THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE I - 6.10.10

Early Middle Ages and Oral Culture

(“oralture”)

1. The term “Early Middle Ages and Oral Culture”:

• may be used interchangeably with the term “Old English” and “Anglo-Saxon”

• (in the English context) refers to the culturedeveloping between 410 a.d. and 1066.

• describes culture characterised by hibridity, syncretism, interlacing

• indigenous, Roman, Anglosaxon cultures

Native inhabitants of the land (culture)

• paganism and christianity

First Christianization went through that time - monastic christianity

Second Christianization - institution.

• oral and chirographic culture

* english culture is hibrid, syncretic, not indicretic.

2. Oral culture

• general features of oral culture it is ear based rather than eye - dependent.

• though is linked with memory systems (based on memory), homestic relation

• though is tied to community

• functions of oral poetry

• ludics (affers entertainment)

• educational (transmits knowledge)

• normative (presents ideal norms of morality and encourages conformity)

• adaptive (helps to adopt changing conditions).

3. Mnemonic patterns

• ACCUMULATION - addition

• AGGREGATION - things in groups

• VARIATION

* this culture doesn't propose analisis, elements are put together (not the warrior but courageosu warrior)

• REDUDNANCY, REPETITIONS (list of antitheses), line is end and the idea also

• REFERENCES TO THE HUMAN WORLD - related to the particular thing

• THE CONTEXT OF STRUGGLE - war, fighting, the agon between the humanitas and draconitas

• PARTICIPATORY and CONSERVATIVE ATTITUDE - different kind of originality

• TYPE OF CHARACTERS - stock characters

• TRADITIONAL NARRATIVE SENTENCES (themes) - structural units which present a narrative scene according to a conventional set of elements, standard thematic settings (the assemblay, the meal, the battle, the heroe's helper).

• HEAVILY SYMBOLIC OBJECTS

• PROVERBS, ASSERTION of PERMANENT VALUE

• RYTHMIC BALANCED PATTERNS

• ASSONANCE, ALLITERATION

• AGGREGATIVE FORMULAE - standard phrases, groups of words, which can be repeated or varied while remaining the same in basic form or gramatical structure and then applied to stock situations > ful stop in the poem to mark the end of the unit.

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE II - 20.10.10

Old English poetry and prose

Secular poetry

This poetry is not preocupied in the first place of religious matters, but it doesn't mean that religion is not present.

Groups of secular poetry:

1. Showing acute awarness of Germanic culture (Widsith, Dear, The Battle of Finnesburh, Walsere, Beowolf)[heroic poetry].

X-XI c.

Returnes to heroic period - late Roman and Postroman. Germnic people starting coming to England.

Deor:

Classified as ellegy, the only poem in England that has stanzac form, divided in units with: post away, that, can, this. The speaker used to be a scop then replaced by somebody else. Enigmatic ending, rythmic, repetition - everything passes away, also suffering.

Battle of Finnesburh:

The same is in Beowolf - after defeating Grendel.Story of conflict and betrayed between Finns and Danes. The Danes attac Freziens, take away Hildeburh and treasure.

Waldere:

Reconstructed story (from Frankish - Valtarius).

Beowolf:

Special position in OEP. Lots of elements of heroic poetry.

2. Dealing with contemporary Anglo-Saxon matters (The Battle of Brunanburh, Durham, the Battle of Maldon)[heroic poetry].

Latin tradition - encomnium urbis - praised of the city.

3. Treating subjects from no particular locate [elegies] (The Wanderer, the Seafarer, The Wife's lament, The Husband's Message, The Ruin)

Features of elegies:

XIX c. - new filological term:

• relatively short poems deal with the sense of love, absence, sens of consolation

• element of exile or a loss, phisical hardship, lack of comfort

• desert, gloomy landscapes

• transcience of everything

4. The metrical charms (against the Dwarf) and wisdom literature (Maximus I, Maximus II).

5. Riddles - enigmatic verse based on Latin learned tradition (Aldhelm).

6. It partrap the ethos and culture associated with the pre-Christian Germanic tribes, as imagined in later centuries.

7. Orality of heroic poetry.

8. Heroic code

• comitatus - Lord is delighted to care of his retainers

• hall culture - the center of aristocratic (upper class life)

• revenge - one of the duties of the retainers

• wergeild - man price paid to kinship of dead man (compensation)* Grendel and his mother don't pay - they are outside the community.

Epic strenght of a hero, who will do everything to make his name memorable to the community.

9. Communal and patriarchal charcter of heroic world.

• woman is a peace weaver - married to the enemy - enemies relatives - in poetric way - at celebrations passes cup around the table (giving and taking back) - drinking the same thing - like weavig.

10. Legendary material is employed (look ex.)

11. Concentrating on dramatic moments (look ex.)

The structure is loose. Composition is parataxis or accumulation - things are added one to another. Something that is condencing poetry power - dramatic moments.

11. Abruptness, immediancy, exclamatory character of narration.

12. Beowolf's complex relation with heroic poetry.

Christian story > final shape of the poem is not Pagan > deep sense is Christian.

RELIGIOUS POETRY AND PROSE

Types of OE religious poetry:

• Doctrinal - (Christ and Satan, Christ, Genesis A, Genesis B, Exodus, Daniel) - formedon conflict, battles (Saxon's mind)

• Hagiographical (Fates of Apostles, [Cynewulf], Elene, Juliana, Aldhelm, Guthlac, Adreas)

• Ceremonial - (The Lord's Prayer, The Gloria, The Creed, The Psalter, dream of the Rood)

• heroic elements in OE religious poetry

• comic elements in OE religious poetry

Old English religious prose:

• Aelfric

• Sermones Cathalici (Catholic Homilies)

• Lives of the Saints, transplanation from Old Testament text.

• Wulfstan

• Lupi Sermo ad Anglos (Wolf's Sermon to the English).

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE III - 3, 10,17,24.11.10

Medieval historiography and the emergence of the romance.

Where the romance come from?

* fertile ground of romance - XII century of writting but earlier:

1. Early Medieval Historiography

• closely related to theology and biblical exegesis

• history controlled by God (providential history) and reedemed by Christ.

• typological reading of history

• history as a moral tale (its exemplarist function)

• early Christian approaches to history - Eusebius (Ivc.) and Augustine (Vc.)

• Gildas and Bede - narrators of Barbarians histories, the fall-of-Britain histories

• authority and fides historica

Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (731)

• Christianisation of England (Augustine in Canterbury)

• Repositioning of the chosen people (now identified as the Angles and Saxons)

• The invention of common English identity (uninformity that was hardly there at that time)

• The important miracle narrative the story of Caedmon (“Hymn”).The orginary moment of English poetry and culture.

2. XII century Historiography

• exemplary value of history

• classical inspirations

• duality and conflict (human quest vs. External forces)

• national history removed from the context of salvation history

• the role of human causation (related to duality)

• cyclical view of history (like wheel of fortune)

Geofrey of Monnouth:

• influence Historia Regum Britaniae (1138) had:

• it inspired the romance and the corpus of Arthurian literature,

• it popularized the idea of Britain

• it helped to establish an English national hero and foundation myth (translatio imperi)

• the problem of history and fiction

• dual narrative

• historical features - paratactic, genealogical, patriarchal, historical narrative

• romantic features - hypotactic, disruptive, digressive, gendermarked, romance narrative

Intermediary stage between history and fiction

• Wace - Roman the Brut (the Romance of the Brut)

• historical and court interest

• the 12-year peace period indicated

• Chretien de Troyes, Frec (the 1^st Arthurian Romance), Yvain on Chevalier au Lion, Chevalier de la Charette

• focus on fiction

• courtly romance (Arthur is removed from the nationalontext and marginalised)

Arthurian Literature

- The Alliterative - “Morte Arthure”

• Arthur is the warrior king (deux bellorum). Dream device.

• French prose romances (The Vulgate Cycle)

• Chivarlic exploits vs. spirituality

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Alliterative Recival)

# translatio imperi

# the only medieval romance

# intervention of the woman

• Sir Thomas Malory - “Le morte Darthur” 1470 (printed 1485)

1. Definning the romance

• come from non latine (native latine)

• narratives in the vernacular that emerge in the 12^th cent, in the court of Henry II, and focuse on love and adventure.

• A set of mobile, adaptative strategies for making text presurable

(history, hagiography, lais - the building block of the romance)

• text speaking for clerns (idealisation, irony, ambivalent relation to court ideology)

2. Features of the romance

• “and then” structure: the interlace (is written, put one near the another, they cross each other)

• leasurely exploration of the world, surpus

• spending free time in good way, the world with opportunities, so many adventures, which are waiting for us

• narrative delays, obstacles, reversals of fortune (one big fight, one crusial battle)

the story is diviation (between son and father, etc.)

• the motif of guest, emphasis the private experience

(the romantic hero not simply fight)

• make chivarlie identities are constructed by wman

(hominis confusis)

Anglo-Saxon poetry woman has stronger position (man does what woman would like).

• significance of the marvelous:

• the central world vs. The “other” world

(threat, problem, dream)

• romance has wish-fulfilment (restoring, perfection damaged by magic)

• redemptive perspective ( U-shaped story).

3. Courtly love (fin'amour) - miłość dworska

XIX c. - the courtly love exist (not in romance time).

• representation of the many contradictions, erotic theory, and practice of the period.

• the pursuit of love vs. pursuit of arms.

(what is mor important beeing a warrior or good lover?)

• practise vs. fiction

• fantasy and build

love is an ilusion, fantasy - “I will tell you how to be a lover”

• religious vs. secular dimersion.

4. Classification of romance

• Jean Bodel's division (XIII c.): least more true

• Halter of Britain (Arthur, companies, adventures)

• Matter of Rome Great (greek, myth, mythology figures, medieval people

• Matter of France (main character - king, Roland as a knight)

• chronology based division

• Anglo-Norman Romances

• Popular-English Romances

• French Arthurian Romances

• Alliterative Romances

Anglo-Norman Romances

• multicultural, multilingual enviorenment

• impact of the vigorous historical writting and romance antiques (intertextuality)

• interests in British topography: English national evoked

• non-royal taste and relatively non-Arthurian character

• strong females characters (active desiring heiress/heroine)

• eg.: Horn, Boeve de Haumonte, Ipomedon

Popular-English Romances

• 50 separate romances of multiple origins/authors

• conventional style: optimism, piety

• recurent motifs:

• maturation of the hero, the fair, unknown, lost child, father - son combat

• the Saracen, giants, traitors, festivals, chivarlick, generosity, tokens.

• adventure stories and love elements

• eg. Guy of Hivarick, Havelok, Sir Orfeo, Sir Isumbras, Floris and Blanchefleur.

Alliterative Romances

• the context of Aliterrative Revival (literary imitation of formulaic diction in transitory oral/manuscript culture)

• reccurent features

• obsession with temporality

• spectacular, enigmatic figures

• sense of heroic provincionality

• poetic voice of authority

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IV - 1, 8.12.10

Chaucer and the emergence of English poetry

1. The linguistic context after 1066 (Norman conquer-landmark date)

• XI-XIIc. - England is trilingual:

• LATIN - writting-letters, of administration, law, religion, church administration

• FRENCH - cultural supremacy: emulation and rejection of “frenchness”. It was dominant culture in that time

• ENGLISH - pidgonised Anglo-Saxon as common speech

• XIII c. - French is gradually displaced and assimilated

• XIV c. - “new” language: Franglais

2. Chaucer's most important works (XIVc.)

• The book of Duchess

• The legend of good woman

• The house of fame

• Troilus and Criseyde

• The Parliament of Fowls

• The Canterbury Tales

• Translation of Roman de la Rose

• Translation of De consolatione philosophiae (Consolation of Philosophy)

3. Chaucer and “modern” English poetry

• displacement and assimilation of French in Chaucer's works

• early poems: as purely native vocabulary as possible

• later poems: Franglais

• French meter married to English stress

• iambic pentamtere - blank verse (major evolution in English literature, sth fundamental for later poetry)

• possible Italian influence

4. Chaucer and French culture/conventions

(french culture shapes Chaucer's literature)

• dominance of French culture

• trobadours, romances, Romance of Rose (deLorris), dit amoreoux (love narrative), new lyrical forms

• satirical, comic writting: Romance of Rose (de Meun), fabliau (parodies romance convention)

• Chaucer's debt to Froissart and Machant as sources of sophistication and techniques

• Chaucer's constructions of Englishness and his codification of “French-ness”

• playful misreading of french conventions

• a counter - discourse contesting the zfrench dominance.

Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales

1. The structuring proncipales of CT

• variety

• compare the wicker House of Rumour in The House of Fame

• uniformity

• based on the idea of the Book: the divine order radiating through the phisical universe

2. The variety in CT

• pilgrim - tellers from various clerical / lay estates (late medieval society - variety):

• oratores (highiest - the clergy - those who rray for the rest)

• pugmatores (aristocracy - those who fight)

• laboratores (those who work by hands).

* Diverity is aimed at this division of these three estates above. Diversity of pilgrims.

• subverting the rank - based sequence of tale - telling (porządek powieści jest dziwaczny, ale oparty na jakiejś dynamicznej zasadzie)

• narrative interruptions and surprises

• The CT as an anthology of genres (opowieści łączą gatunki, są mieszaniną kilku gatunków)

• different stories of the same genre (eg. religious tales, fabliaux)

• (in)congruence between tellers and the tales

• different tales from the one teller (Chaucer the pilgrim)

• shifting standards of judgement in GP

3. Uniformity in CT

• The CT as a compilation - a compendium

• medieval compilers, The Glossa Ordinaria and Chaucer as the compiler

• The GP as the accessus ad auctores > four Aristotle causes

• The CT and the “idea of the Book”

• totality constituted by the pre-existent Logos (divine word)

• keeping everything in its proper place

• manifested in Gothiccathedral, the summa and encyclopaedia, etc. (symetricly, logicly)

• the problem of fictitious linguistically constructed narrator.

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE V - 15.12.10, 05.01.11,

The Medieval Dream Vision until Chaucer

1. Main features of the genre

• the dream vision is a retrospective account of dream(s) experienced by the Dreamer/Poet

• the troubled Dreamer ancounters authoritative figures

• there are symbolic landscapes

• dream visions have liminal character

• the motif of spiritual journey

• philosophical questions posed

• dream visions are allegorical and confusing

• they are highly self-conscious

2. A history of the genre

• two main traditions

• the religious/philosophical vision (the Bible, Cicero, Macrobius, Boethicus)

• the secular love vision (Le Roman de la rose)

• three phases of the genre's transformation

• the emergence of the gemre's (EARLY ENGLISH DREAM VISION)

• the consolidation of its conventions, deliberate use (HIGH MEDIEVAL DREAM VISIONS XII - XIIc)

• conscious manipulation of the genre, stretching and turning it (LATE MEDIEVAL DREAM VISION)

• EARLY ENGLISH DREAM VISION

• the non-individual character of dreams of the otherworld

• focus on wether a dream is real/true

• the pre-Christian material

• pleasurable doubts about meanings of dreams

• Christian materials

• anxiety over meaning

• controlling dreamers and restricting meanings

• eg. The dream of the Root

• HIGH MEDIEVAL DREAM VISIONS XII - XIIc

• complex theories of dreaming as their context

• eg. Macrobius on false and the true dreams

• reflexion on the possibility of knowing truth

• using reason and imagination, man can descend through and beyond natural knowledge to divine (truth)

• poetry can present truth

• movement from the natural, lower truth to the supernatural, highier truth - the motif of the (spiritual) ji=ourney

• LATE MEDIEVAL DREAM VISION

• period of culturae transition concentrating on boundaries, threshold images the in-betweenness

• Chaucer's dream vision

• The Book of the Dutches

• The Housesof Fame

• The Parliament of Fowls

• Inset dreams

• Chaucer uses dream convention to reflect on the problems of poetc creation

• The Pearl (anonymous): Piers Plowman (William Landgeland)

Chaucer's dream vision

• poetic emblems

• imagination memory (the dreamer in The Book of Dutchles and The Black Knight)

• the problem of representations (Morpheus)

• poetic language (Fame's palace on the rock of ice)

• feminisation of the dreamer in The Book of Dutches and The House of Fame

• The eagle

• Geoffrey (“I myself best know how I stand”)

• Mysterious man of authority

THE EXEMPLUM

• any narrative form able to capture the imagination of the audience and serve as:

• support for a doctrinal, religious and moral explanation (reason, abstract ideas vs. persuasion)

• enactment of cultural authority (performative exemplarity

• constant instruction for the fallible human and the renewal of the communual consensus

• derived from the Bible classical stories; beast tales; saint's legends; popular stories; anectotes; maxim; etc.

• May be supplied with a short interpretation

THE SEROMON EXEMPLUM

• concentrate and realistic

• recognisable social situations, rather than symbolic events

• striking, physical, often violent or brutal details

• it employs the grotesque (brings incongruous elements together)

• grotesque realism/vulgar mysticism

THE EXEMPLUM IN PATIENCE

• a “homiletc” poem using a biblical exemplum (the story of Jonah)

• the exemplum is used by the speaker locking the homiletic authority

• the exemplum is put in a pragmatic, rather than salvation context

THE POLITICAL EXEMPLUM

• used in the mirror for princes (text of councel, intended for the ruler)

• John Gower, Confessio Amantis

• Thomas Hoccleve, The Regement of Princes

• in mirrors for princes, exempla

• stress transformation of the prince into king (development virtues)

• are vehicles of political ideas (advice can become (covert) critique)

THE VISUALISED EXEMPLUM

“intelektualne rozwolnienie”

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE VI - 12, 19. 01. 11,

Medieval lyrics and lives. Mystical literature

LYRICS

• short (stanzaic) poems (few obvious features)

• characteristic diversity - wide range of functions

• unsystematic, original compilation (eg. the Harley lyrics)

• few rhetorical devices, subtlety, elegant, economy

• macaronic lyrics from multilingual context

• lyrics of religious and wordly love

• lyrics concerned withe the Virgin and Christ

• joculatores dei (eg. Red Book)

• conventions employed (pastourelle, chanson d'aventure)

• carols (the most common form of lyrics)- on different topics (not only Christmast)\mundane lyrics (“snatches” J. Gloser)

MYSTICAL LITERTURE

• the context of religious instruction (Ignorantia sacerdotum, or the Pechan syllabus, XIIIc.)

• The Cdeed, the Ten Commandments, the Two Evangelical Precepts, the Seven Works of Mercy, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Seven Sacraments

• mystical writters:

• R. Rolle, The Forum of Living (1348)

• W. Hilton:

• Scale of Perfection (c. 1385), (cataphatic contemplation)

• The cloud of Unknowing (apophatic contemplation)

• Julian of Norwich, The Book of Showings

• M. Kempe, The book of Margery Kempe (first english authobiographer)

LIVES

• literature of sanctity is both:

• pious, instructive

• imaginative and recreative

• sacred lives as templates

• N. Love, Mirror of the blessed Life of Jesus Christ (translation)

• J. Lydgate, Mirror of Our Lady

• collections of lives

• The Book of Margery Kempe:

• generic problems (hagiography + (auto)biography)

• the problem of medieval ientity

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