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UNIT 2.

MIDDLE ENGLISH TEXTS


THE OWL AND THE NIGHTLINGALE
Please summarize the main information about the poem, mainly date, plot, characters and the tradition of the debate poetry.
The Owl and the Nightingale is a 12th- or 13th-century Middle English poem detailing a debate between an owl and a nightingale about whether it is better to be mirthful or sorrowful, as overheard by the poem's narrator. It is the earliest example in Middle English of a literary form known as debate poetry (or verse contest). Plot: The narrator overhears a debate between a serious owl and a gay nightingale during a summer night. The debate follows the rules of the scholastic disputations, as they were held in the law schools and universities. Both contestants use every device of medieval rhetoric to prove that they are of the highest use to mankind. During the debate they touch upon nearly every topic of contemporary interest: hygienic habits, looks, prognostication, the proper modes of worship, music, confession, papal missions, ethics and morals, happy marriage and adultery, and so on. The nightingale stands for the joyous aspects of life, the owl for the somber; there is no clear winner. In the end, when the owl is about to lose her temper and physically threatens her opponent, they decide to go off to state their cases to one Nicholas of Guildford living in Portesham, Dorset, whom some modern critics believe to be the author of the poem. The tradition of debate poetry is reflected throughout the poem as it depicts a dialogue between two natural opposites (e.g. sun vs. moon, winter vs. summer). Although the particulars can vary considerably, this can function as a general definition of the literary form. The debates are necessarily emotionally charged, highlighting the contrasting values and personalities of the participants, and exposing their essentially opposite natures. Debate poems were common inMesopotamian Sumerian-language literature (first half of the 3rd millennium BC) and were part of the tradition of ArsacidandSassanid Persian literature (third century BC - seventh century AD),continued in later medieval Islamic Persian literature. The European debate poem first appeared as a literary form in the eighth and ninth centuries, during the Carolingian Renaissance.

UNIT 2. MIDDLE ENGLISH TEXTS

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT


1. Can you explain what happens in the court of King Arthur on the New Year Celebration?
During the NY celebrations at King Arthurs court , a Green Knight rides in, carrying a battle axe, and challenges any knight to strike him a blow with the axe, provided that he can give a return blow a year and a day later. Gawain takes up the challenge.

2. Explain briefly the formal features of the poem and link it with the so called alliterative revival?
First of all, the poem, which contains written in 101, was written like OE and ME verse, that is, it was written to be read aloud. Stanzas we find the spelling is irregular and inconsistent in the relationship between letters and sounds. The manuscript of Sir Gawain provides a good example of the use of a single letter to represent several different sounds. The letter ( ) was used in writing this poem to represent several sounds as it had developed from two different sources, firstly from the OE letter () and secondly as a form of letter (z). it was therefore used for all the following sounds: We find other important letters in the poem such as [j], [], [x], [w], [s], [z] Another feature which is important to take into account is the varying number of unrhymed alliterative lines followed by five short rhymed lines in the stanzas of the poem. The literary structure of the poem is a clear example of alliterative revival, that is, the resurgence of poetry using the alliterative verse form - the traditional versification of Old English poetry - in Middle English. The oral traditions of OE alliterative verse were unbroken. We find that each line divides into two with a short break or cesura in the middle. There are usually four stresses in a line, two in the first half and two in the second, three of which alliterate together but this could vary. Each stanza ends with a group of rhyming lines. The first short line was called the bob, whic h rhymed with two alternate lines of the following four, called the wheel- ababa.

UNIT 2. MIDDLE ENGLISH TEXTS

THE 15TH CENTURY STANDARD


1. Explain briefly the origin of what we call Chancery Standard, or 15 th century standard?
In the 15th century, the city of Westminster, two miles distant and separate from London, had been the centre of government administration since the second half of the 12 th century. The Chancery was the court of the Lord Chancellor, and the written English that developed there in the 15th century was to become a standard, both in its style of handwriting and in its vocabulary and grammar, because the use of English in administrative documents, rather than French, was re-established after about 1430.

2.

Who was Margery Kempe? Can you explain about her Boke?
Margery Kempe was a woman from Kings Lynn in Norfolk, who gave up married life as a result of

her mystical experiences to devote herself to religion. She made pilgrimages during her lifetime, and afterwards she wrote a book describing her temptations on journeys. As the book was written down from Margery Kempes own dictation, this is probably as close as we can get to ordinary speech of the early 15th century. The dialect is East Midlands, but we cannot tell how accurate was the scribes reproduction of Margerys speech, or that of the only surviving manuscript which was copied in the mid15th century. We find in the Boke different topics such as her marriage. Throughout the book she refers herself as this creature or her first mystical vision. There are facsimiles of the Boke.

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