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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.
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.
The Canterbury Tales (Middle English: Tales of Caunterbury) [2] is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. [3] It is widely regarded as Chaucer's magnum opus.
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 ...
Pearl (Middle English: Perle) is a late 14th-century Middle English poem that is considered one of the most important surviving Middle English works. With elements of medieval allegory and from the dream vision genre, the poem is written in a North-West Midlands variety of Middle English and is highly—though not consistently—alliterative; there is, among other stylistic features, a complex ...
William Langland, Piers Plowman or Visio Willelmi de Petro Ploughman (William's Vision of Piers Plowman) is an apocalyptic Middle English allegorical narrative attributed to William Langland, one of the great works of English literature. It is written in unrhymed alliterative verse divided into sections called passus (Latin for "step").
Matter of England, romances of English heroes and romances derived from English legend are terms that 20th century scholars have given to a loose corpus of Medieval literature [1] [2] that in general deals with the locations, characters and themes concerning England, English history, or English cultural mores.
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 ...