Medieval and Renaissance English

LiteratureIntroduction and Old English

Literature 1.Natália Pikli, PhD

ELTE

Lecture 1 Introducing Medieval studies. Old English prose (Pikli Natália) Lecture 2 Old English poetry (Pikli Natália) Lecture 3 Middle English Literature 1. Romances and early Chaucer (Pikli Natália)Lecture 4. Middle English Literature 2. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury

Tales (Pikli Natália) Lecture 5 Tudor literature, Tudor poetry (Szalay Krisztina) Lecture 6 The sonnet and Shakespeare (Szalay Krisztina) Lecture 7 Medieval English drama and Renaissance theatrical conventions; the

Renaissance “world-view” (Gellért Marcell) Lecture 8 Shakespearean comedy: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Gellért Marcell) Lecture 9 Shakespearean tragedy I: Hamlet, Othello(Hargitai Márta) Lecture 10 Shakespearean tragedy II: King Lear, Macbeth (Hargitai Márta) Lecture 11 Shakespearean romance: The Tempest (Gellért Marcell)Lecture 12 John Donne and the “metaphysical” poets (Szalay Krisztina)Lecture 13 John Milton (Szalay Krisztina) Set texts: 1. compulsory (E) 2. ‘Make Your Choice’ pick one or more pieces from each

sub-group (E) 3. compulsory (E or H)4. Bonus (E or H) ORAL EXAM!

seas3.elte.hu (course material /KallayGeza/MedRenLit BA)

Old and Middle English: 597-1066-1485 Renaissance (early modern):

early 16th - mid17th c.• 597 (St. Augustine) – 1066 (Battle of Hastings): OLD

ENGLISH/Anglo-Saxon Period• Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, Jutes): Pagan warrior culture

(Tacitus), several kingdoms• Christianity: waves – St. Augustine (597, Rome, Gregory the Great),

Aidan of Lindisfarne (634, Irish Christianity), 664 – Synod of Whitby, ArchbishopTheodore and Hadrian (669, Rome) literacy!

• 731: The Venerable Bede: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Caedmon) 5 books, from Caesar’s time 60 B.C. to 731, ‘the English people’, miscellany of material

• Danes• 871-899: Alfred the Great, King of Wessex: ‘Alfredian Revival’,

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle started (Battle of Brunanburh, 937, Battle of Maldon 991), Bede’s History in the vernacular

• Mid-10th century: Benedictine reform (Aelfric, Wulfstan)• 1042-1066: Edward the Confessor, the last Anglo-Saxon King

MAPS OF ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND, c. 700 and c.900

The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial

SUTTON HOO

The Lindisfarne Gospels

Aidan of Lindisfarne

• ‘literature’, ‘history’• Latin AND vernacular (OE)

literacy, monks and laymen• manuscript (MS), hand

(insular), scribe• Old English language: dialects,

phonemical, inflected, Roman letters with some runic symbols

• „þe cyning fêrde to Readingum”

• „ þy ilcan gêare gesette Ælfred cyning Lundenburg”

• Hêr Hengest and Horsa fuhton wiþ Wyrtgeorne”

Medieval ‘double view’: spirituality and pragmatism (gargoyles) – practical and

allegorical use of ‘literature’

Old English Prose• Translations from Latin (Alfred’s Preface to Gregory’s Pastoral Care,

Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy, Bede’s History) → ‘free translation’, adaptation, supplements (Orosius’s 5th c. Historae adversum paganos – descr. of Northern Europe: complemented by Ælfred)

• Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – registering events from Ceasar’s invasion on (890-1154, six MSs, 6 poems included)

• homilies, sermons, saints’s lives, Latin textbooks (Colloquy) : Ælfric, died 1020

• Wulfstan (Lupus, pen name) d. 1023, Archbishop of York – Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (Danes: God’s punishment), realistic details, alliteration, rhyme, parallelism

• laws, letters, tracts and wills• charms and remedies (herbals, medical books in monastaries, eg.

Bald’s Leechbook, 9-10 c.: ”Against a woman’s chatter: eat a radish at night, while fasting, that day the chatter cannot harm you”)

Alfred's Prose Preface to Gregory’s Pastoral Care

• So completely had wisdom fallen off in England that there were very few on this side of the Humber who could understand their rituals in English, or indeed could translate a letter from Latin into English; and I believe that there were not many beyond the Humber. There were so few of them that I indeed cannot think of a single one south of the Thames when I became king. Thanks be to God almighty that we now have any supply of teachers. Therefore I command you to do as I believe you are willing to do, that you free yourself from worldly affairs as often as you can, so that wherever you can establish that wisdom that God gave you, you establish it.

• Therefore it seems better to me, if it seems so to you, that we also translate certain books, which are most needful for all men to know, into that language that we all can understand, and accomplish this, as with God's help we may very easily do if we have peace, so that all the youth of free men now in England who have the means to apply themselves to it, be set to learning, while they are not useful for any other occupation, until they know how to read English writing well. One may then instruct in Latin those whom one wishes to teach further and promote to a higher rank.

• (ON TRANSLATION) sometimes word for word, and sometimes sense for sense

Cædmon: the legendary first English poet (singer)

• recorded in Bede’s History

• Germanic heritage: scop/minstrel, singing at banquets – the cowherd Cædmon cannot sing (ashamed) – goes to the animal stables

• dream vision: ‘sum mon/some man’• „ 'Caedmon, sing me something.' Then he answered and

said: 'I do not know how to sing and for that reason I went out from this feast and went hither, because I did not know how to sing at all.' Again he said, he who was speaking with him: 'Nevertheless, you must sing.' Then he said: 'What must I sing?' Said he: 'Sing to me of the first Creation.’”

• Hymn of Cædmon

• Hymn of Cædmon (OE→Latin→OE) Bede’s remark: „This is the sense, but not the words in order as he sang them in his sleep, for verses, though never so well composed, cannot be literally translated out of one language into another, without losing much of their beauty and loftiness.”

• worldly test/exam – secular and religious authorities: the justification of a mystery + the Abbess of Whitby: putting it to direct use (monk, teaching), literacy – not for Cædmon! (cf. Cynewulf much later, writing and signing his poems) A personal note – his mission (”And against those who wished to do otherwise, he burned with surging of great ardour.”)

• ”And he was able to learn all that he heard, and, keeping it all in mind, just as a clean animal chewing cud, turned (it) into the sweetest song.” – a natural ability

• The art of dying (ars moriendi) – an example: ”dramatic piece” – dialogue of servant and Cædmon, ”serene death”, ”healing words” and the ”last praise”

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, AD. 1066

This year came King Harold from York to Westminster,on the Easter succeeding the midwinter when the king (Edward) died. Easter was then on the sixteenth day before the calends of May. Then was over all England such a token seen as no man ever saw before. Some men said that it was the comet-star, which others denominate the long-hair'd star.

[…]They made a great slaughter too; but there was a good number of the English people slain, and drowned, and put to flight: and the Northmen had possession of the field of battle. It was then told Harold, king of the English, that this had thus happened. And this fight was on the eve of St. Matthew the apostle, which was Wednesday.

[…]and the Normans that were left fled from theEnglish, who slew them hotly behind; until some came to their ships, some were drowned, some burned to death, and thus variously destroyed; so that there was little left: and the English gained possession of the field.

The Bayeaux tapestry: 1066, Battle of Hastings; Duke William of

Normandy vs King GodwinsonAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 1066But there was one of the Norwegians

who withstood the English folk, so that they could not pass over the bridge, nor complete the victory. An Englishman aimed at him with a javelin, but it availed nothing. Then came another under the bridge, who pierced him terribly inwards under the coat of mail.

[…]Bishop Odo and Earl William lived here afterwards, and wrought castles widely through this country, and harassed the miserable people; and ever since has evil increased very much. May the end be good, whenGod will!

Hymn of Cædmon → Old English Poetry

Nu sculon herigean     heofonrices [weard,

meotodes meahte     ond his modgeþanc, weorc wuldorfæder,     swa he wundra

[gehwæs, ece drihten,     or onstealde. He ærest sceop      eorðan bearnum heofon to hrofe,     halig scyppend; þa middangeard     moncynnes weard, ece drihten,     æfter teode firum foldan,     frea ælmihtig.

YOUTUBEhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=DAZyc8M5Q4ITEXTS/INFOhttp://www.luminarium.org/

• Now we must praise     the Protector of the heavenly kingdom,

• The might of the Measurer     and His mind's purpose,

• The work of the Father of Glory,    •  as He for each of the wonders, The

eternal Lord,      established a beginning.

• He shaped first    for the sons of the Earth

• heaven as a roof,     the Holy Maker; • then the Middle-World,     mankind's

Guardian,• The eternal Lord,      made afterwards, • solid ground for men,     the almighty

Lord.