Exercise One

I. Fill in the following blanks.

1.      After the fall of the Roman Empire and the withdrawal of Roman troops from Albion, the aboriginal         population of the larger part of the island was soon conquered and almost totally exterminated by the Teutonic tribes of        ,         , and         who came from the continent and settled in the island, naming its central part         , or England.

2.For nearly         years prior to the coming of the English , Britain had been a Roman province. In        , the Romans withdrew their legions from Britain to protect herself against swarms of Teutonic invaders.

3.      The literature of early period falls naturally into two divisions,   

_______ and        . The former represents the poetry which the Anglo-Saxons probably brought with them in the form of_______ , the crude material out of which literature was slowly developed on English soil; the later represents the writings developed under the teaching of        .

4. In reading the earliest poetry of English it is well to remember that all of it was copied by         , and seems to have been more or less  altered to give it a        .

5.         can be justly termed England’s national epic and its hero        

_________,one of the national heroes of the English people.

6.The song of Beowulf reflects events which took place on the        

approximately at the beginning of the         century, when the forefathers of the Jutes lived in the         and maintained close relations with the kindred tribes, e.g. with the                who lived on the other side of the straits.

7. Among the early Anglo-Saxon poets we may mention         who lived in the latter half of the         century and who wrote a poetic Paraphrase of the Bible.

8.              is the first known religious poet of England. He is known as the father of English song.

9. The didactic poem The Christ was produced by         .

 

II. Choose the best answer for each blank.

1. The most important work of         is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, which is regarded as the best monument of the old English prose.

a. Alfred the Great          b. Caedmon

c. Cynewulf                  d. Venerable Bede

2.      Who is the monster half-human who had mingled thirty warriors in The Song of Beowulf?

a. Hrothgar               b. Heorot

c. Grendel                d. Beowulf

3.        is the first important religious poet in English literature.

     a. Cynewulf            b. romanticists

c. Shakespeare         d. Adam Bede

4.The epic, The Song of Beowulf, represents the spirit of __________.

a. monks               b. romanticists

c. sentimentalists     d. pagan

 

III. Decide whether the following statements are true or false and write your answers in the brackets.

1. (   ) The author of The Song of Beowulf is Cynewulf.

2. (   ) The setting of The Song of Beowulf is in Scotland.

3. (   ) Alfred the Great compiles The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles

4. (   ) Venerable Bede wrote The Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

5. (   ) The author of The Paraphrase of the Bible is Caedmon.

 

IV. Define the literary terms listed below.

1. Alliteration

2.      Epic

 

V. Answer the following questions.

1. What do you know about the Teutons?

2.      Please give a brief description of The Song of Beowulf.

 

VI. Exercise on the readings.

 

Of men was the mildest and most beloved,

To his kin the kindest, keenest for praise.

    Then the Goth’s people reared a mighty pile

With shields and armour hung, as he had asked.

And in the midst the warriors on the mount

Kindled a mighty bale fire; the smoke rose

Black from the Swedish pine, the sound of flame.

 

1. Who is the man concerned in the poem? What has happened to him? From which work is this excerpt taken?

 

Exercise Two

I. Fill in the following blanks.

1. In the year         , at the battle of        , the         headed by William.,Duke of Normandy, defeated the Anglo-Saxons.

2. The literature which the Normans brought to England is remarkable for its bright,        tales of         and        , in marked contrast with the         and         of  Anglo-Saxon poetry.

3. English literature is also a combination of         and         elements.

4. In the 14th century, the two most important writers are         and Chaucer.

5 In the 15th century, there is only one important prose writer whose name is        . He wrote an important work called Morte d’ Arthur.

 

II. Define the literary terms listed below.

1.      Canto

2.      Legend

3.      Arthurian Legend

 

III. Read the excerpt of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight carefully, and then make a brief comment on it.

 

IV. Answer the following questions.

1.      What is the consequence of the Norman Conquest?

2.      Make a brief survey of the middle English literature.

 

Exercise Three

I. Fill in the following blanks.

1. Geoffrey Chaucer, the “_______” and one the greatest narrative poets of England, was born in London in about the year 1340.

2. Chaucer’s masterpiece is         , one of the most famous works in all literature.

3. The         provides a frame work for the tales in The Canterbury Tales, and it comprises a group of vivid pictures of various medieval figures.

4. Chaucer created in The Canterbury Tales a strikingly brilliant and picturesque panorama of        .

5. The Canterbury Tales opens with a general “Prologue” where we are told of a company of pilgrims that gathered at         Inn in Southward, a suburb of London.

6. Chaucer believes in the right of man to         happiness.

7. The name of the “jolly innkeeper” in The Canterbury Tales is        , who proposes that each pilgrim of the         should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two more on the way back.

8. The pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales on their way to the shrine of         a        at a place named Canterbury.

9. Despite the enormous plan, The Canterbury Tales in fact contains a general “Prologue” and only          tales, of which two are left unfinished.

10. In contradistinction to the         verse of Anglo-Saxon poetry, Chaucer chose the metrical form  which laid the foundation of the English       verse.

II. Choose the best answer.

1. Who is the “father of English poetry” and one of  the greatest narrative poets of England?

a. Christopher Marlow             b. Geoffrey Chaucer

c. W. Shakespeare                 c. Alfred the Great

2. When he died, Chaucer was buried in         the Poet’s Corner.

a. Westminster Abbey              b. Normandy

c. Canterbury                    d. Southward

3. Chaucer’s earliest work of any length is this “       ”a translation of  the French “Roman de la Rose” by Gaillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung, which was a love allegory enjoying widespread popularity in the 13th and 14th centuries not only in France but throughout Europe.

a. Troilus and Criseyde           b. A Red, Red Rose

c. Romance of the Rose          d. Piers the Plowman

4. Chaucer composes a long narrative poem named “       ”based on Boccaccio’s poem “Filostrato”.

a. The Legend of Good Women     b. Troilus and Gressie

c. Romance of the Rose           d. Piers the Plowman

5. In his literary development, Chaucer was influenced by three literatures.Which one is not true?

a. French  literature          b. Italian literature

c. English literature           d. German literature

 

III. Decide whether the following statements are true or false and write your answers in the brackets.

1.(   ) Chaucer’s poetry traces out a path to the literature of English Renaissance.

2.(   ) Being specially fond of the great writer Boccaccio, Chaucer composes a long narrative poem, Filostrto, based upon Boccaccio’s poem Troilus and Cressie.

3.(   ) The 32 pilgrims, according to Chaucer’s plan, was to exceed that of Baccoccio’s  Decameron.

4.(   ) The Prologue is a splendid masterpiece of Romantic portrayal, the first of its kind in the history of English literature.

5.(   ) The Canterbury Tales is a vivid and brilliant reflection of the 15th century in England .

 

IV. Define the literary terms listed below.

1.  Romance

2.  Fable

 

V. For the quotations listed below, please give the name of the author and the title of the literary work from which it is taken, and point out the metrical form, then give a brief analysis.

When the sweet showers of April fall and shoot

Down through the drought of March to pierce to the root,

Bathing every vein in liquid power

From which there springs the engendering of the flower,

When also I ephyrus with his sweet breath

Exhales an air in every grove and heath

Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun

His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run,

And the small fowls are making melody

That sleep away the right with open eye

(So nature pricks them and and their heart engages)

The people long to go on pilgrimages

And palmers long to seek the stranger strands

Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands

And specially from every shire’s end

In England, down to Canterbury they wend

  To seek the holy blissful martyr, quick

In giving help to them when they were sick.

 

VI. Answer the following question.

1. What is the social significance of The Canterbury Tales?

 

 

Reference Key to Exercise One

The Anglo-Saxon Period.

 

I. Fill in the following blanks.

1.      Celtic, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Anglia

2.      400,  410 A. D

3.      pagan, Christian, oral sagas, the monks

4.      the monks, religious coloring

5.      The Song of Beowulf, Beowulf

6.      continent, 6th,. Scandinavian peninsula, Danes

7.      Caedmon,  7^th

8.      Caedmon

9.      Cynewulf

 

II. Choose the best answer for each blank.

1.  a   2.  c   3.  b   4.  d

 

III. Decide whether the following statements are true or false and write your answers in the brackets.

1.  F   2.   F   3.  T   4.  T    5.  T

IV. Define the literary terms listed below.

1.  Alliteration   A repeated initial consonant to successive words. In Old English verse. Any vowel alliterates with any other, and alliteration is not an unusual or expressive phenomenon but a regularly recurring structural feature of the verse, occurring on the first and third, and often on the first, second and third, primary-stressed syllables of the four stressed line. Thus, from The Seafarer:

 

hreran mid hondum hrincaelde sea

(“to stir with his hand the rime-cold sea”)

 

In later English verse tradition, alliteration becomes expressive in a variety of ways. Spenser uses it decoratively, or to link adjective and noun, verb and object, as in the line: “much daunted with that dint, her sense was dazed.” In the 18th and 19th centuries it becomes even less systematic and more “musical”.

 

2. Epic (or Heroic Poetry)  It is, originally, an oral narrative poem, majestic both in them and style. Epics deal with legendary or historical events of national or universal significance, involving action of broad sweep and grandeur. Most epics deal with the exploits of a single individual, thereby giving unity to the composition. Typically, an eptic includes several features: the introduction of supernatural forces that shape the action; conflict in the form of battles or other physical combat; and stylistic conventions such as an invocation to the Muse, a formal statement of the theme, long lists of the protagonists involved, and set speeches couched in elevated language. Commonplace details of everyday life may appear, but they serve as background for the story and are described in merely entertaining stories of legendary or historical heroes; they summarize and express the nature or ideals of an entire nation at a significant or crucial period of its history. Examples include the ancient Greek epics by the poet Homer, The Iliad and the Odyssey, The characteristics of the hero of an epic are national rather than individual, and the exercise of those traits in heroic deeds serves to gratify a sense of national pride. At other times epics may synthesize the ideals of a great religious or cultural movement. The Divine Comedy by the Italian poet Dante expresses the faith of medieval Christianity. The faerie Queene by the English poet Edmund Spenser represents the spirit of the Renaissance in England and like Paradise Lost by the English poet John Milton, represents the ideals of Christian humanism.

 

V. Answer the following questions.

1.           Before the invasion of Britain, the Teutons inhabited the central part of Europe as far as the Rhine, a tract which in a large measure coincides with modern Germany. The Jutes, Angles and Saxons were different tribes of Teutons.   These ancestors of the English dwelt in Denmark and in the lands extending southward along the North Sea.

2.           According to the contents of the story, the poem can be divided into four parts:

Part 1. the fight against Grendel

Part 2. the fight against Grendel’s mother

Part 3.the fight against the Dragon.

Part 4. Bewoulf’s funeral

Beowulf, which centers on the narration of the exploits of the heroic figure. Beowulf, is mainly about his three major adventures. It reflects a life of fights and feasting, of ceremony, of brilliant gold and sudden darkness. However, thematically the poem presents a vivid picture of how the primitive people wage heroic struggles against the natural world under a wise and mighty leader.

 

VI. Exercise on the readings.

1. The man concerned in this poem is Beowulf. He is dead. The excerpt is taken from The Song of Beowulf.

 

Reference Key to Exercise Two

The Anglo-Norman Period.

 

I. Fill in the following blanks.

1. 1066,  Hastings ,  Normans

2. romantic,  love,  adventure,  strength,  somberness

3. French,  Saxon

4. Langland

5. Thoms Malory

 

II. Define the literary terms listed below.

1. Canto  A section or division of a long poem. The most famous cantos in literature are those that make up Dante’s Divine Comedy, a fourteenth-century epic. In English poetry, Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock and George Gordon, Lord Byron’s Don Juan are divided into cantos.

2. Legend  A song or narrative handed down from the past. Legends differ from myths on the basis of the elements of historical truth they contain. One speaks, for example, of Arthurian legend because there is some historical evidence of Arthur’s existence. In speaking of the myth of Sysyphus, in contrast, one is aware that no such person actually existed.

3.  Arthurian Legend   It is a group of tales ( in several languages) that developed in the Middle Ages concerning Arthur, Semi-historical king of the Britons, and his knights. The legend is a complex weaving of ancient Celtic mythology with later traditions around a core of possible historical authenticity. The earliest references to Arthur are found in Welsh sources. The earliest continuous Arthurian-narrative is in the Historian Regnum Britannia by the English writer Geoffrey of Monmouth. Here Arthur is identified as the son of the British King Uther Pendragon, and his counselor Merlin is introduced. The Historian mentions the isle of Avalon, where Arthur went to recover from wounds after his last battle, and it tells of Guinevere’s infidelity and the rebellion instigated by Arthur’s nephew Mordred. All later developments of the Arthurian legend are based on Geoffrey’s work. An Arthurian tradition also developed in Europe, probably based on stories handed down from the Celts who immigrated to Brittany in the 5th and 6th centuries. By 1100 Arthurian romances were known as far away as Italy. Inspired by chivalry and courtly love, they are more concerned with the exploits of Arthur’s knights than with Arthur himself. English Arthurian romances, dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, concerned individual knight—Percival and Galahad, the Grail knights, and especially Gawain. The culminating masterpiece of these was the anonymously written Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1350?). On his book the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson based his Idylls of the King (1859—1885), an allegorical treatment of Victorian society.

III. Read the excerpt of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight carefully, and then make a brief comment on it.

The brief summary of the action of the poem reveals that it is concerned with the rights and wrongs of conduct. Its theme is a series of tests on faith, courage, purity and human weakness for self-preservation. The story presents a profoundly Christian view of man’s character and his destiny. By placing self-protection before honor, and deceit before his trust in the love of God, Gawain has sinned and fallen and become an image of Adam. Human excellence is marked by original sin and courtly values alone are no protection. Though Gawain can hope to be excused, the girdle itself remains a perpetual reminder of his weakness. The motif of the Green Knight’s head-cutting might originate in ancient vegetation myth in which the beheading would have been a ritual death to ensure a rebirth in the following spring. There is a very clear structure in the poem with a prologue, and epilogue and its main body. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is undoubtedly a romance told with the purpose of portraying ideal character in action. With a preference for irony, suggestion and implication, the unknown author tries to make his romance the vehicle of a wise morality in which the humorously grotesque merges with the morally serious.

IV. Answer the following questions.

1.   The Norman Conquest brought England more than a change of ruler. Politically, a feudalist system was established in England; religiously, the Rome-backed Catholic Church had a much stronger control over the country; and great changes also took place in languages. After the conquest, three languages co-existed in England. Old English was spoken only by the common English people; French became the official language used by the tongue of church affairs and Latin was used by the clergymen and scholars in universities. The conquest opened up England to the whole European continent, so that with introduction of the culture and literature of France, Italy and other European countries a fresh wave of Mediterranean civilization came into England.

2.   This period covers about four centuries. In the early part of the period, i.e. from 1066 up to the mid-14th century, there is not much to say about literature in English. It is almost a barren period in literary creation. In the latter period, English literature starts to flourish with the appearance of writer like G.. Chaucer, W. Langland,  J. Gower, and others. In comparison with Old English literature, Middle English literature is uttered by more voices, deals with a wider range of subjects and is in a greater diversity of styles, tones and genres. Popular folk literature also occupies an important place in this period. Its presentation of life is not only accurate but also in a lively and colorful way, though the originality of thought is often absent in the literary works of this period. Besides, the Middle English literature strongly reflects the principles of the medieval. An emphasis has also been placed on the humanity of Christ and the imagery of human passion. Love has largely superseded fear, and explorations into undiscovered regions of the heart offer fresh possibilities for introspection.

But according to the Christian orthodoxy, the life in this world is only a preparatory stage for eternal happiness, a period of suffering and repenting for man. By providing forbearance as the only answer for man’s troubles and considering the reformation of this world neither possible nor desirable, this religious idealism does harm than good to the common people. The lack of originality in Middle English literature is partly due to this Christian teaching.

 

 

Reference Key to Exercise Three

Geoffrey Chaucer

 

I. Fill in the following blanks.

 1. Father of English poetry

 2.The Canterbury Takes

 3. Prologue

 4. his time and his country

 5. Tabard

 6. earthly

 7. Harry Baily, 32

 8. St. Thomas Becket

 9. 24

 10. alliterative,  toinco-syllabic

 

II. Choose the best answer.

  1. b     2. a     3. c      4. b       5. d

 

III. Decide whether the following statements are true or false and write your answers in the brackets.

  1.  T    2.  F     3.  T     4.  F     5.  F

 

IV. Define the literary terms listed below.

1. Romance  It is a literary genre popular in the Middle Ages (5th century), dealing, in verse or prose, with legendary, supernatural, or amorous subjects and characters. The name refers to Romance languages and originally denoted any lengthy composition in one of those languages. Later the term was applied to tales specifically concerned with knights, chivalry, and courtly love. The romance and the epics are similar forms, but epics tend to be longer and less concerned with courtly love. Romance was written by court musicians, clerics, scribes, and aristocrats for the entertainment and moral edification of the nobility. Popular subjects for romances included the Macedonian King Alexander the Great, King Arthur. Of Britain and the knights of the Round Table, and the Frankish Emperor Charlemagne. Later prose and verse narratives, particularly those in the 19^th century romantic tradition, are also referred to as romances; set in distant or mythological places and times, like most romances they stress adventures and supernatural elements.

2. Fable  It is a short literary composition in prose or verse, conveying a universal cautionary or moral truth. The moral is usually summed up at the end of the story, which generally tells of conflict among animals that are given the attributes of human beings. One of the earliest and most notable collections of animal fables is that of Aesop, reputedly a freed Greek slave who lived in the 6^th century BC. Aesop circulated his fables orally, and they were transmitted in this same manner for a long period. Greek and Roman writers subsequently wrote down versions of Aesop’s fables in either prose or verse. The best-known early fable in English is the “Nun’s Priest Tale” in The Canterbury Tales by the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Another English writer of fables was John Gay, whose Fables (first series, 1727; second series, 1738) are written in sprightly verse and are characterized by great originality and wit.

 

V. For the quotations listed blow please give the name of the author and the title of the literary work from which it is taken, and point out the metrical form.

     This quotation is taken from Geoffrey Chaucer’s masterpiece The Canterbury Tales, the “prologue”. The metrical form: in heroic couplet.

    

Analysis.

   The magnificent eighteen-line sentence that opens the General Prologue is a superb expression of a double view of the Canterbury pilgrimage. The first eleven lines are a chant of welcome to the Spring with its harmonious marriage between heaven and earth which mellows vegetations, pricks fouls and stirs the heart of man with a renewing power of nature. Thus, the pilgrimage is treated as an event in the calendar of nature, an aspect of the general springtime surge of human energy which wakens man’s love of Venus (natural love). But Spring is also the season of Easter and is allegorically regarded as the time of the Redemption through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ with its connotations of religious rebirth which wakens man’s love of God(divine love).Therefore, the pilgrimage is also treated as an event in the calendar of divinity, an aspect of religious piety which draws pilgrims to holy places. The structure of this opening passage can be regarded as one from the whole Western tradition of the celebration of spring to a local event of English society, from natural forces in their general operation to specific Christian manifestation. The transition from nature to divinity is emphasized by contrast between the physical vitality which conditions the pilgrimage and the spiritual sickness which occasions the pilgrimage, as well as by parallelism between the renewal power of nature and the restorative power of supernature (divinity). Thus, in this beginning passage, Chaucer sets the double motivations of the pilgrims in an ambiguous tone with remarkable economy of words and a telling factuality. It is a model of narrative compression, with an 18-line periodic sentence that composes of a subordinate clause (line 1-11) of 79 words and a main clause (line12-18) of  49 words, expressing the essential idea of the whole work. And all this is achieved along with a diminuendo to the familiar, straightforward, low style of presentation.

 

VI. Answer the following question.

   Social Significance of The Canterbury Tales:

   In his masterpiece The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer gives us a true-to-life picture of the society of his time. Taking the stand of the rising bourgeoisie, he affirms men and opposes the dogma of asceticism preached by the church. As a forerunner of humanism, he praises man’s energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life. His tales expose and satirize the evils of his time. They attack the degeneration of the noble, the heartlessness of the judge, the corruption of the Church and so on.

     Living in a transitional period, Chaucer is not entirely devoid of medieval prejudices. He is religious himself. There is nothing revolutionary in his writing, though he lived in a period of peasant uprisings. While praising man’s right to earthly happiness, he sometimes likes to crack a rough joke and paint naturalistic pictures of sexual life. These are Chaucer’s weak points. But these are, however, of secondary importance compared with his achievement as a great poet and story-teller.

  

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