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The Owl and the Nightingale

Written anonymously (sometimes attributed to Nicholas de Guildford of Dorsetshire)in Dorset at the middle of the thirteenth century, The owl and the nightingale,, is aninteresting account of the attempts to find a proper literary form. The poem betrays thehesitation of English poets between the Old Anglo-Saxon devices and those imported

from France. Written in 2,000 lines of octosyllabic couplets, it describes a debatebetween the sober owl and the merry nightingale as to their respective merits. The

debate follows the rules of the scholastic disputations, as they were held in the lawschools and universities. Both contestants use every device of medieval rhetoric to

prove that they are of the highest use to mankind. During the debate they touch uponnearly every topic of contemporary interest: fore-knowledge, music, confession, papalmissions, ethics and morals, happy marriage and adultery, and so on. In the end thebirds set out to meet the judge whose verdict remains concealed.1The owl symbolises

the old serious manner of singing, whilst the nightingale stands for the new minne-poetry. Later in the story, the nightingale fights for outward beauty, while the owl

aims at worldly life and moral beauty. The allegory may represent the argumentbetween asceticism and pleasure, philosophy and art, or the older didactic poetry andthe newer secular love poetry. Conversational diction, humor, and dramatic touchesmake this poem one of the best of the period.2 Critics have also suggested that the owlstands for the religious poet and the nightingale for the poet of love.

Pearl

Pearl3 is a Middle Englishalliterativepoem written in the late fourteenth century and

attributed to the Gawain poet.

4

The poem, a dreamvision, is composed of 101 stanzasof 12 lines each with the ababababbcbc rhyme scheme. Stanzas are grouped in units of

five (except for XV, which has six). The poem may be divided into three parts: anintroduction, a dialogue between the two main characters in which the Pearl instructs

the narrator, and a description of the New Jerusalem with the narrator's awakening.

In sections I - IV (stanzas 1- 20), the narrator, distraught at the loss of his Pearl,

falls asleep and begins to dream that he is transported to a beautiful country.Wandering by the side of a beautiful stream, he thinks that paradise is on the othershore and he attempts to cross the stream. He meets a young maid whom he identifiesas his Pearl. She welcomes him.

In sections V - VII (stanzas 21 - 35), he asks the maid whether she is the pearl hehas lost. She explains to him that he has lost nothing, that his pearl is merely a rosewhich has naturally withered. The narrator expresses his wish to cross to her side, but

1http://user.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/~holteir/companion/Navigation/Anonymous_Texts/

Owl_and_the_Nightingale/owl_and_the_nightingale.html, last accessed on January, 3, 2006.2 The Owl and the Nightingale, in The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05, retrieved from

http://www.bartleby.com/65/ow/OwlNNigh.html, last accessed on January 3, 2006.3

The manuscript,Cotton Nero A.x is in the British Museum.J.R.R. Tolkienand E.V. Gordon began the first

modern edition of the text in the 1920s, but it remained unpublished until 1953.4Apart from having created Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Pearl, he may have written also Patience,

and Cleanness andSt. Erkenwald.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Englishhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poemhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_centuryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gawain_poethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_(religion)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanzashttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jerusalemhttp://www.bartleby.com/65/ow/OwlNNigh.htmlhttp://www.bartleby.com/65/ow/OwlNNigh.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bruce_Cottonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bruce_Cottonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Museumhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Museumhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.R.R._Tolkienhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.R.R._Tolkienhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.R.R._Tolkienhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.V._Gordonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patience_(poem)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanness_(poem)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Erkenwald_(poem)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Erkenwald_(poem)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Erkenwald_(poem)http://www.bartleby.com/65/ow/OwlNNigh.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bruce_Cottonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Museumhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.R.R._Tolkienhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.V._Gordonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patience_(poem)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanness_(poem)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Erkenwald_(poem)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Englishhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poemhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_centuryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gawain_poethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_(religion)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanzashttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jerusalem


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she says that he must resign himself to the will and mercy of God. She also tells himthat the Lamb has taken her as His queen.

In sections VIII - XI (stanzas 36 - 60), the narrator wonders whether she hasreplaced Mary as Queen of Heaven. She responds that all are equal members of the

body of Christ and recounts the parable of the vineyard. He does not agree with hersaying that God rewards every man by his works, yet she re-asserts that God gives the

same gift of Christ's redemption to all.

In sections XII - XV (stanzas 61 - 81), she instructs him on several aspects of sin,

repentance, grace and salvation. She wears the Pearl of Great Price because she hasbeen washed in the blood of the Lamb. That is why she advises him to forsake all andbuy this pearl.

With sections XVI - XX (stanzas 82 - 101), the poem ends. The narrator asks

about the heavenly Jerusalem and he hears that it is the city of God. He would like to

go there, but, according to the beautiful maid, this is forbidden by God. They walkupstream, he sees the city across the stream described in a paraphrase of theApocalypse. In his desperate attempt to cross, he plunges into the river and thus he

awakes from the dream. The conclusion of the poem is that he will resolve to fulfillthe will of God.

The Age of Chaucer

The fourteenth century marked the formation of the English nation. Feudalismdisintegrated rapidly, the first element of bourgeois society appeared on the stage of

English history, the various regions of the country were unified in one state.

An extremely important element concerning the fourteenth century Englishliterature is that the works of this age were written primarily in English. This resultedfrom the fact that law courts and schools started to use English instead of French.

Irrespective of the way literature was being produced in England during this timeand, whatever was written in England, expressing English thought and reflectingEnglish social and intellectual conditions can rightly be considered a part of thenational literature. Medieval literature was highly didactic, since almost everything

written had a moral purpose, and it was highly impersonal.

Most of the fourteenth century works was anonymous and the main interest was

in the poem rather than in the poet and reproduction by hand gave literature acommunal character. The use of old, authoritative sources was considered something

that added value to books.

The Land of Cockaygne

The Land of Cockaygne is an anonymous poem composed in the fourteenth century and

connected with the Peasants Rising. It survived in only one manuscript, London,British Library, Harley MS 913. There are three main traditions that are drawn on in the

poem: classical tradition: going back to Lucian's True History, a Greek work of the

second century AD, Christian Tradition, as the poem includes descriptions of bothHeaven and the Earthly Paradise and Goliardic verse. The Land of Cokaygnecontains
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one Latin poem of the twelfth century (Carmina Burana 222) whichis recited by anabbas Cucaniensis, an 'abbot of Cockaygne' who presides over drinking andgambling, and the descriptions of the two abbeys in Cockaygne, which invert theusual norms of religious life, echo themes found elsewhere in Goliardic poetry (e.g.

the description of the ordo vagorum in Cum in orbem universum, Carmina Burana219).5

John Gower

John Gower (1328-1408) is a writer who used three languages in order to create hispoetry, which is enough proof to demonstrate that the fourteenth century was an ageof linguistic transition, when writers eventually started to use English. His poems arepolitical, historical or moral. John Gower wrote Speculum Meditantis (Miroir de

lHomme) in French, Vox Clamantis in Latin and Confessio Amantis in English. VoxClamantis focuses on different events that happened in the state of England and

includes commentaries on the Peasants Revolt. Gower seems to take the side of thearistocracy and to appreciate Richard IIs techniques of suppressing the revolt.Gowers most admired work, Confessio Amantis, a 30,000-line poem, written inoctosyllabic rhyming couplets, is structured similarly to a Christian confession which

represents the narrative frame within which the narrator introduces individual tales.Confessio Amantis is a dialogue first between the poet as a lover, and Venus, and

afterwards between the poet as a penitent, and Genius, whom Venus assigns to him asa confessor. The seven deadly sins are discussed and illustrated by tales borrowedfrom Ovid, Josephus, Vincent de Bauvais, Statius, the Gesta Romanorum, the Bible,and other sources. Double-edged epigrams mark the divisions in the text.

William Langland

William Langland (?1332-?1400) wrote The vision of Piers Concerning Piers thePlowman,6 a poem revolving around the theme of the dream and which combines

social satire with religious allegory.

The poem shows Langlands sympathy with the peasants oppressed by the feudal

lords and by the clergy. The name of Piers has become a by-name for an honest, hardworking, simple living labourer. As late as the seventeenth century on the eve of the

English Bourgeois Revolution Milton described Langland as a master of anti-feudalsatire.7 Therefore, the various adventures of Lady Meed (Bribery), the search of Piers

for Do-Well, Do-Bet and Do-Best, the confession of the Seven Deadly Sins representa glimpse into the corrupt ways of fourteenth century society. Even if the characters

are not flesh-and-blood characters, Langland succeeds in picturing them as real peoplewho are well individualised both physically and morally. The poem contains frequent

allusions to John Wyclif, Wat Tyler and John Ball.

5 Information provided at http://www.soton.ac.uk/~wpwt/trans/cockaygn/cockaygn.htm, last accessed onJanuary 3, 2006.6

William Langland is generally thought to be the author of Piers Plowman, but there is little proof

demonstrating Langland's existence. The single-author hypothesis of Piers has been disputed by severalmedievalists and text critics. John Matthews is the first one who considered Piers as the work of 2-5 authors.

Charlotte Brewer suggests that scribes and their supervisors could be regarded as editors with semi-authorialroles in the production of Piers Plowman and other early modern texts.7 Valeria Alcay (ed.) (1972), p. 58.
http://www.soton.ac.uk/~wpwt/trans/cockaygn/cockaygn.htmhttp://www.soton.ac.uk/~wpwt/trans/cockaygn/cockaygn.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Matthews_Manly&action=edithttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charlotte_Brewer&action=edithttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charlotte_Brewer&action=edithttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribeshttp://www.soton.ac.uk/~wpwt/trans/cockaygn/cockaygn.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Matthews_Manly&action=edithttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charlotte_Brewer&action=edithttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribes


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The structure of the poem is a commonplace in medieval literature; it is a vision,meaning an allegorical work of a religious, didactic or satirical character presented by

means of a succession of pictures seen in the form of a dream. It is written inunrhymed alliterative verse, divided into sections called passus (Latin for step) orcantos. There are three dream visions: the first one in which Holy Church and LadyMeed (representing the temptation of riches) woo the dreamer, the second one inwhich Piers leads a crowd of penitents in search of St. Truth, and the third one as thevision of Do-well (the practice of the virtues), Do-bet (in which Piers becomes the

Good Samaritan practicing charity), and Do-best (in which the simple plowman isidentified with Jesus himself). The structure of the poem is the following:

In The Prologue Langland falls asleep on a May morning on Malvern Hills, fromwhich, in his dream of vision, he sees the field full of folk, the high tower of Truth and

the deep dungeon of Wrong.

In passus 1-4 The Holy Church tells the poet about Falsehood and Lady Bribery

who are going to get married. The seven deadly sins are associated with the lives ofnuns and monks, merchants, etc. while Truth becomes a supreme aim of all thepenitents. Piers Plowman appears now for the first time, assuring all the company thathe knows the way leading to the tower of Truth. In passus 6 he puts them to work.

Passus 7 introduces the bull of pardon sent to Piers by Truth. A priest declares that itis not valid and the discussion between the two is so hot that the poet awakens.

The second part speaks about the supreme aim of life: to do well, to do better andto do best. Against a background of extremely complicated allegories, the poet falls

asleep several times, contemplates and criticises the low moral standards of his time.

Plowman leaves wisdom to his son. This social wisdom is intellectual wealth, and it isas significant as any physical property: heuristics preserved in wisdom can be aseffective a tool for social reproduction as the plow is for the generation of physical

sustenance.8

The Vision of Piers Concerning Piers the Plowman may be considered both a

theological and a religious work which blend medieval allegory with numerousfolklore allusions, such as proverbs and references to the rural life.

Levichi considers that a novelty of Langlands poem, apart from the stylisticdevices that he used, is the theme of empathy, illustrated by the participation of all

the social classes and strata in fieldwork, the way to Truth. Its implications found abelated reflection in A Kings Leason, a story by William Morris, who was so familiar

with the fourteenth century England; with the difference that by making MatthiasCorvinus oblige the noblemen to fieldwork under the peasants mocking eyes, Morris

places his narrative in the service of transparent revolutionary ideals, in accordeither with the ideals of the Peasants Revolts of 1381, or with such literary imitationsas Pierce the Ploughmans Crede (ab. 1394), for which Langlands poem was a guideand a stimulus.9

8Michael D. C. Drout, "Piers's Good Will: Langland's Politics of Reform and Inheritance in the C-Text" , in

Thomas H. Bestul and Thomas N. Hall (eds.), Allen J. Frantzen (online ed.), Essays in Medieval Studies, vol 13,

Social Practice in the Middle Ages, Proceedings of the Illinois Medieval Association, 1996, p. 53, retrievedfrom http://www.illinoismedieval.org/ems/VOL13/13ch5.html, last accessed on January 10, 2006.9 Leon Levichi (1974), p. 99.
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Coleridge. The book is in fact a literary fraud as it includes a series of lies andexaggerations. Mandeville claims to have served in the Great Khans army and to

have journeyed to the lands beyondcountries populated by dog-headed men,cannibals, Amazons, and pygmies.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) is honoured as Englands first poet of world stature.He brings a new spirit to fourteenth century English literature, a spirit equally

opposed to the theological and scholastic interpretation of the phenomena and to thetraditional versification of medieval poetry.13

When Chaucer was born, Edward III of the House of Plantagenet was on thethrone. Edward III was the son of the weak Edward II and of Isabella of France, who

had both misruled the country. Although guilty of breaches of good faith, frivolity,extravagance, and self-indulgence, Edward III made a sincere effort to reform the

government and we may say that to a large extent he managed to be a fairly goodruler.

Because of the royal houses interest in warfare and itswillingness to employ innovations instead of the traditional

methods of fighting, England in Chaucers century became thedominant military power of Europe; it achieved its supremacy

in the fourth decade of the century and held it for a hundredyears.14The feudal system was based on the idea that the king

was the owner of lands, yet he did not hold the entire realm butapportioned it out to the most important lords on the basis offavour and friendship. In their turn, the lords usually grantedtheir lands to sub-tenants. The other social class was

represented by peasants. There were peasant freemen, some ofwhom owned their own land, but most of whom held land from superior lords under

certain conditions, there were also villains (called in this way as they were attached toa vill or a manor), who were neither free nor slave.

At the time of Chaucers birth, according to critical and historical accounts in

1343, England was inhabited by less than 3,000,000 people. Among the importantlandowners were the monasteries, as the clergy constituted an important element ofthe feudal system. As continuing corporations, monasteries never relinquished what

they owned; and, by no means of gifts and purchases, they constantly increased thesize of their estates. But not all of the land of England was in large holdings, for the

peasants had a tremendous hunger for property. Slowly, but with almost a constantacceleration, many peasants rose from near slavery to full freedom.15

An important unfortunate event which occurred between 1348 and 1349 was thefirst visitation of the Black Death, a combination of pneumonic and bubonic plagues,

13

Valeria Alcay (ed.) (1972), p. 63.14 Edwin J. Howard (1964), p. 17.15Idem, p. 21.


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a dreaded disease which killed between a third and a half of the whole population ofEngland during the fourteenth century. The immediate result of so many deaths was a

great shortage of labour, which brought about a consequent increase in wages after1349. This made it possible for the villains to desert their ancestral lands to look for

better working conditions and better wages, in spite of the fact that Edward II tried tokeep the wages stable by issuing an ordinance in 1349, in cohesion with theParliament that enacted a Statute of Laborers in 1351 to fix the price of labour at therate that prevailed before the plague.

Another event to be mentioned is the Peasants Revolt in 1381, which has beendescribed by Edwin Howard as an effort to get rid of unjust taxation (characterized bythe hated poll taxes initiated by the Chancellor, Archbishop Sudbury), to commutelabour services into a payment of 4 d.a an acre and to allow the serf to work for

wages.16

Many books hold the view that the Middle Ages was a time of great spirituality.

Just by taking a glance at The General Prologue ofThe Canterbury Talesone can easilynotice that, with the exception of the Parson, who is rather an atypical character, therepresentatives of the church had their eyes very much on things of the terrestrialworld. In fact, in Chaucers time mysticism had been replaced by the steady growth of

materialism and the great religious movements, with their contempt for the joys andsorrows of earthly life, were a thing of the past.17

We know almost nothing of Chaucers education, with the exception that at anearly age he learned French, as it was the language that he had to speak at school, and

that he also studied Latin. He must have learnt Italian as well, as several sources of his

poems are to be found in Italian literature and they were not available in translation atthe time.

In 1357 he became a page in the household of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster and

Connaught, and wife of Prince Lionel, Duke of Clarence. Then he started his militaryservice with the English army in France in 1359. The next step in his career was when

he became an esquire in 1368. This is also the year when he had his first mission tothe Continent.

In 1369 Chaucer was in the army under the command of John of Gaunt when itwent on a raid into Picardy. In the same year Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster and the

first wife of John of Gaunt, died, quite a significant event in Chaucers career, as herdeath was the subject of his first lengthy poem.

In 1374, at Windsor on St. Georges Day, April 23, Edward III granted GeoffreyChaucer a pension of a daily pitcher of wine, a gift granted to him on account of his

civil service which had nothing to do with his poetry.

16Idem, p. 25.17Idem, p. 33.


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The starting date forThe Canterbury Tales is 1387, which is believed to be theyear of his wifes death. It has even been suggested that Chaucer made a pilgrimage to

Canterbury in connection with Philippas death, although we do not have any proof.We would rather adopt the second theory concerning his trip to Canterbury, that he

had often travelled the Pilgrims Way to Canterbury when passing between Londonand Dover to Calais, the firstimportant town in France which wasafter crossing the Channel.

Chaucer was appointed deputyforester for the Royal Forest of North

Petherton in Somerset in June 1391.

The coronation of King Henry

IV occurred on October 13, 1399. One ofHenrys first acts on the very day that he

received the crown was to renewChaucers annual pension for 20 pounds

granted in 1394 and the butt of winegranted in 1397. Henry added to these

grants an annuity of 40 marks forservices rendered and to be

rendered.18

According to the inscription on his

tomb, at Westminster Abbey,

Chaucer died on October 25, 1400,when he was fifty-six or fifty- seven.This is also the year of a plague which

struck, yet we cannot connectChaucers death to it. Therefore, we

may say that the keynotes ofChaucers life are its variety and comparative comfort. First a page, then a squire, andthen one of King Edward IIIs own personal attendants, later on a soldier fighting inthe Hundred Years War with France, in he became a Controller of the Custom on

wool and later wine in the port of London.

The sheer variety of his experience of life, the world of books mingling with theworld of affairs, the tactful subservience of the diplomat, the elegant refinement of thecourtier, the more straightforward practicality of the businessman, the expectations ofa sensitive yet privileged medieval male all these must figure in any full estimationof who Chaucer the man was.19

18Idem, p. 51.19 Rob Pope (2001), pp. 8-9.

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