Nirupama Suneetha, A-2, Dark and Medieval Age

DARK AND THE MEDIEVAL AGE

Middle Age or the Medieval Age is generally believed to be the age between the fall of Rome in 5^th century to the Renaissance period. Roughly it lasted from the 5^th century to the 15^th century. If we talk in terms of the periods of English literature, it included both the Old English (Anglo Saxon) and the Middle English Period up to the Renaissance.

The use of the term ‘Dark Age’ is more or less ambiguous. There have been much debates and disputes about its currency. The term was originally used to denote the entire period between the fall of Roman Empire till the Renaissance i.e. the Middle Age. Many 19^th century scholars condemned the Middle age as an age of darkness and decay. However, in a general sense, the term is restricted to the Early Middle Ages.

MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

There were many socio-political and historical events during this time which influenced both the literature and the criticism of this age. When the Roman legions departed from Britain in 410, many barbarian tribes like Picts and Scots came attacking the land. The Jutes were called by the Britain chieftain in order to help them from the invaders. The Jutes successfully drove them off but eventually settled in Britain. They were followed by Saxons and Angles. These three Germanic tribes were together called as Anglo-Saxons and they established seven kingdoms or heptarchs’ in Britain. Later, these pagan tribes were christened by missionaries, both Irish and Roman. The Adoption of Christianity as their religion was a major development during this period because only then the tradition of ‘written literature’ developed. The earlier literature had been oral. Another major influence of this period was the conquest of England by the Norman French under the leadership of William the Conqueror in 1066.

The literary features of the Old English Period are very interesting. Many of the works written during this time have features of pagan past, for example, Widsith and Beowulf. Also, of all the English poets, we have direct mention of only a few like Caedmon, Cynewulf. The rest of the works are anonymous. Much of the prose and some of the poetry are also translations and adaptations from the Latin language, which was the standard language of scholarship then. Certainly only a portion of Old English poetry has survived, and the manuscripts in which they are preserved are four in number.

The Old English Literature was written in the vernacular Anglo-Saxon or the Old English which is very different from modern English. There were four major dialects – Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish, and West-Saxon. The West-Saxon dialect gained the status of standard dialect because it was patronised by King Alfred of Wessex. All the existing texts of that period are preserved in the West-Saxon dialect. 

Beowulf is the first major and the most popular text from the Old English Period. It can be considered as the first epic poem of English language. Ironically, although the work is essentially English, there is no mention of England in the entire poem. Beowulf sails to Denmark and helps the Danish King Hrothgar from a monster called Grendel. Later, he returns to his native land Geatas as its King. After a successful reign of forty years, he dies fighting with a dragon whom he eventually killed but received a mortal wound in the fight. The poem closes with a narration of his funeral ceremonies.

Other important poems of this age include Widsith, Waldere, The Fight at Finnsburh, The Battle of Brunanburh, The Battle of Maldon etc. Elegies were also written during this time. Some among them are The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Wife’s Lament and Husband’s Message. These appear in the Exeter book. Caedmon and Cynewulf were poets who wrote on biblical and religious themes.

Alfred the Great, the king of West-Saxon was an important figure in the literary scenario. He encouraged learning among the clergy, and translated many popular books into Old English. The important translations among them are the Pastoral Care of Pope Gregory, the History of the World of Orosius, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, and the Soliloquies of St Augustine. It was Alfred who supervised and compiled the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which describes in detail the important events in England.

The Middle English Period is generally considered from the Norman Conquest till the Renaissance or the Enlightenment era. This period witnessed many developments in the history of England. There were internal struggles between kings, nobles and the people. One could see the rise of religious orders, blossoming of chivalry and the spirit of romance, and the Crusades. This period also saw the infamous Hundred Years’ War between England and Fraance which stirred strong national identities in both countries. Apart from those, there were many social movements in the society. One-third of the population of England were wiped away by the terrible plague called the Black Death.  It brought poverty, unrest and revolt among the peasants. We could also see the beginning and the establishment of the Lancastrian dynasty.

 The English Language also developed during this time with the gradual weakening of the inflexional system of the older period. The East Midland dialect of London came to be considered as the standard dialect because of the gaining prominence of that area.  With the Norman conquest of England, French also started influencing the language. French and English merged to form the standard English, which we find in the works of Chaucer and his contemporaries.

Dante Alighieri was an important literary figure belonging to the Middle Age. Although an Italian poet, his influence can be felt on literatures across the world. He influenced people like Petrarch and Boccaccio who in turn inspired the European Renaissance.  His first major work is Vita Nuova which means new life and consists of his famous love story. Divine Comedy is his magnum opus. It is composed in Italian language and is considered as a masterpiece of world literature.

Layamon’s Brut is an important text of this era. It is a saga of the Dark Ages, starting with the Romans and bringing it up to the time of the Britons and the Arthurian legends (Nayar 3). This could be called the first ‘national epic’ in English. It is also an attempt to create a work in the local language cutting off from the then dominant languages, Latin and French.

Religious and Didactic poetry were also written during this age. The Ormulum by Orm, The Owl and the Nightingale, the authorship of which is still unknown, The Orison to Our Lady, The Cursor Mundi etc are some of the available poems. The Owl and the Nightingale is particularly important because it is among the earliest surviving English lyrics of the medieval period which expresses a native and pure English sensibility.

This phase also saw the greatest number of romances being written. Infact, we often associate the term chivalric romance with medieval age. There were many kinds of romances like ones dealing with English history, those connected with King Arthur etc. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the first of the great Romances in English and narrates a story in the life of one of Arthur’s famous Knights of the Round Table.

Geoffrey Chaucer is the most prominent literary figure of this age. Some critics consider him as the Father of English Literature. He was also the first poet to be buried in Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey. His work can be classified into three stages – the French, the Italian and the English. The poems belonging to the French group are clumsy and immature and form the earliest part of his career. Important poems of this period are The Book of the Duchesse, and The Romaunt of the Rose. The Italian stage formed the next phase of his career and the poems are more innovative and novel. Troilus and Criseyde, and The Parlement of Foules belong to this period. The third or the English group contains his greatest work – the Canterbury Tales. Infact, his fame mostly rests on Canterbury Tales. This long narrative poem is a pen picture of the 14^th century England. However the corruption of the church, and the important social events like the Black Death are not reflected on his poems.

Willam Langland and John Gower are the other important poets of his time and Chaucer’s contemporaries. Langland’s The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman  and John Gower’s Speculum Meditantis, Vox Clamantis and Confessio Amantis give a good picture of the social conditions of the time.

Although prose was still at its infant stage, we could see the beginning of a clear style of prose writing in English during this time. English was struggling hard to shake off the dominance of French. The Ancrene Riwle is the most prominent and the most influential among the early prose texts of this period. It was written for three noble ladies who had become anchoresses (Albert 26). Sir John Mandeville, Sir Thomas Malory and John Wyclife are the other major prose writers. An English translation of the Bible has been popularly attributed to Wyclife.

Old and Middle English is also the period when the first women’s literary texts appear in Europe. Hrotsvitha is widely accepted as the first woman writer in Europe. However she wrote in Latin. She wrote plays on Christian themes and lives of saints.

One of the interesting developments in the 15^th century is the development of mystery and the miracle plays. They narrated either stories from Bible or about the miraculous lives of saints. By the end of the 15^th century, they developed into morality plays.

Although none of the genres fully developed during the medieval age, we could see prose, poetry and plays being written. Comparatively, Poetry was the dominant genre of the medieval age. We could also see the beginnings of drama and prose writings.

MEDIEVAL CRITICISM

            There haven’t been much studies and research on medieval period as such. One reason would be the wide range of texts available and the multiplicity of disciplines. Also it is a slightly ambiguous task to make a sharp demarcation between the classical and the medieval age. Literature was divided into grammar, rhetoric and logic by the medieval critics. They developed a “systematic poetic grammar” (Nagarajan 33).  This was more like a tool for poets on how to read and speak correctly. Prosody was another method of criticism followed by them. It was meant to teach the potential poets the basic poetic forms.

The Classical critic Horace influenced the middle Ages. Critics always disputed on the relative superiority of grammar and logic. Philosophers like Bacon resolved this dispute to a certain extent. His justification was that poetry was part of logic when thought of as a technique and as an activity of the creative mind, it is an ethical teacher.

Medieval criticism can be divided into broad periods in the following way. The first is the Late Classical period extending from 1^st century BC to 7^th century AD. It is followed by the Carolingian period extending from 8^th century to 10^th century.  High Medieval extends from 11^th century to 18^th century, Scholastic from 13^th century to 14^th century and Humanist from 14^th century to 16^th century (Nagarajan 34).

The historians of criticism often neglect the medieval age. After the Classical writers like Aristotle, Plato, Horace and Longinus, they move to Sidney, the Renaissance critic. There haven’t been much studies or research made on this age or the critics. People generally assume that literary criticism flourished only by the 16^th century that is the Renaissance. It is true to a certain extent because it was only during this age that a plethora of critical works were published or came out in public view.

Although Middle Age was essentially a dark age, it prepared the ground for Renaissance thought. There were other important developments during this time. It saw the use of the vernacular as the medium of literary art replacing Latin. This period also saw the use of the themes of love in poetry, the importance of translations and good prose, and the nature of poetic compositions.

However, there were a few important critical works written in this period. Bede and Alcuin who were churchmen of England developed theories on grammar, logic and Christian poetry. John Salisbury and few other classical theorists wrote extensively on literary studies in the 12^th century. Geoffrey of Vinsauf and John Garland wrote about the techniques involved in poetic compositions in the 13^th century. With the vernacular as the medium of literary art, more and more literary debates and discussions started taking place. Dante defended the use of vernacular and set an example through his Divina Commedia, which was written in the Italian language. Dante advocated that there were four levels of meaning associated with secular poetry. They were – the literal, the allegorical, the moral and spiritual. He thought it was necessary for a critic to understand these basic tones of meaning before indulging in higher levels of meaning. This thought is similar to I.A. Richard’s notion of the two uses of language and the four kinds of meaning.

CONCLUSION

As we understand, Medieval Age extends from the year of composition of Beowulf in 725 AD to 1474 AD when Caxton published the first book ever printed in England. Although we cannot call it a barren period for literature, it did not produce a plethora of works either. Poetry was a prominent genre then and we could also see the beginnings of prose writings and plays. There were few critical works too. Perhaps it was preparing the ground for Renaissance thought. It is undoubtedly an era of historical importance. Most of the teachings during this time were based on the doctrines of the post-classical Christian tradition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

·         Abrams, M.H, Geoffrey Galt Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms. New Delhi: Wadworth, 2012. Print.

·         Albert Edward. History of English Literature. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1979. Print.

·         Nayar K Pramod. A Short History of English Literature.  New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Print.

·         Nagarajan MS. English Literary Criticism and Theory. Chennai: Orient Black Swan, 2012. Print.