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English Notes Middle English Notes

Medieval Romance Complete Exam Notes

Updated Medieval Romance Complete Exam Notes Notes

Middle English Notes

Middle English

Approximately 76 pages

For many, Middle English is one of the toughest exams; there's a lot of historical context, a whole new language to learn and so many texts to get your head round!

These middle english notes are designed to provide a detailed encapsulation of the whole topic, providing readers with enough textual analysis, historical context and quotes to go into the exam with lots of great ideas and comparison.

Lyric poetry, the Romances, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales & Dream poetry, Troilus and Criseyde an...

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Northrop Frye's Theory of Archetypes: Summer = Romances: marked by extraordinarily persistent nostalgia, and a search for some kind of imaginative golden age in time or space. Typically have virtuous heroes and beautiful heroines who represent ideals and villains that threaten their ascendancy. Plot: The common plot is a basic quest sequence: Struggle: perilous journey and minor adventures Ritual death: crucial struggle, usually a battle in which either the hero or his foe, or both, must die Recognition: the exaltation of the hero Characters: In romance the reader's values are bound up with hero who unequivocally represents what is supposed to be right and virtuous. If the tale rises to the level of myth, the hero will show signs of divinity and the enemy will have demonic qualities. Hero from upper world: spring, dawn, order, fertility, vigor, youth Battle in our world against an Enemy from lower world: winter, darkness, confusion, sterility, moribund life, old age Eiron; hero: an unequivocally right and virtuous character, old wise man: often a magician who effects action or sybilline: often the lady for whose sake or at whose bidding the quest is performed Alazon: Enemy: in religious tales this character may take the form of a horrible monster that represents different ideas of Satan; Secular story = the enemy may be guarding a hoard of gold, which may represent power and wisdom Bomolochoi: spirits of nature (shy nymph, elusive half--wild creatures, wild man): elude moral antithesis because they are partly of the moral neutrality of the world or partly of the world of mystery that is never seen; These characters intensify and focus the romantic mood Many characters that are on the virtuous side in romance have a counterpart: the hero's helper is balanced by the traitor; the heroine, by siren or beautiful witch; and the dragon, by helpful animals. Jung (dream terms): quest--romance is search of libido or desire of self--fulfillment that will deliver it from the anxieties of reality; antagonists are sinister figures, giants, ogres, witches and magicians of parental origin Frazer (ritual terms): quest--romance signifies fertility (food and drink, bread and wine, body and blood, union of male and female) over wasteland Phases of Romance 1. Complete innocence: birth of the hero, an event which is commonly associated with a flood or water imagery; symbolizing that fertility and youth is the real wealth 2. Youthful innocence of inexperience: usually presents a pastoral world, a generally pleasant wooded landscape with glades, valleys, etc; story tends to center on a youthful hero, still overshadowed by parents + surrounded by youthful companions 3. Completion of an ideal: typical quest where the hero goes on an adventure to destroy the monster + evil -- return goodness and fertility to the land 4. Happy society resists change: The hero's society, which is innocent, is assaulted by an enemy, which is experience, but it withstands + survives the assault; = moral allegory or morality play 5. Reflective or idyllic view: Here experience and adventure is contemplated, a similar world as that in the second phase is present, but with a knowledge of experience that did not previously exist 6. Society ceases to exist beyond contemplation: These are tales often told in quotation marks by one individual to a small group; there is a coziness to this type of tale as it is free from confrontation and has a relaxed and entertaining tone 1. HISTORY OF ROMANCE 12th century France developed courtly culture -- Eleanor of Aquitaine + her daughter Marie de Champange. * e.g poems based on works of Marie de France and Chretian de Troues; Le Fresne and Lanval, Yvain. * The chansons de geste, Old French for "songs of heroic deeds [or lineages] epic poems * Earliest known examples date from the late 11 + early 12th centuries, nearly a hundred years before the emergence of the lyric poetry of the trouveres (troubadours) and the earliest verse romances. * Material probably taken from oral tradition + works of court poet, supplied by travelling 'trouveres' to jongleurs who performed them -- circulated widely in Europe: * Waned in France during 13th century but grew in England -- continued to be read /heard in Anglo--Norman, esp at courtly level, but began to appear increasingly in English 8 English texts dates 1125--1300, grew to 36 between 1350 -1400 (excl. Chaucer and Gower). 90% of 13/14th century English romances derive from French originals, but they took on their own character as they developed: * English poets employed forms and techniques from Latin + French but from their own Anglo- Saxon predecessors, particularly the alliterative verse seen in The Awntyres. * Like all redactors, they shaped received material to reflect their own cultural context/personal interests Social connotations: division of the romance corpus into 'courtly', 'non--courtly' or 'popular' literature adds to the confusion of the classification of Romance. Theoretically, romances were for the aristocracy were in French, and those for the middle and lower classes were in English: * The critical proclivity has been to view 'courtly' romance as superior to 'non--courtly' though that is shifting somewhat. * 2nd half of 14th cent. French has become largely an acquired language and was being replaced by English among the upper classes, evidence that Aristocrats read /heard some vernacular literature. * Chaucer was familiar with 'popular' works -- his + some other romances like SGGK are 'courtly' in artistry -- for the nobility, but are believed to have trickled down the social scale and that some popular works rose in the other direction. -- era of cross-currents Audience: complex social stratification that defies the imagined 3 estate system which, in reality, encompasses many classes, some in motion like the bourgeoisie / yeomanry: * Not necessarily a single group = audience classification associated with poem's quality as well its reflection of class / interest / values * Authors identified not by specific person but level education / literary ability / social class-- environment * Original authorship obscured by scribal overlays, dialect differences, + time between original presentation and manuscript production. * As literacy grew during the later fourteenth century, spurred greatly by desire for moral edification as evidenced by manuscripts that contain didactic works along with romances. For Northrop Frye (Anatomy of Criticism) Romance is a wish fulfillment or Utopian Fantasy which arises at the transfiguration of the world of everyday reality, whether in an effort to restore it to the conditions of some lost Eden, or to inaugurate and usher in some new and ultimate realm fro, which morality and imperfections have been effaced. "The quest-romance is the search of the libido or desiring self for a fulfillment that will deliver it from the anxieties of reality but will still contain that reality" (1957)

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