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LITERATURA INGLESA I
English Literature – The First Steps
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LITERATURA INGLESA I
Class content:
• The idea of literature and realit
• English Literature and time 
evolution – The Seafarer 
• Geoffrey Chaucer and the English 
literature.
• The Canterbury Tales
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“The earliest English
records are in ninth- or
tenth-century
manuscripts but the
texts date back in some
cases to the seventh
century or the eighth
century.” (FORIS, B. Medieval
literature - Part II. Penguin. 1995.
p. 41)
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Medieval Europe
“One way to explore the literary culture of
medieval europe (England) would be to investigate
the manner in which these Latins and Roman
influences changed. In the beginning men were
struggling to preserve something of classical
civilization in a barbaric world in which the
Christian religion was the main solace and
intellctual stimulus. (…) Another would be to
examine the development of education and the
spread of literacy (…)” (FORIS, B. Medieval
literature - Part II. Penguin. 1995. p. 41)
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Stories and songs in our mother language are the essence of
literature. An extraordinary variety of them comes from the
great range of peoples and times that make up the
European Middle Ages, (…). The medieval world has more
intense joys and sorrows, it may seem, than ours; life is
shorter, the light is brighter, the dark more sombre.
Behaviour is more extravagant, for good and bad. It is a
large world, for distances are great when travelled by foot
or on horseback. (…) But medieval man is more obviously
part of nature (…). The world is significant and extends
beyond the bounds of the visible and beyond death. Within
the world, glory is met with glad praises (…).” (FORIS, B.
Medieval literature - Part II. Penguin. 1995. p. 41)
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The Seafarer
Summary:
The speaker of "The Seafarer" announces that he can make
a true song about himself and the suffering he has endured
while traveling over the ocean in the middle of winter. He
remembers terrible cold and loneliness, and hearing the
sounds of seabirds instead of the mead hall. This life of
hardship is one about which the comfortable "city dwellers"
know nothing. They'll never understand his suffering, poor
guy. The weather worsens as snow and hail fall. His spirit is
troubled, urging him to endure the harsh conditions on the
winter sea so that he can seek a faraway "foreign"
homeland.
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I can recite a lay of truth about myself,
relate experiences, how I often in days of toil
suffered a time of hardship.
I have experienced bitter breast-care,
explored in a ship many abodes of care,
the terrible tossing of seawaves, where often
the anxious night-watch held me at the stern 
of the boat,
when it tosses by the cliffs. Constricted by bold
were my feet, bound by frost
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with cold fetters, while cares sighed
hot about my heart; hunger tore from within
the spirit of the sea-weary one. That man does not know,
to whom things happen most pleasantly on land,
how I, wretched and sorrowful, on the ice-cold sea
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He knows the world's riches
will not last, since everyone
dies and you can't take your
possessions with you. Because
it's only through the praise of
the living after one's death
that a person can hope to live
forever, people should fight
hard against the devil so their
bravery will be remembered
after their death. That way,
they can live forever with the
angels. Sweet deal.
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over the whale’s realm,
the surfaces of the earth; comes again to me
ravenous and greedy; the solitary flier calls out,
incites irresistibly the heart onto the whale-way,
over the waters of the sea. For hotter to me are
the joys of the Lord than this dead life,
transitory on land. I do not believe
that earthly riches endure eternally for him.
Ever one of three things becomes an occasion for 
uncertainty
for each of the retainers before his last day:
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by good deeds on earth against the enmity of fiends,
by brave deeds against the devil,
that the children of men may extol him afterwards,
and his praise may live afterwards with the angels,
always to eternity, the glory of life eternal, 
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gold cannot be a help to the soul which is full of sin,
before the terror of God
when he hides it formerly while he lives here.
The terrible power of the Measurer will be great, before 
which the earth will turn aside;
He established the rocky foundations, 
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Fate is stronger,
The Measurer mightier, than the conception of any man.
Let us think where we have a home,
and then consider how we may come thither;
and then also we may endeavour, so that we might go
to that eternal blessedness,
where life is inseparable from the love of the Lord,
bliss in the heaevens. Let there be thanks to God,
the Lord of Glory, that He has honoured us,
true Lord, for all time.
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The days of earthly glory are over, the speaker tells
us, because the wealthy and powerful civilizations
have fallen. The party's over, and the weak have
inherited the earth. Glory and nobility have faded
just like an aging person, whose body and senses
fail. No matter how much we try to comfort the
dead and ourselves with gold, it won't work
because a sinful soul can't take his gold with him
after death. He's painting quite the pretty picture,
this seafarer guy.
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THE FATHER OF 
ENGLISH 
LITERATURE
Geoffrey Chaucer
(1340/1345 – 1400)
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Chaucer was the first great poet writing in
English, whose best-known work is 'The
Canterbury Tales'.
Geoffrey Chaucer was born between 1340 and
1345, probably in London. His father was a
prosperous wine merchant. We do not know any
details of his early life and education.
In 1357, he was a page to Elizabeth, Countess of
Ulster, wife of Edward III's third son. Edward III
sent him on diplomatic missions to France, Genoa
and Florence. His travels exposed him to the work
of authors such as Dante, Boccaccio and Froissart.
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Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa Roet, a
lady-in-waiting in the queen's household. They are
thought to have had three or four children.
In 1374, Chaucer was appointed comptroller of the
lucrative London customs. In 1386, he was elected
member of parliament for Kent, and he also
served as a justice of the peace. In 1389, he was
made clerk of the king's works, overseeing royal
building projects. He held a number of other royal
posts, serving both Edward III and his successor
Richard II.
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In 1387, he began his most
famous work, 'The
Canterbury Tales', in
which a diverse group of
people recount stories to
pass the time on a
pilgrimage to Canterbury.
Chaucer disappears from
the historical record in
1400, and is thought to
have died. He was buried
in Westminster Abbey.
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Here begins the Book of the Tales of Canterbury
When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram one half his course has run,
And many little birds make melody
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That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks themon to ramp and rage)
Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.
And specially from every shire's end
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In April, with the beginning of spring, people of
varying social classes come from all over England to
gather at the Tabard Inn in preparation for a
pilgrimage to Canterbury to receive the blessings of
St. Thomas à Becket, the English martyr. Chaucer
himself is one of the pilgrims. That evening, the Host
of the Tabard Inn suggests that each member of the
group tell tales on the way to and from Canterbury in
order to make the time pass more pleasantly. The
person who tells the best story will be awarded an
elegant dinner at the end of the trip. The Host
decides to accompany the party on its pilgrimage and
appoints himself as the judge of the best tale.
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The Knight, The Wife of Bath, The Pardoner, The Miller, The
Prioress, The Friar, The Summoner, The Host, The Parson,
The Squire, The Clerk, The Man of Law, The Manciple, The
Merchant, The Shipman, The Physician, The Franklin, The
Reeve, The Plowman, The Guildsmen, The Cook, The
Yeoman, Nuns, The Priest
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No other work prior to Chaucer's is known to have set a
collection of tales within the framework of pilgrims on a
pilgrimage. It is obvious, however, that Chaucer borrowed
portions, sometimes very large portions, of his stories from
earlier stories, and that his work was influenced by the
general state of the literary world in which he lived.
Storytelling was the main entertainment in England at the
time, and storytelling contests had been around for
hundreds of years. In 14th-century England the English Pui
was a group with an appointed leader who would judge the
songs of the group. The winner received a crown and as
with the winner of theCanterbury Tales, a free dinner. It
was common for pilgrims on a pilgrimage to have a chosen
"master of ceremonies" to guide them and organize the
journey.
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•A collection of stories built around a frame narrative
or frame tale, a common and already long established genre
of its period.
•Middle English
•Intense variation.
•Most story collections focused on a theme, usually a
religious one.
•The idea of a pilgrimage to get such a diverse collection of
people together for literary purposes was also
unprecedented
•The structure of the Tales is largely linear. It depends on
the characters rather than a general theme or moral.
•General themes and points of view arise as tales are told
which are responded to by other characters in their own
tales, sometimes after a long lapse of time.
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•The variety of Chaucer's tales shows the breadth of his
skill and his familiarity with countless rhetorical forms and
linguistic styles.
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THEMES
Life contemplation -
representation of medieval society,
courtly romance, Fabliaux,
tragedy, exemplum, chivalry,
religion, and agricultural labor.
Comedy – irony, satire.
Portrait of medieval society.
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