Brit Lit study midterm study guide

The middle ages

Old and Middle English Prosody The verse form of all Old English poetry is the same: the verse unit is the single line. Rhyme is not often used to link lines in Old English. Alliteration, or beginning several words with the same sound, is the organizing principle of Old English poetry. A consonant alliterates with its match or with another consonant that makes the same sound; a vowel alliterates with any other vowel. An Old English alliterative line contains four principal stresses, and is divided by a caesura (a pause) into two half-lines, each containing two stresses. At least one (and sometimes both) of the stressed words in the first half-line begins with the same sound as the first stressed word of the second half-line. The last stressed word often is non-alliterative. Middle English verse can be alliterative (as above, though sometimes increasing the number of alliterative or stressed words); or, influenced by Old French, it can be in the form of alternately stressed rhyming verse lines. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are mainly in rhymed couplets, with five-stress lines.

Period Introduction Overview

The Middle Ages was a vast literary time period. It stretches from the collapse of the Roman Empire in Britain (ca. 450) to the beginning of the Renaissance (ca. 1485). It was also a period of enormous historical, social, and linguistic change, despite the continuity of the Roman Catholic Church. The period is subdivided into three parts: I. Anglo-Saxon literature, II. Anglo-Norman literature, III. Middle English literature. The word "medieval" comes from the Latin: medium (middle) and aevum (age). There are two trends in scholarship concerning the Middle Ages: 1. some scholars view the Middle Ages as the beginning of ideas that continued developing well into the sixteenth century; 2. others feel the Middle Ages were "created" by sixteenth-century writers who wanted to emphasize the originality of their contributions to literary culture.

Anglo-Norman Literature

The Normans (a contraction of "Norsemen") took possession of England in 1066. The ruling class in England during this period spoke Old French. Linguistic and cultural changes in Britain were accelerated by the Norman Conquest in 1066, when words from French began to enter the English vocabulary. Four main languages circulated in England during the Anglo-Norman period: 1. Old French or Anglo-Norman; 2. Latin (the language of clerics and the learned); 3. Old English; and 4. different branches of the Celtic language group. Anglo-Norman aristocrats loved the old Celtic oral tales sung by Breton storytellers. These tales were called Breton "lays." Breton lays were developed by writers like Marie de France and Chrétien de Troyes into the form known as "romance." Romance was the main narrative genre for late medieval readers. A chivalric romance (from the word "roman" meaning a work in the French vernacular tongue) focuses on knightly adventures (including ethical and spiritual quests), knightly love for and courtesy toward ladies, and the display of martial prowess against powerful, sometimes supernatural foes. The most famous example of knightly chivalry was the legendary court of King Arthur. Romances, in which a knight must prove his worthiness through bravery and noble deeds, can reflect the social aspirations of members of the lower nobility to rise socially. French sources and writers were influential; however, works like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Early Middle English religious prose texts for women such as Ancrene Wisse show the continued development of the English language during this period. III. Middle English Literature in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries English gained ground gradually as Britain's main language. By 1200, poetry and prose were being written in English (not just French) for educated readers, and many readers were French-English bilingual. By the end of the thirteenth century, merchant-class and noble children learned French as their second language. The second half of the fourteenth century saw the flowering of Middle English literature in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, and the Gawain poet. In 1348, the bubonic plague, or Black Death, destroyed one-quarter to one-third of the population of Europe. William Langland's poem Piers Plowman investigates the social potential of this moment. Langland's poem is part of the "Alliterative Revival," a fourteenth-century style of poetry-writing that uses earlier Anglo-Saxon versification practices. The scarcity of laborers following the plague gave laborers some power and possibility of social mobility. An Outline of The Norton Anthology of English Literature Javidshad & Nemati 5 The Lollards (from "lollers," a slang word for unemployed transients), were one such group; they were the followers of social reformer John Wycliffe. The fourteenth century saw the expansion of the merchant class and international trade, trends visible in Geoffrey Chaucer's career as a civil servant and in his portrait of the Merchant in The Canterbury Tales. A new canon of literary giants comparable to the ancients in status emerged in the fourteenth century: these included Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch. While Chaucer and Langland's works exist in several copies, the work of the poet who wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (an Arthurian romance) and three other poems, exists only in a single copy. Christian visionary writings, such as Julian of Norwich's "Showings," formed another important literary trend in the fourteenth century. The fifteenth century saw the production of mystery plays, or cycles of plays that dramatized Bible stories, by city guilds, which were organizations representing trades. The morality play, in which personified virtues and vices struggle for man's soul, was also popular in the fifteenth century. Productions of morality plays by professional players served as the forerunner of early modern professional theater of Elizabeth I. Sir Thomas Malory's fifteenth-century English translation and retelling of thirteenthcentury French romances about King Arthur, Morte Darthur, renewed the popularity of tales of the knights of the Round Table and their quest for the Holy Grail. In 1476, William Caxton introduced moveable type to England, thereby drastically increasing the speed at which books could be made in multiple copy and dispersed to readers, as well as decreasing their cost of production. One of Caxton's first successes was a print edition of Malory's Morte Darthur. Medieval English Old English, which has an almost entirely Germanic vocabulary, is a heavily inflected language. Its words change form to indicate changes in function, such as person, number, tense, case, mood, and so forth. The introduction in the anthology gives detailed rules for pronouncing Middle English: in general, sound aloud all consonants except h; sound aloud the final "e"; sound double vowels as long; and pronounce short vowels as in modern English and long vowels as in modern European languages other than English.

The middle ages timeline

Timeline: ca. 43—420: Roman invasion and occupation of Britain ca. 450: Anglo-Saxon Conquest 597: St. Augustine arrives in Kent; beginning of Anglo-Saxon conversion to Christianity 871—899: Reign of King Alfred 1066: Norman Conquest 1154—1189: Reign of Henry II ca. 1200: Beginnings of Middle English literature 1360—1400: Geoffrey Chaucer; Piers Plowman; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 1485: William Caxton's printing of Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, one of the first books printed in England

Old English

was spoken by the Germanic invaders of Britain; Old French or Anglo-Norman was spoken in Britain after the Norman Conquest of 1066; Middle English, which appeared in the twelfth century, displaced French as Britain's official language by the end of the fourteenth century. Monasteries and other religious houses were the major producers of books until they were dissolved by King Henry VIII in the 1530s at which point the king assured the nobility's loyalty to himself by giving them much of the former monastic houses' lands and assets; commercial book-making enterprises began around the fourteenth century. Religious houses were the major consumers of books during the Middle Ages. Nobles began purchasing and commissioning books during the Anglo-Norman period; later, in the fourteenth century, wealthy urbanites also entered the book market.

Anglo-Saxon Literature

1. The Angles, 2. The Saxons, 3. The Jutes were the three related Germanic tribes who invaded the Roman province Britannia (England) around the year 450, after the Romans withdrew. The name "English" derives from the Angles. As the Germanic tribes invaded, native Britons withdrew from England to Wales, where the modern-day version of their language is still spoken. The widespread adoption of Christianity in the seventh century had an effect on literacy, as laws, histories, and ecclesiastic writings were propagated by the church. The Anglo-Saxons were invaded in turn by the Danes in the ninth century. Anglo-Saxons had a tradition of oral poetry, but only circumstantial evidence of this tradition remains in manuscripts most remaining Old English poetry is contained in just four manuscripts. Admiration for and performance of Germanic heroic poetry continued into the Christian era. Values of Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry include: 1. kinship relations rather than geography form the idea of a nation; 2. generosity is expected on the part of the lord (from Old English words meaning 'protector' and 'loaf'), who leads men in war and rewards them with a share of the booty; 3. on the part of the lord's men, what is valued is loyalty until the lord's death, and revenge killing (or eternal shame if vengeance is not pursued) after it. Old English poetry is often elegiac. It often combines Christian texts with Germanic heroic values. Old English poetry uses a special, formal poetic vocabulary, including devices like synecdoche, metonymy, and kenning a two-word compound in place of a more straightforward noun; e.g., "lifehouse" for "body", and frequently employs irony. The Middle Ages (to ca. 1485)

Unferth

A Dane, the son of Ecglaf, and a follower of Hrothgar. Unferth is a jealous and boastful man without much courage to back it up, though he does become more generous after Beowulf defeats Grendel.

Brecca

A Geat who competed with Beowulf in a swimming contest as a youth.

Antagonist

A character who oposes the hero of the story

Grendel's Mother

A female version of Grendel, she is also descended from Cain.

Dragon

A fire-breathing dragon who discovered a lost tribe's treasure and moved into the barrow. After the dragon terrorizes the Geats, Beowulf fights the dragon.

Stanza

A fixed number of lines of a verse forming a unit of a poem

Epic poem

A long narrative poem telling of a hero's deeds

Grendel

A man-eating monster descended from the Biblical Cain. Grendel is a "walker in darkness," who is "wearing God's anger," and "lacking in joy."

Caesura

A pause or break in a line of poetry

Irony

An event, situation, action, or statement that reveals inconsistency, in which reality and appearance are different

Metaphor

An implicit comparison between two things, or between a character or event and a broader theme, concept, or idea.

Ecgtheow

Beowulf's father and the husband of King Hygilac's sister. Hrothgar gave him sanctuary after Ecgtheow, a Geatish warrior, killed a warrior of the Wylfings.

Healfdane

Hrothgar's father, and the king of the Danes.

Wulfgar

Hrothgar's herald. He serves Hrothgar the Danish kin, and is considered the most skillful and best-loved by King Hrothgar.

Hrogthgar

King of the Danes, the son of Healfdene. Hrothgar is an excellent and successful king. He builds Herot, a magnificent hall, and is very generous and wise.

MEAL Acronym and meanings

M is the main idea, also called the topic sentence. The topic sentence introduces the focus of the paragraph, and normally it doesn't have a citation. This is because it doesn't include specific information from your sources, but is instead a general introduction to the paragraph. It's sort of like if you were introducing someone to a friend—You wouldn't just jump right into the details of their life story, but you'd give a general introduction to get the conversation going, right? The same needs to happen in your paragraphs with this topic sentence. E is the evidence or the examples that you use to support and develop the main idea. This could include specific information about a theory or ideas in your field; it could also include statistics or findings from studies. Essentially, any sentence that you cite in the paragraph—because it comes from a source—is a piece of evidence. A is the analysis. It connects your evidence back to the main claim for your readers through discussion. Think of analysis as your explanation of the evidence and your addition to the evidence. For example, maybe you are discussing the lack of broadband Internet access in your state's rural areas; you might include statistics about how many people have broadband Internet access—that would be your evidence—but then you'd want to explain why this statistic is important or what it means to your reader—that would be your analysis. L is the lead out. We also sometimes refer to it as the concluding or wrap-up sentence of the paragraph. This last sentence is where you give closure to the paragraph. This might mean you repeat the main idea of the paragraph (similar to a conclusion paragraph) or you might combine some sort of wrap-up with some analysis, giving the reader an overall conclusion for the paragraph. The main point here is that you want to avoid an open-ending to your paragraph or ending your paragraph with evidence.

Conflict

Tension or difficulties faced by the characters in the story. Conflicts can be internal, like personal doubts or external life physical obstacles or enemies.

Cain

The Old Testament of the Bible, in the Book of Genesis, tells the story of how Cain killed his brother Abel. Cain was marked by God, so others would know him and cast him out of society. The giants, Grendel and Grendel's Mother, are descended from Cain.

Allegory

The device of using character and/or story elements symbolically to represent an abstraction in addition to the literal meaning.

Climax

The height of tension or turning point in a story, when the book moves from building to resolving

Beowulf

The hero of Beowulf, Beowulf is a Geatish warrior loyal to his king, Higlac. Beowulf's father was the warrior Ecgtheow, and his mother is a sister of Higlac. Despite his noble lineage, Beowulf was a bit of a juvenile delinquent, and little was expected of him. But he soon proved his doubters wrong and grew up to be a great warrior. He has the strength of thirty men in his grasp, and rather remarkable swimming ability. In addition to his great warrior skills, Beowulf eventually becomes a strong, powerful, and generous king.

Higlac

The king of the Geats and Beowulf's uncle. He is a good and generous king.

Protagonist

The main character who is usually viewed in a positive light

Wiglaf

The son of Weohstan the Scylfing, and a relative of Beowulf, as well as his most loyal warrior. He rules the Geats after Beowulf dies.

Foreshadowing

The use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a plot

Narrator

The voice telling the story

study the slides in google classroom

They are not included in this quizlet

Rhyme

Two words that sound the same. In poetry, rhyme is often used to mark the end of a line.

Allusion

a reference to something literary, mythological, or historical that the author assumes the reader will recognize

Framework story

a story within a story

Theme

a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in a literary or artistic work

Plot

events or course of action the moves the story along

Free verse

poetry that lacks regular meter and, often, rhyme as well

Motif

recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that help develop and inform the text's major themes

Simile

the explicit comparison between two things, signified by the words like or as

Limited Perspective

the narrator tells only what one character sees, thinks, hears, and feels

Alliteration

the repetition of sounds, especially initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words

Active voice

the subject is performing the action

Passive voice

the subject is receiving the action

Satire

the use of humor to emphasize human weaknesses or imperfections in social institutions; with the goal of reform

Symbolism

the use of objects or characters to represent ideas

Blank verse

unrhymed poetry that has a regular rhythm and line length, especially iambic pentameter

1st, 2nd, and 3rd person verbs

• 1st - I/we • 2nd - You/you • 3rd - He/she/it/they

verb voices

• Active - subject does the action. "The tornado ravaged the town." • Passive - action is done to the subject. "The town

the 4 types of sentences, their common ending punctuation marks, and their purposes

• Declarative (.) Makes a statement. • Exclamatory (!) Expresses strong emotion. • Interrogative (?) Asks a question. • Imperative (.) Makes a command.

4 verb types

• Intransitive - verbs that are not followed by objects; no action transferred from subject to object • Transitive - transfers action from subject to object • Helping - helping another verb assert action, being, existence • Linking - linking verbs can be replaced by "=" and the meaning of the sentence remains the same

8 parts of speech

• Noun - person, place, thing, idea, activity • Verb - asserts action, state-of-being, existence; linking verbs "=" rename (PN) or describe (PA) • Adverb - modifies verbs, adjectives, other adverbs "How, when, where, why, to what extent?" • Adjective - modifies nouns or pronouns "What kind?" "Which one?" "How many? • Pronoun - used instead of a noun in order to avoid repetition • Preposition - connects noun or pronoun to the rest of the sentence • Interjection - sudden, emotional expressions "Hey! Wow! Ouch!" • Conjunction - F.A.N.B.O.Y.S. (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so); connects words, phrases, clauses.

2 components of a sentences

• Phrase: group of words that does not contain both a subject AND a verb • Clause: group of words that contains a subject AND a verb. 1. Independent Clause: has a verb and a subject - makes complete sense by itself. 2. Dependent Clause (Subordinate Clause): not a complete thought; cannot stand alone

3 verb tenses relating to time

• Present (happening now) • Past (happened....ed/ed) • Future (will/shall happen)

the 5 parts of a sentence

• Subject • Verb (Predicate) • Complete Sense • Capital Letter • End Mark (. ? !)