Canterbury Tales

MIDDLE ENGLISH NOTES (con't...)

• mid Eng. began with Norman Invasion of 1066 CE; conquering king William only spoke French, so upper class spoke French and lower class spoke English
• after plague and new King Edward 1st, 1362 = English declared as official spoken language

CHARACTERISTICS THAT CHANGED

• Old Eng infinitives ended with -an; Mid Eng. dropped -an, added "to" before verbs
• third person pronouns (they, them, their) were borrowed from Scandinavian
• adverb ending -lic became -ly
• some pronounced consonants became silent (especially "w" in words such as "two," "sword," & "answer")
• physiognomy = how the facial/physical features help to determine personality characteristics

DEFINE:

• irony
• satire
• characterization

THE GODS' TEMPLES

• Venus - goddess of love (represents not only true love, but also unrequited love, lasciviousness, selfish love, etc.)
• Mars - god of war (represents not only justified war, but also violence in general, murder, suicide, etc.)
• Diana - goddess of celebacy (symbolized by woman dying in childbirth, as well as supporting privacy)

THE TALEs in-depth...

• power relationships between males and females (i.e. Hippolyta was queen of the Amazons [female-centered society], taken/forced to be wife of Theseus)
• what each tale's subject/themes say about the teller
• social and historical importance of each tale and each pilgrim