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Middle English literature is written, then, in the many dialects that correspond to the history, culture, and background of the individual writers. While Anglo-Norman or Latin was preferred for high culture and administration, English literature by no means died out, and a number of important works illustrate the development of the language.
Also apophthegm. A terse, pithy saying, akin to a proverb, maxim, or aphorism. aposiopesis A rhetorical device in which speech is broken off abruptly and the sentence is left unfinished. apostrophe A figure of speech in which a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes ...
Middle English (abbreviated to ME [1]) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period.
In Old Saxon poetry, Old English poetry, and Middle English poetry, the term fit(t) (Old English: fitt, Middle English fit(t)(e), fyt(t)(e), Old Saxon *fittia) was used to denote a section (or canto) of a long narrative poem, and the term (spelled both as fitt and fit) is still used in modern scholarship to refer to these [1] (though in Old and Middle English the term seems actually to have ...
The Middle English Dictionary is a dictionary of Middle English published by the University of Michigan. It comprises roughly 15,000 pages with a comprehensive analysis of lexicon and usage for the period 1175–1500, based on the analysis of over three million quotations from primary sources. It is the largest collection of this kind available ...
The social class of franklin, meaning (latterly) a person not only free (not in feudal servitude) but also owning the freehold of land, and yet barely even a member of the "landed gentry" [2] [3] [4] (knights, esquires and gentlemen, the lower grades of the upper class), let alone of the nobility (barons, viscounts, earls/counts, marquis, dukes), evidently represents the beginnings of a real ...
According to Wright, "mid" is older than modern English. "It's been part of the language since before 1150 and means ‘occupying a central, medial, or intermediate position,' according to the ...
Langland's Piers Plowman (written c. 1360–87) or Visio Willelmi de Petro Plowman (William's Vision of Piers Plowman) is a Middle English allegorical narrative poem, written in unrhymed alliterative verse. [34] Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English alliterative romance. It is one of the better-known Arthurian ...