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(Grendel going God's anger bore).

Another peculiar feature characteristic of the style of the Song is the wide use of double metaphors, which poetically disclose the meaning of one single word through a compound simile consisting of two elements (usually a noun with an attribute); thus, in the Song of Beowulf the sun is called "the world's great candel", the double metaphors of "brain - biter", "life - destroyer" are substituted for the commonplace "sword"; instead of the word "harp" the writer uses a metaphoric "wood- -of - delight" and so on.

Ltcture 4 Monastic literature. Caedmon and Cynewulf. Venerable Bede.

Apart from Beowulf, the most important examples of the oldest English poetry are to be found in the works of Caedmon ['kEdmэn](Кэдмон) and Cynewufl ['kinэwulf] {Кюневульф), both of whom belong to the north, and to the period immediately following the conversion of the Anglo - Saxons to Christianity, which began at the end of the sixth century.[2]

Caedmon, who died about 680, was a servant attached to the monastery of Whitby ['witbi] in Yorkshire. According to a pretty tale told by the Venerable Bede [bi:d](достопочтенный Бэда), the power of verse came to him suddenly as a divine gift. He had never been able to sing to the harp as others did in festive gatherings in the monastery hall, and when his turn came round, he had always been used to retire in humiliation. But one night, having gone to the stables to look after the horses of which he had charge, he fell asleep, and an angel appeared to him in a vision, and told him to sing. Then when he asked, "what shall I sing?" the heavenly visitor replied, "Sing the beginning of created things;" and waking, he found himself, to astonishment, endowed with the faculty of poetry. Three free paraphrases of scripture which have come down to us in a manuscript of the tenth century, have been attributed to him; one dealing with the creation and the fall; the second, with the exodus from Egypt; the third with the history of Daniel; but it is now believed that a considerable portion of these poems, if not the whole of them, is the work not of Caedmon himself but of his imitators. They were first printed about 1650 by an acquaintance of Milton, and it has been thought, though there is no proof of this, that the great poet may have taken hints from the Genesis (Книга Бытия) in writing Paradise Lost (Потерянный Рай).

A miraculous element also enters into the story of Cynewulf's career. Born, it is conjectured between 720 and 730, he was in earlier life, as he himself tells us in his Dream of the Rood, a wandering gleeman and a lover of pleasure, but converted by a vision of the cross, he dedicated himself henceforth to religious themes. His works include a poem called Christ, treating of the Incarnation (Воплощение), the Descent into Hell(Схождение в Ад), the Ascension (Вознесение), and the Last Judgment(Страшный Суд); Elene, an account of the finding of the true cross, according to the legend, by Helena, the mother of Constantine; and Juliana, a tale of Christian martyrdom.

Anglo - Saxon poetry flourished most in the north; While generally sacred in subject, and profoundly earnest in feeling, Anglo - Saxon poetry is full of a love of adventure and fighting. A fondness for the sea, ingrained in English character, is another striking feature of it.

Prose developed later in the south. In general, while interesting from the linguistic and antiquarian points of view, the prose writings which have come down to us possess but little value as literature. The greatest monument of the Old English prose is the Anglo - Saxon Chronicle, which King Alfred (849 - 901) transformed into a national history, and which was so continued till 1154, when it closed with the record of the death of King Stephen [sti:vn]. Among the works rendered by King Alfred into " the language which we all understand" (to adopt his own phrase) was the Latin Ecclesiastical History (Церковная история английского народа) of the Venerable Bede, or Baeda (673 - 735). The Venerable Bede was an Anglo -Saxon monk. At the age of nine he moved to one of the monasteries in England where he studied and tought for the rest of his life. His books on a wide variety of subjects were a great source of knowledge of early English History. The most famouse one is Ecclesiastical History of the English People (finished in 731). After Bede died in 735, his disciple Cuthbert wrote a letter that the dying man sang the verse of St. Paul the Apostole telling of the fearfulness of falling into hands of the God. Here is an extract from Bede's death song:

Fore thaem neidfaerae naenig uuirthit

thoncsnotturra, than him tharf sie

to ymbhycggannae aer his hiniongae

hwaet his gastae godaes aeththae yflaes

aefter deothdaege doemid uueorthae

A literal prose version of this might be:

"Before that sudden journey no one is wiser in thought than he needs to be, in considering, before his depature, what will be adjudged to his soul, of good or evil, after his death - day".

The list of literature used

1.Аникст А. История английской литературы. -М. 1956. - С. 5 - 14.

2. Gilinsky J., Khvostenko L., Weise A. Studies In English and American Literature and Style. - Leningrad, 1956. P. 9 - 14.

3. Zaitseva S. Early Britain. - M.: Prosveshcheniye, 1975. P. 14 - 79.

4. Hudson W. H. An Outline History of English Literature. Bombay.: B. I. Publications, 1964. P. 1 -13.

LECTURE 5

ENGLISH LITERATURE BEFORE CHAUCER

Anglo - Norman Period between 1100 - 1350

In Europe this was the age of the great crusades [ kru:seids] and the period of the dominance of French literature. In England feudalism was established, Parlament came into into being, Oxford and Cambridge rose as strong universities.

In 1066 William, the Duke of Normandy, began to gather an army to invade Britain. William also asked the Roman Pope for support. He promised to strengthen the Pope's power over the British Church. And the Roman Pope blessed his campaign and called it a holy war. The Normans, who lived in the northern part of France, were a people of Scandinavian origin (hence the word Norman, i. e. Man of the North) but they had acquired French language, customs and culture. The pretext for the invasion was William' s claims to the English throne. He was related to the king who died in 1066. The king who died in 1066 had no children and Duke William cherished the hope that he would succeed to the English throne. But another relative of the deceassed king, the Anglo - Saxon Earl, Harold, was chosen. William of Normandy claimed that England belonged to him and he began preparations for a war to fight for the Crown. William sent messengers far and wide to invite the fighting men of Western Europe to join his forces. No pay was offered, but William promised land to all who would support him. William mustered a numerous army which consisted not only of the Norman barons and knights but of the knights from other parts of France. Many big sailing - boats were built to carry the army across the Channel.

William landed in the south of England and the battle between the Normans and the Anglo- Saxons took place on the 14th of October 1066 at a little village in the neighbourhood of the town now called Hastings.

The Normans outnumbered the Anglo - Saxon forces, they were all men for whom fighting was the main occupation in life. The battle went on all day. The Anglo - Saxons were encircled, a great many of them were killed, and horses trampled down their dead bodies.

The victory at Hastings was only the beginning of the Conquest. It took several years for William to subdue the whole of England. Soon after the victory at Hastings the Normans encircled London and the Witenagemot had to acknowledge William as the lawful king of England. Thus the Norman duke became king of England - William I or, as he was generally known, William the Conqueror. He ruled England for 21 years (1066 - 1087). During the first five years of his reign the Normans had put down many rebellions in different parts of the country. The largest rebellions took place in 1069 and 1071 in the North - East where the free peasantry was more numerous than in other regions of the country. After several uprisings in the North, William who was a fierce and ruthless, determined to give the Anglo - Saxons a terrible lesson. The lands of Northumbria were laid waste. With lessons of such severe punishment the conquerors meant to keep the people in obedience, to intimidate (запугать) them, so that they should not dare to rise against Norman rule. A monk wrote in the Anglo - Saxon Chronicle: " The King William was severe beyond all measure to those people who resisted his will. The earls who resisted him were kept in chains. He deprived bishops of their power and lands, and abbats of their abbacies, and cast earls into prison <<...>>".

The victorious Normans made up the new aristocracy, who spoke a Norman dialect of French, a tongue of Latin origin. Norman - French became the official language of the state. It was the language of the ruling class spoken at court; it was the language of the lawyers, and all the official documents were written in French or in Latin. The richer Anglo - Saxons found it convenient to learn to speak the language of the rulers. But the peasants and townspeople spoke English. Latin was used for learned works, French for courtly literature, and English chiefly for popular works - religious Plays, metrical romances, and popular ballads.

Writings in native English were few. The last entry in the Anglo -Saxon Chronicles was made at Peterborough in 1154. About 1170 a long didactic poem, the Poema Morale, appeard. The Drama made its first major forward leap in this period. The first recorded MIRACLE PLAY in England, the Play of St. Catherine, was performed about 1100. By 1300 the MISTERY PLAYS were moving outside (за пределы) the churches and into the hands of the town guilds. The establishment of the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1311 led to the extension of the Cyclic Dramas and to the use of movable stages or PAGEANTS.

Native English poetry, both in the older alliterative tradition and in the newer French forms, continued to develop. About 1250 came "The Owl and the Nightingale", a debat poem; about 1300 came the heavily didactic Cursor Mundi, and around 1340 the popular The Pticke of Conscience (Пробудитель совести), describing the misery of earth and glory of heaven.

From the Norman Conquest to the beginning of the thirteenth century English language had a severe struggle to maintain itself as a written language, and as a consequence, English literature almost ceased to exist.

During the years of the Norman rule, the English language borrowed very many words from French and thus greatly enriched itself. Thus the vocabulary of the English language was enlarged due to such Norman - French words dealing with feudal relations as manor, noble, baron, serve, command, obey; or words relating to administration and law, such as charter, council, accuse, court, crime; or such military terms as arms, troops, guard, navy, battle, victory and other words characterizing the way of life and customs of the Norman aristocracy. It is at this time that the English language lost most of the flexions inherited by the Old English from Anglo - Saxon and develop new form and constructions.

A rapid consolidation of the English language and culture begins at the middle of the 14th century with the commencement of the Hundred Year's War against France. This war is called the Hundred Year's War because it lasted over a hundred years. Edward III, the king of England, wished to make himself king of France as well. Wishing to make his people believe that he defended English trade, the king made war with France in 1337.

Prof. W. H. Gudson in his book An Outline on English Literature remarks: "The period between the Conquest and Chaucer is, however, much more important from the point of view of our language than from that of our literature. During these three hundred years, while little was being produced in prose or verse of any intrinsic value, modern English was gradually evolving out of the conflict of opposing tongues, and assuming national rank as speech of the whole people" (p. 14). Norman French long continued, endeed, to be the only recognised official language and to a large extent, the language of fashion. But by the beginning of the fourteenth century it had entirely lost its hold upon English life at large, and the complete triumph of English was signalised by a statute of 1362, which proclaimed that henceforth all proceedings in the law courts should be in that language instead of French. To trace the stages of the language evolution does not, of course, fall within the scope of a primer of literary history. It is enough for us to note that thus while French was disappearing, there was as yet no standarted form of the new English tongue to take its place. English was broken up into dialets. There was a Northern English, a Midland English, and a Southern English, which differed fundamentally from one another, and which were yet subdivided within themselves into numerous minor varieties. In this confusion, little by little, East Midland English tended to gain ascendancy, because it was the speech of the capital and of the two centres of learning, Oxford and Cambridge. Then when Chaucer began to write, he chose this as his vehicle, and it was largely on account of his influence that what had hitherto (до сих пор) been only one of several provincial dialects attained the dignity of the national language.

Similar to the facts we observe in the history of the language, are the facts of the of the history of literature. The Anglo - Norman period was a period of the flourishing of feudal culture. Feudality introduced into the history of European literature a new genre - the so - called romances. The term itself implies that this genre originated among the peoples who spoke Romanic languages. As a matter of fact, romances were brought to England by the medieval poets called trouvers ("finders") who came from France with the Norman conquerors. Later in England such poets were called minstrels and their art of composing romances and ballads and singing them to the accompaniment of a lute - the art of minstrelsy.

The early English romances were, as a rule, composed in rhymed verse, and the language used for them was the Norman - French. At the beginning of the 13th century there appear chroniclers and minstrels who write romances in Old English.

The subject matter of the romances are the adventures of knights, or of legendary heroes of the ancient times, whose characters and feats are described, nevertheless, in the true manner of the middle ages. The heroism and courage of knights as well as their virtuousness and uprightness of dealing are celebrated in these poems.

In attempt to justify their claims to England, the Norman feudal lords maintained that they were the lawful heirs of the ancient Britons who had left Britain under the onset of the Anglo - saxon invaders in the 5th century. The Anglo- Norman minstrels wrote many romances based on Celtic legenda, especially on those concerning King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

King Arthur was a historical character and the national hero of the Celts, became in the romances an ideal feudal king, surrounded by his faithful vassals - knights "without fear and reproach".

The cycle of tales about King Arthur are the most typical of feudal - aristocratic verse for entertainment. Here the knightly class found the mirror in which it liked to believe its best traits were reflected: personal loyalty, idealisation of women beloning to the same class, bravery indefense of the week. The less admirable traits also appear from time to time: brutality, glorification of bloodshed, contempt for women not noble or fair; contempt for the lower classes; contempt and hatred of non- Christians, and above all an unceasing rivalry for the possession of landed estates;

While romantic literature was proliferating in the domain of entertainent, works of religious instruction were also multiplying in the vernacular. Collections of homilies and saints' lives became popular among population. The South English Legendary (late 13th century) is one of the large collections of this sort, containing stories of the saints and events. Ormulum, a series of metrical homilies, in short lines without either rime or alliteration, by a Lincolnshire priest named Orm; and a prose treatise, the Ancren Riwle (about 1225) or Rule of Anchoresses, prepared by some unknown writer for the guidance of three ladies entering the religious life. A charming dialogue poem, The Owl and the Nightingale (about 1220), in which the two birds discuss their respective merits, is historically interesting, because it discards alliteration and adopts French end - rimes. This is the only other piece of thirteenth century literature which calls mention.

We thus come round to Chaucer, the first of really national English poets.

The list of literature used

A handbook to literature by C. Hugh Holman, William Harmon. 6th edition. New York, London;

An Otline on English Litatature by W.H. Hoodson. Bombay;

LECTURE 5

Middle English Period 1350 - 1500

THE AGE OF CHAUCER 1340 - 1400

The period in English literature between the replacement of French by Middle English as the language of court and the early appearances of definitely Modern English writings, roughly between 1350 and 1500. The Age of Chaucer (1340- 1400) was marked by political and religious unrest, the Black Death (1348 - 1350), the Peasants' Revolt (1381), and the of the LOLLARDS. The fifteenth century was torn by the Wars of the Roses. There was a steadily increasing nationalistic spirit in England,and early

Geoffrey Chaucer was born in the reign of Edward III, lived through that of Richard II, and died the year after Henry IV ascended the throne. His life thus covers a period of glaring (бросающихся в глаза) social contrasts and rapid political change. Edward's reign marks the highest development of medieval civilisation in England. It was also the midsummer of English chivalry. Strong in its newly established unity England went forth on its career (успех) of foreign conquest and every fresh triumph served to give further stimulus to national ambition and pride. Trade expanded and among the commercial classes wealth increased. The king and his nobility led a very gay and debonair life. But there was another side to this picture. The masses of the people were meanwhile sunk in a condition of deplorable misery. Pestilence (мор) after pestilence ravaged the land, and then in 1348 - 1349 came the awful epidemic called the Black Death, which in a single year swept away more than a third of the entire population, and which reappeared in 1362, 1367, and 1370. Famine followed plague; vagrants and thieves multiplied; tyrannous laws passed (принимать закон) to regulate labour only made bad matters worse. The French wars, which had given temporary glory to the arms of Edward were fraught with disastrous consequences for his successor. Their enormous cost had to be met by heavy burdens of taxation, which were the immediate cause of a general rising of the common folk under Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, and John Ball. Though soon quelled (подавлять), this was a sign of widespread social unrest. Political troubles also grew apace under Richard's unwise and despotic rule, and the constitutional conflicts between the king and his subjects resulted in endless discord and confusion. The temper of the England of Chaucer's closing years was therefore very different from that of England into which he had been born. Much of the glamour had gone from life, and men were more conscious of its stern realities.

Among the causes which greatly contributed to the increasing evils of Chaucer's age we must also reckon the corruption of the Church. The greater prelates heaped up wealth, and lived in a godless and worldly way; the rank and file of the clergy were ignorant and careless; the mendicant friars were notorious for their greed and profligancy. Chaucer himself, as we shall presently have to note, took little serious interest in social reform; yet the portraits which he draws for us of the fat, pleasure - loving monk, the merry and wanton friar, and the pardoner, who wanders about hawking indulhences and relics, show that he was alive to the shocking state of things which existed in the religious world of his time. It is at that point that we recognise the importance of the work of John Wyclif (about 1320 - 84), "the morning star of the Reformation". That earnest man gave the best of his life to the great task of reviving spiritual Christianity in England and with the help of his disciples produced a complete English version of the Bible - the first translation of the scriptures into any modern vernacular tongue.

Social unrest and the beginnings of new religious moment were thus two of the chief active forces in the England of the later fourteenth century. A third influence which did much to change the current of intellecual interests, and thus affected literature very directly, came from the new learning. That learning had arisen in Italy, chiefly from a renewed study of the literature of classical antiquity, and from the consequent awakening of enthusiasm not only for the art, but also for the moral ideas of Greece and Rome. The leaders of this great revival were the two celebrated Italian writers, Petrarch (1304 - 74) and Bocaaccio (1313 - 75), and it was through their work in the main that the influence of humanism (as the new culture came to be called) passed into England, where its effect was soon shown in the quickened sense of beauty, the delight in life, and the free secular spirit which began to appear in English literature. We shall endeed know that in England adverse conditions long held this moment in check. But, though of little power as yet, humanism has to be included among the formative influences of the literature.

Geoffrey Chaucer, who is so much the greatest figure in the English literature of the fourteenth century that he has thrown all his contemporaries completly into the shade, came from a well - to - do merchant family that lived for several generation in Ipswish, some seventy miles northeast of London. In comparison with other major English writers of his time, Chaucer left abundant records of his life. We have no official documents for the life of the auther of Priers Plowman or for the Gawain - poet; records of Cower's life are few and confused. But Chaucer, because he was a public servant, can be traced in the records of his offices. Geoffrey Chaucer 's parentage is clearly established; he described himself in a deed of 19 June 1381 as "son of John Chaucer, vintner, of London". But the date and the place of his birth are not precisely known. We know practically nothing about his childhood, no school records for Chaucer have survived, but it is evident from the wide and varied scholarship which characterises his writings, from some of the knowledge of Latin classics shown in his works that he must have enjoyed the advantages of a liberal education. London merchants' sons in his time could receive a good education. At seventeen he received a court appointment as page to the wife of the Duke of Clarence, Edward III's third son. In 1359 he was with the English army in France, where he was taken prisoner; but he was soon ransomed, and returned to England. Sometime after this he married, and became valet of the king's chamber. From that time and onward he was closely connected with the court. Geoffrey Chaucer is the first recorded as a member of the royal household on 20 June 1367, when he received a royal annuity. One record of that date described him as valettus; another of the same date called him esquier. At any rate, he was one of a group of some forty young men in the king's service, not personal servants, but expected to make themselves useful around the court. During the years when Chaucer was in the king's service, he may also have been studying among the lawyers of the Inner Temple, one of the Inns of Court. In addition, Chaucer's later offcial positions, as controller of the customs and clerk of the king's works, demanded that he keep records in Chancery hand (на рассмотрение в суде лорда - канцлера), and use French and Latin legal formulas, skills taught the Inns of Court.

During this time Chaucer may have been experimenting with various popular verse forms, in French as well as in English. The Book of the Duchess, Chaucer's first major poem, belongs to this period. It is an elegy for Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, John Gaunt's first wife, who died, it is now believed, on 12 September 1368. Duke remarried in 1371; but he continued to remember Blanche, paying 30 pounds on 12 September for memorial masses on the anniversary of her death and ten silver marks in 1382 to each of the chaplains chanting masses at her tomb in St. Paul's. In his will of 1398 he directed that he be buried beside his "very dear late consort, Blanche." It seems significant, then, that on 13 June 1374 John Gaunt granted a life annuity of 10 pounds to Chaucer "in consideration of the services rendered by Chaucer to the grantor".

J. Chaucer was often entrusted with diplomatic missions on the continent, two of them being to Italy. In 1372-73 Chaucer accompanied two Italian merchants, Giovanni di Mari and Sir Jacopo di Provano, then residents of London, to negotiate on king's behalf with the doge and people of Genoa, who wanted to use English port. The business discussed may have been partly military, Giovanni di Mari, Chaucer's associate, was in the same year hiring Genoese mercenaries for king Edward.

The commision given Chaucer before his depature did not name Florence; yet the expence account submitted on his return, 23 may 1373, recorded treating of the affairs of the king "in Genoa and Florence". The visit to Florence has seemed significant to Chaucer scholars because Petrarch and Bocaccio, still living, were in that region. Chaucer, if he did not meet them, could hardly have avoided hearing a great deal about them and about Dante, who, though he had died in exile fifty years earlier, was now revered in Florence. Quite possibly Chaucer obtained manuscripts of some of these authors' works on this visit. It is customary in this connection to mention the reference to Petrarch in the Clerk's Prologue (IV. 31 -33), but with the warning that it is the Clerk, and not Chauser, who claims to have heard the story in the Clerk's Tale from Petrarch.

The Journey of 1372 - 73, it was once thought, gave Chaucer his first acquaintance with the language and literature of Italy; but it is now agreed that Chaucer might well have been chosen fot that misssion because he already knew some Italian. The hundred days allowed by the 1372 -73 journey would hardly have given Chaucer time to learn a language. London in Chaucer's youth provided better opportunities; many Italian families lived in London, some near the Chaucer house in Vintry, Chaucer's father and grandfather had business dealings with Italians. In any event, Italy had become, 1373, a part of Chaucer's firsthand experience.

During these years he received many marks of royal favour, and for a time sat in Parliament as knight of the shire of Kent. But after the overthrow of the Lancastrian party and the banishment of his special patron, John Gaunt, he fell on evil days, and with approaching age felt the actual pinch of poverty. Twice, 16 and 25 April 1388, he was sued by John Churchman, collector of the customs of London. Philippa Chaucer, to whom he had been married for at least twenty - one years, disappeared from the records after 18 June 1387 and in presumed to have died. Fortunately, on the accession of John of Gaunt's son, Henry IV, things mended with him, and the grant of a royal pension at once placed him beyond want and anxiety. At Christmas, 1399, he took a long lease of a house at Westminster, which suggests that he still looked forward to many years of life. But he died before the next year was out, and was buried in that part of Westminster Abbey which afterwards came to be know as the Poets' Coner. The inscription on Chaucer's tomb in Westmister Abbey gives the date of his death as 25 October 1400. The tomb may, however, have been erected as late as 1555, and there is no other evidence as to the exact date of his death. He was buried in the Abbey for several reasons, none of them, so far as we know, related to his being a poet. He had a right to burial there because he was a tenant of the Abbey and a member of the parish. Moreover, commoners who had been royal servants were beginning to be buried near the tombs of the kings they had served. No one in England in 1400 could foresee that Chaucer's tomb would be the beginning of poet's Coner.

Fourteenth- and- fifteenth - century records tell something of Chaucer's descendants. Two presumed daughters of Geoffrey Chaucer are sometimes mentioned, Elizabeth Chaucy, nun at Barking in 1381, and Agnes, an attendant at the coronation of Henry IV; but records do not clearly identify them as daughters of the poet. Nothing more is known of Agnes, and Elizabeth, but many records attest to the distinguished career of Thomas Chaucer, the poet's son, as he became one of the most wealth and influental men in England. Enriched by marriage to a great heiress and by annuities from John of Gaunt, Richard II, and Henry IV, he served as chief butler to four kings, envoy to France, and often, speaker of the House of Commons.