KARINA PONGUILLO DAVILA

16/12/2018
BRITISH LITERATURE
8CII

WHO WERE THE WRITERS THE OLD ENGLISH AND THE MEDIEVAL LITERATURE?
Writers from the Old English period
Most Old English poems are recorded without authors, and very few names are known
with any certainty; the primary three are Cædmon, Aldhelm, and Cynewulf.
Writers from the Middle English period
Bacon, Roger (1214?-1294) English philosopher and scientist. Bacon is one of the most
prominent figures in 13th century scholastic philosophy.
Caxton, William (c.1422-1491) [Early Modern Period] A merchant and later a writer who
set up the first printing press in England in 1476.
Chaucer, Geoffrey (c.1340-1400) [literary writing] The major poet of England in the late
Middle Ages and the most significant writer before Shakespeare.
Coverdale, Miles (c. 1488-1569) [religious writing] One of the main translators of the
Bible in the 16th century.
Gloucester, Robert (late 13th century) The author of a chronicle which can be dated to
about 1300 and was written in the southern dialect.
Gower, John (c. 1330-1408) An English poet of courtly love who is remembered as the
author of the Confessio Amantis.
Kempe, Margery (c. 1373- c.1439) An East Anglian women who is known to posterity
from The Boke of Margery Kempe. This is a text dictated by her which recounts her
religious experiences, including visions and pilgrimages.
Laʒamon A late 12th century author from Worcestershire who is known as the author of
the Brut, a history of Britain from the earliest times to his day.
Langland, William The supposed 14th century author of Piers Plowman, an allegorical
poem on a variety of religious themes written in simple language which could be
understood by the laity at its time.
Mallory, Sir Thomas (c. 1405-1471) The author or at least compiler of Le Morte d”Arthur.
Little definitive information is known about him, though he was twice voted into
Parliament and apparently was involved in criminal behavior during his life.
Mandeville, Sir John (mid 14th century) The Travels of Sir John Mandeville was an
immensely popular book of the 14th century which has survived in a couple of hundred
manuscripts.
Manning, Robert (c. 1298-1338) An English poet who is remembered for his didactic
work Handling Sin, itself an adaptation of a French-language original Manuel des
péchés by William of Wadington.
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Norwich, Julian of (c. 1342- c. 1416) An English mystic of the 14th century. A near-death
illness at the age of 30 led to a series of visions which formed the basis for The Sixteen
Revelations of Divine Love or simply The Revelations of Divine Love.
Occam, William of (c.1285-1349) English philosopher and scholasticist. He was original
in his teachings and writings and represented a new turn in medieval philosophy.
Orrm An English writer who flourished around 1200 and who wrote a religious work,
known after him as the Orrmulum.
Trevisa, John of (c. 1350 1402) A writer from Cornwall known for his translation of
the Polychronicon. He also translated De Proprietatibus Rerum an encylopedia of
science by Bartholomew de Glanville.
Tyndale, William (c.1492-1536) English scholar and clergyman, an early translator of the
Bible into English. He was one of the early converts to Protestantism, moving from
London to Worms.
}Wycliffe, John (?-1384) Wycliffe is known as an early reformer in the Catholic church,
one of the pre-Reformation figures who foreshadowed the reforms instigated by Luther
in the early 16th century.

HOW WAS THE CULTURE DURING THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD?

There was a lot that occurred during the Middle Ages, plague, war, famine, and literacy
problems plagued many of the countries in Europe. It was not a good time to have
beliefs that differed from the church, and there was little to protect any member of the
country that spoke their mind if it differed from those in power. The Middle Ages were
exactly that a period after the fall of the Roman Empire and Greek influence, but before
the enlightenment of the renaissance. The Middle Ages were the transition period that
sat smack dab in the middle of those two time periods.

Medieval Times
Most people think of Medieval Times as a place in history where a gallant knight would
ride off into the sunset to sleigh a dragon for the love of a princess. They do not realize
it was a huge time for superstition, and the lack of education did not provide any
support to disprove any of the more outrageous superstitious beliefs.
Medicine was pretty much non-existent, so the treatment for someone that fell ill or
had some sort of medical issue was basically to wait it out and see what God decides.
Everyday Life
The average person’s life was filled with a great deal of hard work and modest earnings.
The majority of families worked all day in order to grow and gather enough food to feed
their family and sell in order to purchase items such as clothing that they may need.
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BRITISH LITERATURE
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Most families were barely able to make ends meet, and their children were often
married off at a very young age.
The wealthier people of society often had a much easier time in life. They did not have
to do much hard labor at all and in fact often had live in servants that were there to
take care of any need that they may have. Some members would be invited to court
which meant that they would go to keep the king or queen company and to wait on
them hand and foot.
Art & Education
There could not be a bigger difference in a society’s concentration like that of art and
education during the Middle Ages. The culture in the Middle Ages had a strong
concentration on the artistic talents of many individuals..
Education took a back seat during the Middle Ages. It was not until the end of the
Middle Ages that the rulers began to realize that without education they would just
continue to make the same mistakes over and over again and would never reach peace
for their society.
Branching Out
The culture in the Middle Ages expanded eastward. Due to open trade lines with the
east there were many aspects of society that began to change due to the knowledge
that they received from their much more educated eastern neighbors. Religions,
education, art, and even cooking were influenced by the east.
WHICH WERE THE GENRES THE WRITERS USE AT THE TIME?

In terms of genre, we can talk about lyric poetry, mystery plays, liturgical plays, morality
plays, fabliaux, sermons, debate, rules for living a religious life, beast fables, bestiaries,
and romance. That by no means exhausts the list.

Dame Sirith is an example of the fabliau, a comic bourgeois genre that arose in France
between 1150 and 1320. Chaucer uses fabliaux in Canterbury Tales. Perhaps, the most
well known of Chaucer’s fabliaux is “The Miller’s Tale”.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an example of the genre of the romance, where you
have a hero who is the paragon of bravery and a master of the art of courtly love. In this
genre, the hero is always on a quest wherein he is faced with many obstacles and
difficulties. The author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is also considered to be the
author of another poem called The Pearl. The Pearl represents the genre of dream
vision in which questions of religious importance are considered.

WHICH ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT FEATURES OF THE WRITERS AT THE TIME?

In any culture, the first literature is oral. All the religious texts like the Bible, the Qur’an,
and the Ramayana etc were orally memorised and were written down later on. There
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were mainly three things in English Literature-religion, war and the trails of daily life;
that became the key themes of early writings.

RELIGIOUS TEXTS: Caedmon’s Hymn is the first fragment of English Literature. The Hymn
was written in the praise of God and religion. These religious texts were preserved by
Christian monks and nuns.
TEXTS DEALING WITH THE DAILY TRAILS: Doer’s Lament deals with the day-to-day trials
of the life. He was a distinguished bard who sang for a high-class family. However,
another bard took his place and he was left jobless. Hence his work Lament exposes the
unemployment in his time.
WAR TEXTS: Works like The Seafarer and the Wanderer (written during the end of 10th
century) throw light on the suffering of commoners as no protection was provided by
the rulers to them.
KENNINGS: Old English poetry is characterised by a number of poetic tropes which
enables a writer to describe things indirectly and which require a reader imaginatively
to construct their meaning. Kennings are the most widespread of these figurative
descriptions. Kennings often occur in compounds: e.g. bronrad (whale-road) or swanrad
(swan-road) meaning ‘the sea’; banbus (bone-house) means the ‘human-body’.

WHICH WERE THE PROBLEMS OF HUMAN BEINGS DURING THE OLD BRITISH PERIOD?

The Black Death, an epidemic of bubonic plague that spread all over Europe, arrived in
England in 1348 and killed as much as a third to half the population. Military conflicts
during this period were usually with domestic neighbours such as the Welsh, Irish and
Scots, and included the Hundred Years' War against the French and their Scottish allies.
Notable English victories in the Hundred Years' War included Crécy and Agincourt. The
final defeat of the uprising led by the Welsh prince, Owain Glyndŵr, in 1412 by Prince
Henry (who later became Henry V) represents the last major armed attempt by the
Welsh to throw off English rule.