Literature of the Middle Ages

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Literature of the Middle Ages 10661485
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Poetry

• Didactic Poems teaching Christian doctrine,
  sometimes allegory Patience, Pearl, The Rood,
  Cleanliness, The Seafarer
• Dream Vision Pearl and Roman de la Rose. A
  dreamer dreams the allegorical experience,
  utilizing the highly symbolic nature of dreams.
• Sonnets Petrarch (d. 1374)
• Troubadour Songs and Ballads
• Sestinas 6 stanza poems of 6 lines eachabcdef,
  faebdc, cfdabe, ecbfad, deacfb, bdfeca

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Poetry

• Epics Dante (1265-1321) La Divina Commedia,
  written between 1308 and his death, during
  Dantes exile, this text lifts the world from the
  medieval to the Renaissance. There is evidence
  that Dante based this epic dream vision poem on
  the recently translated (1264) Liber Scale
  Machometi (Kitab al Miraj) or the Book of
  Ascension, which describes Mohammeds night
  journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and his vision
  thorough the seven heavens to God.
• Dantes epic also incorporates the philosophy of
  the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas
  (1225-1274) whose ideas are attributed to, among
  others, Averroes (Ibn Rushd 1126-1198) and
  Maimonides (Moses ibn Ezra 1135-1204) who both
  argued a reconciliation of Aristotelian
  philosophy with Islam all of whom are
  identifying truth as a combination of human
  reason and divine grace.

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Theater

• Mystery Plays Bible Stories
• Morality Plays Didactic Allegories, such as
  Everyman
• Miracle Plays Saints Lives
• Passion Plays Depicting the events relating to
  the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus
  Christ.

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Theater

• De Casibus Tragedy The moniker is based on
  Boccaccios De Casibus Virorum Illustrium. This
  tragedy depends entirely on the whimsical nature
  of Fate or Fortune. (See Chaucers The Monks
  Tale.) Youve seen this already in Job. The
  Renaissance, of course, will go back to the Greek
  ideal (humanism) of tragedy, and includes
  hamartia. Fate takes a bit of a back seat to
  free will.

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Beast Fables and Riddles

• Many taken from translations of the Latin Aesop
  fables. (Aesop was Greek, but a slave in Roman
  times.)
• These became allegories for teaching Christian
  ideals.
• La Fontaine may have used these as a source for
  his Fables, written in the late 1600s.
• Medieval folks were also mad for riddles short
  poems without titles that were metaphors and
  allegories for other things were a rage.
• This was also a time that produced many
  brilliantly illustrated manuscripts of the Bible
  and other texts, religious and otherwise.

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Saints Tales, Parables, and Sermons

• Saints Tales are likely taken from pagan stories
  of heroes, gods, and goddesses. They are
  mystical in nature and often involve
  transformations, visions, and other-worldly
  journeys.
• Sermons Parables or Allegory that are structured
  as a morality tale, sometimes to resolve a moral
  conundrum. Piers Plowman is an allegorical prose
  work by William Langland that portrays life as a
  pilgrimage. Exemplum were also popular, which
  were parables attached to a particular sermon, as
  were dialectical discourses.
• Also, Books of Hours, or illustrated texts,
  usually with religious prayers Jean dEvreux
  Hours, which is at the Cloisters and Jean, Duc de
  Berrys calendar, Très Riche Heures.

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Fabliaux

• Dirty Stories with moralistic justification!
  These stories were as popular then as they are
  now. Some modern versions would include such
  classic American films such as, American Pie, The
  Spy Who Shagged Me
• Chaucer (d. 1400) Canterbury Tales
• Boccaccio (d. 1376) The Decameron
• Perhaps written as a salve to pious fervor of the
  times, or in response to ecclesiastic law.or as
  an antidote to courtly love and the Black Plague.
• This collection of stories formula likely also
  floated in from the Arab world, with the Persian
  Scheherazade stories available in translation.

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Romance

• History and Influences of Romance Literature
• Writers and Works
• Conventions of Medieval Romance
• Chivalric Code and Introduction to Courtly Love

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History and Influences of Romance Literature

• The word romance comes from the Old French word,
  romanz, meaning the vernacular, or language of
  the people.
• As the Church spread its influence across Europe,
  priests and clerics, in order to educate and
  teach history from the Roman Empire, translated
  the body of work of Roman literature into the
  vernacular languages of French, English, Italian,
  and German. But the Romance literature is equally
  influenced from the Arab world.

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History and Influences of Romance Literature

• Translations of philosophy and other texts from
  the Greco-Roman world are initiated by Islamic
  scholars. These include the mystical texts of Ibn
  Arabi and Moses of Leon, introducing Sufism and
  the Kabbalah, respectively.
• In addition to classical texts, there is a
  flourish of secular poetry and writing from
  Muslims and Jews during La Convivencia when Jews,
  Christians and Muslims coexisted in Spain from
  711-1492 (Reconquista) that also influence
  European writing during the Middle Ages.
• This includes especially the often erotic love
  poetry of Samuel ibn Nagrid and Judah Halevi
  (Hebrew) and Ibn Hazm (Arabic) and a
  constellation of others.

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History and Influences of Romance Literature

• The translations included the stories of heroes
  and heroic adventure (Virgils The Aeneid)
  poetry, dialogues and historical texts Ovid,
  Plutarch, Caesar, Ciceros dream vision, Dream of
  Scipio.
• The stories of Theseus, Aeneas, Hercules, the
  founding of Rome, Alexander the Great, and Julius
  Caesar, and tales from Ovid in Europe were often
  changed and flourished with Christian virtues
  justice, prudence, temperance, courage, faith,
  charity, and hope.

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History and Influences of Romance Literature

• The stories included adventures and heroic
  deeds, as well as stories of lasting love Ovids
  Metamorphoses, cleaned up Cupid and Psyche,
  Venus and Adonis, Hero and Leander, Pyramus and
  Thisbe, Philemon and Baucis Also, most of what
  Virgil wrote was translated.

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History and Influences of Romance Literature

• Medieval Romance effectively combines ancient
  heroic epics, mysticism of Jewish and Muslim
  writers, Christian theology, and Celtic, Norse,
  Persian and Greco-Latin myths and stories in one
  place.
• These include
• Embellished history that disregards time and
  fact.
• Dream vision poetry and highly structured poems.
• Adventure stories that are episodic in plot and
  involve many standard epic conventions.
• Interwoven cycles of stories, involving
  interrelated characters and events, similar to
  myth cycles.

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Romance Writers and Works

• The body of Romance Literature includes
• Chansons de geste Heroic deeds
• Roman daventure Heroic adventures
• Histories
• Lays (lais) or short works usually dealing with
  love and often including mystical
  transformations.
• Romance literature is both poetry and prose. It
  includes the legends of King Arthur retold, and
  other stories of knights, adventure, and courtly
  love.

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Romance Writers and Works

• Chanson de Roland (1100) heroic deeds of
  Charlemagne and nephew Roland against the Muslims
  in Spain.
• El Cid (1207) heroic deeds of Rodrigo Diaz, a
  knight who fights on both sides of the Christian
  and Muslim conflict in Spain.
• Geoffrey of Monmouths history of Britain
  (Historia Regum Britanniae) (1137) presenting
  readers with a full account of Arthur and the
  knights of the round table. He ties the founding
  of England to the Roman legend of Aeneas,
  inventing a grandson, Brutus, who goes to found
  England. He creates a mythic figure who would
  rise and fall, his kingdom ready for resurrection.

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Romance Writers and Works

• Cretien de Troyes (1165) The Quest for the Holy
  Grail, and Arthur stories, blending elements of
  pagan mysticism and ritual with Monmouths
  Arthur.
• Robert de Boron (1200s) Arthur stories
• Marie de France (late 12th century) Mystical lais
  of love, fables, and a dream vision story of a
  knight in Purgatory.
• Guilliaume de Lorris /Jean de Meun Le Roman de
  la Rose
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1370s)
• Chaucers mock romance, The Knights Tale and
  Troylus and Criseyde. (1342-1400)
• Sir Thomas Mallory, Le Morte DArthur (1450)

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Conventions of Medieval Romance

• The influence of Medieval romance with its
  roots in epic poetry, winds through English
  literature through the Renaissance, the
  Enlightenment in the eponymic Romantic movement,
  and, of course, in modern takes on romance from
  T.H. Whites The Once and Future King and of
  course, Monty Python!

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Conventions of Medieval Romance

• Medieval Romances
• Often have unprovoked and violent fighting!
• Are set in a mystical place and time (the Dark
  Ages)
• Present supernatural elements, and magical powers
  from the pagan world
• Have a hero who is on a noble adventure or quest
• Have a loose, episodic structure
• Include elements of courtly love
• Embody ideals of chivalry
• Time frame of a year and a day

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Chivalric Code and Introduction to Courtly Love

• Chivalry is from the French word, chevalier,
  meaning horseman, or knight.
• The chivalric code influenced the formation of
  religious military orders during the period of
  the Crusades. The now famous Knights Templar and
  the Hospitalers are among the noted knights.
• During the later middle ages, chivalry had become
  largely as system of etiquette and the knights a
  source of entertainment during tournaments
  which themselves gradually became less
  threatening to the participants.

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Chivalric Code and Introduction to Courtly Love

• The chivalric code combined Christian virtues
  with military virtues
• Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence and Justice
• Faith, Hope, Charity
• Valor and strength in battle
• Loyalty to God and King
• Courtesy towards enemies
• Generosity towards the sick, women, widows and
  the oppressed
• Courtly Love

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What happened to Chivalry?

• Finally, knighthood became simply an honor, and
  those eligible for it today can skip the military
  bit.
• Today, knights can be just regular people who
  have done something special. The honor is used
  for notable artists and other doers of good
  deeds, men and women alike.
• Knighted folks include Paul McCartney, Judi
  Dench, Laurence Olivier, and former New York
  Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.