第4章 The Medieval Age

(Mid-11th c.-15th c.)

Chapter 3 Anglo-Norman Literature

3.1 Norman Conquest

The Normans were originally a hardy race of sea rovers inhabiting Scandinavia.In the 10th century they conquered a part of northern France,which is still called Normandy,and rapidly adopted French civilization and the French language.William the Great,Duke of Normandy,was an able general and statesman.In 1066 he led the Norman army to invade England.The two armies met at Hasting.Finally the Anglo-Saxons were defeated,and William became the King of England.The conquest,later known as Norman Conquest,marked the beginning of the Middle English or Anglo-Norman period (1066-1350).

After the conquest,feudal system was established in English society.The new king ruled England with a high hand.He made a thorough job of taking over the country,and had everything inventoried.William saw himself as the owner of the country and bestowed large patches of land on his Norman barons.The feudal social structure was just like the pyramid in Egypt,which secured King William's authority over his noblemen such as barons and knights.Thus the former loose union of Saxon tribes was replaced by a strong centralized government.

That the conquest ensured the Normans' supremacy over the Anglo-Saxons was strikingly reflected in the language and the literature.The courtiers and feudal lords spoke French while the lower-class people spoke English.There was almost no written literature in English for a time.Chronicles and religious poems were in Latin,whereas romances were at first all in French.Another chief effect of the conquest was the bringing of Roman civilization (i.e.,chivalry) to England.

3.2 Literature

With the import of chivalry as well as romantic tales of love and adventure,romances became a prevailing form of literature in the three centuries after Norman Conquest.Romances are long compositions,sometimes in verse,sometimes in prose,describing the life and adventures of a noble hero.They have in common essential features like lacking general resemblance to truth or reality,containing perilous adventures more or less remote from the ordinary life,exaggerating the vices of human nature and idealizing the virtues,laying emphasis on supreme devotion to a fair lady,choosing knights,men of noble birth skilled in the use of weapons,as the central characters,and having nothing to do with the common people as they were written for the noble class.

These romances falls mainly into three cycles or three groups-"matters of Britain," "matters of France" and "matters of Rome and Greece." The first group mainly focuses on the exploits of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.The second group mainly centers on the exploits of Charlemagne.The famous work of this group is Chanson de Roland(composed 1040-1115).The last group is an endless series of fabulous tales of Alexander the Great (356 BC-323 BC) and about the Trojan War as well.Among them the Arthurian Legends are more noteworthy.

The legends of King Arthur and his knights had existed as an oral tradition since the time of the Celts.It was not put down on paper until 1147 when Geoffrey of Monmouth (c.1100-1154),a 12th-century Welsh priest came out with his Latin Historia Regum Britanniae .He might have been collecting the legends about the king,and he certainly had a very rich imagination.With Monmouth's effort,the Arthurian Legends,which has become in time one of the vitalizing sources of inspiration for English writers,came into being.Then the legends were enriched by a good number of later writers.One of these was Wace of Jersey (c.1110-1174) whose Roman de Brut(c.1150-1155)made the story a romance of chivalry.Then in 1205,a priest named Layamon wrote his vast verse work of 32,341 lines Brut(also known as The Chronicle of Britain) in English;this event has been seen ever since as the beginning of the revival of English as a literary medium."Brut" means "chronicle," and the book is in the main an English rendition of a French version of King Arthur's legends.It was here that the Arthur story first appeared in English.The latter part of the 12th century saw a sudden growth of the legend.New additions emerged either in the form of the writers' inventions or incorporations from other sources.Such stories include those of the Holy Grail,Merlin,Sir Lancelot,Quest for the Holy Grail,and the death of the king.These romances were compiled by Robert de Borron,a French poet of the late 12th and early 13th centuries,and Walter Mapes (1140-c.1208).Then in the 13th and 14th centuries,the legend flourished first in verse and then in prose,and the Celtic King Arthur became a national hero for the English nation.In 1470 Sir Thomas Malory,a Welsh Knight,compiled his Morte d'Arthur from certain French sources after a good deal of revision.This has become the source book of the Arthur Saga for later generations.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the culmination of the Arthurian romances.It is a late 14th-century (about 1375) Middle English chivalric romance of a type known as the "beheading game." The Green Knight is interpreted by some as a representation of the Green Man of folklore and by others as an allusion to Christ.Written in stanzas of alliterative verse,it draws on Welsh,Irish and English stories,as well as the French chivalric tradition.Little is known about its author except that he was a contemporary of Chaucer and probably a Christian priest.

The poem was composed as an evident effort to extol Sir Gawain and his knightly virtues of loyalty,valor,rectitude and integrity.It describes how Sir Gawain,a knight of King Arthur's Round Table,accepts a challenge from a mysterious Green Knight.In his struggles to keep his bargain Gawain demonstrates chivalry and loyalty until his honor is called into question by a test involving the lady of the Green Knight's castle.

Sir Gawain is upright and ever ready to uphold the ideals of King Arthur's court.On New Year's day,while King Arthur and his knights are holding a feast,a knight all in green appears at court and challenges the bravest knight present to cut off his head on the condition that the knight abides a blow in return a year later at the Green Chapel.Sir Gawain accepts the challenge and beheads the visitor.Then the Green Knight takes up his head,warns Gawain to keep his word and leaves.When the appointed time comes,Sir Gawain sets off to meet the Green Knight.He comes to a castle and is well received by its lord and lady.The lord invites Sir Gawain to go hunting with him,but Gawain prefers to stay at home.The two agree to share in the evening whatever they may have attained during the day.This goes on for three days.On the first day,while the lord of the castle hunts for a deer,the lady tries in vain to induce Gawain to make love to her,and ends by giving him a kiss.In the evening the lord gives the game he has killed to Sir Gawain and Gawain returns the kiss.The second day also ends with the lord giving his game to Gawain for another brief kiss.On the third day,when the lord returns and offers his game,Gawain returns the kiss but says nothing of the girdle that the lady has forced on him for his safety.Then the day comes to meet the Green Knight at the Green Chapel.Sir Gawain shrinks a little but soon recovers his valor to face the blow.Twice the Green Knight's ax swings harmlessly;the third time it falls on Gawain's shoulder and wounds him.Whereupon Gawain jumps for his armor,draws sword,and warns the Green Knight that the compact calls for only one blow,and that,if another is offered,he will defend himself.Then the Green Knight tells Gawain that he is the lord of the castle,and explains to him that the first two swings of ax were harmless because Gawain has been true to his compact and twice returned the kiss and that the last blow would not have wounded him had he shared the girdle with him in honesty.Full of shame,Gawain throws back the girdle and is ready to atone for his deception;but the Green Knight thinks he has already atoned,and presents the girdle as a free gift.They become good friends.Gawain returns to Arthur's court and tells the whole story frankly.Ever after that,the Knights of the Round Table wear a green girdle in Gawain's honor.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a 4-part/canto verse-romance of 2,530 lines in 101 sections.The first canto deals with the beheading;the second canto tells of the long and arduous trip Gawain makes to the castle;the third relates the three days Gawain spends in a bargain with the lord;and the last wraps up Gawain's trip with his final encounter with the Green Knight and the anti-climatic revelation of the moral of the story.In terms of form,the narrative is well conceived and neatly knit into an organic unity.The different parts and sections interlock and the threads are pulled together to offer a sense of finality.In line structure and the use of devices such as alliteration,the poem is notably similar to the Old English poems like Beowulf .It is written in an elaborate stanza combining meter and alliteration.At the end of each stanza there is a rimed refrain.There is also a fine psychological element that enriches the plot and adds to the characterization.The portrait of Sir Gawain is vivid and fully rounded.There is in him a strange medley of conflicting qualities that makes him perfectly human.He is just a little short of an ideal hero.In addition,the poem is written in the north Midland dialect,so it is less approachable than Chaucer's London dialect.

Chapter 4 Literature in the Age of Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer lived in the 14th century.As a scholar,traveler,businessman and courtier,he shared all the stirring life of his age and reflected it in his works.He was the representative writer of the century.Hence the "Age of Chaucer" is used to refer to the 14th century in English literature,especially the second half of the century,which produced five major writers.These include John Wycliffe (c.1331-1384),the greatest of the English religious reformers and the first translator of the Bible into English,John Gower (c.1330-1408),a scholar and a literary man who criticized the social life in his works,John Mandeville,a traveler writing about the wonders he had seen abroad,William Langland and Chaucer.Among them the later two are more important and better remembered.

4.1 William Langland (c.1332-c.1386)

Langland was a reformer.He wrote about social discontent in his works and preached the equality of men and dignity of labor.He was the conjectured author of the 14th-century 7,000-line poem Vision of Piers the Plowman .Vision of Piers the Plowman describes a series of wonderful dreams the author dreamed.Through these dreams,Langland showed us a picture of the life in the feudal England and attacked evil in both church and state.It is a great work of medieval preaching,a Christian poem dealing with salvation.The book is very difficult with its ambiguous language and imagery.It survives in about 50 manuscripts,in three widely varying versions known as the A-text (in 9 books),the B-text (in 21 books) and the C-text (in 28 texts),of which the B-text is the best-known.This text can be divided into two parts,with the first part covering the first 7 books and the second part the rest of the poem.The first part touches on the physical aspect of human life such as the procurement of necessities and the reform of society.The second part deals with the spiritual aspect of life,the winning of salvation.Basically,the book consists of a series of dreams of a vagrant with whom the poet identifies himself.Langland wrote in Middle English with the mastery not really inferior to Chaucer's,though he was not as easily approachable.

Vision of Piers the Plowman is considered by many critics to be among the greatest works of the English literature of the Middle Ages,along with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales .The poem was very popular throughout the 14th and 15th centuries.It praises the poor peasants,and condemns and exposes the sins of the oppressors.Therefore it played an important part in arousing the revolutionary sentiment on the eve of the Rising of 1381.

Vision of Piers the Plowman is a Middle English allegorical narrative poem written in unrhymed alliterative verse.It is written in the form of a dream vision.The author tells his story under the guise of having dreamt it.The poem,as an allegory,relates truth through symbolism.Meanwhile,the poet used indignant satire in his description of social abuses caused by the corruption prevailing among the ruling classes,ecclesiastical and secular.

4.2 Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343-1400)

Chaucer,known as the "father of English poetry," the "father of English fiction" and even the "father of English literature," is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages.He was the first poet buried in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.Although he maintained an active career in the civil service as a bureaucrat,courtier and diplomat,Chaucer achieved fame during his lifetime as an author,philosopher,alchemist and astronomer,and is best remembered for his literary works,among which the major ones include The Book of the Duchess,The House of Fame,The Legend of Good Women,Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales .It was in The Canterbury Tales that he focused on English subjects,with bawdy jokes and respected figures often being undercut with humor that cemented his reputation.

Chaucer's writing career can be divided into three periods.The first period,stretching till 1370,is a period of French influence.His main works in this period are translations from French,the most important of which is Romance of the Rose .The second period,which covers the following fifteen years,is a period of Italian influence,the influence from Decameron(1353) by Boccaccio (1313-1375) in particular.Chaucer produced works adapted from Italian writers.His chief work during this period is Troilus and Criseyde .The third period (i.e.,Chaucer's last fifteen years) is generally known as the English period.Chaucer's masterpiece The Canterbury Tales was completed during this period.

Chaucer's first major work The Book of the Duchess is an elegy for Blanche of Lancaster,who died in September 1368.It is possible that this work was commissioned by her husband John of Gaunt.Most sources put the date of composition after the death of Blanche of Lancaster,with many recent studies privileging a date as early as the end of 1368.Chaucer's two other early works are Anelida and Arcite and The House of Fame .The former is a 357-line English poem.It tells the story of Anelida,queen of Armenia,and her wooing by false Arcite from Thebes,Greece.The latter,probably written between 1379 and 1380,is over 2,000 lines long in three books and takes the form of a dream vision composed in octosyllabic couplets.Chaucer wrote many of his major works in a prolific period when he held the job of customs comptroller for London from 1374 to 1386.He is believed to start work on The Canterbury Tales in the early 1380s.His Parlement of Foules,The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde all date from this time.Parlement of Foules,made up of approximately 700 lines,is also in the form of a dream vision in rhyme-royal stanza and is the first reference to the idea that St.Valentine's Day was a special day for lovers.The Legend of Good Women,another poem in the form of a dream vision,is the third longest of Chaucer's works after The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde,and is possibly the first significant work in English to use the iambic pentameter or decasyllabic couplets,which Chaucer later used throughout The Canterbury Tales .Troilus and Criseyde,with its reliance on the forms of Italian poetry,was little known in England at the time.It retells in Middle English the tragic story of the lovers Troilus and Criseyde,set against a backdrop of war during the Siege of Troy.It was composed in rhyme royal and probably completed during the mid 1380s.Its use of the classical subject and its elaborate,courtly language set it apart as one of Chaucer's most complete and well-formed works.Many Chaucer scholars regard it as his finest work,in which the author drew heavily on his source Boccaccio and on the early 6th-century Latin philosopher Boethius (c.480-524 AD).As a finished long poem,Troilus and Criseyde is more self-contained than the better known but ultimately uncompleted The Canterbury Tales.This poem is often considered the source of the phrase:"all good things must come to an end."

Chaucer translated such important works as Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris (c.1200-c.1240).What needs pointing out is that,while many scholars maintain that Chaucer did translate part of the text of The Romance of the Rose,others claim that this has been effectively disproved.One other significant work by Chaucer is his Treatise on the Astrolabe,possibly for his own son,which describes the form and use of that instrument in detail and is sometimes cited as the first example of technical writing in the English language.Although much of the text may have come from other sources,the treatise indicates that Chaucer was versed in science in addition to his literary talents.Another scientific work discovered in 1952,Equatorie of the Planetis,has similar language and handwriting,compared to some considered to be Chaucer's,and it continues many of the ideas from the Astrolabe.Furthermore,it contains an example of early European encryption.The attribution of this work to Chaucer is still uncertain.

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories told by fictional pilgrims on the road to the cathedral at Canterbury.It consists of a prologue (i.e.,the General Prologue) and twenty-four tales.In the General Prologue,the author revealed his plan for writing this work and also vividly described the teller of each tale.Chaucer told us that one spring day,he came to the Tabard Inn in Southwark at the south end of London Bridge.Here he met some thirty pilgrims,who were going to Canterbury.Then he joined this company.At supper,the inn-keeper suggested that,in order to enliven the journey,each of the pilgrims was to tell two stories on their way to Canterbury and two more on their way back.The best storyteller would be treated with a fine supper at general expense when they came back.The inn-keeper was to be the judge of the contest.According to the number of the persons in the company,thirty-two,the author evidently planned to produce an immense work of one hundred and twenty-eight tales,exceeding that of Boccaccio's Decameron .Actually only twenty-four tales were written,twenty-two in verse form and two in prose form.These tales would help to shape English literature,dealing with all aspects of medieval literature:romances of knights and ladies,folk tales,animal fables,stories of travels and adventures,legends,allegories and so on.They came from different sources like the French sources,the Italian,the biblical,the Asian,and others.

The General Prologue is usually regarded as the greatest portrait gallery in English literature.It comprises a group of vivid sketches of typical medieval figures.All classes of the English feudal society,except the royalty and the poorest peasant,are represented by these pilgrims.They range from the knight,the squire and the prioress,through the landed proprietor and the wealthy tradesman,down to the drunken cook and the humble plowman.There are also a doctor and a lawyer,monks of different orders and nuns and priests,and a summoner,a sailor,a miller,a carpenter,a yeoman (a small independent farmer),and an Oxford scholar.In the center of the group is the Wife of Barth,the owner of a large cloth-factory.The pilgrims are people from various parts of England.They serve as the representatives of various sides of life and social groups,and are a microcosm of the 14th-century English society.That is why Chaucer was praised by Gorky as the "founder of English realism."

The purpose of the General Prologue is not only to present a vivid collection of character sketches,but also to reveal the author's intention in bringing together a great variety of people and narrative materials to unite the diversity of the tales by allotting them to a diversity of tellers engaged in a common endeavor,to make clear the plan for the tales,to motivate the telling of tales,to introduce the pilgrims and the time and occasion of the pilgrimage,and to set the tone for the story-telling-one of jollity which accords with the tone of the whole work:that of grateful acceptance of life.There is also an intimate connection between the tales and the Prologue,both complementing each other.The Prologue provides a framework for the tales.

The Canterbury Tales gives us a true-to-life picture of the society of Chaucer's time.The work is characterized by the realism of its narrative,the variety of stories the pilgrims tell,and the varied characters who are engaged in the pilgrimage.Many of the stories narrated by the pilgrims seem to fit their individual characters and social standing,although some of the stories seem ill-fitting to their narrators,perhaps as a result of the incomplete state of the work.Chaucer drew on real life for his cast of pilgrims:the innkeeper shares the name of a contemporary keeper of an inn in Southwark,and real-life identities for the Wife of Bath,the Merchant,and the Man of Law have been suggested.The many jobs that Chaucer held in medieval society-page,soldier,messenger,valet,bureaucrat,foreman and administrator-probably exposed him to many of the types of people he depicted in the Tales .He was able to shape their speech and expose and satirize the evils of his time and attack the degeneration of the noble,the heartlessness of the judge,and the corruption of the church.Chaucer was a great satirist,but he was almost never bitter when he poked fun at the foibles and weaknesses of people.Taking the stand of the uprising bourgeoisie,the author also affirmed men and praised men's energy,intellect,quick wit and love of life in the work.It is in this sense that Chaucer is known as a forerunner of humanism.

Chaucer's contribution to the English poetry lies chiefly in the fact that he introduced from France the rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter ("heroic couplet") to English poetry.Moreover,Chaucer was a crucial figure in developing the legitimacy of the vernacular,Middle English,at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were French and Latin.He was the first great poet who wrote in the current English language-he wrote in the dialect of London.His poetry is full of swiftness and vividness.Chaucer's style in The Canterbury Tales is remarkably flexible.His prose,like his vocabulary,is easy and informal.

Chapter 5 Literature in the 15th Century

The 15th century was a period of general unrest.It marked the definite decline of feudalism and the rapid growth of capitalist relations in trade and industry.The ascension of Henry VⅡ (1457-1509,king 1485-1509) in 1485 began the period of Tudor monarchy with strong central authority,which was dependent upon merchants and other elements of the bourgeoisie for cooperation and support.People's attention was absorbed in Wars-the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) and the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485)-and many nobles who had been patrons of arts were killed.The continuous wars greatly affected the development of literature.So the 15th century has traditionally been described as the barren age and a period of transition from the medieval to the Renaissance world in English literature.

Yet in this barren age,popular literature became very prosperous,which covered ballads,lyrics,popular dramas,and the like.The most important of English popular literature was popular ballads.So the 15th century became the especial spring tide of English ballads.Meanwhile,the century produced its only important writer Thomas Malory.

5.1 Popular Ballads

Ballads are anonymous narrative songs that have been preserved by oral transmission.In the 15th century,songs and ballads were widespread among the populace of England and Scotland;they were effectually created and preserved by the people.Therefore,in full justice,they are termed "popular Ballads."

Popular ballads were originally dance songs.They were little stories in verse form and could be sung or recited by the common people.The origin of the English and Scottish ballads was obscure.They were simple and crude in story,and highly condensed and dramatic in presentation.In the 15th century,there were several kinds of ballads:historical,legendary,fantastical,lyrical and humorous.Many of them were devoted to historical events.In the numerous "border ballads" the age-long struggle between the Scots and the English is reflected.

Of paramount importance are the beautiful ballads in which Robin Hood's feats are celebrated.Robin Hood is a collection of the 15th-century medieval ballads about the title hero,who is a partly historical and partly legendary character,and the hero of the poor and the enemy of the rich and the powerful.The ballads reveal the cruel reality of the medieval life with its gross injustice and its underlying discontent as well as the aspirations of the poor.

Robin Hood,according to legend,has been a well-to-do farmer,who is also a highly skilled archer and swordsman.He is evicted from his property when he kills some knights to save a poor serf.Thus outlawed,he takes to greenwood life.Traditionally depicted as being dressed in Lincoln green,he and his band of Merry Men,the group of outlaws who follow him,vow to be just and harm no good people.They give to the poor what they take from the rich and win the love of the people.Robin Hood thus becomes a popular folk figure in the late-medieval period and continues to be widely represented in modern literature,films and television.

The ballads are many in number,complex and intriguing in plot,and each and all self-sustaining.They all possess the basic features of folk ballads such as repetition of words,uniform in mood,and dramatic in plot or character portrayal.All have gone through changes over time,but the major stories are still intact with their medieval theme.These include "Robin Hood and the Monk," "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne," "Robin Hood and the Porter" and the Lytell Geste of Robin Hood .

English ballads also include a great number of humorous ballads which were in general very popular in Great Britain.They reveal the unbounded optimism,ingenuity and resourcefulness of common people."Get Up and Bar the Door" is a good example.

5.2 Sir Thomas Malory (c.1395-1471)

Thomas Malory was the only important English prose writer in the 15th century.He wrote in prison Morte d'Arthur(Death of Arthur),the only monumental work of prose in the 15th-century English literature.The work was completed in 1470 and published first by William Caxton (c.1422-c.1491) in 1485.

Morte d'Arthur begins with the mysterious birth of Arthur and ends with his equally mysterious death.The central concern is with the adventures of Arthur and his famous Knights of the Round Table.The knights fight many battles and win glory,all of which is a credit to the name of King Arthur.Near the end of the story,however,the tide of good fortune turns.Launcelot,one of Arthur's knights,falls in love with Arthur's queen Guinever and the lady returns his love.One by one,the other knights become discontented,selfish or disillusioned.Thus weakened,the kingdom is attacked by force under Sir Mordred,Arthur's treacherous nephew,and ultimately it goes down in defeat.Arthur is borne away on a barge by three mysterious ladies of the Lake.

Morte d'Arthur is a kind of final summing-up of the Arthurian legend built up from the 12th to the 15th century,though it does not contain all the stories about King Arthur and all his knights.In the 21 books that make up the romance,Malory linked up the various threads of the legend centering round the birth,the exploits and the death of Arthur,including the stories about Merlin,about Arthur's queen,about his Knights of the Round Table,and about the quest for the Sangrael (i.e.,the Holy Gail).Alongside the wars and tournaments and all sorts of knightly adventures,there are long passages on love intrigues and descriptions of deeds of treachery.The book was written in a time of transition.The feudal order was dying.By the time Malory began writing his story,soldiers were fighting with gunpowder,a middle class of tradesmen was arising,and the practices of chivalry were being superseded by a new aristocratic code.Malory,in a desire to escape the disorder and uneasiness of his day,tried to recapture the lost ideals of the romantic past as recounted in his tale of noble kings,adventurous knights and damsels in distress.He meant his romance to be a sort of an elegy mourning the passing of the age of feudal knighthood and chivalry.However,the objective effect of this realistic rather than idealized presentation of the Arthurian legend is an unmistakable though unintended expose not only of the barbarism,hypocrisy,treachery and immorality of the supposedly brave and heroic knights and their beautiful ladies,but also of the thoroughly unreal and fantastic pictures of feudal grandees in meeting with all sorts of strange superstitious situations and performing ridiculous and unbelievable deeds.

Morte d'Arthur is an important landmark in the development of English prose from the Middle English to the early Modern English.It has the distinction of being written in a lucid and simple style.Both the Arthurian legendary material it contains and its facile prose style had their wide and lasting influence upon the English literature of later centuries.

Exercises

I.Multiple choices

1.In 1066_____led the Norman army to invade England.

A.William the Great B.Alfred the Great

C.William Langland D.Venerable Bede

2.With_____'s effort,the Arthurian Legends,which has become in time one of the vitalizing sources of inspiration for English writers,came into being.

A.William Langland B.Geoffrey Chaucer

C.Geoffrey of Monmouth D.Caedmon

3.In 1470_____compiled his Morte d'Arthur from certain French sources after a good deal of revision.This has become the source book of the Arthur Saga for later generations.

A.Wace of Jersey B.Thomas Malory

C.Robert de Borron D.Walter Mapes

4.Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is written in the north Midland dialect,so it is_____than Geoffrey Chaucer's London dialect.

A.more interesting B.less approachable

C.simpler D.easier

5._____was the greatest of the English religious reformers and the first translator of the Bible into English.

A.William Langland B.Alfred the Great

C.Venerable Bede D.John Wycliffe

6.Geoffrey Chaucer is the_____and one of the greatest narrative poets of England.

A.father of English poetry B.greatest playwright of his age

C.father of English prose D.father of English drama

7.Songs and ballads were widespread among the populace of England and Scotland in the 15th century.They were created and preserved by the people.Therefore,they are,in full justice,termed_____.

A."Popular Ballads" B.historical ballads

C.lyrical ballads D.humorous ballads

8.The Canterbury Tales consists of a prologue and_____tales.

A.32 B.128

C.64 D.24

9.The 15th century has traditionally been described as the barren age and a period of transition from the medieval to the_____world in English literature.

A.Realist B.Renaissance

C.Romantic D.modern

10."Get Up and Bar the Door" is a good example of_____.

A.legendary ballads B.historical ballads

C.lyrical ballads D.humorous ballads

11.Thomas Malory is the only important prose writer in the_____century.

A.14th B.12th

C.15th D.13th

12.Geoffrey Chaucer's narrative poem_____is based on Boccaccio's poem "Filostrato."

A.Troilus and Criseyde B.Vision of Piers the Plowman

C.Sir Gawain and the Green Knight D.Morte d'Arthur

13.Heroic Couplet is a rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter.It is first introduced from France into English poetry by_____.

A.William Shakespeare B.John Milton

C.Geoffrey Chaucer D.Alexander Pope

14.The three greatest English poets in the Middle Ages are the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,Geoffrey Chaucer and_____.

A.William Langland B.Thomas Malory

C.Geoffrey of Monmouth D.John Gower

15.The work that presented,for the first time in English literature,a comprehensive realistic picture of the medieval English society and created a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life is most likely_____.

A.Sir Gawain and the Green Knight B.Vision of Piers the Plowman

C.The Canterbury Tales D.Morte d'Arthur

Ⅱ.Blank-filling

1.The_____marked the beginning of the Middle English or Anglo-Norman period (1066-1400).

2.The_____are the prevailing form of literature in the Middle Ages.They are long compositions,sometimes in verse,sometimes in prose,describing the life and adventures of_____.

3.Robin Hood is a collection of the 15th-century medieval ballads about Robin Hood,the hero of_____,and the enemy of_____.

4.Geoffrey Chaucer's masterpiece_____is one of the most famous works in all literature.

5.The central concern of Morte d'Arthur is with the adventures of_____and his famous Knights of the Round Table.

6.Geoffrey Chaucer's literary career is generally divided into three periods:the_____period,the French period and the_____period.

7.Geoffrey chancer was the first great poet who wrote in the current English language,that is,in_____.

8.In his works,Chaucer affirmed man's right to_____and opposed_____;he praised man's energy,intellect,quick wit and love of life;he exposed and satirized the social vices,including religious abuses.It can thus be said that though essentially still a medieval writer,Chaucer bore marks of_____and anticipated a new era to come.

9.The folk ballad is a popular literary form;it comes from_____rather than from_____or_____.

Ⅲ.Term definition

1.Romance 2.Legend

3.Arthurian legend 4.Stanza

5.Couplet 6."Heroic Couplet"

7.Foot 8.Meter

9.Canto 10.Rhyme

11.Ballad

Ⅳ.Short-answer questions

1.What are the essential features of Romances?

2.What are the artistic Features of Vision of Piers the Plowman?

3.What are the salient features in Chaucer's writings?

4.What are the stylistic features of ballads?

V.Essay questions

1.Give a brief introduction to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

2.Recount the function of the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales.