27. William Langland. The Vision of Piers the Plowman

William Langland is the conjectured (предполагаемый) author of the 14^th – century English dream-vision ‘Piers Plowman’. Its attribution to Langland rests principally on the evidence of a manuscript held at Trinity College, Dublin. This directly ascribes (приписывается) ‘Perys Ploughman’ to one ‘Willielmi de Langlond’. Other manuscripts also name the author as ‘Robert or William Langland’. The poem itself also seems to point towards Langland’s authorship.

Almost nothing is known of Langland himself. His entire identity rests on a string of conjectures and vague hints (неопределённые намёки). It would seem that he was born in the West Midlands: Langland’s narrator receives his first vision while sleeping in the Malvern Hills, which suggests some level of attachment to this area. The dialect of the poem also implies that its author originated from this part of the country. Although his date of birth is unknown, there is a strong indication that he died in 1385-6. The rest of our knowledge of the poet can only be reconstucted from ‘Piers’ itself.

‘Piers Plowman’ is an apocalyptic allegorical narrative. It is written in unrhymed alliterative verse divided into sections called ‘passus’ (latin for ‘step’). The poem concerns the narrator’s intese quest for the true Christian life, in the terms of the medieval Catholic mind. That quests entails a series of dream-visions and an examination into the lives of three allegorical characters, Do-Wel (Do-Well), Do-Bet (Do-Better), and Do-Best, who are sought by Piers, the humble (скромный) plowman of the title.

28. Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales: the system of characters

The Canterbury Tales is a long poem made up of general introduction (The Prologue) and twenty-four stories, told in verse, by a cross section of English men and women. In ‘The Prologue’ the poet introducs us to the pilgrims who gather at the Tabard Inn at the start of the journey. The pilgrims fall into the three dominant groups that made up medieval society in England: the feudal group, the church group, and the city group. Chaucer describes each pilgrim, adding details and characterization as the tales progress. The pilgrims are individuals, but each is also representative of a professional or social group. In the excerpt (отрывок) from ‘The Prologue’ we will meet representatives of each group:

• The Feudal Group: knight (рыцарь), squire (сквайр), yeoman (мелкий землевладелец), franklin (недворянского происхождения), plowman (пахарь), miller (мельник), reeve (управляющий имением)

• The Church Group: nun (монахиня), monk (монах), friar (монах), cleric (церковник), parson (священник), summoner, pardoner (продавец индульгенций)

• The City Group: merchant (купец), wife of Bath, host (хозяин гостиницы)

29. Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales: similies, metaphors, epithets

A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two different things, usually by employing the words "like" or "as" – also, but less commonly, "if", or "than". A simile differs from a metaphor in that the latter compares two unlike things by saying that the one thing is the other thing. In Canterbury tales: they locks as curly as if they had been pressed, he was embroidered like a meadow bright, he was as fresh as the month of May, he slept as little as nightingale, he wasn’t pale like torment soul, his palfrey was as brown as a berry

A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes a subject by asserting that it is, on some point of comparison, the same as another otherwise unrelated object. Metaphor is a type of analogyand is closely related to other rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison or resemblance. In Canterbury Tales: and that a monk uncloistered is a more fish out of water, happing on the pier; he didn’t rate that text of plucked hen

An epithet is a descriptive term (word or phrase) accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It can also be a descriptive title: for example, Alexander the Great. In Canterbury tales: wonderful agility, meadow bright, a whistling wind, spacious way, bald and shore head, prominent equals