INTRODUCTION

The present topic deals with the ​mediaeval period​, which is dated in English history between the
years ​700 and 1480. It was the time which was marked by a transition from the ​Old English period
in the development of the English language ​to the ​Middle English​, at around 1066 (the Norman
invasion). It was also at that time that traditional literary types, epic and ballad began to appear in
writing, together with a new oral form called romance. Both the oral tradition and the written versions
coexisted during the period and the characteristics of the former will occupy the first part of this
presentation.

MEDIEVAL ORAL LITERATURE

Oral literature is a product of illiterate or semiliterate societies. It is usually sung or chanted (often
to musical accompaniment) and it precedes ​written poetry​. The stories which are the base of
different literary forms of the period are told (or sung) again and again with all sorts of variations. All
traditional narratives, therefore, may be said to be the product of multiple authorship. ​Epic and
ballad have their roots in the oral culture and, together with ​romance and ​short poems​, formed
the body of the ​oral tradition in the Middle Ages​.

Poetry of that time was mostly of religious character and the identified poets include Caedmon and
Cynewulf.

Traditional ​epics involve myths and legends of nationhood. Like later romances, they are full of
heroic exploits of their characters and often embedded in supernatural and mystic atmosphere.
Beowulf was the most famous and the longest surviving in epic in Old English, written c. 1000 in the
West Saxon dialect. It is set in Scandinavia and it describes the great deeds of the heroic warrior
Beowulf. Epics also deal with the theme of love, like ballads and romances.

Ballads​, however, are characterised by poorer imagery. Their story is told through dialogue and
action with sudden transitions form point to point in the narrative (called “leaping and lingering”).
Other features of ballads include abrupt beginnings, stock epithets, refrains and incremental
repetition, the latter being very suitable for singing. The so-called ballad metre was used and it was a
quatrain of alternate four or three stress lines, rhymed abcb (iambic). The written versions of
traditional ballads indicate that they often drew their themes from community life, local and national
history (although heroes did not have to represent the nation, like in epics), legend and folklore. ​Robin
Hood,​ for example, an outlaw hero of English folklore, made his appearance in traditional ballads
before entering other types of literature.

Romance is another example of oral traditional forms in the English literature. It originated in
France and was brought by minstrels, singers and poets to England. At the same time, written
versions of romances appeared as well. Its existence can be explained by the need for entertainment in
the medieval society. Romance characteristically describes a sophisticated courtly world of chivalry,
distinct form the heroic epic, which concentrates on war. Typical stories concern knightly quests,
tournaments, magic, and contests with monsters for the sake of a heroine who is the focus for courtly
love. Scholars divide the subject matter of romances into three groups called ​“The Matter of
Britain” (the Arthurian legend), ​“The Matter of France” (exploits of Charlemagne) and ​“The
Matter of Rome” (classical tales). The following paragraphs will present the phenomenon of the
Arthurian legend in the English literature as an example of romance.

THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND

The development of the Arthurian legend followed ​two parallel tracks​, which undoubtedly
influenced each other. One of them was that of ​historical or pseudo-historical works​, which
tried to give credibility to King Arthur’s existence. At the same time, and drawing from the same Celtic
sources, a ​body of folk tales and later romances grew over the centuries in France, Britain and all
over the medieval Europe.

According to indirect and direct mentions, which appeared in different sources before and during the
early medieval period, ​King Arthur was a British commander of Roman descent, successfully
repelling Saxon invaders and establishing himself as the great legendary hero of Englishmen. This
image was reinforced by three major historical works of the time, which appeared in the 12th century.

First ​Geoffrey of Monmouth in his ​History of the Kings of Britain consolidated the dispersed
information into an image of a great medieval monarch and a leader of a group of mounted knights.
His story was written in Latin.
The Jersey writer ​Wace in his ​Roman de Brut translated Geoffrey’s History into French, expanding
the story with the elements typical for romance and he also first mentioned the theme of the Round
Table, a great military brotherhood of 12 knights.

Another pseudo-historical author, the English priest ​Layamon in his ​Brut provided a free and
expanded adaptation of Wace in English.

As has been said, the appearance of the above mentioned works in the 12th century was preceded,
accompanied and followed by the presence of the legendary king in Celtic (Welsh) oral tradition and
romances.

After an undoubtedly long period of mainly oral tradition, the earliest writer of Arthurian romance,
and one of the greatest was the French ​Chrêtien de Troyes​, in the last quarter of the 12th century.
He introduced many permanent features in the ever-changing story, according to the principles of the
new and fashionable genre of romance: Lancelot and his love for King Arthur’s wife Guinevere, for
instance, exemplify the element of courtly love, so typical for medieval romances. Courtly love is based
on the idea that human is an ennobling experience. The lover adores his lady in spite of the fact that
she is the wife of another man. She becomes the idealised object of his veneration. Indeed, he proves
his honour by his total devotion; he fights his battles and pursues the high ideals or chivalric
behaviour for her sake, reflecting a parallel to the feudal service of a knight to his liege lord. The same
author also introduced the characters of Gawain (King Arthur’s nephew) as a model of prowess and
courtesy, and of Perceval and the quest for the mysterious “grail”. Typically for romances, all this was
accompanied by a large dose of improbability, extravagance and the mythic in the course of events.

After Chrêtien de Troyes, numerous authors continued the tradition for another three centuries, as in
the Vulgate Cycle. It was written in the 13th century and its composition is related to Henry II’s court.
In the Vulgate Cycle the stories of the Holy Grail and Merlin are added.

One of the most remarkable versions is the anonymous ​“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”​. In
this story, Sir Gawain can fully show his chivalric qualities, so admired in the world of romances,
courage, honour, courtesy and being good to the poor and helpless, when he has to search for the
Green Knight in order to resolve the contest started by this mysterious figure. “Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight” is the best of the surviving English romances, characterised by passages of beautiful
poetry (alliterative verse), moments of gentle comedy and keenly observed psychology.

In the 15th century ​Sir Thomas Malory distilled all the preceding sources of Arthurian legend and
culminated the tradition with ​Le Morte Darthur (also known as ​Le Morte d’Arthur​). It was the last
and greatest attempt to consolidate all the Arthurian material in one unified cycle.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1343-1400)

As will have been noticed, literary tradition in Britain was greatly influenced by French authors and
much court poetry was written in Anglo-Norman and Latin in the Middle Ages. Therefore, Geoffrey
Chaucer’s work is recognised as a crucial contribution to English Literature because his confidence in
the English language encouraged his followers and imitators also to write in English and speeded the
transition from French as the language of literature. Chaucer is also said to be the creator of English
versification.

The son of a wealthy merchant, Chaucer spent his life in close association with the ruling nobility of
the kingdom. His occupations included diplomatic missions, parliamentary work and administrative
work for the king. He was recognised as a great poet during his lifetime.

Chaucer’s initial works include ​“The Book of Duchess”​, ​“The house of Fame”, ​“Troilus and
Criseyde” and ​“The Legend of Good Women”​. The first of these shows the influence of French
poets while the rest are characterised by exploring classical instances from Italian works, like that of
the story of Troilus and Criseyde. The Canterbury Tales, on the other hand, is built on a framework
which he invented, a pilgrimage.

THE CANTERBURY TALES

It is an unfinished collection of tales told in the course of a pilgrimage to Beckett’s shrine at

Canterbury. A general Prologue briefly describes the 30 pilgrims and introduces the framework: each
pilgrim is to tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two more on the way back, the teller of the
best winning a free supper. There follow 24 tales, including two told by Chaucer himself. The work is
remarkable from both the point of view of literary analysis and simply as a piece of writing which
makes a very good reading.

As far as the literary analysis is concerned, experts underline the excellent integration of framework
and tales, which shows in a number of ways; the ​choice of genres and settings and the ​type of
narration for each tale, for example, the Knight’s tale is a romantic allegory and the style is
sophisticated, and the Nun, whose tale is brief and pious, the Miller tells a fable or fabliau, the Wife of
Bath whose tale is a supernatural story, the Pardoner who chooses a sermon or the Second Man’s tale,
a saint’s legend. Another way is the method of ​characterisation and imagery​; the names are
stereotypes, he uses physical features and similarities’, for example describing the Miller, Chaucer
makes similarities with animals and things, while the Parish priest is described in a more serious way.

Chaucer’s ​versification and language is also very remarkable. Chaucer wrote in continental
accentual-syllabic metre, a style which had developed since around the twelfth century as an
alternative to the alliterative Anglo-Saxon metre. Chaucer is known for metrical innovation, inventing
the rhyme royal, and he was one of the first English poets to use the five-stress line, the iambic
pentameter, in his work, with only a few anonymous short works using it before him. The
arrangement of these five-stress lines into rhyming couplets, first seen in his The Legend of Good
Women, was used in much of his later work and became one of the standard poetic forms in English.
His early influence as a satirist is also important, with the common humorous device, the funny accent
of a regional dialect, apparently making its first appearance in The Reeve’s Tale.

The ​poetry of Chaucer, is credited with helping to standardise the London Dialect of the Middle
English language; a combination of Kentish and Midlands dialect. This is probably overstated. The
influence of the court, chancery and bureaucracy –of which Chaucer was a part- remains a more
probable influence on the development of Standard English. Modern English is somewhat distanced
from the language of Chaucer’s poems owing to the effect of the Great Vowel Shift some time after his
death. This change in the pronunciation of English, still not fully understood, makes the reading of
Chaucer difficult for the modern audience. The status of the final –e in Chaucer’s verse is uncertain: t
seems likely that during the period of Chaucer’s writing the final –e was dropping out of colloquial
English and that its use was somewhat irregular. Chaucer’s versification suggests that the final –e is
sometimes to be vocalised, and sometimes to be silent; however, this remains a point on which there is
disagreement. Apart from the irregular spelling, much of the vocabulary is recognisable to the modern
reader. Chaucer is also recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as the first author to use many
common English words in his writings. These words were probably frequently used in the language at
the time but Chaucer, with his ear for common speech, is the earliest manuscript source.

CONCLUSION

The Medieval period in the history of English literature includes a big change from oral tradition to
the establishment of written works (in manuscripts). As the example of Arthurian legend shows, both
genres influence each other. On the other hand, Chaucer gave an example of how a remarkable author
is capable of establishing a norm for his or her followers both in the use of his native tongue as well as
the development of literary quality. Future authors had a good example in The Canterbury Tales.