The Middle Ages1066-1485

Literary Elements, terms, and techniques

Romance Miracle Play Morality Play Frame Story Realism Short Story Heroic Couplet Satire Exemplum Strophes

Bob and Wheel Tone Romance Folk Ballad

• Themes• Refrain• Incremental Repetition• Rhyme• Quatrain• Iambic Meter• Code Language

Look at the painting. What does this tell ou of Medieval life?

Norman Conquest William of

Normandy defeats King Harold

Divides land among loyal barons

Creates feudalism

Effects:• French• Large Norman-Anglo

• social, economic, and military system

• based on a religious concept of rank

King

Lordspowerful

landowners

Vassalsdid work or military

service for feudal lords in exchange for land

Serfsservants to lords and vassals,

bound to their master’s land

• some vassals appointed by king in return for loyalty

• lords (powerful vassals) appoint their own vassals

Feudalism

Murder of Thomas A Beckett

Henry II rose to power Named old colleague Beckett to

powerful position of Archbishop of Canterbury

Henry’s knights kill Beckett in the Canterbury Cathedral

Middle Ages Old English grows into Middle English

which is more recognizable to modern reader.

Middle Class rises• Feudalism weakens• Canterbury Tales

The General Prologue Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,And bathed every veyne in swich licourOf which vertu engendred is the flour;Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breethInspired hath in every holt and heethThe tendre croppes, and the yonge sonneHath in the Ram his half cours yronne,And smale foweles maken melodye,That slepen al the nyght with open ye(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages),Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;And specially from every shires endeOf Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,The hooly blisful martir for to seke,That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

Bifil that in that seson on a day,In Southwerk at the Tabard as I layRedy to wenden on my pilgrymageTo Caunterbury with ful devout corage,At nyght was come into that hostelryeWel nyne and twenty in a compaignyeOf sondry folk, by aventure yfalleIn felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde.The chambres and the stables weren wyde,And wel we weren esed atte beste.And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste,So hadde I spoken with hem everichonThat I was of hir felaweshipe anon,And made forward erly for to ryse,To take oure wey ther as I yow devyse.

Middle English

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) Middle class civil

servant and diplomat

Soldier in the Hundred Years’ War

Lived in London The Canterbury

Tales

Canterbury Tales Organizational Plan

29 Pilgrims journey to the shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury

Stop at the Talbard Inn in Southwark (South London)

Story-telling contest• 4 tales per person: 2

coming; 2 going• Actually completed 22

Began 2 others Use of journey motif as

framing device Cathedral of Canterbury

The Prologue Sets stage for journey Meeting place the Tabard

Inn in Southwark of 29 pilgrims including:• Knight and his Squire • Yeoman• A Nun (Prioress) • a chaplain,• 3 Priests• A monk and a friar• A merchant • a cleric • a lawyer • a franklin (freeman)

Pardoner’s Tale 3 young men of drunk and riotous behavior

search for Death. An old man whom they insult tells them

that Death lies up the hill under a tree. They find bags of gold and plot to send the

youngest for food and wine and then kill him for the gold.

He returns with poisoned wine and all die. “The love of money is the root of all evil.”