Literature in British Society :
The Middle Ages

By Brother Anthony, of Taize

Seoul : Sogang University Press, 1997

Contents

Introduction    vii

1. Literature and Society before 1066   (page 1)
          Caedmon's Hymn   1
          Christianity enters England    2
          Bede   3
          The Germanic Inheritance   4
          The Dream of the Rood   6
          Relations with the European Continent   8
          The Genesis Poems   8
          Heroic Poetry   10
               Beowulf    11
               The Elegies   12
          The Vikings   14
          King Alfred the Great  15
          Monastic Revival   17
          From Maldon to Hastings   17
          The Celtic tradition: Ireland, Scotland, Wales   19

2. The Middle Ages before 1300    23
          Social history   23
          The Universities   25
          The Church   26
     The development of narrative literature    28
          Geoffrey of Monmouth    28
          Layamon's Brut    29
          Fin' amor   30
     The Matter of Britain    32
          Tristan and Iseult    32
          Marie de France   32
          Chretien de Troyes   33
          Arthurian Romance after Chretien    34
     The Matter of Rome and Antiquity    36
          Le Roman d'Eneas    36
          Le Roman de Troie   36
          Le Roman de Thebes   37
          Alexandre le Grand    38
     The Matter of France    38
          The Song of Roland    39
     The Matter of England    39
          King Horn    40
          Havelok the Dane    41
          Sir Orfeo    42
          Bevis of Hampton and Guy of Warwick   44
     Other narrative forms    45
          Fabliau and beast-fable   46
     Lyric poetry in France   46
     Lyric poetry in England    47
     Le Roman de la Rose    48
     Dante Alighieri    49

3. The Fourteenth Century   52
     Social and political history   52
          The Black Death and the Peasants' Revolt   52
          Wyclif and the Lollards   53
          The Hundred Years' War   54
     Alliterative poetry   54
          Wynnere and Wastoure   56
          Pearl   57
          Piers Plowman   59
          Alliterative romances   64
          Sir Gawain and the Green Knight   65
     Lyric Poetry in England   67
     Lyric Poetry in France   70
     Religious Prose   70
          Julian of Norwich    72
         Margery Kempe    73

4. Petrarch and Boccaccio, Chaucer and Gower   75
     Petrarch   75
     Boccaccio   79
     Geoffrey Chaucer   80
          The shorter works   81
          Troilus and Criseyde   83
          The Canterbury Tales   87
     John Gower   98

5. The Fifteenth Century   102
     Poetry after Chaucer   103
          Thomas Hoccleve   103
          John Lydgate (?1370-1449)   105
          Robert Henryson   106
         William Dunbar   107
          Charles d'Orleans   110
     Renaissance Humanism   114
          Saint Anselm    115
          Scholasticism   115
          Raimon Lull   115
          Nicolas of Cusa   116
          Marsilio Ficino   117
          Pico della Mirandola  118
          Renaissance Political Thought   119
          Niccolo Machiavelli.   122

6. Drama before 1550    126
     Mystery Play Cycles   126
          The Second Shepherd's Play   128
     Morality Plays    131
          Everyman    133
          Skelton's Magnyfycence   135
          Bale's King Johan   136
          Interludes   136