英三甲英史 I

1. 英三甲英史I

7. Part 1 This king lay at Camelot at Christmastide; Many good nights and gay his quests were there, Arrayed of the Round Table rightful brothers, With feasting and fellowship and carefree mirth. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

8. Part 1 Was he. Great wonder grew in hall At his hue most strange to see, For man and gear and all Were green as green could be.

9. Part 1 That a horseman and a horse should have such a hue. Grow green as the grass, and greener, it seemed, Than green fused on gold more glorious by far.

10. And so I call in this court for a Christmas game, For ’tis Yule and New Year, and many young bloods about; If any in this house such hardihood claims, Be so bold in his blood, his brain so wild, As stoutly to strike one stroke for another, I shall give him as my gift this gisarme noble, This ax, that is heavy enough, to handle as he likes, And I shall bide the first blow, as bare as I sit.

11. Gawain by Guenevere Toward the king doth now incline: “I beseech, before all here, That this melee may be mine.”

12. Part 1 “What is the way there?” said Gawain. “Where do you dwell? I heard never of your house, by him that made me, Nor I know you not, your name nor your court. But tell me truly thereof, and teach me your name, And I shall fare forth to find you, so far as I may, And this I say in good certain, and swear upon oath.”

13. That the blade of bright steel bit into the ground. The head was hewn off and fell to the floor; Many found it at their feet, as forth it rolled; The blood gushed from the body, bright on the green, Yet fell not the fellow, nor faltered a whit, But stoutly he starts forth upon stiff shanks, And as all stood staring he stretched forth his hand, Laid hold of his head and heaved it aloft,

14. As you promised in the presence of these proud knights. To the Green Chapel come, I charge you, to take Such a dint as you have dealt—you have well deserved That your neck should have a knock on New year’s morn. The knight of the Green Chapel I am well-known to many, Wherefore you cannot fail to find me at last;

15. Part 2 Now he rides in his array through the realm of Logres, Sir Gawain, God knows, though it gave him small joy! All alone must he lodge though many a long night Where the food that he fancied was far from his plate; He had no mate but his mount, over mountain and plain,

16. Part 2 Within a moat, on a mound, bright amid boughs Of many a tree great of girth that grew by the water— A castle as comely as knight could own, On grounds fair and green, in a goodly park With a palisade of palings planted about For two miles and more, round many a fair tree.

17. Then the lady, that longed to look on the knight, Came forth from her closet with her comely maids. The fair hues of her flesh, her face and her hair And her body and her bearing were beyond praise, And excelled the queen herself, as Sir Gawain thought.

18. Part 2 Whatever I win in the woods I will give you at eve, And all you have earned you must offer to me; Swear now, sweet friend, to swap as I say, Whether hands, in the end, be empty or better.” “By God,” said Sir Gawain, “I grant it forthwith! If you find the game good, I shall gladly take part.”

19. Part 3 “Nay, not so, sweet sir,” said the smiling lady; “You shall not rise from your bed; I direct you better: I shall hem and hold you on either hand, And keep company awhile with my captive knight.

20. Part 3 Said Gawain, “Good lady, I grant it at once! I should kiss at your command, as become a knight, And more, lest you mislike, so let be, I pray.” With that she turns toward him, takes him in her arms, Leans down her lovely head, and lo! He is kissed.

21. Part 3 “Nay, not so, sweet sir,” said the smiling lady; “You shall not rise from your bed; I direct you better: I shall hem and hold you on either hand, And keep company awhile with my captive knight.

22. Geoffrey Chaucer Medieval society: the nobility, a small hereditary aristocracy; the church, spiritual welfare of the body; the large mass of the commoners Birth, wealth, profession and personal ability played a part in determining one’s status according to the changes economically, politically, and socially.

23. Chaucer was the son of a prosperous wine merchant. In his early teens, he worked for the countess of Ulster, who was married to prince Lionel Ulster, the second son of Edward III, as a page. He was a member of King Edward’s personal household.

24. Chaucer took part in several diplomatic missions to Spain, France, and Italy. He worked as the controller of customs on wool, sheepskins, and leather for the port of London. He served as a justice of the peace and knight of the shire for the county of Kent.

25. In Chaucer’s youth, he wrote lyrics and narratives about courtly love. The Book of Duchess was an elegy in the form of a dream. The House of Fame, still a dream vision, took Chaucer on a journey to the celestial palace of the goddess Fame. The Parliament of Fowls described, also in a dream vision, that all the birds meton St. Valentine’s Day to choose their mates.

26. Legend of Good Women, also a dream vision, depicted a series of legends and saints’ lives of Cupid’s martyrs (women) who were betrayed by false men and died for love. Troilus and Criseyde told the story of how Trojan Prince Troilus loved and finally lost Criseyde to the Greek warrior Diomede.

27. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer embraced many facets, including prose and poetry; human and divine love; French, Italian, and Latin sources; secular and religious influences; comedy and philosophy. Chaucer had the gift of being able to view with both sympathy and humor the behaviors, beliefs and pretensions of the diverse people who comprised the level of society.

28. Chaucer had in mind discriminating readers whom he might expect to share his sense of humor and his complex attitudes toward the company of sundry folk who made the pilgrimage to Canterbury. In The Canterbury Tales, the host proposes two stories for each pilgrim to tell on the way to Canterbury and two more on the way back.

29. The original plan of The Canterbury Tales projected 120 stories for 29 pilgrims and one host, but only completed 24 stories. Indeed, the pilgrims even never got to Canterbury. Chaucer’s pilgrim narrators represent a wide spectrum of ranks and occupations.

30. The variety of tells is matched by the diversity of their tales: tales are assigned to appropriate narrators and juxtaposed to bring out contrasts in genre, style, tone, and values. The Knight’s courtly romance about the rivalry of two noble lovers for a lady is followed by the Miller’s fabliau of the seduction of an old carpenter’s young wife by a student.

31. Chaucer conducted two fictions simultaneously—that of the individual tale and that of the pilgrim to whom he had assigned it. The General Prologue is the ink and the interchange among pilgrims connecting the stories. The Miller’s Tale offends the reeve, and he retaliates with a story to the miller.

32. In The General Prologue, the ideal Knight is a person who has taken in all the major expeditions and battles of the crusades. His fashionably dressed son, the Squire, is a typical lover. We also see the lady Prioress, the hunting Monk, the flattering Friar practicing a little vanities and the larger vices in church.

33. Among the middle class, we see the prosperous Franklin, the fraudulent Doctor, the lusty and domineering Wife of Bath, and the austere Parson. For the lower class, we meet the spellbinding Preacher and Mercenary, and the Pardoner, peddling his paper indulgences and phony relics.

34. Chaucer claimed that the pilgrims are portraits of actual people. The impression that the pilgrims are drawn from life is also the function of Chaucer’s art. Chaucer has selected his details to give an integrated sketch of the person being described and the current society.

35. The pilgrims’ facial features, the clothes they wear, the food they like to eat, the things they say, the work they do are all clues not only to their social rank but to their moral and spiritual condition and, through the accumulation of detail, to the condition of late medieval society, of which, collectively, they are representative.

36. The reader is left free to draw out the ironic implications of details presented with such seeming artlessness and the easygoing mood of Chaucer’s humor in The General Prologue and The Canterbury Tales.

37. William Caxton: The first English printer Morte Darthur (Death of Arthur): Malory’s volume Preface: The noble histories of King Arthur and of certain of his knights

38. Malory’s volume The volume begins with the mythical story of Arthur’s birth. King Uther Pendragon falls in love with the wife of one of his barons. (King Lear’s bastard) Merlin’s magic transforms Uther into the likeness of her husband, and Arthur is born of this union.

39. The volume ends with the destruction of the Round Table and the deaths of Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and Sir Lancelot, who is Arthur’s best knight and the Queen’s lover. The bulk of the work is taken up with the separate adventures of the knights of the Round Table.

40. There is strong circumstantial evidence that the book from which the Arthurian legends were passed on to future generations to be adapted in literature, art, and film was written in prison by a man whose violent career (escaping from prison, twice breaking and plundering the Abbey, extorting money, and committing rape) might seem at odds with the chivalric ideals he professes.

41. Nostalgia for an ideal past that never truly existed is typical of much historical romance. Malory’s Arthurian world is a fiction. Much of the tragic power of his romance lies in his sense of the irretrievability of past glory in comparison with the sordidness of his own age.

42. Malory’s chivalry is primarily devoted to the fellowship and competitions of aristocratic men. Fighting consists mainly of single combats in tournaments, chance encounters, and battles, which Malory never tires of describing in professional detail.

43. Malory cherishes an aristocratic male code of honor for which his favorite word is “worship.” men win or lose “worship” through their actions in war and love.

44. The most “worshipful” of Arthur’s knights is Sir Lancelot, the “head of all Christian knights,” as he is called in a moving eulogy by his brother, Sir Ector.

45. But Lancelot is compromised by his fatal liaison with Arthur’s queen and torn between the incompatible loyalties that bind him as an honorable knight, on the one hand, to his lord Arthur, and, on the other hand, to his lady Guinevere.

46. Malory loves his character Lancelot even to the point that , after Lancelot admitted to the queen’s chamber, their activities might have been innocent, because “love that time was not as love is nowadays.”

47. When the jealousy and malice of two wicked knights forces the affair of Lancelot and Guinevere into the open, nothing can avert the breaking up of the fellowship of the Round Table and the death of Arthur himself. Malory expresses the somber magnificence as the passing of a great era.

48. The Sixteenth Century The Age of Renaissance The Age of Discovery

49. The Age of Reformation Roman Catholic Church: The Catholics Church of England: The Protestants

50. Romance-Epic: The Elements of Medieval Romances The Features of Classical epic poetry