2. Epics and long
narrative poems:
● They began to
appear in
European
regional
languages
during the
Middle Ages
Pre Chaucerian Age
3. The Romance of the Rose:
● Written by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun
● In the early 13th century, Guillaume wrote about 4100 lines and 40
years later Jean added almost 18000 lines
● It is cast in the dream vision form
● Characters represent qualities or features like Old Age, Idleness and
Pleasure
● The poem presents a version of courtly love (as in love among
noblemen and ladies of the court)
● The dreamer, an aristocratic young man, enters a garden, which
turns out to be the garden of love
● He falls in love with a rose, which stands for, or symbolizes, a lady
● His romance is aided by some and obstructed by others, in a classic
formulation of the romantic love story
● Later additions to the tale had advice sections from the old Woman,
some of which influenced Geoffrey Chaucer while composing the
Wife of Bath’s Prologue in The Canterbury Tales
Pre Chaucerian Age
4. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321):
● The Florentine statesman
● Public figure and poet
● Dante influenced people like Petrarch and Boccaccio, who in turn inspired
the European Renaissance
● Vita Nuova (1292-94):
○ Dante’s first major work
○ Vita Nuova means new life
○ This work launches Dante’s famous love story- his love for Beatrice
○ Dante had promised that he would write of Beatrice ‘what has never
before been written of any woman’ and his work is a fulfilment of
this promise
○ The work is loaded with number symbolism- the Catholic Dante’s
favourite numbers are three (representing the Trinity) and nine (three
times three)
○ The work is a beautiful praise song
○ Beatrice is associated with the number nine, she becomes a symbol
of perfection
○ This extraordinary poem is only a preface for the book that was still
to come
Pre Chaucerian Age
5. ● The Divine Comedy:
○ Dante composed this work during exile
○ It is an allegory of human life itself
○ It is a huge work
○ The section Inferno consists of 39 cantos; Purgatory and
Paradise has 33 cantos each
○ He is lost in the woods on Good Friday and is now seeking to
find his path once more:
■ “ Midway upon the journey of our life/ I found myself
within a forest dark/ For the straightforward pathway
had been lost.”
○ Inscribed over the gates of Inferno are the prophetic words:
“All hope abandon, ye who enter here”
○ Dante discovers that the gates are crowded, for so many
humans are designated to go into Hell
○ Dante’s Purgatory with the sins of Wrath, gluttony, envy and
others is a nine level mountain, meant for sinners who will be
purged of their sins before they attain Paradise
Pre Chaucerian Age
6. Lets Revise:
English Literature before the Norman Conquest (500-1066):
Beowulf:
● Author: Anonymous
● Hero: Beowulf, King of Geats, Son of Ecgtheow
● Monster: Grendel
● Dialect: West Saxon
● 3182 lines
● Concludes with the funeral ceremony of Beowulf
● First major poem in a European vernacular
● Seamus Heaney published a translation of the work in
1999
Pre Chaucerian Age
7. Widsith:
● The oldest poem in the language
● The title of the poem means a Wide
Wanderer
● It is the wanderings of a ministrel or
travelling singer or musician
● He speaks of the feudal audience and
sings of the various wars
● 143 lines
Pre Chaucerian Age
8. The Complaint of Deor:
● Deor is a minstrel
● The poem is lyrical in form,
with a definite refrain and may
be called the first English lyric
● Ending with a Christian
consolation
Pre Chaucerian Age
9. The Exeter Book:
● One of the most important
manuscripts containing Old
English poetry
Pre Chaucerian Age
11. Chronicles:
Layamon’s BRUT:
● Layamon’s poem gives the
legendary history of ancient
Britain beginning with Aeneas
whose descendant Brutus was
supported ancestor of the
British
● The stories of Lear and King
Arthur also were incorporated
in it
Pre Chaucerian Age
12. Religious and Didactic Poetry:
Ormulum (1215):
● A series of metrical homilies
written by a priest Orm
● North East Midland dialect
● Addressed to Walter
Cursor Mundi- religious work of an
encyclopaedic nature
The Owl and the nightingale (1220)
Pre Chaucerian Age
14. The Age of Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)
Historical events:
● Beginning of Hundred years’ war
● War between England and
France
● 1338-1453
● Black Death (1348-1349)
● Lollards movement
● Peasants’ Revolt (1381)
Age of Chaucer
15. Geoffrey Chaucer
● Lived during the reigns of
Edward III, Richard II and
Henry IV
● Patron: John of Gaunt
● First poet buried in Poets
Corner, Westminster Abbey
● Influences: Ovid, Boccaccio
● Father of English poetry
Age of Chaucer
16. 3 stages of Chaucer’s career:
● The French
● The Italian
● The English
The French:
● The Romaunt of the Rose (The
romance of the rose)
● Translation
● Lengthy allegorical poem
● Octosyllabic couplets
Age of Chaucer
17. ● The Book of the Duchess
(1369)
● Octosyllabic couplets
● Allegorical lament on the
death of Blanche of
Lancaster, the first wife of
John of Gaunt
● A Complaynt of a Loveres
Lyfe- John Lydgate is
based on it
Age of Chaucer
