The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages

Things to Consider:

Geographic Nomenclature (see A31-32 of Textbook)
Three Main Chronological Sections:

Anglo-Saxon (ca. 450-1066)
Anglo-Norman (1066-ca. 1300)
Middle English of the 14th and 15th C's (ca. 1300-1485)

Terms to Know (See also Literary Terminology: A10-30):

synecdoche (11)
metonymy (11)
kenning (11)
apposition (11)
variation (12)
irony (12)
litotes (12)
orthography (12)
chivalry (14)
romance (14)

anchoress (15)
Black Death (16)
mystery play (20)
morality play (21)
alliteration (23)
caesura (23)
iambic pentameter (24)
canon (25)
philology (25)

Discussion Questions:
3:

What event roughly corresponds to the beginning of the Middle Ages?

4:

What two "enduring institutions" were invented in late medieval Europe?
What was the cause of the Hundred Years' War? What were its consequences?

5:

When was the Norman Conquest? What were its consequences? (See also 12-14.)
What four languages co-existed in Anglo-Norman England?

7:

What, according to the editors, was the impact of Christianity on the written language in England? (See also 7-8 and 10.)

10:

Explain: "Nations are reckoned as groups of people related by kinship rather than by geographical areas, and kinship is the basis of the heroic code" (10).

12:

What was the Battle of Hastings?

15:

How, according to the editors, does the romance reflect "the aspirations of a lower order of nobility to rise in the world" (15)?

19:

How is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight similar to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, according to the editors?
What was the War of the Roses?

Other Discussion Questions:
3:

What is the Latin term for "middle age"?
What did the Reformation involve?

5:

To what does the term lingua franca refer?

6:

What was the language of the Bible in medieval Europe?
When was moveable type introduced into England? What, according to the editors, were the consequences of its introduction (see also 21)?

7:

To what do "Essex," "Wessex," and "Sussex" refer?
Who was the first English Christian king?

10:

Explain: "Blood vengeance is regarded as a sacred duty" (10).
How, according to the editors, does this code conflict with Christian teachings?

14:

What, according to the editors, was the principle narrative genre for late medieval readers?

16:

What was the Black Death?

18:

What was the Alliterative Revival?

19:

What was the Battle of Agincourt?

22:

What, according to the editors, are the three principal differences between Middle English and Modern English?

23:

What organizing device is used in lines of Old English verse?