Unit 2. Middle English Texts

8/12/2019 Unit 2. Middle English Texts

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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-centuryMiddle English poem detailing a debate

between anowland anightingaleabout 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 oneNicholas 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 inMesopotamianSumerian-language literature (first half of the 3rd

millennium BC) and were part of the tradition ofArsacidandSassanid Persianliterature (third century BC

- seventh century AD),continued in later medievalIslamic Persian literature.

The European debate poem first appeared as a literary form in the eighth and ninth centuries,

during theCarolingian Renaissance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English_poemhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English_poemhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English_poemhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightingalehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightingalehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightingalehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_debate_poetryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_debate_poetryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_debate_poetryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_debate_poetryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_literaturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_literaturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsacidhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsacidhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassanidhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassanidhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassanidhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_literaturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_literaturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_literaturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_Renaissancehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_Renaissancehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_Renaissancehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_Renaissancehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_literaturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassanidhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsacidhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_literaturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_debate_poetryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_debate_poetryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_debate_poetryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightingalehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English_poem


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SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT

1. Can you explain what happens in the court of King Arthur on the NewYear 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 socalled 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 thealliterative

verseform - the traditional versification ofOld Englishpoetry - inMiddle 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, which

rhymed with two alternate lines of the following four, called the wheel- ababa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterative_versehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterative_versehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterative_versehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterative_versehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Englishhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Englishhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Englishhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Englishhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Englishhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Englishhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Englishhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Englishhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterative_versehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterative_versehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterative_verse


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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 12th

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 marriedlife 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 mid-

15th

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.

Documents

Unit 2. Middle English Texts