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Category: English Composition
Date Submitted: 10/05/2014 01:50 PM
Social Structures in Middle English Literature
Laura Jo Dethloff
ENG/493
September, 29, 2014
Anna Wheatley
Social Structures in Middle English Literature
There is no other time frame of English literature like the era known as Middle English
Literature. This era of this particular literature and its writers are unique because the literature
pieces that were created to be part of Middle English literature covers a wide span of years with
many different types of literacy achievements. Within this literature era there is a thousand year
period between 500 and the 1500s. Another quality that make the pieces in Middle English
Literature unique and set apart from all other literature time frames is there is no real historical
event or central movement such as reformation, war, or restoration to contribute to the writers
thought process while they were jotting down words to create many of the pieces within the
Middle English Literature era. Literature pieces such as The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight by Sir Gawain himself, and The Tale of Philomene
and Tereus by John Gower were written based on the social structure of the time.
“The literary culture of the Middle Ages was far more international than national and was
divided more by lines of class and audience than by language. Latin was the language of the
Church and of learning. After the eleventh century, French became the dominant language of
secular European literary culture. Edward, the Prince of Wales, who took the king of France
prisoner at the battle of Poitiers in 1356, had culturally more in common with his royal captive
than with the common people of England. And the legendary King Arthur was an international
figure. Stories about him and his knights originated in Celtic poems and tales and were adapted
and greatly expanded in Latin chronicles and French romances even before Arthur became an
English hero” (Norton,...