ENGLISH 2201 class notes - ENGLISH 2201 The Middle Ages Old...

ENGLISH 2201
The Middle Ages
 Old English/Anglo-Saxon period
o Latin and old English
 1066 official breaking point between old English and middle
English conquest period
 Norman Conquest, Battle of Hastings, William of
Normandy spoke French (language of power)
 Middle English Period
o Latin, French, and middle English
Pre Conquest England
 Authors of old English into word play (Riddles & Kennings)
o Kennings
 Language-Bearers (89)
 “He will come again to this middle-earth” (104)
 Beowulf- “ring givers” and “peace weavers”
 “The wanderer”- hardscape (earth-trader)
8/26 Riddles & Kennings
 Riddle- a form of wordplay
o Associative logic
 Metonymy: Wall Street, the bench (the judge)
 Synecdoche: wheels- car
 Metaphor: love=battlefield
 Logic dictated by culture
 Kennings-
o Compound word phrase “ring-giver”
o A substitute label for another simple noun “ring-giver” = “king”
o A style of circumlocution or “speaking around”
 MAKE A KENNING FOR NEXT WEEK. BE SPECIFIC.
8/29 Middle Ages
 * What languages were spoken and written in the pre conquest period Latin
and old English*

 Monastic culture
o “Rule” (St. Benedict)
o Chastity- poverty- obedience
 Prayer-meditation-labor
 “Reading and writing “Opus Dei” (Gods Work)
o all by hand, done by scribes
 Lindisfarne (monastery)
 Lindisfarne Gospels
o Ducks
o Interlacing changes point of views (ex game of
thrones, thrillers)
 Book of Kills 9 th c
o Manuscript Culture
 Vellum, Parchment- from sheep or cattle
 “hands” & abbreviations
 expensive
 Pre Conquest literature
o Latin
 History
 Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English people 731
AD (*Latin)
 Conversion of England
 Life on earth is compared to a sparrow??
 Whitby Abbey
o Abbess Hild- ruled double monastery
 Theology
 Moral and religious writings
 Lives of saints
o Old English
 History
 Moral and religious writings
 Poetry
o Preserve the earliest known poem in old English
“Caedmon’s hymn”
o Half line alliteration
o “Dream of the Rood”
 Earliest English example of the “dream
vision”
 Framed narrative
 Story of the dreamer
 Story of the cross

 Surreal imagery
 Cinematic imagination
 Transformations
 Cross
 “Warrior”/Christ
 Dreamer
 Elegies
o “Ubi sunt”. “where are they”
o About loss
 Loss of friends
 Loss of community
 Loss of a loved one
 Loss of a civilization
 Loss of self
o Causes
 Death
 Sickness
 Passage of time
 War
 Natural disaster
o “The Wanderer”
 The speaker
 All his friends are dead, life as he
knows it is gone, everyone is gone
 Reflects on own situation
 The human condition
 Ubi Sunt
 Everything passes away
 Resolution
 Personal and real description of
loss, speaker is a warrior, only
survivor
 Worldly
 Spiritual
 Riddles
 Narratives about old testament heroes, Christ, apostles,
saints
o Beowulf (Elegy)
 Anthology of monsters
 Epic disappointment?

 Iliad
 Aeneid
 Nibelungenlied
 Norse sagas
 Subjects
 Gods
 Men & arms
 War
 Dranes
 Hrothgar
 Wealhteow
 Unferth
 Hrotholf
 Geats
 Beowulf & more
 “In the dark nights”
 Grendel
o Glowing eyes, steely nails,
bigger than any man