Medieval Writers and their Work: Middle English Literature 1100-1500, 2nd Edition

165 Pages·2008·0.78 MB·English

by  J. A. Burrow

Medieval Writers and
their Work
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J. A. Burrow
Medieval Writers and
their Work
Middle English Literature
1100–1500
SECONDEDITION
1
3
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Preface
This book offers neither a history nor a survey of Middle English
literature:asurveymaybefoundinTheCambridgeHistoryofMedieval
EnglishLiterature,editedbyDavidWallace(1999),andDerekPearsall
providesahistoryoftheverseinOldEnglishandMiddleEnglishPoetry
(1977).Thepresentbookisdesignedasanintroduction.Attheriskof
givinganexaggeratedimpressionofthestrangenessofMiddleEnglish
writings, I have concentrated on some of the chief differences which
confrontareaderofmodernliteraturewhenheorshefirstapproaches
them: differences in the notion of literature itself (Chapter1), in
the circumstances under which writings were produced and received
(Chapter2), in the types of writing produced (Chapter3), and in the
kinds of meaning to be found in them (Chapter4). Chapters 1 and 5
also attempt to characterize the Middle English period in relation to
earlierandlaterperiodsofEnglishliterature.
Texts are quoted from the editions cited in the Bibliography. Bible
quotations are from the Authorized Version. Translations of Dante’s
DivineComedyaretakenfromtheversionbyC.H.Sisson(1980).
I would like to thank Stephen Medcalf, Alastair Minnis, Charles
Runacres, John Scattergood, Thorlac Turville-Petre, and many stu-
dentsandcolleaguesforgivingmeideasandadvice.
ForthepresentneweditionIhavereviewedthetextthroughoutand
rewritten parts of it, as well as bringing references cited in the notes
andbibliographyuptodate.
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Contents
1 Theperiodandtheliterature 1
2 Writers,audiences,andreaders 25
3 Majorgenres 59
4 Modesofmeaning 90
5 TheafterlifeofMiddleEnglishliterature 125
Notes 139
Bibliography 147
Index 152
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1 The period and the literature
I
The phrase ‘Middle English’ has an academic and somewhat unidio-
maticflavour.Itwasfirstcoinedtodesignateaperiodinthehistoryof
theEnglishlanguage.Historicalphilologistsinthenineteenthcentury,
most of them German, liked to see in the history of a language three
phases: Old (alt-), Middle (mittel-), and New or Modern (neu-). This
triadicschemefittedthehistoryofEnglishquitewell.OldEnglishcould
only be the language of pre-Conquest, Anglo-Saxon England. New
Englishpresumablyextendedbackfromthepresentdaytothebegin-
ning of modern times—say, the first Tudors. In between lay Middle
English.ThiswasdistinguishedfromOldEnglishchieflybyasimplified
systemofinflexionandavocabularyenrichedfromFrenchandScan-
dinavian sources, and from Modern English by inflexions still further
simplifiedandavocabularyfurtherenrichedanddiversified,especially
fromLatin.Onthestrengthofchangessuchasthese,philologistsfixed
thebeginningsofMiddleEnglishintheperiod1100–1150anditsend
around1450–1500.1
Philologyandliteraryhistorybeingtwindisciplines,itisnotsurpris-
ingthatliteraryhistorianswerequicktoadopttheconceptof‘Middle
English’. The three or four hundred years in question soon came to
be seen also as a literary period. It seemed natural to consider the
workssurvivingfromthesecenturies—AncreneWisseandTheOwland
the Nightingale, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Cloud of
Unknowing,theCanterburyTalesandMorteDarthur—asrepresentatives
not only of a stage in the English language, but also of a stage in the
development of English literature. Yet this usage cannot be accepted
without question, even in a book such as this, committed by its title
to the concept of Middle English Literature. Literary historians are
accustomed to borrow like jackdaws from other disciplines when it
comes to defining and naming periods. They use, for instance, the
reignsofkingsandqueens:‘Jacobeandrama’,‘Victorianpoetry’.The
statusofsuchborrowedlabelsmustalwaysbequestionable,evenwhen
they are borrowed, as in the case of ‘Middle English’, from a disci-
pline more closely related to literary studies than is political history.