English Literature of the Middle Ages

372 Pages·1988·32.28 MB·English

by  Stephen Coote

PELICAN BOOKS
ENGLISH LITERATURE OF THE M IDDLE AGES
Dr Stephen Coote was educated at Magdalene College, Cam­
bridge, where he was an exhibitioner; and at Birkbeck College,
University of London, where he was Sir William Bull Memorial
Scholar. After a period of teaching and working as an examiner in
English Literature, he was principal of tutorial colleges in Oxford
and London. He has written a number of books for Penguin and
is General Editor of the Penguin Passnotes series and joint General
Editor of the Penguin Masterstudies in English Literature.
Forthcoming titles in this series:
English Literature of the Renaissance
English Literature of the Eighteenth Century
English Literature of the Romantic Age

STEPHEN COOTE
E N G L I S H
L I T E R A T U R E
OF THE
M I D D L E AGES
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
First published 1988
Copyright © Stephen Coote, 1988
All rights reserved
Made and printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk
Filmset in Monophoto Times
Except in the United States of America,
this book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,
be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated
without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of
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on the subsequent purchaser
I wish to save history; we cannot approach liter­
ature innocent and naked. We must know what a
poem meant before we can fully know what it
means.
Morton W. Bloomfield, Essays and Explorations

CONTENTS
4*
4>
Preface and Acknowledgements xiii-xiv
CHAPTER 1 OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE 1-21
Some characteristics of Old English, 1-3, King Alfred’s translations,
4-7, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 7-8, the Benedictine revival: Aelfric,
Wulfstan and other prose writers, 8, formal qualities of Old English
poetry, 8-9, Caedmon, 9-11, The Dream of the Rood, 11—12, the
Elegies, 12-15, the Riddles, pp. 15, allegorical poetry and textual
interpretation, 15-16, biblical narratives, 16, Beowulf 17-21,
Beowulf and the heroic ethos, 17-19, the Battle of Hastings, 21.
CHAPTER 2 EARLY M IDDLE ENGLISH
AND ITS LITERATURE 22-62
Languages in England after the Battle of Hastings: Old English, Anglo-
Norman, Latin, 22, development of Old English in a multilingual
society, 23-5, religious literature in Early Middle English, 25-9,
The Ancrene Riwle, 26-9, characteristics of the twelfth-century re­
naissance, 29-36, the monasteries and scholarship, 29-30, the trivium,
30-34, grammar, 30, rhetoric as a characteristic of medieval litera­
ture, 30-32, logic and the recovery of classical texts, 32-4, Abelard,
Aquinas, 33, the inner life: the Cistercians, St Anselm, St Bernard, 34-
6, Early Middle English lyric: the Harley Lyrics, 36-9, the importance
of convention, 38-9, chivalry and fine amour, 39-40, romance, 40-
54, Laustic, 41-2, Chrétien de Troyes: love and aventure, 42-3,
characterization, 43-4, sens and matière, 45, dialogue, 46,
women, 47-8, marriage, 48, the ‘religion of love’, 48-9, relation
of poem and poet to audience, 49-50, Arthurian legend and English
historical literature, 50-54, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s concept of his­
tory, 51, Wace, 52, Layamon’s Brut, Early Middle English romance,
53-4, Dame Sirith and fabliau, 54-5, importance of legal studies in
the twelfth century, 55-6, The Owl and the Nightingale: altercatio,
57, the protagonists, 57-8, legal references, 59-60, the issues
debated, 60-61, conclusion, 61-2, literary qualities, 62.
English Literature of the Middle Ages
Vili
CHAPTER 3 THE RISE OF M IDDLE ENGLISH 63-9
Political factors influencing the language, 63, decline of French,
64, the compilatio and religious literature in the vernacular: Ormulum,
Cursor Mundi, Legendaries, 65-6, regional variations in Middle
English, 67, social factors influencing the language, 67-8, school­
teaching in Middle English, pp. 69.
CHAPTER 4 G EO FFREY CHAUCER (c. 1340-1400) 70-213
Chaucer’s life; early influences Chaucer’s biography, 70-71, secular
and middle-class literacy: Latin in school, sermons, the universities, 72-
4, Chaucer’s classical scholarship: ancient and contemporary, texts and
sources, moralizations, Chaucer’s cross-referencing, 74-5, visionary
Latin literature: Somnium Scipionis, Bernard Silvestris and allegory,
Boethius and The Consolation of Philosophy, 78-9, Latin satire:
Gower’s Vox Clamantis, golliardic satire, 79-80, French romance and
the Roman de la Rose, 80-86, its dual authorship, 80, critical ap­
proaches: literature as moral and spiritual allegory, 80, caritas and
cupiditas, 80-81, narrative and allegory, 81-2, reason and desire,
82, the ‘psychology’ of sin, 83, the proper place of sex, 83, medieval
categories of dream poetry: secular and sacred, 83-4, the ambiguous
relation of the Roman de la Rose to these, 84, the ambiguous relation
of the Roman de la Rose to critical theory, 84-6, the climax of the
poem, 86, the ambiguous nature of the Roman de la Rose and its
influence on Chaucer, 86, the medieval poet and his audience, 86-
7, authorship in the Middle Ages, 87-8, practical developments in
book-making, 89, the writer and ‘authority’, 89-90, the relation of
poem and poet to their audience, 90-91, Chaucer’s poetic persona in
relation to his audience, 91, Chaucer and Machaut, 92.
The early poems The Book of the Duchess: an ‘occasional’ poem, 92-5,
its ambivalent status as a dream poem, 93, introduction, 93-4, charac­
terization 94, life and literature, 95, The House of Fame, 95-104, as
a learned poem, 95, its ambivalence, 96, Dido and Aeneas, 97-8,
Chaucer and Italy, 98, Dante, 99-103, Chaucer, Dante and The
House of Fame, 102-3, Fame and the poet, 103-4, ‘auctoritee’ and
independence, 104, ‘auctoritee’ and the conclusion, 104, The Parlia­
ment of Fowls, 104-12, as an ‘occasional’ poem, its philosophic and
literary maturity, 105, dispositio and ambiguity, 106-7, The Parliament
of Fowls and the Somnium Scipionis, 106-7, the garden, 108-10,