The Middle Ages (the collapse of Roman Empire to Renaissance)
Medieval: whatever was made, written or thought during the Middle Ages.
Renaissance: rebirth or revival of Latin and, especially, of Greek learning and literature. 14.15c時從義大利傳播至全歐
三個時期：Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Norman England, Middle English literature in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.
(1~ 5c隸屬羅馬帝國，叫做Britannia，居民叫Britons，Celtic-speaking。
4世紀羅馬帝國Emperor Constantine信仰基督教，全國皆受影響。
5世紀被Germanic invaders, the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes佔領。)
Anglo-Saxon
England
450?
Old English;
heroic and Christian stories combined把聖人描寫的像戰士
Christianity：識字的幾乎都是churchmen
Heroic：lord帶領retainers作戰，為lord報復(the aristocratic heroic and kinship values of Germanic society以血緣而非地緣關係作為基礎)
文學特色：
用字：和heroic tradition有關的一堆字。
修辭：Synecdoche, metonymy Ex: iron for sword, whale-road for sea, life-house for body
Variation: 一堆不同的詞指同一個東西 Ex: mankind’s guardian, eternal Lord
Beowulf
p.2 The major characters are pagan Danes and Geats, and the only connection to England is an obscure allusion to the ancestor of one of the kings of the Angles.
p.5 Christian writers like the Beowulf poet were fascinated by the distant culture of their pagan ancestors and by the inherent conflict between the heroic code and a religion that teachers that we should forgive those who trespass against us.
p. 6裡頭的irony：full of ironic balances and contrasts- between the aged Danish king and the youthful Beowulf, and between Beowulf, the high –spirited young warrior at the beginning, and Beowulf, the gray-haired king at the end, facing the dragon and death.
Anglo-Norman
England
1066
French loan words added: King Arthur and his knights became a staple subject of medieval French, English, and German literature.
Romance of chivalry: knightly adventures area means of exploring psychological and ethical dilemmas, in addition to displaying marital prowess in saving ladies from monsters, giants, and wicked knights.
Courts of love
French-sources material
Religious prose aimed at women
14世紀
上層階級使用英語/英法語；文學除了French, Latin外，也開始使用英語。Geoffrey Chaucer的作品(English Homer and the father of English poetry)
戰爭和疾病使社會動亂，教堂成為民怨對象。
Dante—The Divine Comedy (the secrets of the afterlife)
Petrarch，Boccaccio
Chaucer—The House of Fame, The Canterbury Tales
William Langland—poem (Piers Plowman) assailed corruption in church and state
Anonymous—4首詩 Cleanness, Patience/ Pearl/ Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
(15世紀) the Wars of the Roses，between the house of Lancaster(red)and York(white)
Mystery plays—based on the Bible
Morality plays—personified ices and virtues struggle for the soul of mankind or everyman
Julian of Norwich & Marger Kempe--- the medieval church and its doctrines from female points of view
Sir Thomas Malory—Morte Darthur (the title was given byWilliam Caxton, movable printing) giving the definitive form in English to the saga of King Arthur and his knights
