HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY MID -TERM TEST ON ENGLISH AND AMERICAN

LITERATURE
FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH (No 2)
Subject Code: EN16

Full name: ………………………………...............

Date of birth: ………………………………...........
Group: …………………………………….............

I. Answer the following questions: (50 points )

1. What three languages were spoken in England in the 11th - 13th centuries, and whom
were they spoken by? Mention some reasons.
2. What is a romance, a fabliaux, a bestiaria? In what language were they written?
(The file sent will be named after each student’s name. Plagiarism will lead to failure)

Three main languages spoken in England in the 11th - 13th centuries: Middle English,
Anglo-Saxon (or French) and Latin.
The language of the nobility was French, the churchmen used Latin and the common
people spoke Anglo-Saxon.
- Middle English: The earliest literary document in English in the University of
Nottingham’s collections is a fragment from the life of St Bridget, from the South English
Legendary, composed in the late thirteenth century. The scribe uses the Anglo-Saxon
letters ‘yogh’ for ‘y’ or ‘g’ and thorn for ‘th’. He leaves a wide gap between the first
capital letter of each line and the rest of the word.
- Anglo-Norman: Anglo-Norman had emerged as a distinct dialect of French after the
Norman Conquest in 1066 established a French-speaking aristocracy in English. It was
still dominant in the mid-thirteenth century when Robert of Gretham wrote his advice on
moral conduct, the Mirur. For Robert the appropriate language for lay education was
French, but by the late fourteenth century his book had been translated into English.
- French: John Gower, a contemporary and friend of Geoffrey Chaucer in the late
fourteenth century, wrote in all three languages. His ballades include the French poem
Traitié pour les amantz marietz, promoting the virtues of married love. Shown here is a
section headed by an introduction (rubricated in red ink) in which Gower apologises for
any mistakes in his French. The introduction to the passage is in Latin, and reads 'Gower,
qui Anglicus est, sua verba Gallica ... excusat' ('Gower, who is English, makes excuse for
his French words'). This followed a familiar convention of bilingual presentation.
Gower’s great English work was known by its Latin title Confessio Amantis and included
Latin running titles and section headings.
II. Comments (50 points )
Write what you know about the life and works of Geoffrey Chaucer - The founder
of English realism
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Một số yêu cầu:

+ Sinh viên nộp file word lên hệ thống
+ Ghi rõ mã đề trong bài làm.
Chú ý:
+ Chế tài xử lý đối với bài phát hiện có sự sao chép ( VD: nếu phát hiện sao chép thì bài làm của
sinh viên sẽ không được công nhận và nhận điểm 0….)
+ Giảng viên có thể trao đổi, nhận xét góp ý cho bài làm của sinh viên trên diễn đàn hoặc buổi
Vclass (SV tham gia lớp Vclass đầy đủ để được giải đáp)