QUOTE JOURNAL: COPY THE QUOTE AND RESPOND TO THE PROMPT IN 3-4 SENTENCES
• “If the story-tellers could ha' got decency and good morals from true stories, who'd have troubled to invent parables?” ― Thomas Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree• What is Hardy suggesting about the purpose for
parables and moral stories? What is he suggesting about people in general?
QUOTE JOURNAL: COPY THE QUOTE AND RESPOND TO THE PROMPT IN 3-4 SENTENCES.
• “You don’t marry one person; you marry three: the person you think they are, the person they are, and the person they are going to become as a result of being married to you.” - Richard Needham
• Do you think this quote is true? Why or why not? What does it point out as an important truth about relationships? (Think about the last half of the quote.)
M E D I E VA L L I T E RAT U R E
LITERARY TERMS
CHARACTERIZATION
• The techniques the writer uses to develop characters• Description of appearance• Examples from character’s speech, thoughts, and
actions• Responses to other characters• Narrator’s comments about the character
IRONY
• The contrast between expectation and reality • Dramatic irony: the reader or viewer knows
something the characters do not• Situational irony: a character or the reader
expects one thing to happen but something else actually happens• Verbal irony: a writer or character says one thing
but means another• http://www3.telus.net/public/longbs/dictionary/iro
ny.htm
FRAME STORY
A literary device that joins together one or more stories within a larger story, or frame
Can you think of some examples of stories within stories that might be familiar to you?
NARRATIVE – A TYPE OF WRITING THAT RELATES A SERIES OF EVENTS
1. Ballad: tells a story and has a regular pattern of rhythm and rhyme
2. Medieval romance: an adventure tale with extravagant characters, exotic places, heroic events, passionate love, and supernatural forces
3. Allegory: every character and event is a symbol that represents an idea, religious principle, or moral
4. Moral tale: illustrates a moral lesson, such as a fable or an exemplum
EXEMPLUM
• A short anecdote or story that illustrates a particular moral point
NARRATOR
• The character or voice that relates the story’s events to the reader• Many narrators have distinct personalities and
can be characterized.
SATIRE
• A literary technique in which ideas, customs, behaviors, or institutions are ridiculed for the purpose of improving society
ALLUSION
• An indirect reference to a person, place, event, or literary work with which the author believes the reader will be familiar
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
• Among the first writers to show that English could be a respectable literary language• Born between 1240 and 1343 to a “well-off”
family in London• Served an attendant to a prince – learned the
customs of upper-class life and came into contact with influential people
• Image from biography.com
• Wrote his first important work around 1370• Was a member of Parliament and a knight of the
shire• Was captured and held for ransom while fighting
for England in the Hundred Years’ War• Buried in Westminster Abbey beginning the
famous “Poet’s Corner”• From boskke.com
