Social Structure in Middle English Literature

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,...