Lecture 2 The history of Middle English literature (1150-1485)

FABLES AND FABLIAUX 
In urban literature fables and fabliaux were also popular. Fable is a short tale or 
prolonged personification with animal characters intended to convey a moral truth; 
it's a myth, a fiction, a falsehood. It's a short story about supernatural or extraordinary 
persons or incidents. Fabliaux are funny metrical short stories about cunning 
humbugs and the unfaithful wives of rich merchants. These tales were popular in 
medieval France. These stories were told in the dialects of Middle English. They 
were usually comic, frankly coarse and often cynical. The urban literature did not 
idealize characters as romances did. Fabliaux show a practical attitude to life.
In Middle English literature the hero of earlier times now became the man of 
romance, as love poetry began to come in, first of all from the south of France. 
Women began to appear more in poetry, usually as objects of desire and perfection, 
but later also as very human beings with feelings of their own. The literature of 
Europe, particularly France and Italy, began to influence English writers, and there 
was a clear desire to begin a purely English tradition in literature and in history. 
However, wars and tragedies null look place. There was still to be the Hundred Years 
War between France and England (1337—1453), as well as the Wars of 1 lie Roses 
between the royal houses of Lancaster and York for the throne of England. And in 
the mid thirteenth century the Black Death brought illness and death to millions of 
people all through the country. There were social problems, too, with the Peasants’ 
Revolt of 1381. 
The first histories, by the Venerable Bede (eighth century), Nennius (ninth 
century) and Geoffrey of Monmouth (about 1136), 1 crated a sense of national 
historical and mythical identity. The name of King Arthur became important as a 
figure from the dark past of history, and he later became a symbol of English history 
for many centuries. Layamon, one of the first authors to see himself as a writer of 
history, put together Brut (late twelfth century), an epic history which took British 
history right back to classical Greek and Roman sources. Brut brought together many 
themes and figures which returned in later literature, and is an important text in the 
history of writing in English, just at the time when English was developing as a 
language and a culture. The popular culture of ballads and songs grew at the same 
time nit the first great masterpieces of English literature were written. There was 
also a major text for women, but written by a man, The Ancrene Riwle or The 
Ancrene Wisse. It is a book of advice for women who want to join the religious life 
(the title means rules of wisdom for nuns). It was probably written about 1220, and 
is considered one of the greatest prose works in Middle English. 

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King Arthur
is a legendary British leader who, according to medieval 
histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the late 
5th and early 6th centuries AD. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed 
of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed 
by modern historians. The sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from 
various sources, including the 
Annales Cambriae
, the 
Historia Brittonum
, and the 
writings of Gildas. Arthur's name also occurs in early poetic sources such as 
Y 
Gododdin
.