Периоды английской литературы. Карпова В.А. - 5 стр.

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       The principal        interest of “Confessio Amantis” is as a collection
of tales. Many of them appear to have come originally from Ovid, and all appear
to be among the innumerable tales which were in circulation in this great age of
tale-telling and had become part of medieval tradition, both oral and written.
       Much of English medieval poetry - particularly the alliterative poems of
the West Midlands and the North-West – is very unlike Chaucer’s poetry in
important respects and, indeed, makes a most stimulating and interesting
contrast with it. These alliterative poems show by comparison in what respects
Chaucer was an innovator in English – the extent to which he brought English
poetry into accord with the poetry of France and Italy, and also what he did that
was new not only in English but in European literature.
       The masterpiece among the alliterative poems which have survived from
the fourteenth century is undoubtedly “Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight”. But
there are others which in their nature may properly be grouped with that
poem, and which are scarcely less masterly; these include the alliterative “Morte
Arthur”, “The Parlement of the Thre Ages”, and “The Destruction of Troy”.
       “Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight” tells of the adventures of one of
King Arthur’s knights, Sir Gawayne, in a struggle against the Green Knight who
possessed some magic powers as well as great strength and cunning. Sir
Gawayne finishes his adventures with all honour and gets Arthur’s delighted
laughter for his pains.
       The story of Sir Gawayne is very ancient and there are analogues in both
early Celtic and French documents. But all we can see for certain is that the
story is widely dispersed and may have been of remote Celtic origin. It is written
in an English dialect and has vast rhythmic resources and possibilities. The
“Gawayne” poet’s form of English or dialect is that of a community in a rough,
mountainous country with a scattering of castles. The Gawayne poet’s dialect
reflects the uniqueness of his place and generation and the triumph of “Sir
Gawayne” is largely rhythmic. It is essential to read the poem aloud to enable
the masterly rhythm to come into play. Perhaps the author of Gawayne also
wrote “Pearl” and “Patience”, two of the best alliterative poems of the time.
“Pearl” has been preserved on the same manuscript as “Sir Gawayne and the
Green Knight” and is in the same dialect. Pearl was the name of the poet’s
daughter, who died at the age of two; but he is comforted when, in a dream, he
sees her in heaven. “Patience” is the story of Jonah who was thrown into the sea
and swallowed by an immense creature of the sea, which carried him to the
place where God wished him to go.
       “Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight” is a fourteenth-century metrical
romance. This term is applied both to medieval verse romances and to the type
of verse romances produced by Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron. There are
about sixty English medieval metrical romances extant. They appear to belong
to stages in the transition – during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth
centuries – from oral poetry to written composition. Many of these tales have
been regarded as Celtic, and their principal channel of development into French
and English and German as the Breton story – tellers who were bilingual. As

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