The Literature of the 14th century
The protest against the Catholic Church and the growth of national feeling during the first years of the war found and echo in literature. There appeared poor priests who wandered from one village to another and talked to the people. They protested not to only against rich bishops but also against churchmen who were ignorant and could not teach the people anything.
William Langland (1332-1400).
One such poor priest was the poet William Langland. His name is remembered for the poem he wrote, "The Visions of William Concerning Piers the Ploughman". (Nowadays the poem is called "Piers Plowman". Piers - Peter.)
Langland's attacks on the evils of the Church are the most outspoken of the his time. The poem helped the people to concentrate their minds on the necessity to fight for their rights.
John Wyclif (1320-1384).
John Wyclif was also a poor English priest. He started tj write much later than Langland. He denied the Church's right to be rich, declared the Catholic Church to be corrupt and appealed to the authorities to reform it.
Wyclif met the demand of the people by translating the Bible into English. He, also, is remembered because he discussed political questions with the common people in the common tongue.
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 - 1400) His life and work.
The greatest writer of the 14th century was Geoffrey Chaucer. He was born in London. Chaucer's earliest poems were written in imitation of the French romances. He translated from French a famous allegorical poem of the 13th century. "The Romance if the Rose".
The Second period of Chaucer's literary work was that of the Italian influence. To this period belong the following poems: "The House of Flame", a didactic poem; "The Parliament of Fouls" (birds), and allegorical poem satirizing the Parliament;
"Troilus and Cassida", considered to be the predecessor if the psychological novel in England, and "The Legend of Good Women", a dream - poem.
The Third period of Chaucer's creative work begins in the 1384 - when he started writing his masterpiece, "The Canterbury Tales". Chaucer died in 1400 and was buried in the Westminster Abbey. Chaucer was the last English writer of Middle Ages and the first of the Renaissance.
The Canterbury Tales.
"The Canterbury Tales" are a series of stories written in verse. The framework which serves to connect them is a pilgrimage to Canterbury. The distance from London to Canterbury is 60 miles, but in those days there was no straight road to go by.
The literature of the 15th century
The War of the roses.
The death of Chaucer was a great blow to English poetry. In 1455 a feudal war broke out between the descendants of Edward III, which is known as the War of the Roses. It was impossible for others to continue the work Chancer had begun while the people suffered from continual war and remained completely ignorant.
Folk-songs and Ballads.
Folk poetry flourished in England and Scotland in the 15th century. Folk-songs were heard everywhere. A folk-song is a short poem in rhymed stanzas usually set to a melody.
The most interesting examples of folk poetry were the English and Scottish ballads were either lyrical-epic poems (these were narratives), or lyrical-dramatic poems (incidents in action). Ballads were either for singing or for reciting. The ballads are divided into three groups: Historical; Heroic; Romantic.
Among the most popular ones were those about Robin Hood. Ballads and songs express the sentiments and thoughts of a people. They continued to develop till the 18th century.
The Robin Hood Ballads.
The Robin Hood ballads, numbering some forty separate ballads, were written down at various times but not earlier than in the 14th and 15th centuries. Robin Hood, England's favorite hero is a character partly historical, partly legendary. He must have lived in the second half of the 12th century. The ballads always tell of the persons who were robbed by the Church or the feudal barons, or imprisoned by the foresters and sheriffs. Robin is the relentless enemy of Norman oppressors and always helps the country-folk in their troubles.
In the 16 century many new episodes were introduced into the ballads. They were arranged in series.
Lecture 1. Introduction. Specific Features of English Literature formation Literature of Great Britain. Literature of the Middle Ages.
What is English Literature? English literature is literature written in English. It is not merely the literature of England or of the British Isles, but a vast and growing body of writings made up of the work of authors who use the English language as a natural medium of communication. In order words, the "English" of "English literature" refers not to a nation but to a language. This seems to me to be an important point. There is a tendency among some people to regard, for instance, American literature as a separate entity, a body of writings distinct from that of the British Isles, and same attitude is beginning to prevail with regard to the growing literatures of Africa and Australia. Joseph Conrad was a Pole, Demetrios Kapetanakis was a Greek, Ernest Hemingway was an American, Lin Yutang was a Chinese, but English is the medium they have in common, and they all belong, with Chaucer and Shakespeare and Dickens, to English literature.
Traditionally we study EL in the following order:
- EL of Great Britain;
- American Literature;
- EL of Australia, New-Zealand and Africa.
England and the English. The term "English" will refer as much to the race as to the language. Let us therefore begin by considering very briefly both the race and the country. Geography seems to be more important than history, and it is the geography of England that is perpetually reflected in its literature, far more than the pattern of events which we call the history of a nation. England is an island, and the sea washes its literature as much as its shores. It is a cold, stormy sea. Its voice is never far away from the music of English poetry, and it can be hard clearly enough even in the novels of a 'town' writer like Dickens. The landscape of England is varied - mountains and lakes and rivers - but the uniform effect is one of green gentleness - downs and farms and woods. The English landscape made Words worthy.
Ruling sea and land is the English climate. In the tropics there are no seasons except the rainy and the dry, but in England one is aware of the earth approaching and retreating from the sun-spring, summer, autumn, winter, and the festivals associated with these seasons. The longing for spring is a common theme with English poets, and Christmas, the winter festival, is the very essence of Charles Dickens. The Christian year in England is very much the natural year the resurrection of the earth at Easter, the hope of new life expressed in joy at the birth of Christ at the dead time of the year.