[alert-success] HEL - William J. Long [/alert-success]
[alert-warn] UNIT III : THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD[/alert-warn] [alert-primary] Literature of the Norman Period[/alert-primary]
[alert-primary] Literature of the Norman Period[/alert-primary]
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II. LITERATURE OF THE NORMAN PERIOD
In the Advocates’ Library at Edinburgh there is a beautifully illuminated manuscript, written about 1330, which gives us an excellent picture of the literature of the Norman period. Literature was in the hands of the clergy and nobles, and the common people could only read songs and ballads.
These parchments were rare and expensive, and a single manuscript often contained a castle or village's reading material. This old manuscript is as suggestive as a library. It contains over 40 romances.
Roland, Arthur, Tristram, and Bevis of Hampton are French, Celtic, and English heroes in verse romances. Alexander's tales, "Flores and Blanchefleur," and "The Seven Wise Masters" are examples. These typical manuscript contains a few other incongruous works that testify to the literary taste of the time.
Such variety is unclassifiable. Its mediaeval spirit and French style and expression sum up its age. All the scholarly works of the period, like William of Malmesbury's History, Anselm's Cur Deus Homo, and Roger Bacon's Opus Majus, were written in Latin; nearly all other works were written in French, or were English copies or translations of French originals. They hardly belong to English literature.
MONMOUTH GEOFFREY (d 1154).
Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae is a notable source of book of this period. Geoffrey, a Welsh monk, collected legends and wrote a complete history of the Britons. His Welsh manuscript contains the lives and deeds of all their kings, from Brutus, the alleged founder of Britain, to Julius Caesar. Geoffrey wrote his history up to Cadwalader's death in 689. This monk put unwritten Celtic tradition into Latin prose, inspiring Shakespeare, Malory, and Tennyson.
WORK OF THE FRENCH WRITERS.
Foreign writers popularised French legends in England, creating Norman literature in England. Before Geoffrey's preposterous chronicle, these legends weren't used in literature. Welsh emigrants in the fifth and sixth centuries brought Arthur's legend to Brittany. Minstrels and storytellers slowly spread them across Europe. With Geoffrey's manuscript, Norman-French writers were free to use the minstrels' fascinating stories. Geoffrey's Latin history was first translated into English from French versions by Gaimar (c 1150) and Wace (c 1155). Around 1200, Arthur, Guinevere, and the Celtic heroes entered our literature through the pioneer work of Malory's Morte d' Arthur (1470).
Layamon's Brut (c 1200).
This is the most important English riming chronicle, which tells history in doggerel verse. Poetry is easier to memorise than prose. Layamon is the first to write as an Englishman for Englishmen, including all who loved England and called it home, regardless of their ancestry.
METRICAL ROMANCES
Love, chivalry, and religion, all infused with romance, are expressed in metrical romances. The Normans introduced this type of romance to England, and it quickly overshadowed all other literary forms.
Metrical romances vary in form and subject matter, but the general type is a long rambling poem or series of poems about love or knightly adventure or both. Its hero is a knight; its characters are fair ladies in distress, warriors in armour, giants, dragons, enchanters, and Church and State enemies; and its emphasis is almost always on love, religion, and chivalry.
In the French originals, these romances had definite line lengths, exact metre, and rimes and assonances for melody. In England, this metrical system met the uneven lines, strong accent, and alliteration of native songs.
The gradual union of the two systems, French and Saxon, gave English its melody and amazing variety of verse forms first seen in Chaucer's poetry.
We divide these verse romances into France, Rome, and Britain by subject.
France: The Chanson de Roland, the national epic, celebrates Roland's heroism in his last fight against the Saracens at Ronceval. Originally called Chansons de Geste became epic like the Geste of Robin Hood.
Rome: The two great cycles of these romances deal with Alexander, a favourite hero, and the siege of Troy, with which the Britons thought they had some historic connection.
Britain: For the English reader, the most interesting romances are about Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, our literature's richest source of romance. Arthurian romances include Gawain, Launcelot, Merlin, the Quest for the Holy Grail, and Arthur's Death.
Pearl
In the same manuscript as "Sir Gawain" are found three remarkable poems "The Pearl," "Cleanness," and "Patience". The first was named by translator and editor Richard Morris in 1864. "The Pearl" is an intensely human and realistic picture of a father's grief for his daughter Margaret, "My precious perle wythouten spot." Our saddest early poem.
MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE OF THE NORMAN PERIOD
Very little of this period's literature is read today, except by advanced students. "Rule of the Anchoresses" (c. 1225) is the most beautiful old English prose ever written. It was written for three women who wanted to live a religious life without becoming nuns or joining religious orders. Bishop Poore of Salisbury wrote this 1853 classic, according to Morton.
Orm's Ormulum, written soon after the Brut, paraphrases the gospel lessons for the year, but lacks Caedmon's poetic fire and originality.
Cursor Mundi (c. 1320) is a long poem that romances Bible history from Creation to Domesday.
In addition to these great works, many fables and satires were copied or translated from French, like metrical romances. "The Owl and the Nightingale" is a debate between two birds, one representing the gay side of life and the other law and morals, and "Land of Cockaygne" is a satire on monks and monastic religion.
While most of the literature of the time was a copy of the French and intended for the upper classes, there were singers who made ballads for the common people. "Merrie greenwood men" ballads, which became the Geste of Robin Hood, to understand how the common people of England felt while their lords and masters wrote impossible metrical romances. "Robin Hood" is the dream of an ignorant, oppressed, but noble people struggling for freedom.
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