The age of Chaucer (1350 - 1400)

A great obstacle in the way of a new English literature had been the lack of a national language, but about the middle of the XIV century, one of the dialects, that of the region of London and of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, prevailed and became the official language of the country. It was in this dialect, called "the King's English", that Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his poetical words, and in this way the literary language of England was born.

Geoffrey Chaucer, who lived in London in the second half of the XIV century and travelled in France and Italy, is the first great English poet. He has been called the Father of English poetry.

The most celebrated among his works are: Troilus and Criseyde, a love story about the Trojan war, and the Canterbury Tales, a collection of romantic and comic stories told by pilgrims going to the tomb of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The general plan of the work reminds us of Boccaccio's Decameron, thought there is a remarcable difference in style. Chaucer's subject matter was medieval, made up of old legends and popular tales, but his masterly style was something quite new in English poetry.

His great dramatic gift appears at its best in the Prologue of the Tales, which gives us a vivid picture of the "merry England" of his times and of the Canterbury pilgrims themselves, who are not poetical shadows but real people: e.g., the pretty well-bred prioress; the fat, vulgar wife of Bath; the merry young squire; and the learned student of Oxford.

To the age of Chaucer belong two writers worth mentioning: John Gower, who wrote at first in Latin and French, and then produced his Confessio Amantis, a long series of tales, with a Latin title but written in English; and William Langland, the author of Piers Plowman, a series of allegorical visions entirely written in the old allitterative verse.

The Merchant and the Clerk

from The Canterbury Tales

A Merchant was there with a forked beard

In motley dressed, and high on horse he sat;

Upon his head a Flemish beaver hat,

His bootes clasped fair and handsomely;

His reason spake he full solemnély,

Harping always on increase of winning.

Guarded he wished the sea, 'gainst everything,

Bitwixe Middleburg and Orewelle.

Well could he in exchange shieldes sell.

This worthy man full well his wit beset,

No wight there was that thought he was in debt,

So stately was he of his governance,

With his bargains, and with his chevissance.

Forsooth he was a worthy man withal,

But sooth I cannot say what men him call.

A Clerk there was of Oxenford also,

That unto logic turned long ago,

As leane was his horse as is a rake,

And he was not right fat, I undertake,

But looked hollow and also soberly.

Full threadbare as his overest courtepy,

For he had got him yet no benefice,

Nor was so worldly for to have office:

For he would rather have at his bed's head

Twenty bookes clad in black or red,

Of Aristotl' and his philosophy,

Than robes rich, or fiddle or gay psaltry.

But yet withal he was a philosopher,

Yet hadde he but little gold in coffer;

But all that he might of his friendes hente,

On bookes and on learning he it spent,

And busily gan for the souls to pray

Of them that gave him wherewith to scolay.

Of study took he most care and most heed.

Naught a word spake he more than was need,

And that was said in form and reverence,

And short and quick and full of high sentence.

Sounding in moral virtue was his speech,

And gladly would he learn and gladly teach.

From the Norman conquest to Chaucer (1066 - 1350)

The Normans brought a higher civilisation, a new language (Norman French) and a new kind of poetry (the system of syllable and rhyme instead of the old allitterative verse) to England. The conquest of the island led to the decline of Anglo-Saxon literature, as Anglo-Saxon was only spoken by uncultured and often illitterate Saxons, the language of the norman court and society being French. However, what was to emerge from the long struggle between the two languages and civilisations was a new language, Middle English, containing both a German and a Latin element, and a new, that is, an English civilisation.

We can therefore consider the history of this transition period, in which a new language and a new literture were born, as a slow victory of the vanquished Saxons over the Norman conquerors.

The Normans began to identify themselves more closely with the native English and their language, after the loss  of Normandy had confined them to England; but it was not until the second half of the XIV century that English replaced French in the schools, the law-courts and Parliament. For about three centuries after the battle of Hastings, literary works were written in French and Latin, the language of the Church and of science. In fact, with the sole exception of a few lyrics, such as The Owl and the Nightingale and Spring, the religious and secular works which appeared from the middle of the XIII century onwards were translations of French poems and narratives of chivalry.

Three alliterative poems in praise of purity, Pearl, Patience and Cleaness, take us into the Age of Chaucer.

Anglo-Saxon literature (650-1066)

The Germanic dialects spoken by the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes are generally referred to as Anglo-Saxon, a language which differs from modern English even more than Latin from Italian. Though sometimes called Old English, Anglo-Saxon is a language in its own right; Anglo-Saxon literature can therefore be considered as quite distinct from English literature.

The Anglo-Saxons invaders were heathen barbarians but when their writings appeared they were already Christian and partly civilised. This fact accounts for the Christian character of most of their literary works, which have been preserved and handed down to us by the learned churchmen of those times. These works were mostly written in the West-Saxon dialect, the language of King Alfred the Great.

King Alfred himself translated religious, historical and philosophical works from Latin into Anglo-Saxon and ordered the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles to be recorded and kept in the monasteries.

Anglo-Saxon poetry, however, is far more important than the prose writing of that period. It is of two kinds: epic poetry and religious poetry. The story of Beowulf, which tells of the life and heroic death of a daring warrior, king of the Danish isle of Seeland, is the oldest epic in Germanic literature. A strong pagan feeling of the working of fate and a deep melancholy run through the whole poem, but the Christian element is present in the idea of the vanity of earthly things and in the spirit of self-sacrifice of a king who dies to save his people.

The fierce note of pagan a primitive times is more evident in two more war poems, the battle of Brunaburh, which celebrates King Athelstan's victory over the Scots and Danes, and the Battle of Maldon, in which an Anglo-Saxon chief was defeated by the Vikings who had landed in Essex.

However, the greater part of the Anglo-Saxon poetry is religious in character. There are two groups of Biblical poems. One is attribuited to Caedmon, a poor shepherd, and contains: Exodus, on the flight of Moses to Egypt, Judit, the story of the Bible heroine, and Guthlac, the only narrative in verse about a native saint; the other group consist of : Christ, on the life of the Saviour, The Fates of the Apostles, and the lives of the saints Juliana and Helen: all these are attributed to the poet Cynewulf.

These poems are mere paraphrases of the Holy Scriptures; their main fault is a lackof originality, which is very much in evidence in spite of the sincerity and fire of the religious feeling which inspires them.

The most original poetical works of the Anglo-Saxon period are probably a few elegies, or short melancholic poems, Christian only in their conclusion, such as The Ruin, on the lost glory of a ruined town, probably Bath, The Wanderer and The Seafarer.

Charles Dickens - 07.02.1812 - 07.02.2012

Questo è il primo post di letteratura che pubblico su questo blog. Avevo intenzione di fare le cose con ordine e iniziare dalle origini della letteratura inglese, ma poiché proprio oggi ricorre il bicentenario della nascita di Charles Dickens, uno dei più famosi scrittori inglesi, mi sembra più appropriato dedicare a lui questo post.

Charles Dickens sprang from the lower-middle class, which had been up to then ignored by art; he was the son of a modest clerk, who was sent to prison for debts, and he had to work hard and suffer injustice  before he succeded in clinbing the social ladder.

The novelist never forgot what he had seen and felt as a boy, and by his creative immagination made it the subject of his literary work.

Dickens showed great talent in painting the London scene, in telling tales of horror and tales of humor, and in creating characters that were really living individuals. In fact, humor and fancy were the predominant qualities of this writer.

Of his novels, most of which are still read and are popular today, the best known are: The Pickwick Papers, Great Expectations, Hard Times, Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, a kind of ideal autobiography. He also wrote short tales, the most famous of which is A Christmas Carol.

Charles Dickens proveniva dalla classe piccolo-borghese, che fino ad allora era stata ignorata dal mondo dell'arte. Era il figlio di un modesto impiegato, ma quando questi fu imprigionato per debiti, Dickens dovette lavorare duramente e sopportare ogni tipo di ingiustizia prima di riuscire a farsi strada nella società.
Lo scrittore non dimenticò mai le sue esperienze di ragazzo e grazie alla sua fervida fantasia ne fece il soggetto delle sue opere letterarie.
Dickens dimostrò un particolare talento nel rappresentare la realtà della Londra Vittoriana, raccontando storie paurose e storie divertenti, e creando a personaggi molto realistici, quasi "veri". L'umorismo e la comicità erano infatti le qualità principali di questo scrittore.
Dei suoi romanzi, molti dei quali sono ben conosciuti ancora oggi, i più importanti sono: Il circolo Pickwick, Grandi speranze, Tempi difficili, Oliver Twist e David Copperfield, una sorta di autobiografia dell'autore.
Dickens scrisse anche dei racconti, tra cui il più famoso è sicuramente Un canto di Natale.