2/The Pre-Renaissance Period in England. Geoffrey Chaucer.

The Renaissance period is known for giving us some of the most important and influential work of all time. Pre-Renaissance art is typically considered art from about 1140 through the early 15th century, or the start of the Renaissance. The development of written literary tradition in European literature is closely connected with the spread of Christian religion. At the end of the 6th century Roman monks came again to Britain in order to convert people to Christianity. They landed in Kent and built their first church in Canterbury. Latin words entered the language of the Anglo-Saxons because the religious books were written in Latin. The monasteries became centers of learning and education. So for over two centuries communication in Britain went on in three languages: Latin (it was used in monasteries and churches), French (it was the official language of the state) and Anglo-Saxon (it was spoken by common people). In the middle of the 12th century Oxford universities (1168) and Cambridge universities (1209) were founded. In the literature of townsfolk we find the fable and the fabliau. Fables were short stories with animals for characters and having a moral. Fabliaux were funny metrical poems full of indecent jokes about cunning humbugs, silly old merchants and their unfaithful wives. The literature of the town did not idealise characters as romances did. Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 – 25 October 1400), known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. English poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the unfinished work, The Canterbury Tales. It is considered one of the greatest poetic works in English. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of over 20 stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century, during the time of the Hundred Years' War. The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. He uses the tales and the descriptions of its characters to paint an ironic and critical portrait of English society at the time, and particularly of the Church.

3/The Literature of the 15th Century. Folk-Songs and Ballads. The Robin Hood Ballads.

The introduction of the art of printing in England made books available at cheap prices to the commonality. Literacy also increased considerably and literature, hitherto a privileged pursuit of the elite, became more "popular" in the true sense of the word. Let us discuss the salient features and trends of the poetry of the fifteenth century. The ballad is another gift of the fifteenth century to English literature. Ballads constituted a considerable parti of English folk literature. They were transmitted orally from one generation to the next. Most of the ballads in England remain anonymous. The themes of most of the ballads are love, domestic tragedy, war, history, and the supernatural. The popular ballads (some thirty in number) concerning Robin Hood and his "merry men" are a class by themselves. Robin Hood is "the people's counterpart of aristocratic heroes like Sir Gawain". He is honest and God-fearing but bosses over and robs the cruel rich to mitigate the penury of the poor.