英国文学史及选读I

英国文学史及选读I Part II

History and anthology of English literature

Review: Beowulf is essentially an aristocratic poem concerned with the heroic ideal of kings and kingship in N. Europe. The social patterns described in the poem are rigidly feudal, highly violent. Battle is a way of life. Strength and courage are basic virtues for both kings and his warriors. The hero-king strives to do better than any one else the things that are vitally important to the happy life of his people. The king should protect his people and show gentleness and generosity to his warriors. And in return, his warriors should show absolute obedience and loyalty to the king. By praising Beowulf’s wisdom, strength and courage, and by glorifying his death for his people, the poem presents the heroic ideal of a king and his good relations to his warriors and people.

Old English Literature

Part II The Anglo-Norman Period 1066-1350

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Historical Background:

Middle English Literature sometimes it’s also called= Medieval English Literature

In 1066,at the battle of Hastings,the Normans headed by William, the energetic Duke of Normandy, defeated the Anglo-Saxons. The leader of Harold was killed, thus, William, the Conqueror, became the King of England.

The Normans were originally a hardy race of sea rovers inhabiting Scandinavia. In the 10th century, they conquered a part of northern French, which is still called Normandy, and rapidly adopted French civilization and the French language.

The Consequence of the Conquest:

1, Politically, a feudalist system was established.

2, Religiously, the Rome-backed Catholic Church had a much stronger control over the country. 3, Languages, after the conquest, 3 languages co-existed in England. Old English was spoken only by the common English people; French became the official language used by the King and the Norman lords; and Latin became the principal tongue of church affairs and was used by the clergymen and scholars in universities.

Three chief effects of the Conquest:

1, the bringing of Roman civilization to England;

2, the growth of nationality, i. e. a strong centralized government, instead of the loose union of Saxon tribes;

3, the new language and literature, which were proclaimed in Chaucer.

The Conquest opened up England to the whole European continent, so that with the introduction of the culture and literature of France, Italy and other European countries a fresh wave of Mediterranean civilization came into England.

The Literature:

Characteristic: The literature which they brought to England is remarkable for its bright, romantic tales of love and adventure, in marked contrast with the strength and somberness of Anglo-Saxon poetry.

This period covers about 4 centuries. In the early part of the period, i. e. from 1066 up to the mid-14th century, there’s not much to say about literature in English. It’s almost a barren period in literary creation. But in the second half of the 14th century, English literature starts to flourish with the appearance of writers like G. Chaucer, W. Langland, J. Gower, and others. Anglo-Saxon speech simplified itself by dropping of its Teutonic inflections, absorbed eventually a large part of the French vocabulary, and became the English language.

Therefore, English literature is also a combination of French and Saxon elements.

Comparison:

In comparison with the Old English Literature, 1)Middle English literature is uttered by more voices, deals with a wider range of subjects and is in a greater diversity of styles, tones and genres.

2) Popular folk literature also occupies and important place in this period. Its presentation of life is not only accurate but also in a lively and colorful way, though the originality of thought is often absent in the literary works of this period. 3) The Middle English literature strongly reflects the principles of the medieval Christian doctrine, which are primarily concerned with the issue of personal salvation. An emphasis has also been placed on the humanity of Christ and the imagery of human passion. Love has largely superseded fear, and explorations into undiscovered regions of the heart offer fresh possibilities for introspection.

Christian Orthodoxy:the life in this world is only a preparatory stage for eternal happiness, a period of suffering and repenting for man. By providing forbearance as the only answer for man’s troubles and considering the reformation of this world neither possible nor desirable.

We study:

A, Geoffrey’s History, which is valuable as a source book of literature, since it contains the native Celtic legends of Arthur;

B, the work of the French writers, who made the Arthurian legends popular;

C, Riming Chronicles, i. e. history in doggerel verse, like Laysmon’s brut;

D, Metrical Romances, or tales in verse.

The English Romance deals with 3 major subjects:

A, The “Matter of France”, a collection of tales centering about Chalemagne and his peers, chief of which is the Chanson de Roland; Chalemagne was a real person, the mighty ruler of France and

neighboring countries around 800 A. D. The French Kings claimed to be his heirs. Hence, the epics which told how he saved Christendom gave the French crown a special dignity. They were enjoyed by the warlike nobles who owed allegiance to it. But they were not so well suited to the taste of other countries, or to the fast-changing audience of the later 12th century.

B, The “Matter of Greece and Rome”, an endless series of fabulous tales about Alexander, and about the fall of Troy; it covered everything that had come down from the ancient Romans, and from the Greeks also. This included Roman history and poetry, which were preserved in ancient books copied out by the monks, it also included Greek mythology. Western Europe knew less about this, because most of the Greek manuscript were far away in the Balkans, Constantinople, and the Near East. But stories like the Trojan War and the V oyage of the Argonauts were fairly familiar. So were the pagan gods, under their Latin names, such as Jupiter and Venus.

C, The “Matter of Britain”, meant the legendary history of Britain, which was growing more and more popular after about 1150 as a rival source to the others. Here is where King Arthur came in. By far the best loved of the British legends were those that dealt with Arthur and his brave company of knights. To most foreigners who took any interest in such topics, medieval England was the land of King Arthur, and Arthur was what they were apt to think of when England was mentioned.

Medieval Romance:

Romance which uses narrative verse or prose to sing of knightly adventures or other heroic deeds is a popular literary form in the Middle Ages.

It has developed the characteristic medieval motifs of the quest, the forest, the garden, the test, the meeting with the evil giant and the encounter with the beautiful beloved. The hero is usually the knight, who sets out on a journey to accomplish some goal-to protect the church and the poor, to attack infidelity, to rescue a maiden, to meet a challenge, or to obey a knightly command; there is often a liberal use of the improbable, sometimes even supernatural, things in romance such as mysteries and fantasies; romantic love is an important part of the plot in romance; characterization is standardized, so that heroes, heroines and wicked stewards can be easily moved from one romance to another; the structure is loose and episodic; the language and style are simple and straightforward. The importance of romance itself can be seen as a means of showing medieval aristocratic men and women in relation to their idealized view of the world. If the epic reflects a heroic age, the romance reflects a chivalric one.

Many Arthurian romances, Chief of which are those of

Gawain

Launcelot

Merlin

The Quest of the Holy Grail

The Death of Arthur.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

It’s the most accomplished example of medieval romance and a poem of rich psychological and

moral interest. Its unknown author was Chaucer’s contemporary, but his alliterative verse form was old-fashioned even in his own day, and his dialect, that of Northwest England, is also very difficult for the modern readers. However, superficially the poem is an account of a typical chivalric adventure, and amalgam of a number of the best-known motifs of Arthurian romance-a challenge by a mysterious superhuman knight, a bargain which turns out to have unforeseen consequences, a lone quest, an attempted seduction of a Christian knight by a bewitching temptress. And the courtly romances are also married to archetypal folk myths and to religion.

The story: P 21 of the book of Mr. Wu Weiren’s book.

Canto 1: On New Year’s day, while Arthur and his knights are keeping the Yuletide feast at Camelot, a gigantic knight in green enters the banquet hall on horseback and challenges the bravest knight present to an exchange of blows; that is, he will expose his neck to a blow of his own big battle-ax, if any knight will agree to abide a blow in return. Gawain accepts the challenge, takes the battle-ax, and with one blow sends the giant’s head rolling through the hall. The Green Knight, evidently a terrible magician, picks up his head and mounts his horse. He holds out his head and the ghastly lips speak, warning Gawain to be faithful to his promise and to seek through the world till he finds the Green Chapel. There, on next New Year’s day, the Green Knight will meet him and return the blow.

Canto 2: Gawain’s long journey through the wilderness on his steed Gringolet, and his adventures with storm and cold, with wild beasts and monsters, as he seeks in vain for the Green Chapel. With the help of God, he finds the Green Chapel finally. He is welcomed by one host of one castle appearing in front of him, and settled down for a little while.

Canto 3: The life in the castle, a curious compact between him and the host, the host goes out to hunt in the day time, and he stays home, when the host comes back at night, the should exchange their winning in the day time. While the host goes hunting, the host’s wife, the young woman, tries to induce Gawain, but ends with a kiss to Gawain, so the first night and the second night, whatever Gawain gives back the host are the 2 kisses, but the third time, the woman gives him a ring first, but he refused, so she gives him a green girdle, he accepts it since it can protects its wearer not be wounding by any beat. He keeps this as secret. So when the host comes back, he concealed this secret.

Canto 4, In the Green Chapel, the Green Knight appears, and as promised, Gawain offers his neck for the blow. Twice the ax swings harmlessly, but the third time, it falls on his shoulder and wounds him. Then Green Knight explains the things, he’s the lord of the castle, the first two swings of the ax were harmless because Gawain had been true to his compact and twice returned the kiss. The last blow had wounded him because he concealed the gift of the green girdle, which belongs to the Green Knight and was woven by his wife. Moreover, the whole thing was arranged by Morgain the fay-woman (an enemy of Queen Guenevere, who appears often in the Arthurian romances). Full of shame, Gawain throws back the gift and is ready to atone for his deception, but the Green Knight things he has already atoned, and presents the green girdle as a free gift. Gawain returns to Arthur’s court, tells the whole story frankly, and ever after that the knights of the Round Table wear a green girdle in his honor.

Geoffrey of Monmouth:he won the heart of Europe, by launching the “Matter of Britain” and by putting King Arthur on the map as a figure of historic stature. 1134-1140, he wrote a book in Latin entitled “The History of the Kings of Britain” and offered the earliest full account of King Arthur whose popularity throughout the Middle Ages and beyond was enormous.

Just as Virgil had sought to glorify Rome by linking it with Troy through Aeneas, Geoffrey sought to exalt Britain by deriving its monarchs from a grandson of Aeneas, Brutus by name, who, together with a group of refugees from the fall of Troy, found his way to Britain and who, as its first king, named the island after him. After Brutus there is a long line of Kings descended from him. Among them are King Lud, founder of London, and King Arthur. Geoffrey also provided stories about King Lear, Cymbeline, Gorbaduc and others, which were later to inspire Shakespeare, Milton and other writers in their creation.

William Langland (1332?-1400?):he was probably born in Shropshire, but mostly lived in London. “Piers the Plowman”,bitterly satirizes corruption among the clergy and the secular authorities, and upholds the dignity and value of labor, it’s written in a style of imaginative vigour and clarity with strong alliterations. Describing a panorama of medieval society. Dream vision---searching for truth-that is, the love of God.

The Prologue describes how the poet fell asleep on a May morning by the side of the Malvern Hills, and beheld a lofty tower, with a dungeon in a dell beneath it, and between them a fair field full of folk. The tower is heaven, the dungeon is Hell, and the fair field is the field of the world, full of all manners of men, the needy and the rich.

The first vision portrays the reformation of secular society.

In the second vision, the moral improvement is already being corrupted. Piers Plowman himself emerges, an ordinary laboring man, he knows truth in the way Holy Church dexribed, through “Kynede knowynge”, Piers immediately sets the world to work and has backsliders punished by Hunger.

In one of the great moments of the poem, a pardon arrives for society; it states simply that those who do well will be saved, while those who sin will be damned.

The only salvation lies in the honest labor and the service of Christ.

In this poem, Langland presents a vivid picture of the life in feudal England by depicting the corruption of wealth, the inadequacies of the government, scoundrels and hypocrites of the clerical profession and lay authorities, and miseries and sufferings of the needy. Like Gower, he is a moralist who seeks to portray not only the world, but also the truth. His vision includes the social, moral and spiritual world.

“Piers the Plowman”, was coordinated by a pull of opposites: between the tower and the dungeon, Christ and anti-christ, good and bad shepherd. Social conduct is a dimension of spiritual conduct.

Verse form sets Langland apart from Chaucer and Gower.

John Gower (1330-1408?): he was a contemporary and a friend of Chaucer’s and shared many of Chaucer’s interests. He had great competence but small originality. He wrote his 3 chief works in different languages.

Speculum Meditantis or Mirour de l’omme (Mirror of Thought, 1376?), in French, is an allegory treating the nature of human beings, their sins and virtues, and their deliverance form sin.

V ox Clamantis ( V oice of Complaint, 1382?), written in Latin elegiac verse, describes Tyler’s Rebellion of 1381 and deals with the faults of the various classes of society.

Confessio Amantis (The Lover’s Confession, 1390?), Gower’s greatest and best-known work, is written in English.

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Sir Thomas Malory: end of 14th century, English prose.

Morte Darthur, the death of Arthur, but it describes not only the death of the King, but also his birth andlife, and the wonderful deeds of many of his knights, which are based mainly on earlier Arthurian material in French and English. Chivalric life. The excerpt is on the P34 of Mr. Zhang Boxiang’s book.

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Part III Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?-1400)