English Literature / Unit 20 ENL 1903 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
The Middle Ages in Review
The idea
Review the Middle Ages, ten percent of the exam, in three parts. Old English: alliterative half-lines with a caesura and kennings, in Beowulf's monsters and heroic code, The Dream of the Rood and the elegies of exile, all read in translation. Chaucer: the Canterbury Tales' frame of pilgrims, the General Prologue's portraits and irony, the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner, and his couplets and rhyme royal. The rest: Sir Gawain's challenge and girdle, Malory's Arthur, the ballads, the mystery and morality plays such as Everyman, and the mystics Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. For any medieval passage, ask first whether it is Old English or Middle English, then whether it is heroic, courtly, comic or devotional.
In practice
Old English, Chaucer, the rest.
Where people slip
Do not confuse Old English, read in translation, with Chaucer's Middle English. Spelling and form separate them.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
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