CELTIC AND ROMAN BRITAIN

THE ROMAN PRESENCE

Romans have made the first part of British history, when in 55 BC Caesar's legions crossed the channel and started the colonisation of the island. This settlement ended in 44 AD with Claudius; to defend their possession, Romans made an amazing wall at the border, Hadrians's wall. Roman presence signed English history and now we can still find it around the country, for example in the names. Britannia in fact was modelled on the names of its inhabitants, Britons, a group of Celtic people. Celtic has taken another great influence: with their tribes we have a common culture, for example with the monuments and literature, both present in inscriptions where strange characters can be found, the runes.

The first invasion after Romans, is dated in 449 where Britons fought against Anglo-Saxon occupation, but they lost and had to retire in Wales, where Celtic is still spoken nowadays: from this event born lots of legends about Arthur the king, very important for literature.

ANGLO SAXON BRITAIN

THE GERMANIC ELEMENT

These new invaders all shared a common Germanic element: they lived in small states, very war like race, where there was no unity; it was an aristocratic society where male dominated. The king was the central of small oligarchy local units, he had to do all the things that were essential in the society better than anyone else: sail a ship, run and so on. Most important of all was life, which had to be risked when there was the necessity: a glorious life had to be sung by a poet to be remembered, making born the epic. Another big kingly virtue was generosity.

The absence of unity made British history a succession of wars between small kingdoms. Anyway, a factor that unified Britain is Christianity, which gave an enormous effect on cultural life in general, but especially in literature: in fact this conversion implied a knowledge of written word, in particular the Bible.

English language passed through three phases:

Old English: from Anglo-Saxon invasion to 1066, Norman Conquest. It was a Germanic language, very inflected (in fact it had cases), and it used some strange letters of an old alphabets, Runes, which came from German and Scandinavian tribes.

Middle English: from 1066 to 1600. This phases developed out of Old English in a number of ways: a simplified system of inflection; a vocabulary great enriched from French and Scandinavian sources.

Modern English: from 1600 up to now.

ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE

LATIN AND THE CHURCH

Britain was divided into four peoples that were united by one faith and one language: Christianity that brought the idea of written literature, and Latin; these people were ENGLISH - WELSH - PICTS - SCOTS.

ORAL LITERATURE

There were scribes that were directed to work in Latin to what we now consider the earliest monuments of literary England. Poems have been written down after a long period of oral tradition, in some occasion 200 years later: in fact sometimes we don't even know the names of the authors. This is typical of Middle Ages and testifies to the oral, improvised quality of much of his arts.

POET was an important member of a noble household.

BARD = epic singer                SCOP = singer of tales

He accompanies himself on the harp singing improvised verses to an audience, using ALLITERATIONS, KENNINGS AND RIDDLES.

ALLITERATION: repetition of the same initial consonant sound in different words within a single line.

KENNING: a way of mentioning something using its actual name or describing it with standard epithets.

RIDDLE: short description of a familiar object in as difficult language as possible to guess what the object was.

POETRY has a richness and profusion of words, love rhetoric and combined powerful feeling with formalised expressions and basically was didactic.

PAGAN POETRY

The most vivid model of old English poetry are the Pagans poems, in particular the epics that relate the deeds of the great warrior kings of PRE-CHRISTIAN        England. In the Germanic society the most important qualities are courage, which is the means of the hero's self-realisation, and loyalty, which was a voluntary homage by the warriors to the king. This heroic ideal lasted in old English.

BEOWULF - the story

A native of West Mercia must have composed this poem in the eight century. Beowulf deals with the Danes and the Geats: in fact he represents the first of all Germanic epics. This poem describes in 3000 lines, the qualities of Beowulf, nephew to the King of Geats, how he helped the King of Denmark, to kill the monster Grendel and its mother. The protagonist fought against the dragon and winning, he lost his life: he was the strongest among the strong men.

THE MIDDLE AGES 1066-1485

THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND AFTER

William of Normandy conquered England after the battle of Hastings in 1066 with a well-armed and disciplinary army: they were Vikings of the North coast of the France that introduced to England their feudal system which was very hierarchy, where everyone has duties and rights. Besides this, there was the Church, which was very hierarchy too.

With John Lackland we had a bad period of taxes. He was very stern, but he has been stopped and he had to declare the MAGNA CHARTA, which is the foundation of all future rights and the freedom of the English people: it is a democratic body of laws within an aristocratic social system. Politically talking, two representatives from each borough took part of the parliament, getting the base for the present situation.

A new culture

The Norman take over brought to England some changes: common people spoke in Old English, but it has been put aside at literally level in favour of French (government and low) and of Latin (church and culture).

When English written literature reappeared, it was written in a new, Latinate language: MIDDLE ENGLISH. It was simplified in particular in system of inflection and richer in the vocabulary.

MIDDLE ENGLISH POETRY

LINGUISTIC FEATURES: it consists in several dialects and has a great different from Modern English, the spelling, which is PHONETIC.

METRICAL CHARACTERS: the great innovation was the rhyme and various stanzaic forms, written in patterns of metrical feet, that is of lines of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. Alliteration is still used.

Geoffrey Chaucer 

Chaucer was born into a middle class family: his father was a wine retailer and sent him to be a page in the household of Prince Lionel. He travelled around France and Italy. He became a great writer, but he did some other jobs. He lived three important phases: the first is FRENCH, where he studied very well French models, but influenced by Latin authors. The second is ITALIAN where he understood that a vernacular language could be used to create literature of an importance equal to that of the classical languages, to elevate English to equal importance as a literary language. This is his ENGLISH PHASE, where the CANTERBURY TALES born, making English a written idiom. He established the EAST MIDLANDS and LONDON DIALECTIC as the dominant form of literary language that would later develop into Modern Standard English.  He translated a great number of poems (la roman de la rose, de consolationae philosophia, Filostrato), but he's well known now as the inventor of NARRATIVE.

THE CANTERBURY TALES

This work consists in a pilgrimage to Canterbury of 30 pilgrims of a heterogeneous society (they're both individuals and stock types): some are connected with the feudal system, some with the church and others are townspeople. He describes the whole group with a fine irony representing the truth of how the society was. During this journey to Canterbury, each one the pilgrims have to tell four stories, giving a total of 120 tales, plus the General Prologue: this was a sort of competition of who tell the best story, with a proper award (a supper). But at the end, just 23 pilgrimages tell a story and Chaucer two; after these there are a prologue and an epilogue. He is outside and inside the story, commenting and criticising what happen around him.

FIVE-ACCENT LINE Canterbury tales it's written in COUPLETS OF IAMBIC PENTAMETERS, which is line of ten syllables with alternating weak and strong stresses.

MEDIEVAL BALLADS

Ballads are short and anonymous NARRATIVE POEMS or SONGS that have been preserved and elaborated by oral transmission over the ages, becoming an international popular art form. Because they're oral they have simple form and easy language; they're very economical in plot and expression, so they can be remembered.

CHARACTERISTICS.

Quatrains, 4 accents

Repetitive refrain to give a regular pause, to remember and reflect about what the bard has just said This stop gives also suspense.

TALK ABOUT.

Tragic event supernatural elements

Historical events

Legendary or romance figures

MEDIEVAL DRAMA

Its origin lies in church ceremonies, especially the Mass, where they were always performed in Latin; these medieval plays evolved from the liturgy, they started from biblical events, transforming them into a drama. Their way is easy: FROM ALTAR TO THE CHURCH DOOR, AND THEN TO THE MARKET PLACE. This rudimentary drama was taken over from the church by TOWN CORPORATIONS Plays are now in the Lay hands, and performed on floats, called PAGEANTS, in town.

MIRACLE (MYSTERY PLAYS)

English medieval plays, Miracle or Morality plays, were performed on Corpus Christi Days; their name indicates the sacred origin and aim. They represented the major events of the Bible and were performed in many towns (York cycle, Coventry cycle.).

The reasons for the sudden appearance of drama in the vernacular are:

the rise of the middle class;

the growth of towns;

the formation of religious and trade guilds;

a general popularising of religion.

The performances were in the open air, in the street, where the audience admires the known story played by the actors, who were normal people: they act for a day and don't even do the entire role!

MORALITY PLAYS

Morality play were single plays that dramatised the conflict between good and evil, by showing on the stage real characters called VIRTUES AND VICEs; their aim was to teach man the way to virtue and salvation, using allegory. They first appeared with PRUDENTIUS in PSYCHOMACHIA, written in a narrative form, but the most famous of all is 1485 EVERY MAN, which treat human condition, in an allegorical quality.