Middle
Age is the age between antiquity and modern. It begins with the fall of Roman
Empire in the west or with the settlement of Germanic tribes in 476 A.D and
ends in 1500 or with the beginning of Renaissance. The periodization of Middle
Age is different for different countries and is extremely long.
On
the other hand, Dark Ages is defined differently in different sources. In many
dictionaries, Dark Ages is used as a synonym for Middle Ages, some other
sources claim it as the early Middle Ages and other few point it out as the
period between Chaucer and Renaissance. However, one point is clear regarding
the meaning of the age; it is a period of intellectual darkness and barbarity where
no literary works were produced.
The
notion of dividing time into major three ages lies in the hands of Petrarch in
the mid-fourteenth century. According to him, the middle ages began when
barbarians destroyed the Roman Empire and the centuries followed by where the
ages of darkness until Europeans recovered the civilization of the ancient
Rome.'One of the great attractions of the Dark Ages', W.P Ker wrote, 'is that
they exhibit... a different kind of literary tradition from the classical; the
pure elements contributed by the barbarians to the literary art of Europe'.
The
literary works of Middle Age comprises of the works from the Old English Period
till Renaissance. The true beginnings of the literature start with the texts
such as Ecclesiastical History of the
English People, written in Latin by Beda Venerbalis in England and in other
parts of the Europe, the national literatures developed in the vernacular parallel
to the Latin literature. The works of this age comprises of magic charms,
riddles, poems, lyric poetry, epic long poems with religious contents. Romance,
a new genre was developed in the period;it also produced cycles of narratives,
such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.However, the literary criticism of the age
is not an age of much merit.The age can be divided into early middle and the
late middle age.
It
was somewhere between the year 700 and the year 900, the epic poem Beowulf was
composed. It tells the story of a warrior, Beowulf from Geatland in Sweden, who
goes to Denmark and kills the monster named Grendel, Grendel’s mother takes
revenge, but he kills it too and becomes the King of Geats at the end.The
author of this epic poem is unknown.
One of the major
developments during this time was the development of Christianity as the
religion of the Mediterranean region. Christian
writers during the time wrote lyric laments such as The Wanderer, The Seafarer
and Deor, which reflected the pagan
life of the past. Caedmon and Cynewulf, the poets of the time wrote on Biblical
and religious themes. There were secular poems too which can be named as
national, rather than pagan, mostly written during the tenth century.
Talking
about the Middle Ages in context of England, it was attacked by the French
speaking Normans in the eleventh century and a definite rapture occurred in
culture and literature. The period provides large amount of interesting and
often delightful works. There is a great influence of French and Latin works
during the period. From the later half
of this Middle Ages, a number of texts from various literary genres have been
preserved. The long list includes lyric poetry and epic “long poems” with
religious contents, such as Piers Plowman,
which has been attributed to William Langland. The Romance, a new genre of a
secular kind,
was developed in the period and can be
classified according to the subject. The best of the romances dealing with
English history and its heroes includes the King
Horn and Havelock the Dane and the popular Guy of Warwick and Bevis of Hampton. Romances that are connected
with the King Arthur includes the anonymous Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight, which was written in the fourteenth century,
Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, Arthur
and Merlin , to name a few. There are romances that deal with classical
themes, Charlemagne legends and other miscellaneous romances. This form
indirectly influenced the development of the novel in the eighteenth
century.
Unusual
numbers of verse chronicles were also written. They were distinguished by their
use of stories which appear incredible by their inventiveness and vivacity of
the style. The major chronicle writers include Lazamon, Robert of Gloucester
and Robert Manning of Brunne.Several religious and didactic poetry were also written
during the age.
Considering
the prose writing The Ancrene Riwle,
which is ascribed to the twelfth century is the most important of the prose
texts, and has been pointed out as the most influential. The text was written as a guide to three
noble ladies who had become anchoresses.
Towards
the end of the later middle age, greater importance was given to the social and
the intellectual movements of the time. This period witnessed a series of
famines and plagues, such as the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death,
which reduced the population to half before the calamity, followed by political
unrest, which lead to the Peasant’s revolt, Wars of Roses, which all provided
for the expression of new ideas and ideologies.
The
most important development in the literary field during this time was regarding
the standardization of the vernacular language which attains its full
expression in the works of Chaucer.In the fourteenth century, William Langland
produced an allegorical vision of human life in Piers Plowman. But, a vivid picture of the medieval people is
mostly represented in The Canterbury
Tales.
On
the other hand, Italy produced some of the most influential poets of the time.
Among them, Dante Alighieri is arguably the greatest medieval poet. Even though
he wrote on wide range of subjects he is famous for the lyric poems written to
his beloved, Beatrice and the Divine Comedy. Dante’s works provided inspiration
for other writers but it influenced other two Italian writers, Giovanni
Boccaccio and Francesco Petrarch.
Petrarch
(1304-1374) is considered to be the first modern poet. His most famous work is
a collection of Italian verses, Canzoniere
dedicated to his love, Laura.His perfection of the use of sonnets was useful
for the later English poets such as Chaucer and Shakespeare.
Boccaccio
was only nine years younger to Petrarch. His writings were inspired by his love
for Fiametta. Even though he is the author of many works, he is famous for The Decameron, a collection of love
stories between 1348 and 1353; several of his own lyric poems are also included
with the collection of which both Shakespeare and Chaucer drew heavily for the
structure and style.
The
time followed by was the age of Chaucer, the father of English poetry. His
correct birth date is uncertain, but generally accepted as being 1340. His
works can be divided into three stages, the French, the Italian, and the
English of which the last is the development of the first two. The third group
contains work of the greatest individual accomplishment, Canterbury Tales. For
the general idea of the tales, he is indebted to Boccaccio. It is a cycles of
narratives, where Chaucer draws together twenty- nine pilgrims, including
himself and they meet at the tabard Inn, in order to go on a pilgrimage to the
tomb of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. The twenty- nine are carefully chosen
types, of all ranks from a knight to a humble ploughman of both the sexes. At
the suggestion of the host of the Tabard, each of the pilgrims is to tell two
tales on the outward journey and two on the return, but Chaucer did not
complete it. Even in its incomplete state, the work is a small literature in
itself, an almost unmeasured abundance and variety of humour and pathos, of
narrative and description, and of dialogue and digression (Albert, 34). These
cycles of narratives are considered as the models for the short stories of the
nineteenth century.
However,
the most striking literary innovations of the later Middle Ages are mystery and
miracle plays and these dramas paved way for the re-emergence of the drama
after an entire millennium in which theatre had no significance. Thus, it
indirectly influenced the development of drama in the Renaissance, the
beginning period of the Modern Age.
Bibliography
Abrams,
Meyer Howard, and Geoffrey Harpham. A
glossary of literary terms, New York Cengage Learning, 2011.
Nagarajan,
M.S. English Literary Criticism and
Theory: An Introductory History, Hyderabad: Orient Black Swan, 2006.
Albert,
Edward. History of English Literature,
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1979.
Klarer,
Mario. An Introduction to Literary
Studies, London: Routledge, 1999.
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