Session 2 - Middle Ages - Vorlesungsnotizen 2 PDF

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Summary

Prof. Dr. Ehland, Prof. Dr. Miriam Strube...

Description

Survey: Session 1 Six-Phase Approach 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6)

Puritanism: amputate Pope Bible Enlightment: amputate Bible  reason, man, rational God Romanticism: amputate reason  individual ways of finding the truths Premodernism: amputate metaphysics  material reality Modernism: amputate one truth  many truths, fragmented reality Postmodern: amputate the truth  playful approach to fragmentation

Periods -

5th to 6th 7th to 11th 11th to 13th 13th to 15th 15th to 16th 17th to 18th 19th 20th to 21st

Sub Roman Period Early Middle Ages (Heptarchy, House of Wessex, Vikings) High Middle Ages (Norman Conquest and Rule, House of Plantagenet) Late Middle Ages (House of Plantagenet, Lannister, York) Transition Period (House of Tudor) Romantic Enlightment Victorian, Romantic Modernism, Postmodernism

Middle Ages: From Beowulf to Canterbury Tales -

43: Romans colonized Britain because mild, fertile climate, trading Retreated by 415 (officially organizational) By the 5th century: Sub-Roman Period 449: Anglo Saxon invasion: paganism, warrior tradition, language, phase of migration (since Britain hasn’t a real “native” population) 7 united Kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex-… Late 6th century: Christianization (introduction of books and enhanced literary) which was fully established by 9th/ 10th century  in Britain via Ireland Amalgamation/ Pampliset (text over each other)/ Hybridity (weak days, Roman model)  adopt the names of the days of the week 793 onwards: Viking raids 10th C: male-centred (stress on tribal virtues like loyalty, service and duty; loyalty between lord and liegeman, individual heroism, Pate

Warrior Culture: -

The pledge: absolute loyalty (comitatus)  invest your life in this loyalty, bound by this pledge The boast: a sign of courage is the defiance and disdain of death  society of male, show your willing The deed: as proof of loyalty and courage and power  make yourself important and talk about yourself

The World of the Scorps (professional poet): -

Orality of literature (immediacy, specific community, self-identification and unity) Written/ manuscript culture (loss of immediacy, loss of particularity though unified standards)

The Wanderer: -

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Copy from around 1000 Exeter Book - no title th May date from the 8 century, possible earlier - faith Written in the style of an elegy Voice: wanderer (a warrior)  male, who has lost his social context and doesn’t know where he belongs; another speaker (when he was sleeping)  inside/outside perspective Warrior is not showing feelings Transition period: from warrior culture (Pagan) to Christianity (don’t know when the CP came into this text) Themes: death, warrior culture, a priest might have written down the text (“heavently fire, mercy”), in the end it turns into Christian perspective, about values (code by which the society lives in loyalty) How does he characterizes himself?  Wandering, basically lost, nowhere to go, lost his social stand, he begins to dream back into society (throwback to the bound of loyalty, bound between men), lord and the retailer, all warriors have the pledge of doing their duty  only talking about warrior culture and now other themes Setting: “wintry seas”  on a boat, travelling physically and mentally Physical journey: on a boat, on icy seas, exile, seeks for a new community Psychological journey: loss, loneliness, exile, seeks for a new community (possible future), God (religious hope) Narratives: there must be 2 narratives, because in the first lines sb is telling you sth. About the Wanderer and then there is the “I” narrative

Beowulf: -

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Survives in an Anglo-Saxon manuscript (3182 lines) Longest text that has survived Copy from around 1000, Nowell Codex Is thought to achieved its present form around 8th century (oldest text) Setting in the migration period, during the 5th and 6th century (no English man in the text, only Scandinavian)  used to fill the gap - Mead-hall (the great hall, place of community, its spirituals and culture) Genre: epic poem (between poetry and narratives) Voice: Christian voice who is kind of praising deaths and narratives  narrative at the beginning “we”  world of Scots Now a manuscript, but it pretended to be an oral text Fame of a particular group of people (splendour of old days) First story of Hrothgar and now Beowulf came to him for help Germanic heroic epics (long poem telling of heroic deeds and events, emphasis of valour (courage), power (might), ability and loyalty (the epic tale services to build and imagine community and its ideals, accentuated through contrast with a hostile world, Community and Adversary - 3 part of a fight  Grendel (man shaped)  Grendel´s aim: over-crowded, annoyed by the noises, outsiders and jealous about the community inside  Grendel carries the seed of Cane, not favoured because he is on the cursed side,

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demon grim, monster  Grendel´s case of monstrosity with similarity and kinship with humanity (not generic otherness)  Grendel´s mother (bestial)  A dragon (serpentine) Dichotomies help to construct the vision of a hostile world - Inside/ outside (the mead-hall), light/darkness, order/chaos, humanity/monstrosity Developing a society through the text, deep Christian message but in transition!

The Canterbury Tales- Geoffrey Chaucer -

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At the edge of the Middle ages (Middle English literature) which shows us the sort of developing  1066: Norman Conquest 14th Century: social reality becomes estranged from theory differentiation and specialization  black Death 1348  ordered society

Unfinished collection of tales, begun around 1387 and wrote until his death Original intention was to have each of the 30 pilgrims to tell 2 tales on each way to and from Canterbury  finished only 24 tales, order is not known Genre: epic poem & Voice: Chaucer´s alter ego Themes: pilgrimage, religion, faith Are written in different genres (romance, fabulous, sermon) The story starts in April and is about an accidental companionship: the company represents medieval society according to their ranks and estates (nobility: knight, squire; clergy: friar, nun…; commoners: shipman, merchant, reprobates: Miller…) Beginning/ narrative situation: general nature  animal, plants  people England/ Canterbury  pilgrims - Zooming into the situation order of the world (God´s creation) - Fully Christianised world (can also been seen in the presentation of the pilgrims - Knight: Lower nobility loving according to the code of chivalry (courage, court conduct, knightly piety, service to others), at the first sight an ideal knight but if you look at the campaign in which he was involved, you realize that he is just a mercenary - Negative presentation of Clergy: wanted to she the terrible vices of the 14th century clergyman in the hope of a possible “internal reform” nevertheless, Chaucer was still Catholic...