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UNIT 43

ORALITY IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE: THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER: THE CANTERBURY TALES. OUTLINE 1. INTRODUCTION.

1.1. Aims of the unit. 1.2. Notes on bibliography.

2. A HISTORICAL BACKGROUND FOR THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD: ORAL

TRADITION IN OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE. 2.1. Earlier times: religious sources and oral tradition. 2.2. Main Old English works.

2.2.1. Britain, Britannia, England. 2.2.2. Christian literature in Anglo-Saxon England. 2.2.3. Beowulf, elegies and battle poetry.

3. MEDIEVAL LITERATURE: FROM THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND TO THE CANTERBURY

TALES. 3.1. The eleventh century: epic and elegy. 3.2. The twelfth century: romance and lyric.

3.2.1. Geoffrey Monmouth and the Arthurian legend. 3.2.2. Courtly literature.

3.3. The thirteenth century: lyrics and prose. 3.3.1. Historical background. 3.3.2. Medieval institutions and authority. 3.3.3. Lyrics and English prose.

3.4. The fourteenth century. 3.4.1. Historical background. 3.4.2. Spiritual writing vs. secular prose. 3.4.3. Ricardian poetry. 3.4.4. Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343-1400).

3.4.4.1. Life. 3.4.4.2. Works. 3.4.4.3. The Canterbury Tales (1388-1400).

3.5. The fifteenth century. 3.5.1. Historical background. 3.5.2. Literary works.

4. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING. 5. CONCLUSION. 6. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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1. INTRODUCTION.

1.1. Aims of the unit.

The present unit, Unit 43, aims to provide a detailed account of the relevance of orality in medieval

literature so as to link this oral tradition with the two highest literary productions in Middle

English, that is, the Arthurian legend and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. In order to

analyse these two literary works (among others), we shall present the social, historical, cultural and

linguistic background of the British Isles during the Middle English period (1066-1500). Then, we

will start by offering the most relevant bibliography in this field as a reference for the reader, and by

presenting our study in five main chapters, which will set up the context for the analysis of these

two literary productions within four centuries.

Chapter 2 introduces a historical background for the Middle English period, namely by reviewing

the relevance of oral tradition in Old English Literature so as to know to which extent this orality

influenced the development of English literature in the following years (1066-1500). So, we shall

start by approaching (1) earlier times regarding religious sources and oral tradition; and (2) main

Old English works that took place in (a) Britain (under the influence of Celtic people), Britannia

(under the rule of the Roman Empire) and England (Anglo-Saxon England); (b) Christian literature

in Anglo-Saxon England and (c) Beowulf, elegies and battle poetry as works which represent the

end of the Old English period.

Chapter 3 shall analyse medieval literature from the Arthurian legend to The Canterbury Tales by

analysing the main events and literary works in first, (1) the eleventh century which is characterized

by epic and elegy; (2) the twelfth century, which is characterized by romance and lyric, and where

we examine more closely (a) the relationship between Geoffrey Monmouth and the Arthurian

legend and (b) courtly literature; (3) the thirteenth century, namely characterized by lyrics and

prose, is set up in context through (a) a historical background, (b) medieval institutions and

authority in that period, and (c) English lyrics and prose; (4) the fourteenth century is approached

first by (a) a historical background, (b) spiritual writing vs. secular prose, (c) the main

characteristics of Ricardian poetry, and (d) the figure of Geoffrey Chaucer, regarding (i) his life and

career, (ii) main works and (iii) his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales; finally, we shall briefly

review (5) the fifteenth century, regarding its (a) main events and (b) literary works.

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Chapter 4 will be devoted to the main educational implications in language teaching regarding the

introduction of this issue in the classroom settin g. Chapter 5 will offer a conclusion to broadly

overview our present study, and Chapter 6 will include all the bibliographical references used to

develop this account of discourse analysis strategies.

1.2. Notes on bibliography.

An influential introduction to the historical background of the Middle English period regarding the

oral tradition in Old English literature is based on relevant works of Baugh & Cable, A History of

the English Language (1993); Asimov, La formación de Inglaterra (1990); Crystal, Linguistics

(1985); Asimov, La formación de Inglaterra (1990); Crystal, Linguistics (1985); and the

contributions of Goytisolo on the oral tradition of languages, in his Proclamation of Masterpieces of

the Oral and Intangible heritage of Humanity (2001).

Classic works on medieval literature, particularly from the Arthurian legend to The Canterbury

Tales, include Rogers, The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature (1987); Cooper, The

Canterbury Tales. (1989); Sanders, The Short Oxford History of English Literature (1996); and

Alexander, A History of English Literature (2000).

The background for educational implications is based on the theory of communicative competence

and communicative approaches to language teaching are provided by Canale, From Communicative

Competence to Communicative Language Pedagogy (1983); Hymes, On communicative

competence (1972); Tricia Hedge, Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom (2000); and

Rivers, Teaching Foreign-Language Skills (1981). In addition, the most complete record of current

publications within the educational framework is provided by the guidelines in B.O.E. (2002); and

the Council of Europe, Modern Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. A Common European

Framework of reference (1998).

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2. A HISTORICAL BACKGROUND FOR THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD: ORAL

TRADITION IN OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE.

Chapter 2 introduces a historical background for the Middle English period, namely by reviewing

the relevance of oral tradition in Old English Literature so as to know to which extent this orality

influenced the development of English literature in the following years (1066-1500). So, we shall

start by approaching (1) earlier times regarding religious sources and oral tradition; and (2) earlier

works that took place in (a) Britain (under the influence of Celtic people), Britannia (under the rule

of the Roman Empire) and England (Anglo-Saxon England); (b) Christian literature in Anglo-Saxon

England and (c) Beowulf, elegies and battle poetry as works which represent the end of the Old

English period.

2.1. Earlier times: religious sources and oral tradition.

We may say that literature holds timeless universal human truths which can be read or listened to

without regard to historical context of its production, and without regard to particular historical

moment in which we read, listen and make meaning of it. For Malinowsky, a relevant anthropology

figure, language had only two main purposes: pragmatic and ritual. The former refers to the

practical use of language, either active (by means of speech) or narrative (by means of written texts)

and the latter is concerned with the use of language associated to ceremonies, and also referred to as

magic. As seen, we can already mark a distinction here between ordinary and literary language

since both had different purposes.

As we may perceive, language pervades social life since it is the principal vehicle for the

transmission of cultural knowledge, and the primary means by which we gain access to the contents

of others’ minds. Hence language is involved in most of the phenomena that lie at the core of social

psychology (i.e. attitude change, social perception, personal identity, social interaction,

stereotyping) as well as at the core of social life which constitute an intrinsic part or the way

language is used. How people define the social situation, their perceptions of what others know,

think and believe, and the claims they make about their own and others’ identities will affect the

form and content or their acts of speaking. So, this means that social behaviour determines the way

they use language.

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As Juan Goytisolo (2001) stated in his speech at the Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and

Intangible heritage of Humanity, we must first examine our historical knowledge of both oral and

written cultures so as to provide ourselves a cultural identity in society. Since ancient times, tribal

chiefs, chamans, bards and story-tellers have been in charge of preserving and memorising for the

future the narratives of the past and Goytisolo mentions a growing disequilibrium when observing

that only seventy-eight of the three thousand languages now spoken in the world possess a living

literature based on one of the hundred and six alphabets created throughout history. In other words,

hundreds and hundreds of languages used today on our planet have no written form and their

communication is exclusively oral.

Goytisolo further points out that acquiring knowledge of this primary orality is an anthropological

task in the field of literature and oral narrative. If all cultures are based on language, that is, a

combination of spoken and heard sounds, this oral communication which involves numerous kinetic

and corporal elements, has undergone over the centuries a series of changes as the existence of

writing and awareness of the latter have gradually changed the mentality of bards, chamans, tribal

chiefs and narrators.The usual forms of popular and traditional expression were oral literature,

music, dance , games, mythology, rituals, marketplaces, festivals and even architecture.

2.2. Main Old English works.

2.2.1. Britain, Britannia, England.

Then when examining earlier works that took place in Britain (under the influence of Celtic people),

Britannia (under the rule of the Roman Empire) and England (Anglo -Saxon England), we realise

that literature is written language since human settlement preceded recorded history by some

millennia, and Old English works (namely epic and lyric ) preceded writing by some generations.

Thus, the earlier inhabitants of the island, the Celts (also known as Britons) passed on no written

literacy to their conquerors since they had an oral literary tradition; later on, the Romans brought

about to the island the art of writing through their historical literary accounts, for instance, Tacitus’s

Germania (AD 98) or St Jerome’s vulgate edition of the Bible (AD 384). Later on, the Germanic

tribes (the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes) were illiterate so their orally-composed verses were not

written unless they formed part of runic inscriptions. When the Roman empire faded, the Saxons

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did not have to exchange their Germanic tongue for Latin although Latin was the language of those

who taught them to read and write. So, the English learned to write only after they had been

converted to Christ (the process of Christianization) by missionaries sent from Rome in AD 597.

In fact, there is no evidence of Old English writing that is not Christian, since the only literates were

clerics. Linguistically and historically, the English poems composed by Caedmon after 670 and

Bede (AD 676-735) are the earliest we know of. Hence, oral poetry (epic) was an art which had

evolved over generations and was considered to be an art of memorable speech. It dealt with a set of

heroic and narrative themes in a common metrical form, and had evolved to a point where its

audience appreciated a richly varied style and storytelling technique (Alexander, 2000).

Just as the orally-composed poetry of the Anglo-Saxons was an established art, the Roman

missionaires were highly literate. Bede’s work makes it clear that the evangelists sent by Pope

Gregory in AD 597 to bring the gospel to the Angles were an élite group, for instance, St Augustine

and his most inf luential successor, the Syrian Greek Theodore of Tarus (Archbishop of Canterbury,

669-90). According to Alexander (2000), this hybrid culture found literary expression in an

unmixed language, in which the English took few words from the languages of Roman Britain

(except for Celtic names of rivers and the Roman words ‘wall’ and ‘street’).

2.2.2. Christian literature in Anglo-Saxon England.

Christian literature in Anglo-Saxon England is represented by different types of literary

productions, such as verse paraphrases of Old Testament stories (Caedmon’s Genesis and Exodus,

Daniel and Judith, 657-80), lives of saints (Andrew or Helena), historical lives of contemporaries

(St Guthlac, Cuthbert of Lindisfarne), sermons, wisdom literature or, finally, doctrinal, penitential

and devotional works, such as The Dream of the Rood, a substantial English verse carved in c. 700

in the Vercelli Book found in Northumbria.

Yet, the figure of Alfred, the fourth son of the King of Wessex from 871, proves highly relevant in

the development of literacy in Anglo-Saxon England, not only because he defended his reign

against the Danes who had overrun all the English kingdoms except his own, but also because he

translated wisdom books into English. Alfred may cast an interesting light on literacy as well as on

literature since he reported that “when he came to the throne he could not think of a single priest

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south of the Thames who could understand a letter in Latin or translate one into English”

(Alexander, 2000). Looking backwards at the great learning that had been in Roman Britain, the

king tried to improve and increase the number of literature works under his reign by means of

translating Latin works into English ones.

Alfred had some needful wise authors to carry out this task, for instance, Augustine (354-430),

Orosius (earlyl fifth century), Boethius (c. 480-524), and Gregory (c. 540-604). Since Old English

verse was namely oral to record written laws, Alfred established English as a literary language in

authorising versions of essential books from Latin into English prose. Hence we find such works

(AD 878) as Bede’s Eclesiastical History, Orosius’ Histories, Gregory’s Pastoral Care and

Dialogues, Augustine’s Soliloquies and Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy .

According to Alexander (2000:27), “Alfred’s educational programme for the laity did not succeed

at first but bore fruit later in the Wessex of this grandson Edgar, who ruled 959-76. After the Ages

of Bede and Alfred, this is the third clearly-defined Age of Anglo-Saxon literature, the Benedictine

Revival, under Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury 960-88, himself a skilled artist. Bishop

Aethelworld made Winchester a centre of manuscript illumination. In its profusion of manuscripts

the Wessex of Dunstan, Aethelwold and Aelfric is better represented today than the more

remarkable early Norhumbria of Bede. In this period English prose became the instrument for a

flourishing civilisation, with scientific, political and historical as well as religious interests. It was in

this second Benedictine age, towards AD 1000, that the four poetry manuscripts were made: the

Vercelli Book, the Junius Book, the Exeter Book and the Beowulf manuscript”.

2.2.3. Beowulf, elegies and battle poetry.

These three works represent the starting point towards the end of the Old English period. First, the

epic poem of Beowulf 1(c. 909), a poem of historic scope telling of heroes and of the world (human

and non-human), is considered to be the first great work of English literature and like other epics, it

has a style made for oral composition, rich in formulas. It shows the English the world of their

ancestors, the heroic world of the north, a world both glorious and heathen since the audience for

this kind of poetry was the lord of the hall and the men of this retinue.

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Yet, the most striking early English poems are the Elegies of the Exeter Book, which are divided

into heroic elegies (i.e. ‘The Wanderer’ and ‘The Seafarer’) and love elegies (i.e. ‘The Husband’s

Message’, ‘The Wife’s Complaint). This type of poems are dramatic monologues whose speaker is

unnamed and whose soliloquy moves from his own sufferings to a general lament. Finally, battle

poetry is relevant in this period because German warriors were said to recite poetry before battle,

according to the Roman historian Tacitus.

So, as we can see, Alfred’s translation programmed had developed into a body of discursive native

prose as it has been reflected in the works mentioned above. This was extended in the 10th century

and this prose gave way to impressive political and legal writings which provided the laity with the

religious and civil materials long available to the clergy in Latin. Then, by 1000 the humane Latin

culture which developed between the renaissance of learning at the court of Charlemagne and the

12th century renaissance, had found substantial expression in English.

There were changes in the nature of the language, notably the use of articles, pronouns and

prepositions instead of final inflections, which made verse composition more difficult. The

millenium was a period of cultural growth but of political decline. The reign of Ethelred II (978-

1016) saw an artistic revival, but there were disunity and Danish invasions (The Viking Age). The

conquest of England by Vikings and then by Norman kings disrupted cultural activity, and changed

the language of the rulers. Yet, Latin remained the language of the church, but the hierarchy was

largely replaced by Normans, and English uses were done away with. But how did the Norman

Conquest affect medieval literature?

3. MEDIEVAL LITERATURE: FROM THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND TO THE CANTERBURY

TALES.

As stated above, the Norman Conquest (1066) was a starting point for the island and its inhabitants

since it had several consequences, among which we shall focus on political, social, economic,

cultural, linguistic and, in particular, literary ones. Literature in England in this period was not just

1 The poem Beowulf was found in a manuscript of the late 10th century, but was probable composed two centurias earlier, and it is set in a world more than two centuries earlier still, on the coasts of the Baltic, the north-west Germanic world from which the English had come to Britain (Alexander, 2000).

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in English and Latin but in French as well, and developed in directions set largely in France. Epic

and elegy gave way to Romance and lyric and, in addition, English writing revived fully in English

after 1360, and flowered in the reign of Richard II (1372-99). Moreover, it gained a literary

standard in London English after 1425, and developed modern forms of verse, of prose and of

drama.

Old scribes affirmed that the Middle English period began with the arrivals of Normans in 1066 and

ended with the unexpected arrival of another conqueror, the printing press in 1476. It is a fact that

literature in this period survived in three languages: Latin, which lived alongside Norman French

and a kind of ‘English’ which was a mix of dialects, spoken rather than written. English writing was

local, with too few authors and dates for positive literary history. Yet, after 1360 things changeed

and English won parity with French as a literary medium. The re-establishment of English meant

that it was impinged with French in language and culture. So, in the Middle Ages, the English

language evolved its modern nature and structure and its literature found modern forms, such as

drama as early as the twelfth century (note that drama had been popular for ten generations before

Shakespeare), verse (in Chaucer) in the fourteenth century, and prose (in Julian of Norwich and

Malory) in the fifteenth century.

So, in this chapter, we shall examine this context of medieval literature from the Arthurian legend,

that is, medieval literature of oral transmission, to The Canterbury Tales so as to get an overall view

of the development of literature during the Middle English period (1066-1500). Then, in order to

provide an organized presentation, we shall review each century (from 11th century to 15th century)

in the so-called Middle Ages so as to present an organized timeline of the most relevant literary

contributions in this period.

Hence, we shall analyse (1) the eleventh century which is characterized by epic and elegy; (2) the

twelfth century, which is characterized by romance and lyric , and where we examine more closely

(a) the relationship between Geoffrey Monmouth and the Arthurian legend and (b) courtly

literature; (3) the thirteenth century, namely characterized by lyrics and prose, is set up in context

through (a) a historical background, (b) medieval institutions and authority in that period, and (c)

English lyrics and prose; (4) the fourteenth century is approached first by (a) a historical

background, (b) spiritual writing vs. secular prose, (c) the main characteristics of Ricardian poetry,

and (d) the figure of Geoffrey Chaucer, regarding (i) his life and career, (ii) main works and (iii) his

masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales; finally, we shall briefly review (5) the fifteenth century,

regarding its (a) main events and (b) literary works.

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3.1. The eleventh century: epic and elegy.

As stated above, the eleventh century was characterized by the use of epic and elegy within literary

works. Yet, the Norman Conquest (1066) meant the establishment of a new social, political,

economic, cultural, linguistic and even literary situation in which the type of works were to be

changes as well into romance and lyric. Therefore, the language of the new rulers, French, displaced

English as the medium of literature and also influenced the way of writing.

There is evidence that William the Conqueror tried to learnt English, but he gave up. On the other

hand, Saxons dealing with him had to learn French, and French became the language of the court

and the law for three centuries in such as way that the Normans spoke Norman French, which was

commonly known in England as Anglo-Norman.

In fact, the linguistic situation during the eleventh century and early twelfth centuries is described as

a relationship of ‘vertical bilingualism’ (or sometimes called trilingualism, if we consider the role of

Latin). This situation describes the coexistence of two (or three) languages, which were not wholly

mixed up. Possibly, this mix appeared in mercantile centres or perhaps as a desire to look socially

sophisticated.

This promotion of French was impinged by several historical factors, such as the existence of a

close connection between the Norman nobility in England and Normandy; the expansion of the

Dukedom of Normandy when King Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine (AD 1152) and gained

the state of Brittany, and therefore, the King of England controlled two thirds of France; and the

development of courtly literature in French by wish of Eleanor, among others.

So, educated men for the next three centuries were trilingual, and many homes bilingual. Literature

in English suffered then a severe disruption in 1066 since the classical Old English verse died out,

just to revive later on in a very different form, romance, whereas prose continued in the form of

sermons within the clergy.

3.2. The twelfth century: romance and lyric.

As stated above, when the classical Old English verse die d out, it revived in a very different form,

romance, and the prose developed in a lyric form. When this new writing appeared, it was in an

English which had become very different from that of the eleventh century. The reasons for this

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include the lack of any written standard to discourage dialectal variety, scribal practice, linguistic

change and, above all, a new literary consciousness. This is the background for the first of our

works to comment on, the Arthur ian legend under oral tradition.

According to Alexander (2000), “the change in literary sensibility after 1100 is often characterized

as a change from epic to romance”, where ‘romance’ is defined as “a kind of medieval story,

originally from stories written in romauns, or vernacular French”. Actually, it was such a novelty

that William I’s minstrel Taillefer is said to have led the Normans ashore at the battle of Hastings

declaiming the ‘Chanson de Roland’, which is a ‘chanson de geste’ (song of deeds). Also, in c.

1200 a Norman from Jersey called Layamon dedicated an Old English heroic poem (‘Brut’) to

Eleanor of Aquitaine. This poem was based on the French ‘Roman de Brut’ (1155) by Wace, a

canon of Bayeux, who in turn based his work on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum

Britanniae.

3.2.1. Geoffrey Monmouth and the Arthurian legend.

It was this latter author, Geoffrey of Monmouth who, in AD 1135 (c.1130-6), wrote ‘Historia

Regum Britanniae’ and, unconciously, created the Arthurian legend by means of a wonderful

historical romance, in which the Arthur of literature belongs to the age of chivalry and the Crusades

after 1100. Yet, according to the historian Gildas and his work ‘Excidio Britanniae’ (c.550), there

was a Romanized Celtic chieftain called Ambrosius Aureliano, who became a Celtic (British) hero

agains the Saxon invasion in west part of Britain.

Later on, another British author, called Nennius (c.800) reported about this chieftain, and said that

he became a servant of Vortigern (under the influence of a spell) to defeat the Saxons. Then, in the

same report it is said that a man called Arthur led his warriors to victory in twelve successful battles

against the Saxons, the latter taking place at Mons Badonicus in today’s Wales (Asimov, 1990:47).

So, later oral legends created King Arthur, his Knights of the Round Table, and even Camelot was

set up as the legendary capital of Arthurian reign in Cadbury Hill (Wales).

It was in northern France that the legends of Arthur, his Round Table and the Quest for the Grail

improved before they re-crossed the Channel to the northern half of the Norman kingdom. Note that

although the Normans conquered southern Scotland, Wales and Ireland, they did not include in the

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Arthurian story2. Geoffrey’s work was quite a popular story until the Renaissance, and a popular

legend afterwards. Note that the character of Merlin in this story has Celtic origins, since he is an

enigmatic figure related to ancient druids.

Geoffrey’s legendary history of the island of Britain was put into English by Layamon, a parish

priest at Arley Regis in Worcestershire, an area where old verse traditions lasted. His work was

written in 14,000 lines and makes no distinction between the British and the English, thus allowing

the English to regard Arthur, their British enemy, as English. Although his talent was for narrative,

he employed old formulas with less economy when describing Arthur’s death. In his metre, Arthur

is wafted by elf-ladies to Avalon to be healed, and to return. This promise is repeated in Malory’s

Morte Darthur (c.1470), who also tried to compile the main body of Arthurian legends into

narrative.

So, during the eleventh and thirteenth centuries there was a change from ‘gestes’ (songs of res

gestae, Lat. ‘things done’) to romances of chivalry as part of the rise of feudalism. Henc e, a knight’s

duty was to serve God and the King with a religious orientation and a legal force, which was not

just an honour-code in literature. So, the concept of chivalry was considered to be historical as well

as literary and its cultural prestige was spread through Romance.

3.2.2. Courtly literature.

As we can see, ‘Romances’ were tales of adventurous and honourable deeds, such as at first were

deeds of war and later on, to defend ladies or to fight for them. Soon they developed into courtly

literature and began as a courtly genre, a leisure pursuit, like feasting, hunting, reading, playing

chess, or love itself. The warrior gave way to the knight, and when the knight got off his horse he

wooed the lady. In other words, in literature the pursuit of love grew ever more refined (Alexander,

2000:40).

2 The plot is based on the fact that “the kings of Britain descend from Brutus, the original conqueror of the island of Albion, then infested by giants. This Brutus is the grandson ofAeneas the Trojan, from whom Virgil traced the kings of Rome. Brutus calls Albion ‘Britain’, after his own name, whose capital is New Troy, later called London. The Romans conquer Britain, but the Britons, under Lucius, reconquer Rome. They fight bravely under king Arthur against the Saxon invader, but Arthur, poised to conquer Europe, has to turn back at the Alps to put down the revolt of his nephew Mordred. Fatally wounded at the battle of Camlann, Arthur is taken to the island of Avalon, whence, according to the wizard Merlin’s prophecies, he shall one day return. Geoffrey stops in the sixth century at King Cadwallader, after whom the degenerate Britons succumbed to the Saxons” (Alexander, 2000:39).

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The French rulers enjoyed romances of antiquity, about Thebes, Aeneas, Troy and Alexander and,

actually, Benoît de Sainte-Maure produced a 30,000-line ‘Roman de Troie’ (1165) at the court of

Eleanor of Aquitaine. Such popular stories made reference to classical themes full of marvels

(Rome), but Arthurian romance was even more popular with French ladies and hence, the first

developments of Geoffrey’s Arthurian legend material were in French.

As we will see, the romance is a lasting legacy of the Middle Ages, not only to works of fantasy in

later centuries (such as Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene or the Gothic novel but also to such

marvellous but pseudo-realist works as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Samuel Richardson’s

Pamela).

3.3. The thirteenth century: lyrics and prose.

The thirteenth century was just about to bring changes at all levels when, shortly after AD 1200,

England lost an important part of her possessions abroad. The Loss of Normandy would have, for

our purposes, linguistic consequences, such as the loss of prestige of Norman-French and Anglo-

Norman. Consequently, the maintenance of French into some kind of artificial language had an

influence on the literary productions in that period, namely on lyrics and prose.

3.3.1. Historical background.

Historically speaking, since 1180 the Dukes of Normandy had been at war with France. This fact

was partly responsible for the separation of England and Normandy in the year 1204, when

Normandy was confiscated to King John (1199-1216) by King Phillip II of France. This event had

far reaching social and linguistic consequences, among which the most outstanding is that the

properties in French soil of the barons living in England would be confiscated (Decree of Rouen,

1204).

This implied that the nobility gradually relinquised their continental states and a feeling of rivalry

developed between the two countries, accompanied by an anti-foreign movement in England and

culminating in the Hundred Years’ War. During the century and a half following the Norman

Conquest, French had been not only natural but more or less necessary to the English upper class

(Baugh & Cable, 1993).

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So, those having properties on both sides of the Channel had to decide which one to choose. As a

result, the loss of Normandy gave the English nobility a new collective feeling of their insular

identity, and soon considered themselves as English. This event established a community of

interests with the English speaking lower classes which later may result in a reaction against the

continental Norman-French.

Yet, this nationalistic feeling did not extend to the King and courtly nobility. Henry III (1207-1272)

married Eleanor of Provence, who brought with her to England a host of French relatives so as to be

surrounded by French nobles and prelates. Therefore, French knights in charge of castleries

oppressed the barons of Norman-English origin. This gap between the aristocracy (nobility at court)

and the barons (rural nobility) was the reason for the Barons’ War (1258-1265), in which the barons

rebelled so as to claim a greater participation in and supervision of royal government. This claim

was kept in the ‘Provisions of Oxford’ (1259), a document written in English, French and Latin.

Secondly, linguistically speaking, the loss of prestige of Norman French and Anglo-Norman

reinforced the functional use of English. Both Norman French and Anglo-Norman predominated in

the upper classes, but gradually the influence of English developed into something different from

the known continental French dialects. This condition contrasted with the prestige associated to

Central French (Paris’ dialect). Also, other factors contributed the loss of prestige of Anglo-

Norman: the use of Latin as the official language for records and the adoption of Norman French by

native English speakers who tended to tinge it with native phonological and grammatical features.

3.3.2. Medieval institutions and authority.

Having seen some of the effects of the submersion of English by French, and before approaching

the second work in this study, The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer in the analysis of the fourteenth

century, we shall look at institutions and mental habits which shaped this new English literature.

Nowadays, modern literature is mostly concerned with secular life and lay people, but for over a

thousand years, thought, culture and art in Europe were promoted by the Church. The clergy were

the source of education at that time as well as of arts and literature.

Those bishops and priests who lived in the secular world brought the Word and the sacraments to

the people, and higher education was namely provided by religious monks, nuns and, later, friars.

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This education was to be taught in schools which were set up in monastic cathedrals in cities, such

as Winchester, Canterbury or Westminster, not far from London. From the twelfth century,

intellectual initiative began to pass from these schools to universities (Paris, Oxford –founded

c.1167) and therefore, the teachings of the Church were to be modified by new learning.

Yet, intellectual activity in the new universities was led less by secular clergy than by friars, who

were members of the new orders founded by St Dominic and St Francis to evangelise the growing

cities. Then, the systemactic thinking of Aristotle was reintroduced and that thought came into

Europe via Spain, and retranslated from Arabic. So, literacy came through the Church, since the

men who held the pen were monks who copied Latin works for more than three hundred years after

the Norman Conquest. (Alexander, 2000:43).

English texts were, though, less worth preserving since, when Middle English was found in

manuscripts before 1350, it was usually devotional. Yet in a Christian world all type of writing

gained a Christian function and soon, much of the best English writing was wholly religious, such

as that of the mystic Julian of Norwich, or William Langland’s Piers Plowman. Hence, medieval

drama and much medieval lyric was created to spread the gospel to the laity.

All kind of writers, whether religious or secular, Latin or vernacular, invoked earlier authors since

their names were still powerful and could mean more than their books (i.e. Chaucer=Franceys

Petrak, the lauriat poete and Daunte, the wyse poete of Ytaille). Another aspect of medieval literary

thought is allegory, that is, the making out of deeper meaning below the surface of literature of life,

meanings of a moral or spiritual sort. In fact, allegory developed from the Hebrew and Christian use

of biblical prophecy as the key to events.

3.3.3. Lyrics and English prose.

Then, these new academic attitudes inspired clerical literature, such as The Owl and the Nightingale

(early 13th century), which became the bird of love in Provençal lyrics of the early 12th century. The

refinement and abundance of Provençal song-literature is unmatched in North French and English

lyric. Hundreds of medieval lyrics remain in manuscripts which can be roughly dated, but

composition and authors are usually unknown. In addition, rhyme is first found in Church hymns,

but late religious lyrics appear with the fifteenth century literature.

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Regarding English prose in this period, we must say that the impulse to spiritual perfection was not

confined to the religious, since much devotional writing is for the laity. Actually, since the Fourth

Lateran Council of the Church (1215) decreed personal confession at least once a year, confession

and conscience abound in Ricardian poetry, and it was namely in church that unlettered people

heard speech composed with art.

3.4. The fourteenth century.

3.4.1. Historical background.

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries new historical events, such as the Hundred Years’

War, the Black Death and the Peasants’ Revolt, reinforced the national feeling which had ensued

the loss of Normandy and led the inhabitants of the island to a general adoption of English

On the one hand, the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) came up due to the question of succession

to the French crown (claimed by King Edward III of England) against the house of Valois (Philip

VI, who was appointed King of France). This war turned people’s attention to the continent and

made people realize that French was the language of the enemy court and that it was one of the

causes contributing to the disuse of French. The outcomes of this war were the development of

national consciousness among the English and a general feeling of hatred against France, French

customs and the French language.

On the other hand, the bubonic and pneumonic plague which ravaged Europe in the mid fourteenth

century reached England in 1348. As a result, about one-third of Europe’s population and almost

half of the inhabitants of Britain died. The effects of the Black Death were felt at all levels,

particularly the social and economic ones since the drastic reduction of the amount of land under

cultivation became the ruin of many landowners. Therefore, the shortage of labour implied a

general rise in wages for peasants and, consequently, provided new fluidity to the stratification of

society and afforded a new status to the middle and lower social classes, whose native language was

English.

Finally, these classes (middle and low) rebelled against the imposition of a poll tax and,

particularly, against the Statute of Labourers, which tried to fix maximum wages during the labour

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shortage following the plague. The Peasants’ Revolt, as this rebellion is known, also contributed to

increase the social relevance of the labouring classes and indirectly conferred importance on their

native tongue, that is, English.

Linguistically speaking, the consequences of these events were to be felt in a general adoption of

English in the late fourteenth century. Already in the late thirteenth century, the English language

was virtually understood and actively used by everyone, but it was not recognized in official, legal,

governmental or administrative affairs. Hence, among the historical events of the fourteenth century

which led to a gradual use of English in these high domains, we may highlight the use of English in

a will, instead of Latin, for the first time (1383) and later on, in an official petition to Parliament

(petition of the London Mercers’ Guild, 1386). It is in this environment where we shall examine

Geoffrey Chaucer’s life and works.

3.4.2. Spiritual writing vs. secular prose.

As the century developed, “the English nobility, unlike their continental equivalents, increasingly

proved to be unwilling to define themselves as a closed, separate, and uniquely priviledged order.

England did not hereafter lack a distinct and relatively responsive to social and ideological change ”

(Sanders, 1996:49). This shift in thought was to be felt in the way of writing. We can namely

distinguish spiritual writing, which seeks a disciplicine of the spirit to become closer to God, and

secular prose, which was used for practical matters in general terms.

Spiritual writing is represented by Richard Rolle (c.1300-49), who included in his English writings

(Song of Songs, Form of Living, Ego Dormio) allegorical commentaries, poems and prose marked

by a musical rhetoric, and also Walter Hilton (d.1379) who also addressed the spiritual life in his

writings (The Scale of Perfection). On the other hand, secular prose appeared when reformers

started to translate the Bible into English since they had to produce an English Vulgate so literal as

to be almost unreadable.

In fact, according to Alexander (2000:48), “since the end of the Pete rborough Chronicle in 1154,

English secular prose –non-religious prose- had been used for practical matters, but in Richard II’s

reign English came into general use. John Trevisa translated a French encyclopedia and a Latin

world history; adding that, as grammar-school teaching was now (1385) in English rather than in

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French, children know no more French than does their left heel”. Other prose writers of interest

were Sir John Mandeville and Margery Kemp who, after a religious conversion, wrote her

confessional testament in The Book of Margery Kempe (revised in 1436). Similarly, The Paston

Letters were the correspondence of a 15th-century Norfolk family which was subject to study years

after.

3.4.3. Ricardian poetry.

The reign of Richard II (1372-98) saw the flowering of a mature English poetry in Middle English.

Besides lyric and religious prose of the highest quality, Arthurian verse romances were spirited in

the Stanzaic ‘Morte’ (c.1390) and the Alliterative ‘Morte’ (c.1400). The revival of English

alliterative verse produced at least two crucial poems, ‘Piers Plowman’ (c.1377) by William

Langland and ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, which was found with three other fine poems

(Patience, Cleanness and Pearl) in the ‘Gawain’ manuscript (c.1390). Each poem is strikingly

original and intelligent, but ‘Gawain’ must stand here for all. On the other hand, verse drama was

also popular, although surviving texts are 15 th century (Alexander, 2000).

Yet, according to Rogers (1987:39), the most important contributions to the literature development

in this century were made by two ‘courtly makers’, that is, Chaucer and Gower. On the one hand,

John Gower (1330-1408) contributed with the appearance of an assured syllabic verse in his long

poems and, on the other hand, Geoffrey Chaucer contributed with the establishment in English of

the decasyllabic verse of France and Italy: in the ‘Troilus’ stanza (c.1382-5) which coincided with

the Peasants’ Revolt (1381), and the couplets of the ‘Canterbury Tales’ (c.1387).

Following Alexander (2000), Chaucer’s relevance is not merely historical but also literary. He

states Chaucer was “as humane as any English non-dramatic poet, with a versatility and narrative

skill never exceeded” , even though Gower wrote in three languages and Chaucer in English only.

Yet, this linguistic tool gave a richer tone and a deeper social reach than French or Latin at that age.

Chaucer is said to be “a bright star in a sky with many bright stars” since his relevance was

recognized at his death.

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3.4.4. Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343-1400).

Geoffrey Chaucer’s life is much better documented than other writers in that period, so the known

facts of Chaucer’s life are fragmentary and are based almost entirely on official records. In this

section we shall examine (a) his life and career and (b) his main works in order to get to one of his

most relevant works, (c) The Canterbury Tales.

3.4.4.1. Life.

He was born probably in 1343 or 1344 in the Vintry, the vintners’ street in London’s walled City,

with nearby Westminster. He was the son of John Chaucer, a prosperous vintner (wine merchant) of

London. He only had one sister, who was a nun. In 1357 he became a king’s man, that is, a

professional royal servant in the household of Prince Lionel, later duke of Clarence, whom he

served for many years holding a series os posts, which included Collector of Customs in the Port of

London (from 1374 to 1386) and Clerk of the King’s Works (from 1389 to 1391). During the years,

Chaucer was frequently employed on diplomatic missions to the Continent, visiting France, Spain

and Italy in 1372–73 and in 1378.

As he was also a diplomat and travelled on the king’s business, his name occurs four hundred times

in the records but not as a poet. He lived in London and Kent, surviving the Black Death, the French

wars, the Peasants’ Revolt, the Lords Appellants’ challenge to Richard II, and Richard’s deposition

by Henry IV. Yet, in 1359–60 he was with the army of Edward III in France, where he was captured

by the French but ransomed.

His mother married three times, and by 1366 he married Philippa Roet, daughter of a Flemish

knight, who was a lady-in-waiting to Edward III’s queen. She was probably the sister of John of

Gaunt’s third wife. The official date of Chaucer’s death is October 25, 1400. Historians agree that

there is nothing in his career to suggest that Chaucer was anything other than a moderately

successful London gentleman. Hence, when he was buried in Westminster Abbey, it was evident

that there was no more than a common privilege for courtiers and royal officials.

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3.4.4.2. Works.

However, his writing reveals nothing of these, nor of his personal life. His career as a king’s man

was not unusual, but he was unusually good at his other calling, writing English verse. Chaucer’s

literary activity is often divided into three periods : his early works, the Italian period and his mature

works.

1. The first period includes his early works (to 1370), which are based largely on French

models of dream visions In fact, ‘The Book of the Duchess’ (1368-72), an allegorical

lament written on the death of Blanche, wife of John of Gaunt, and ‘The Romaunt of

the Rose’ (before 1372), a partial translation of the Roman de la Rose, are based on

Guillaume de Machaut.

2. The second period (up to c. 1387) is called his Italian period because during this time

his works were modeled primarily on Dante and Boccaccio. Major works of the second

period include The House of Fame (1378-83), recounting the adventures of Aeneas after

the fall of Troy; The Parliament of Fowls (1380-2), which tells of the mating of fowls

on St. Valentine’s Day and is thought to celebrate the betrothal of Richard II to Anne of

Bohemia; and a prose translation of Boethius’ De consolatione philosophiae.

Also among the works of this period are the unfinished Legend of Good Women

(c.1387), a poem telling of nine classical heroines, which introduced the heroic couplet

(two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter) into English verse and Chaucer’s last love-

vision, written in the first decasyllabic couplets in English; the prose fragment The

Treatise on the Astrolabe, written for his son Lewis; and Troilus and Criseyde (1382-6),

based on Boccaccio's Filostrato, one of the great love poems in the English language.

In Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer perfected the seven-line stanza later called rhyme

royal.

3. Chaucer’s mature and last work, The Canterbury Tales, is today his most popular. Its

opening ‘When that April with his shoures soote’ is the first line of English verse that is

widely known. This opening, a welcome to April showers and to the classical god of the

West Wind, is often taken as a starting point for English poetry, already seven centuries

old, which “had successfully domesticated new European literary traditions”

(Alexander, 2000:59).

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3.4.4.3. The Cantebury Tales (1388-1400).

To Chaucer's final period, in which he achieved his fullest artistic power, belongs his masterpiece,

The Canterbury Tales. Written sometime in the 1380s, the idea of a frame story, that is, a story

within a story, comes from a long tradition: The Arabian Nights and The Decameron, since Chaucer

read The Decameron when he visited Italy. Originally, he proposed 124 stories, but he actually

wrote 24. Regarding structure, the ‘tales’ are found in around eighty manuscripts, in separate

sections or ‘Fragments’. The best manuscripts have ten Fragments, each with one or more tales and,

where some fragments are incomplete, the ‘tales’ have a conclusion.

This unfinished poem, about 17,000 lines, is one of the most brilliant works in all literature. The

poem introduces a group of pilgrims journeying from London to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at

Canterbury, who was killed by agents of Henry II in 1170 at the altar of his cathedral. To help pass

the time on the two-day ride to the shrine, the thirty pilgrims decide to tell two tales each on the

way and two on the way back. Together, the pilgrims represent a wide cross section of 14th-century

English life.

The pilgrims’ tales include a variety of medieval genres from the humorous fabliau to the serious

homily, and they vividly indicate medieval attitudes and customs in such areas as love, marriage,

and religion. Through Chaucer’s superb powers of characterization the pilgrims, such as the earthy

wife of Bath, the gentle knight, the worldly prioress, the evil summoner, come intensely alive.

Chaucer was a master storyteller and craftsman, but because of a change in the language after 1400,

his metrical technique was not fully appreciated until the 18th cent. Only in Scotland in the 15th and

16th centuries did his imitators understand his versification.

The Canterbury Tales is set in fourteenth-century London, which is considered to be one of the

medieval period’s great centers of commerce and culture. As seen above, in England at this time,

society was still very strictly ordered, with the King and nobles having all power in things political

and the Catholic Church having all authority in spiritual matters. However, trade and commerce

with other nations had expanded dramatically in this century, giving rise to a new and highly vocal

middle class comprised of merchants, traders, shopkeepers, and skilled craftsmen (Cooper, 1989).

Their newly acquired wealth, their concentration in centers of commerce, and their organization

into guilds gave this newly emerging class increasing power and influence. However, the

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population of England remained for the most part agrarian, poor peasants working hard for a

meager living farming on rented land, completely at the mercy of the landowner, mired in ignorance

and superstition, and generally devoid of any opportunity to have access to learning or literary

works.

Yet, Chaucer approaches the world of literature to the lower classes by different means. First, by

using the language of Middle English, which is closer to Old English, the language of the Anglo-

Saxons, and Norman French, and the language of William the Conqueror (1066); secondly, by

showing a cross section of medieval society (feudal, ecclesiastical, urban); and third, by showing

interest in middle class characters, such as a cook, carpenter, miller, priest, prioress, pardoner,

lawyer, merchant, clerk, physic ian, which reflects the rise of the middle class in the 14th century.

Literature is moving away from the questions of the genre, romance, to a more personal vision, a

domestic vision. So, Chaucer is interested in individuals, their foibles and individual differences;

interested in realism; interested in middle class people, the merchant class, peasants, among others,

who reflect the rise of the middle class in the fourteenth century. In fact, the subject matter of The

Canterbury Tales is sex, lust, greed, jealousy, native cunning (tricksters), the credulousness of the

stupid, marital problems, infidelity, and corruption of the church, among others.

We must note that pilgrim tales were proverbially known as ‘Canterbury tales’ which were so close

to lower classes. The pilgrims are types familiar from medieval social satire, but Chaucer makes

them speak to him and through him to us: their voices animate their sparkling two-dimensional

portraits: vice and moral. Medieval satirists reproved obstinate vice, but the pilgrim Chaucer praises

his creatures, letting us see the imperfections to which they are blind.

Chaucer is an author who makes fun of authority. His tales are a parody of popular tail-thyme

romance, full of silly conventions, empty phrases and bad rhymes. Chaucer tells ‘a litel thyng in

prose’, the lengthy moral fable of Melibeus and Prudence. This view does not lead to social realism

nor to steady moral viewpoint. Chaucer’s Gothic switches of genre and tone are allowed by his

comprehensive conception of life, physical, social, moral and metaphysical, shown from a variety

of viewpoints. As Alexander (2000) states, “his final Retractions show, Chaucer’s humanity has a

theological dimension.”

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3.5. The fifteenth century.

3.5.1. Historical background.

Historically speaking, by the fifteenth century, during the reign of Henry V (1413-1422), the

English language was officially used at both the oral and written levels in most fields, except legal

records (still written in Latin), the Statutes of Parliament (written in French until 1489) and in

ceremonial formulae (still French). Yet, for our purposes, we shall focus on the literary productions

which reinforced the national feeling which had ensued the loss of Normandy and led the

inhabitants of the island to a general adoption of English

3.5.2. Literary works.

After Chaucer and Gower were buried outside the City of London, in the churches in Westminster

and Southwark next to which each had lived, there was good English writing in the fifteenth

century, particularly in lyric and drama and prose, but no major poet. Yet, Thomas Hoccleve (1369-

1426), who called Chaucer his ‘father’, scratched his living as a copyist at Westminster, lacking his

master’s skill and his diplomacy. His job was reported to be ‘boring’.

Another author who is worth mentioning is John Lydgate (1370-1449). He was a monk of Bury St

Edmunds, and did well out of English verse. Among his main works, we mention ‘Troy Book’,

written for Henry V; his version of ‘The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man’ for the Earl of Salisbury;

his ‘Fall of Princes’ for Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. His works had a decorated style without

Chaucer’s rhythm, verve and intelligence.

So, we can affirm that the decasyllable lost its music in the 15th century, as words altered in accent

and inflection. As English topped up with prestige words from Latin and French and doubled its

resources, its eloquence took the form of reduplication, pairing English and Romance synonyms.

New literary streams and events were entering this century, for instance, drama (mystery and

morality plays), religious lyric, Scottish poetry and the most important event, the arrival of printing,

with which ‘quality’ marketing had begun. That meant that chivalry and romance were dying, but

manners could be learned.

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4. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING.

Literature, and therefore, literary language is one of the most salient aspect of educational activity.

In classrooms all kinds of literary language, either spoken or written, is going on for most of the

time. Yet, handling literary text types is not an end in itself, but a means of achieving the goals of

the larger activities that constitute the object of education, especially if we are dealing with oral

tradition in literature. Together with talking, writing and reading, participants should master these

elements to achieve and develop the goals of the activity in which they are engaged: to write a

letter, a short story, a historical account of their city, and so on.

Currently, action research groups attempt to bring about change in classroom learning and teaching

through a focus on literary production under two premises. First, because they believe learning is an

integral aspect of any form of activity and second, because education at all levels must be conceived

in terms of literature. The basis for these assumptions is to be found in an attempt, through the use

of various modes of literary text types and genres, to develop understanding of students’ shared but

diverse social and physical environment.

Learning involves a process of transformation of participation itself which has far reaching

implications on the role of the teacher in the teaching-learning relationship. This means that literary

genres are an analytic tool and that teachers need to identify the potential contributions and

potential limitations of them before we can make good use of the genre analysis techniques. We

must bear in mind that most students will continue their studies at university and there, they will

have to handle successfully all kind of genres, especially the non-fiction ones such as objective

reports, language for specific purposes (humanistic studies, scientific, technological, etc).

But how do medieval literature tie in with the new curriculum? Medieval literature may be

approached in linguistic terms, regarding form and function (morphology, lexis, structure, form)

and also from a cross-curricular perspective (Sociology, History, English, French and Spanish

Language). Spanish students are expected to know about the British culture and its influence in

Europe since students are required to know about the culture and history of its own language. So,

medieval literature is easily approached by means of the subjects of History and Language, since

literary productions in the Middle Ages have parallel developments.

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In addition, one of the objectives of teaching the English language is to provide good models of

almost any kind of literary productions for future studies. Following van Ek & Trim (2001), ‘the

learners can perform, within the limits of the resources available to them, those writing (and oral)

tasks which adult citizens in general may wish, or be called upon, to carry out in their private

capacity or as members of the general public’ when dealing with their future regarding personal and

professional life.

Moreover, nowadays new technologies may provide a new direction to language teaching as they

set more appropriate context for students to experience the target culture. Present-day approaches

deal with a communicative competence model in which first, there is an emphasis on significance

over form, and secondly, motivation and involvement are enhanced by means of new technologies.

Literary language and a wide range of genres prove frequent and relevant within the students

environment (oral tradition: romances, poetry, lyric).

The success partly lies in the way the language becomes real to the users, feeling themselves really

in the language. Some of this motivational force is brought about by intervening in authentic

communicative events. Otherwise, we have to recreate as much as possible the whole cultural

environment in the classroom. This is to be achieved within the framework of the European Council

(1998) and, in particular, the Spanish Educational System which establishes a common reference

framework for the teaching of foreign languages where students are intended to carry out several

communication tasks with specific communicative goals within specific contexts and registers (i.e.

write a letter to a friend, office, business enterprise asking for job, etc). Thus, foreign language

activities are provided within the framework of social interaction, personal, professional and

educational fields.

Literary language and the production of literary genres are mentioned as one of the aims of our

current educational system (B.O.E. 2002) and in particular, for students of E.S.O. and Bachillerato

about how to produce a literary text (oral or written): writing a poem, acting out as in a romance,

etc). Actually, students are asked to use literary textual features (lexical choice between formal and

informal syntactic structures) when writing fiction and non-fictional texts, as in The Canterbury

Tales.

It is stated that students will make use of this competence in a natural and systematic way in order

to achieve the effectiveness of communication through the different communication skills, thus,

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productive (oral and written communication), receptive (oral and written comprehension within

verbal and non-verbal codes), and interactional role of a foreign language as a multilingual and

multicultural identity.

Analytic interpretation of texts in all genres should become part of every literary student’s basic

competence (B.O.E., 2002). There are hidden influences at work beneath the textual surface: these

may be sociocultural, inter and intratextual, or ecological. The literary student has to discover these,

and wherever necessary apply them in further examination. The main aims that our currently

educational system focuses on are mostly sociocultural, to facilitate the study of cultural themes, as

our students must be aware of their current social reality within the European framework.

5. CONCLUSION.

This study has looked at the relevance of orality in medieval literature so as to link this oral

tradition with the two highest literary productions in Middle English, that is, the Arthurian legend

and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. So, as we have seen, Chapter 2 introduced the

historical background for the Middle English period, where, historically speaking, we have

presented the social, historical, cultural and linguistic background of the British Isles during the

Middle English period (1066-1500) in order to analyse these two relevant literary works .

So, we have approached this issue by reviewing the main events in earlier times regarding religious

sources and oral tradition; and also the main Old English works that took place in the British Isles

under different cultures. Thus, Britain, under the influence of Celtic people, Britannia, under the

rule of the Roman Empire, and England, under the rule of the Anglo-Saxons. Moreover, it was

relevant to review how Christian literature in Anglo-Saxon England developed and how it

represented the end of the Old English period in works such as Beowulf , elegies and battle poetry.

Yet, the core of our study has been developed in Chapter 3 we we have analysed medieval literature

in the period which covers from the Arthurian legend to The Canterbury Tales by analysing the

main events and literary works. So, we have examined the eleventh century and its relationship to

epic and elegy; the twelfth century, which is characterized by romance and lyric, and where we

have examined more closely, first, the relationship between Geoffrey Monmouth and the Arthurian

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legend and, secondly, courtly literature; then, the thirteenth century, namely characterized by lyrics

and prose, which is set up in context through first, a historical background; second, medieval

institutions and authority in that period, and finally, some considerations on English lyrics and

prose; the fourteenth century is approached again by a historical background which has led us to the

difference between spiritual writing vs. secular prose, the main characteristics of Ricardian poetry,

and the figure of Geoffrey Chaucer.

It is in the figure of Chaucer that we have developed the analysis on the second work by reviewing

his life and career, his main works and finally, his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales . Finally, we

have briefly reviewed the fifteenth century, regarding its main events and literary works to put an

end to our presentation. So far, we have attempted in this conclusion to provide the reader with a

linguistic, historical and cultural background on the oral transmission in medieval literature and its

further developments up to the fifteenth century.

Language learners, even 2nd year Bachillerato students, do not automatically establish similiarities

between British and Spanish medieval literary works, which seem obvious to teachers; on the

contrary, learners need to have these associations brought to their attention in cross-curricular

settings. As we have seen, understanding how oral literature developed into written one is important

to students , who are expected to be aware of the richness of English literature, due to the mingling

of English, French and Latin elements in Europe during the Middle Ages.

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6. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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Asimov, Isaac. 1990. La formación de Inglaterra . Historia Universal, Alianza Editorial.

Baugh, A. & Cable, T. 1993. A History of the English Language. Prentice-Hall Editions.

B.O.E. 2002. Consejería de Educación y Cultura. Decreto N.º 112/2002, de 13 de septiembre.

Currículo de la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria en la Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de

Murcia.

B.O.E. 2002. Consejería de Educación y Cultura. Decreto N.º 113/2002, de 13 de septiembre.

Currículo de Bachillerato en la Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia .

Canale, M. 1983. From Communicative Competence to Communicative Language Pedagogy, in J.

Richards and R. Schmidt (eds.). Language and Communication. London, Longman.

Cooper, H. 1989. The Canterbury Tales. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Council of Europe (1998) Modern Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. A Common

European Framework of reference.

Crystal, D. 1985. Linguistics. Harmondsworth, England. Penguin Books.

Goytisolo, J. 2001. Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible heritage of Humanity

18 May 2001. Speech delivered at the opening of the meeting of the Jury (15 May 2001).

Hymes, D. 1972. On communicative competence. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Rogers, P. 1987. The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature. Oxford University Press.

Sanders, A. 1996. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford University Press.