Middle Ages British Lit

1. Middle Ages British Lit

2. Unit Objectives and Skills • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain. • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.6 Analyze a case in which grasping a point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement). • W12.2 2. Write informative /explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content. • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W12.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences. • Inference (indirect characterization) • Irony • Satire • Tone

3. Historical Background • Middle Ages (106-1485) • Oct 14, 1066 William the Conqueror defeats the Anglo-Saxon King and ends A-S rule • William mixed Norman and Anglo-Saxon laws and language to better rule • Normans established feudalism Feudal Society Caste System

4. Knights and Code of Chivalry • Trained from early age to military service • Trained at neighboring castles rather than home “fostering” • “dubbed” when training completed and give title of Sir • Loyalty, honor, and social codes upheld by knights • Swore oath of fealty to overlord • Code of Chivalry known as Courtly love • System of ideals that governed knights and gentlewomen • Never attach unarmed person or person of lesser rank except in self-defense • Nonsexual adoration of a particular lady (not the wife) as means of self-improvement • Wore lady’s colors into battle; wrote her poems/songs, used for inspiration • Romances genre based in code of chivalry

5. Great Happenings in Middle Ages • The Crusades (duh) • Medieval Church became more powerful than the King and corrupt • Monasteries were libraries and publishers of books – now why would this be important? • Black Death – reduced population by 1/3rd and effectively killed the caste system too.

6. The Four Humors – Understanding Personality • A traditional theory of physiology in which the state of health--and by extension the state of mind, or character--depended upon a balance among the four elemental fluids: blood, yellow bile, phlegm, and black bile. In the human body, the interaction of the four humors explained differences of age, gender, emotions, and disposition. The influence of the humors changed with the seasons and times of day and with the human life span. Heat stimulated action, cold depressed it. The young warrior’s choler gave him courage but phlegm produced cowards. Youth was hot and moist, age cold and dry. Men as a sex were hotter and drier than women.

7. The Four Humors – Understanding Personality

8. Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales • Written by Geoffrey Chaucer to create a snapshot of life in the Middle Ages • Used characterization to represent the range of medieval society (feudal system, church, and city) • Uses satire with each pilgrim to expose the corruption of Medieval society. • Context – 29 pilgrims gather to take a pilgrimage to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Tomas Beckett • Direct Characterization – writer directly states what the character is like • Indirect Characterization – writer describes how the character looks and dresses; character revealed through words, thoughts, feelings, actions, and reactions from other characters • Satire – literary work holding up human vice to ridicule or scorn using wit, irony, or sarcasm to expose and discredit the vice. • Subtle and embedded in the text