Literatura En La Edad Media

PRINCIPALES MANIFESTACIONES LITERARIAS DE LA EDAD MEDIA EN LENGUA INGLESA. SELECCIÓN DE TEXTOS Y ANÁLISIS DE UNA OBRA REPRESENTATIVA

0. INTRODUCTION

Medieval literature encompasses all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages (from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the beginning of the Florentine Renaissance). Medieval literature was composed of religiouswritings, as well as secular works. It is a complex and rich field of study, from the utterly sacred to the exuberant profane, touching all points in-between.
Latin was a common language for Medieval writing –even in some parts of Europe that were never Romanized–, since it was the language or the Roman Catholic Church, which dominated Western and Central Europe. However, the common peoplecontinued to use their respective vernaculars, i.e. Old English Beowulf, Middle High German Nibelungenlied, Old French Chanson de Roland.
A notable amount of medieval literature is anonymous. This is not only due to the lack of documents from a period, but also due to an interpretation of the author’s role that differs considerably from the romantic interpretation of the term in use today. Medievalauthors often deeply respected the classical writers and tended to re-tell and embellish stories they had heard or read rather than invent new stories. From this point of view, the names of the individual authors seemed much less important, and therefore many important works were never attributed to any specific person.

- Types of writing:

a. Religious: theological works were the dominant form ofliterature typically found in libraries during the Middle Ages. Catholic clerics were the intellectual center of society in the Middle Ages, and it is their literature that was produced in the greatest quantity.
b. Secular: during this period secular literature was not produced in equal quantity as religious one. The subject of ‘courtly love’ became important in the 11th century, especially inthe Romance Languages, where the travelling singers—troubadours —made a living from their songs.
c. Women’s literature: while it is true that women in the medieval period were never accorded full equality with men some women were able to use their skill with the written word to gain renown. Religious writing was the easiest avenue—women who would later be canonized as saints frequently publishedtheir reflections, revelations, and prayers.
d. Allegory: much of medieval literature relied on allegory to convey the morals the author had in mind while writing.
1. ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES

1.1. Medieval Drama

The various dramatic forms from the tenth century to the middle of the sixteenth—folk-plays, mummings and disguisings, secular pageants, Mystery plays, Moralities,and Interludes—have little but a historical importance. But besides demonstrating the persistence of the popular demand for drama, they exerted a permanent influence in that they formed certain stage traditions which were to modify or largely control the great drama of the Elizabethan period and to some extent of later times. Among these traditions were the disregard for unity, partly of action, butespecially of time and place; the mingling of comedy with even the most intense scenes of tragedy; the nearly complete lack of stage scenery, with a resultant willingness in the audience to make the largest possible imaginative assumptions; the presence of certain stock figures, such as the clown; and the presentation of women's parts by men and boys. The plays, therefore, must be reckoned within dramatic history.

1.1.1. Folk Plays

In England the folk-plays took the form of energetic dances (Morris dances, they came to be called, through confusion with Moorish performances of the same general nature).
Others of them, however, exhibited in the midst of much rough-and-tumble fighting and buffoonery, a slight thread of dramatic action. Their characters gradually came to be a...