• The siging of the Magna Charter???
• The war with France or the 100-years war
  (1337-1453)

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• The literary scene of the period
• There were mainly two forms of literary
  writings, religious writing and romance.
• The formation of Middle English
• For about 3oo years after 1066, languages spoken
  in England were confusion. There were Old
  English, French and Latin.
• For about 3oo years after 1066, languages spoken
  in England were confusion. There was Old English,
  descended from Anglo-Saxons,
• The 100-years war with France was an awakening
  of national consciousness in England.
• The French language was gradually replaced by the
  native tongue. The English language gained
  absolute supremacy.

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• 5.Thousands of words and expressions were
  borrowed from French, Latin, Greek and Italian.
• The English language in this transitional
  stage from Old English to modern English, through
  some 4 centuries (from12th 15th) of development
  and change, has gradually been known as Middle
  English.

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• Representatives in this period
• 1.John Wycliffe (1320 1384) an Oxford scholar,
  the first to translate the Bible from Latin to
  Middle English (though not accurate), the
  pioneer in the field of translating the Bible.
• 2. William Langland (1332 1400?) His
  masterpiece is Vision of Piers the plowman,
  written in the form of a dream allegory and in
  Middle English.
• (A term) An allegory is a story or description
  in which the characters and events symbolize some
  deeper underlying meaning, and serve to spread
  moral teaching. It has double meaning i, e., a
  primary meaning, or a surface meaning, and a
  secondary meaning, or underlying meaning. In an
  allegory, abstract qualities or ideas such as
  patience, purity, or truth, are personified as
  characters in the story.

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Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 1400)
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Life experience

• 1340 Chaucer was born in London, in the Vintry.
• 1357 Page to the Countess of Ulster.
• 1359 Taken captive while on a military expedition
  to France.
• 1360 Released on ransom and returned to England.
• 1366 Married Philippa Roet, a Lady in waiting to
  the queen.
• 1367 Served Edward III as a Valet
• 1368 Went abroad as a Diplomat.
• 1369 Sent to Italy to negotiate a commercial
  treaty.
• 1374 Becomes Controller of Customs at the Port of
  London.
• 1378 Sent to Italy as a diplomat.

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• 1379 Became Controller of Petty Customs, London.
• 1380 Became Justice of Peace for Kent.
• 1381 Became Knight of the Shire for Kent.
• 1382 Chaucers wife Philippa Roet died.
• 1384 Started receiving pension from Richard II
  due to strained financial conditions.
• 1385 Granted an annual hogshead of wine from the
  King.
• 1386 Pension increased by Henry IV.
• 1389 Became Clerk of the Kings Works.
• 1400 Died on October 25 and buried in the Poets
  Corner in Westminster Abbey.

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His literary career

• His education Little is known about his
  education. But he is good at Latin, French, and
  Italian.
• Three periods
• 1360s-about 1372French period a translator (The
  Romance of Rose) and an imitator (The Book of
  Duchess)
• 1372 -1386Italian period a Borrower (Troilus
  and Cryseyde) borrowed theme, characters from
  Baccassios Filastrato.
• the last 15 years of his lifeEnglish (Maturity)
  period a creator (The Canterbury Tales)-his own
  theme, choice of words, characters and plot.

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His contributions to English language and poetry

• His contributions to English language
• Chaucers language is now called Middle/Current
  language
• He established English as the literary language
  of England. He wrote in the London dialect of his
  day.
• He did much in making the London dialect the
  foundation for the modern English Speech.
• His contributions to English poetry
• He introduced from France the rhymed stanza of
  various types, esp. the rhymed couplet of iambic
  pentameter or Heroic Couplet into English poetry,
  instead of the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative
  verse.

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Explanations of the Literary terms

• Iamb a meter pattern composed of a pair of
  syllables, with the first one unaccented and the
  second stressed.
• Pentameter line A poetry line in which there are
  ten syllables, with two ones made up of a "foot",
  five feet in all.
• Iambic pentameter It is a poetry meter. In each
  line, there are ten syllables which can be broken
  up into five feet (pentameter) of an unstressed
  syllable followed by a stressed syllable (iambic)
  hence iambic pentameter.

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Analysis and appreciation of the first 2 stanzas
in the General Prologue of his masterpiece

• Contents
• Historical context
• Brief introduction
• the frame work
• the gallery of portrait of his characters
• the writing technique

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• 3. Analysis and appreciation of the first 2
  stanzas
• synopsis and understanding
• analysis and appreciation
• interpretation of the peculiarity of the
  first stanza
• symbols and themes
• difference from Bacassios Decameron

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• The front cover of Canterbury Tales

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Canterbury Cathedral

• OUTSIDE INSIDE

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Historical context

• The time of the writing of The Canterbury Tales
  was a turbulent time in English history.
• The Catholic Church was in the midst of the
  Great Schism and, though it was still the only
  Christian authority in Europe, was the subject of
  heavy controversy.
• Lollardy, an early English religious movement
  led by John Wycliffe, is mentioned in the Tales,
  as is a specific incident involving pardoners
  (who gathered money in exchange for absolution
  from sin) who nefariously claimed to be
  collecting for St. Mary Rouncesval hospital in
  England.

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• The Canterbury Tales is among the first English
  literary works to mention paper, a relatively new
  invention which allowed dissemination of the
  written word never before seen in England.
• Political clashes, such as the 1381 Peasant's
  Revolt and clashes ending in the deposing of King
  Richard II, further reveal the complex turmoil
  surrounding Chaucer in the time of the Tales'
  writing.
• Many of his close friends were executed and he
  himself was forced to move to Kent in order to
  get away from events in London.

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Brief introduction

• The Canterbury Tales is one of the landmarks of
  English literature, perhaps the greatest work
  produced in Middle English and certainly among
  the most ambitious. Chaucer did not complete the
  entire Canterbury Tales as he designed it. There
  are altogether 30 travelers on the pilgrimage to
  Canterbury. He structured the tales so that each
  pilgrim would tell four tales on the way there
  and back, and that would bring the total up to
  120. However, Chaucer only completed 20
  complete stories and 4 fragments, not even
  completing one tale for each pilgrim.

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• The frame work This long poem consists of three
  parts The General Prologue 20 tales, and four
  fragments and separate prologues to each tale.
• His gallery of portraits of people comes from
  all classes of the English society of his time,
  ranging from a Knight to a humble Plowman, except
  the royalty and the peasant. The Pilgrims are a
  microcosm of the 14th century English society.

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• His writing technique
• 1.plainly narrative
• 2. everything is based on reality. The Prologue
  supplies a miniature of the English society at
  that time. Chaucer liked to use the realistically
  writing skill to represent the reality.
• 3. That is why he is called the father of
  realism/ master of realism He applies to the
  work a strong sense of humor and an infinite
  sense of humanity

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Synopsis

• In April the pleasant showers of rain had pierced
  the drought of March to the very root and bathed
  every plant with life-giving moisture. The
  refreshing west wind had quickened the young
  shoots in every wood and field. The young sun had
  completed its second half course in the zodiac
  sign of the Aries, and the small birds encouraged
  by nature sang melodiously. People longed to go
  on pilgrimages and seek strange shores in this
  rejuvenating month. People from every corner of
  England went to Canterbury to seek the holy
  blessings at the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket.
• One spring day at the Tabard Inn in
  Southwark, while the narrator (Chaucer) was
  waiting for the next day to go on his pilgrimage
  to Canterbury, a group of twenty-nine pilgrims
  arrived at the inn. The narrator was accepted
  into their company and they decided to rise early
  next morning and carry on their journey. The
  narrator describes each of these pilgrims and
  tells the reader about their ranks and the kind
  of clothes they wore.

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Anslysis and appreciation

• When in April" places us immediately in the
  reverdie tradition -- literally the
  "re-greening," a mode in medieval lyric poetry
  celebrating the revival of spring and all that
  that entails.
• 1-18 lines present a unified and ideal organic
  hierarchy -- a great chain of awakenings from the
  rain to the roots of the plants to the flowers,
  the sun to the fields and the birds growing
  musical and insomniacal, to humans who maybe
  sublimate the same impulses into pilgrimages to
  holy shrines of martyrs. So we progress from the
  natural to the divine, or from the natural/divine
  to the anthropomorphic/sacred. Memorize these 18
  lines!

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• As a tradition, in Middle ages, if a poet began
  his poem with spring, the reader would learn
  that the poet would tell a love story. The
  General Prologue begins with the description of
  Spring characteristic of dream visions of secular
  love, the same tone, even some of the same
  details in his Le Roman de la rose. His audience
  may well have thought they were about to hear
  another elegant poem on aristocratic love.
  However, they hear instead
• Then longen folk to gon on pilgrimages. The
  focus changes from secular love to religion, to a
  pilgrimage, and the texture shifts from the
  elegant abstractions and allegorical personages
  to a very real London in the fourteenth century.

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• A pilgrimage is a religious journey undertaken
  for penance and grace. It was very popular in
  fourteenth-century England, as the narrator
  mentions. Pilgrims traveled to visit the remains
  of Saint Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury,
  who was murdered in 1170 by knights of King Henry
  II. Soon after his death, he became the most
  popular saint in England. The pilgrimage in The
  Canterbury Tales should not be thought of as an
  entirely solemn occasion, because it also offered
  the pilgrims an opportunity to abandon work and
  take a vacation.

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• At line 20, the narrator abandons his unfocused,
  all-knowing point of view, identifying himself as
  an actual person for the first time by inserting
  the first personIas he relates how he met the
  group of pilgrims while staying at the Tabard
  Inn. He emphasizes that this group, which he
  encountered by accident, was itself formed quite
  by chance (2526). He then shifts into the
  first-person plural, referring to the pilgrims as
  we beginning in line 29, asserting his status
  as a member of the group.

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• This is a sudden shift. We readers find ourselves
  hearing "Bifel," "I," "by aventure" -- and we're
  in the realm of chance, offhandedness,
  subjectivity, personal specificity, randomness,
  the casual.
• A distinction is now required between
  Chaucer-poet and Chaucer-pilgrim. It's the
  pilgrim giving us the prologue. Point-of-view is
  through this puppet's eyes. So the often ironic
  poet is using a narrator, a persona, through
  which to speak -- a pretty faux-Chaucer.

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• The narrator ends the introductory portion of his
  prologue by noting that he has tyme and space
  to tell his narrative. His comments underscore
  the fact that he is writing some time after the
  events of his story, and that he is describing
  the characters from memory. He has spoken and met
  with these people as also a pilgrim, but he has
  waited a certain length of time before sitting
  down and describing them as a poet. He positions
  himself as a mediator between two groups the
  group of pilgrims of which he was a member of the
  pilgrims and us, the audience, whom the narrator
  explicitly addresses as you in lines 34 and 38.

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• On the other hand, the narrator's declaration
  that he will tell us about the condicioun,
  degree, and array (dress) of each of the
  pilgrims suggests that his portraits will be
  based on objective facts as well as his own
  opinions. (REALISM)

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Interpretation of the peculiarity of the opening
part

• The opening part of the General Prologue mixes
  the spiritual with the secular and moves between
  each form with relative ease.
• It sets up imagery of spring and regeneration.
• It does not conform to the cliché tradition "in
  springtime a young man's fancy turns to love,"
  but veers into more spiritual territory. In
  springtime these travelers make a religious
  pilgrimage to Canterbury.
• It sets the tone and mood of the tales gay and
  ironic.

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Symbols

• (A literary term)Symbols are objects, characters,
  figures, or colors used to represent abstract
  ideas or concepts.
• Springtime
• The Canterbury Tales opens in April, at the
  height of spring.
• The springtime symbolizes rebirth and fresh
  beginnings, and is thus appropriate for the
  beginning of Chaucer's text.
• Springtime also evokes erotic love, for
  example, the Squire is compared to the freshness
  of the month of May, in his devotion to courtly
  love.

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Themes

• (A literary term)Themes are the fundamental and
  often universal ideas explored in a literary
  work.
• "The Canterbury Tales" has several
  overlapping themes, which not only enrich the
  books texture but also lend it some kind of
  coherence and unity. Most of these themes are
  abstract and cannot be stated as singular
  propositions. Nearly all the subjects of
  Chaucers most serious contemplation can be found
  in his magnificent epic.

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• The major themes are
• critique of the church
• themes of the inherent corruptness of human
  nature and decline of moral values
• the problem of the position of women and
  marriage relationships
• themes of honor and truth
• themes of Christian virtue and chivalry.

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Difference from Baccassios Decameron

• The structure of The Canterbury Tales is indebted
  to Boccaccio's Decameron, in which ten nobles
  from Florence, to escape the plague, stay in a
  country villa and amuse each other by each
  telling tales. Boccaccio had a significant
  influence on Chaucer. The Knight's Tale was an
  English version of a tale by Boccaccio, while six
  of Chaucer's tales have possible sources in the
  Decameron the Miller's Tale, the Reeve's, the
  Clerk's, the Merchant's, the Franklin's, and the
  Shipman's. However, Chaucer's pilgrims to
  Canterbury form a wider range of society compared
  to Boccaccio's elite storytellers.

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• The Canterbury Tales differs from Boccaccio's
  Decameron the speakers are not from a single
  social class, but drawn from a broad range of
  society, from the noble knight to the drunken
  rascal of a Miller and the impoverished Parson.
  Choosing a pilgrimage as the vehicle for the
  tales was a brilliant move -- a pilgrimage was
  the one occasion in medieval life when so wide a
  range of members of society could plausibly join
  together on relatively equal terms, allowing for
  greater differences in tone and substance.

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It is hot, let me feel the cool snow

• Coffee,please.

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The Pre-Elizabethan Age Thomas More

• CONTENTS
• A brief introduction of the historical background
• Literary representatives in pre-Elizabethan age
• Thomas More

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Historical background

• From 1400 to 1550, significant changes had been
  undergoing. Old England was in transition.
• The wars of Roses (1455-1483) Barely at the end
  of the 100-years War with France, England was
  again blown into the whirlwind of civil war.
• Tudor Dynasty Then the King, Henry VII, took the
  advantage of this situation, founded Tudor
  dynasty.
• The religious reformation in England Then Henry
  VIIs son, Henry VIII (1509 -1547) succeeded the
  throne. He started the extensive movement against
  the control of the Roman Catholic Church.

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• He declared the break with Rome. This is
  the Protestant Reformation, which in essence a
  political movement in a religious disguise, a
  part of struggle of the newly rising class for
  power.
• 4. The Counter-reformation The reformation was
  closely followed by the Counter reformation
  during the reign of Queen Mary (1553 1558),
  Henry VIIIs daughter. She was a devout Catholic.
  So many Protestants were burned as heretic. This
  religious persecution did not stop until Queen
  Elizabethan Age.

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• The Enclosure movement and introduction of the
  printing
• In England the movement for enclosure began
  in the 12th century and proceeded rapidly in the
  period 14501640, when the purpose was mainly to
  increase the amount of full-time pasturage
  available to manorial lords. Much enclosure also
  occurred in the period from 1750 to 1860, when it
  was done for the sake of agricultural efficiency.
  By the end of the 19th century the process of the
  enclosure of common lands in England was
  virtually complete.

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• 6. The religious Reformation in Europe
• The term Reformation refers in general to the
  major religious changes that swept across Europe
  during the 1500s, transforming worship, politics,
  society, and basic cultural patterns. One key
  dimension was the Protestant Reformation, the
  movement that began in 1517 with Martin Luther's
  critique of doctrinal principles and church
  actions in Germany and that led to the
  establishment of new official churchesthe
  Lutheran, the Reformed or Calvinist, and the
  Anglican. These were separate from the Latin
  Catholic Church in organization and different
  from it in theology.

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• Renaissance and Humanism (literary terms)
• Renaissance It is a movement of the humanistic
  revival of classical art, architecture,
  literature, and learning that originated in Italy
  in the 14th century and later spread throughout
  Europe, marking the transition from medieval to
  modern times.
• Humanism A cultural and intellectual movement
  of the Renaissance (14th century to 17th century)
  that emphasized secular concerns, rejecting
  religious beliefs and centers on humans and their
  values, capacities, and worth, as a result of
  the re-discovery and study of the literature,
  art, and civilization of ancient Greece and Rome.

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• Humanists argued that man should be given all
  freedom to enrich their intellectual and
  emotional life. In religion they demanded the
  reformation of the church. In art literature,
  instead of singing praise to God, they sang in
  praise of man and of the pursuit of happiness in
  this life. Humanism shattered the shackles of
  spiritual bandage of mans mind by the Catholic
  Church and opened his eyes to a brave young
  world in front of him.
• The English Renaissance can be traced in
  Chaucers The Canterbury Tales. In the later half
  of the 14th century, Chaucer went to Italy. This
  trip had a great influence on him. Generally
  speaking, English literature of Renaissance may
  be divided into 3 stages of development. The
  first stage extends from the end of 15th century
  to the last half of the 16th century The second
  stage was just in the Elizabethan age The third
  one was the Jacobean period. The literary forms
  were poetry, prose, fiction and drama.

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Representative in pre-Elizabethan age

• Thomas More and his masterwork Utopia
• Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 6 July
  1535), also known as Saint Thomas More, was an
  English lawyer, author, and statesman who in his
  lifetime gained a reputation as a leading
  Renaissance humanist scholar, and occupied many
  public offices, including Lord Chancellor
  (15291532). More coined the word "utopia", a
  name he gave to the ideal, imaginary island
  nation whose political system he described in
  Utopia, published in 1516. He was beheaded in
  1535 when he refused to sign the Act of Supremacy
  that declared King Henry VIII Supreme Head of the
  Church of England.

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The Elizabethan age

• Now came the Elizabethan Age in 1558. In this
  age, the literature can be divided into 3 phase
  (Read P35 -40) And there appeared the most
  famous the University Wits (P37 -38). During her
  rein, England was not only prosperous in inner
  economics, powerful in expansion abroad and
  ocean, but also flourised in culture and
  thoughts, esp, in literature, such as poetry
  (sonnets), prose and drama.

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The three sub-periods in literature

• 1st period 1557-1579
• The publication of Edmund Spensers The
  Shepheardes Calendar
• Thomas Wyatt introduced the sonnet into England
• Henry Howard, Earl of Surry brought the the
  blank verse into England
• (A literary term) Blank verse It is Rhyme-less
  iambic pentameter or a line of ten syllables in
  five iambs, a rhythemic unit of two syllables
  with the unstressed followed by the stressed
  syllable.(Milton is the master of this)

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• 2nd period 1580-1599
• In poetry, Sperser contibuted his The Faerie
  Queene
• The epic poem came out unfinished with only
  the first six books in 1596, which was dedicated
  to Elizabeth. The excellence of it lies in the
  complexity and depth of Spensers moral vision
  and in the Spenserian Stanza, which Spenser
  invented for his masterpiece.
• The main ideas in this poem NATIONALISM
  (celebration of Queen Elizabeth) HUMANISM (shows
  strong opposition to Roman Catholicism)
  PURITANISM (shows moral teaching)
• Spenserian Stanza (a literary term) It is a
  nine-line stanza of 8 lines in iambic pentameter
  plus an iambic hexameter(six-foot line). The
  rhyme scheme is abab bcbc c. It is created by
  Spenser in his The Faerie Queene, thus named
  after him.

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• Philip Sidneys sonnet Astrophel and Stella
  The theme, heavenly and earthly love is
  reflected.
• Shakespeares sonnets.
• In prose, Sidneys Apologie for Poetry
• In pastoral Romance, heres Sidneys Arcardia.
  It is pastoral.
• Pastoral poetry (a literary term) Poetry that
  portrays or evokes rural life, usually in an
  idealized way.
• In essays, Francis Bacon published some of his
  essays.
• Another contribution from John Lyly is his
  Eupheus.
• In drama, there were the University Wits
  first, including Christopher Marlowe, Bobert
  Greene, George Peele, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Nash
  amd Thomas Kyd, who were all graduates from
  Oxford or Cambridge or both except Thomas
  Kyd.They paved the way for the rise of
  Shakespeare. And then, Shakespeares some 20 of
  his plays were finished.

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• The 3rd period1599-1625
• Shakespeare finished all his later plays
• Ben Jonson did almost the whole of his work
• Francis bacon did his best work in this
  period,dominated English prose literarture for
  decades.
• The Authorized Bible, also named King James Bible
  came into being in 1611. It is still the best of
  its kind today, unequaled in precision, beauty
  and power.

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Assignments

• Written work
• Define the terms iambic pentameter, symbols,
  themes, Ranaissance, humanism, blank verse,
  Spenserian Stanza and pastoral poetry.
• What are Chaucers contribution to English poetry
  and language?
• What are peculiar in the opening part of the
  General Prologue in Canterbury Tales by Chaucer?
• What is the symbol in the General Prologue? What
  does it symbolize?
• Who are the University Wits?
• What is Edmund Spensers masterpiece? What are
  the main ideas reflected in it?

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• Topics for discussion
• How to define Chaucers literary career? Why?
• What kinds of people are included in the gallery
  of his character portrait in Canterbury Tales by
  Chaucer?
• Why Chaucer is called father of realism?
• How to undrestand the identity of Chaucer as both
  a poet and a pilgrim?
• Compare Baccassios Decameron and Chaucers
  Canterbury Tales to find the difference between
  them.
• Why did literature flourish in Elizabethan age?
• The formation of English people and Old English
  language
• The formation of the Middle English Language
• Oral work
• Memorize the first 18 lines in the General
  Prologue.

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• Spring is coming. Lets go on pilgrimage.