ENG 4339 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Piers Plowman, Geoffrey Chaucer, Frame Story
Document Summary
Middle english 1150 1500 (anglo-norman period: 1066: norman conquest of england, successive french inlux (royal marriages, 14th-15th century: re-establishment of english (henry v, 14th-15th century: important literature in english. Manuscripts: some 80 manuscripts from me & renaissance periods, all incomplete, most famous. Collection of 24 stories organized into a frame narrative (cf. 17,000 lines (mainly verse, but some prose too) Frame: story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims in a pilgrimage from london to canterbury. Chaucer uses the tales and descriptions of its characters to paint a poptpait of english societf at the time (the pilgrims represent all social classes) Probably incomplete (around 30 pilgrims are introduced in the prologue) 83 known manuscripts of the work from the late medieval and early renaissance periods, it was a very highly popular text!) Verbs: inlectional endings were weakened following general tendency (/ / > / / > , many oe strong verbs are lost (about 1/3)
