Topic 43

The topic we have picked for this competitive exam is number forty-three 'Medieval Literature of Oral Transmission: The Arthurian Legend, Geoffrey Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales.' To develop this topic, we have adhered to the official name, provided ? the Order of September ?th, ?. Consequently, we will open the document with an introductory section. Section two will examine medieval and ? literature. In section three, we will study the A? Legend, its origins and development through the different authors who contributed to it. In section four, we will move on to explore Geoffrey ?, specifically his greatest contribution to English literature, The Canterbury Tales. We will finish this paper with a conclusion and the references consulted for its design. Before we begin to dissect this topic, let us explain its relev?. This topic stands out because it deals with the Arthurian L?. Arthur was a key figure in many stories told through the Middle Ages, and in England he became associated with many specific locations becoming part of England's living history. As English-speaking people moved out into the rest of the world during the colonial period, something of a fondness for Arthurian stories went with them. This topic also studies Geoffrey Chaucer, known as the father of English literature and poetry, and The Canterbury Tales, which, even though unfinished, has widely deemed to be the f? major work of English literature and the f? major work of English poe?.

1.Introduction. Oral T? is understood as the spre? or passing on of material by word of m?. Before the development of wr? and the rise of lit?, oral transmission, and memo? were the most common me? by which narr? and poetic art could spread through a culture. For a century or so a? the Norman Conquest, we find little literature in English. The works written at the beginning of what historians call the Mi? English period, from a little b? 1200 to the end of the ?th century, suggest that there was constant interaction between Latin, F?, and English. The present topic deals with the medieval period, which is dated in English history between the years ? and 1480. It was the time marked by a trans? from the Old English period in the development of the English language to the Middle English. It was also at that time that traditional literary types, e? and ballad began to appear in writing, together with a new oral form called rom?. Both the oral tradition and the written versions coexisted during the period and the characteristics of the former will occupy the first part of this presentation.

2. Medieval and Oral Literature Oral literature is a product of ill? or semiliterate societies. It is usually sung or chan? and it precedes written po?. The stories which are the base of different literary forms of the period are told (or sung) again and again with all sorts of variations. E? and b? have their roots in the o? culture and, together with rom? and sh? poems, formed the body of the oral tradition in the Middle Ages. Poetry of that time was mostly re? and the identified poets include Ca? and Cyne?. Traditional epics involve my? and legends. Like later romances, they are full of her? exploits of their characters and often embedded in sup? and my? atmospheres. B? was the most famous and the longest surviving epic in O? English, written c. 1000 in the West S? dialect. It is set in Scandinavia and it describes the great deeds of the heroic warrior Beowulf.

2. Medieval and Oral Literature. Ballads are told through di? and action. The so-called ballad me? was used and it was a qu? of alternate four or three s? lines, rhymed 'a-b-c-b' (iambic). The written versions of traditional ballads indicate that they often drew their th? from comm? life, local and national h?, legend, and fo?. Robin Hood, for example, an outlaw hero of English folklore, made his appearance in traditional ballads be? entering other types of literature. Scholars divide the sub? matter of rom? into thr? groups, “The Matter of Br?” (the Arthurian legend), “The Matter of France” (exploits of Cha?), and “The Matter of R?” (classical tales). The following section will present the phenomenon of the Arthurian legend in E? literature as an example of romance. We have consulted Archibald, E., Putter, A., J. A. The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend.

3. The Arthurian Legend The Matter of Britain or the Arthurian legend is a name given coll? to the legends that concern the C? and legendary history of the ? Isles, especially, those focused on King Ar? and the Knights of the R? Table. The legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is the most powerful and end? in the Western world. King Arthur, ?, and Sir Lan? did not exist. Still, their names conjure up a romantic image of gal? knights in sh? armor, elegant la? in medieval castles, heroic quests f? the Holy G? in a world of ho? and romance, and the court of C? in a royal and m? Britain. Arthur was first identified as a fictional high king from Britain’s past by a monk of W? origin, Geoffrey of ?, who chronicled Historia Regum Britanniae - The History of the Kings of Britain - early in the ?th century. In a masterpiece of medieval prose, he defined the earliest co? version of the Arthurian legend.

3.1. Main characters The most important characters referred to in the Arthurian Legend are: -Arthur: Son of Uther P? and Ig?, Arthur is given to Merlin the mag?, who later counsels him in all matters. Sir Ec? raises the boy until he p? the sword, Excalibur, from the s?. He then becomes the mightiest k? of his time. -Guinevere: Arthur’s w? and also Lancelot’s ?. Though she remains politically lo? to Arthur, she is in love with Sir ?. She is the embodiment of royal female v? to the Knights of the Round Table. She is the f? principle for which they are willing to f? and die. -Lancelot: Generally considered to be the greatest of Arthur’s ?, he is rivaled only by ? for his courage, loyalty, and military pr?. His only downfall is his questions about f? and his desire f? Guinevere.

3.1 Main characters -Merlin: A en? figure with a strange an?, Ench? and counsellor of Uther Pendragon and his s? King Arthur. He helped Arthur from the time the young prince pulled a s? from a stone and became king. -Gawain: One of King L?'s sons, he is knighted by Arthur and sits at the Round Table. -Galahad: Elayne’s and ’s son. Galahad is the knight who achieves the G? Quest. -Sir ?: Arthur’s illegitimate s? from an ? relationship. Destined to ? Arthur, Mordred ev? kills him during the final battle on S? Plain.

3.2 Plot We must bear in mind that the story ch? from one author to another, there are additions, ex?, and lots of variations in ch? and happenings. In some works, in the 13th century, the two main th? are the winning of the G? and the l? story of Lan? and Guinevere.

3.3 Origins and development The Arthurian legend is the body of s? concerning King Arthur themes and in?, the establishment of the R? Table, and the Quest for the G? treated by medieval w?. The story of Arthur originated with the particular branch of C? settled in W? before the ?th century, but the Arthurian legend as known today is almost wholly the creation of the F? Middle Ages.

3.4. Geoffrey of Monmouth He can be considered as the st? point of Arthur's startling rise to pop?. His work Through Historia R? Britanniae (1135), Geoffrey Monmouth created the fictional history of a glorious Britain ruled by Arthur. Geoffrey of Monmouth's two chief contributions to the book are the stories of M? and the fact that Arthur was not content with repelling the Saxons; conquering Scotland, Norway, and F?, and even defeating a R? army.

3.5 Wace In the year of Geoffrey of Monmouth's death (1155), Wace com? his version of the Historia Regum Britanniae in the Roman de B?. Wace adds a few names and the most important additions are some comments on the Round T?, which are the earliest references in literature, and also some comments on Arthur's s?.

3.6 Layamon Layamon made an ex? version of Wace's R? de Brut. Brut, also known as The Chronicle of Britain, is important in literary history for including the e? surviving English romantic legends of King Arthur. But it was from France, especially from the writings of Chrétien de Troyes in the ?th century that the romance, which derives mainly from F?, got its best influences.

3.7 Chrétien de Troyes Chrétien de Troyes is one of the great names of French Literature and certainly one of the most eminent in A? literature. He may have been the progenitor of Arthurian R?, but he is usually thought of as at least its ad? father. It was Chrétien who first gave prestige to the Matter of B? as it was fecundated by the French genius. Chrétien's Le Conte Du G? (c. 1180) introduces the theme of the Holy G? into the Arthurian story.

3.8 The Survival of the Arthurian Legend The legend was transmitted to the later English-speaking world by Sir Thomas M?, being him the man to whom Arthurian romance owes its s? in the English-s? world.

3.9 Sir Thomas Malory L? Morte d'Arthur is eight romances that span twenty-? books with 507 chapters. The work was originally titled The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table, but printer William C? changed it to Le Morte d'Arthur before he printed it in 1485, as well as making several other ed? changes. Thanks to the chronicles and Malory, the legend remained alive in the 17th century. Mil? meditated an epic on Arthur. It again became popular in the V? era and enjoyed a second revival in the works of Tennyson, Swin?, and others. In the 20th century, an American poet, E. A. R? wrote an Arthurian trilogy in verse, and in England, T. H. White retold the stories in a series of novels collected as The O? and Future King (c. 1958). After dealing with The Arthurian Legend in detail, it is time to analyze another important section in this topic, Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales. To do that, we have referred to Steve Ellis. Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales.

4. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales. // 4.1 His Life. 13? is usually given as Chaucer’s birth date. The Hundred Years' War had broken out a few years before. This age was an age of r? schism exacerbated by two rival popes; the age of Wy?, the church reformer and according to tradition the first t? of the Bible into English. An age of social unrest and upr?. We know that Chaucer was a public man as well as a poet; an eminent civil servant, diplomat, administrator, Justice of the Peace, and Member of P?; his wife, Philippa P?, was closely connected with the court. Chaucer died on 25 October 1400, in a house leased by him in the gardens of W? Abbey, and he was buried in the Abbey, in what has since then come to be called the “Poet’s Corner”. He portrays himself in his books as shy, naive, a lover of solitude and daisies, bookish, and un? in love and marriage. This may represent an aspect of him, but the very techniques he uses in self-? reveal a sophisticated artist, a subtle ps?, and a brilliant thinker and master of words. To understand the ir? with which he treats himself is to begin to appreciate the hum?, sympathy, and hu? with which he treats the rest of humanity, and indeed the whole un?.

4.2 His Works His works can be divided into three different areas: -French influence This section belongs to his first years as a poet, with a not very c? and immature st? certainly influenced by F? works. To this stage belongs his first important piece of poe?, The Book of the Duc? (1369), and The House of F? (1379). -Italian influence In this second section, Chaucer shows a lot more creativity and originality in his works with a remarkable poetry tech?. The Parliament of F?, a poem of 699 lines is a d? vision of St Valentine's Day. His next poem T? and Criseyde (1385), which some critics consider Chaucer's f? work. Also, in the 1380s Chaucer produced his fourth and final dream-v? poem, Legend of G? Women.

-English influence: The Canterbury Tales In this section, Chaucer shows his per? in poetry with the writing of his The C? Tales. The Canterbury Tales (Middle English: Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of ? stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in M? English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are in pr?) are presented as part of a story-telling c? by a group of pil? as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the sh? of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free m? at the Tabard Inn at S? on their return. It has been suggested that the greatest contribution of The Canterbury Tales to English literature was the popularization of the English v? in mainstream lit?, as opposed to French, Italian, or Latin.

Canterbury Tales In the General Prologue, some ? pilgrims are introduced. According to the Prologue, Chaucer intended to write f? stories from the perspective of each pil?, tw? each on the way to and ? their ultimate des?, St. Thomas Becket's shrine (making for a total of about 120 stories). Although incomplete, The Canterbury Tales is revered as one of the most im? works in English literature. It is also open to a wide range of interpretations. The incompleteness of the Tales led several med? authors to write additions and supp? to the tales to make them more complete. These emendations included various expansions of the C?'s Tale, which Chaucer never finished, The Plowman's Tale, The Tale of G?, the Siege of Th?, and the Tale of Be?.

SOURCES No other work before Chaucer's is known to have set a collection of tales within the framework of pilgrims on a pilgrimage. It is obvious that Chaucer b? portions, sometimes very large portions, of his stories from ea? stories, and that his work was influenced by the general state of the literary world in which he lived. Harold Bl? suggests that the structure is mostly or?, but inspired by the "pilgrim" figures of D? and Vir? in The Divine C?. The D? by Giovanni Boccaccio contains more parallels to The Canterbury Tales than any other work. Like the Tales, it features several nar? who tell stories along a jour? they have undertaken.

STRUCTURE In the General P?, Chaucer describes not the tales to be told, but the pe? who tell them, making it clear that str? will depend on the charac? rather than a general th?. General themes and points of view arise as the characters tell their tales, which are res? to by other characters in their tales, sometimes creating a long lapse in which the theme has not been addressed. Lastly, Chaucer does not pay much attention to the pro? of the t?. His writing of the story seems focused primarily on the ? being told, and not on the pil? itself.

STYLE The v? of Chaucer's tales shows the breadth of his sk? and his familiarity with many literary f?, linguistic styles, and rhe? devices. Medieval schools of rhetoric at the time encouraged such diversity, dividing literature (as Virgil suggests) into high, middle, and low styles as measured by the density of rhetorical forms and vocabulary. With this, Chaucer avoids targeting any specific audience or social class of r?, focusing instead on the characters of the story and writing their tales with a skill proportional to their social s? and learning.

Historical Context and Themes The Canterbury Tales was written during a tur? time in English history. The Catholic Church was amid the Western Sc? and, although it was still the only Christian authority in Western Europe, it was the subject of heavy con?. After analysis of Chaucer's diction and historical context, his work appears to develop a cri? of society during his lifetime. Religion The Tales reflect diverse vi? of the Church in Chaucer's E?. After the B? Death, many Europeans began to qu? the authority of the established Church. Several characters in the Tales are rel? figures, and the very setting of the pilgrimage to Canterbury is rel?, making religion a significant th? of the work.

Social Class and Convention The Tales constantly reflect the conflict between classes. For example, in the division of the three estates: the characters are all divided into three distinct classes, the classes being "those who pray" (the cl?), "those who fight" (the ?), and "those who work" (the commoners and ?). Influence on Literature It is sometimes argued that the greatest contribution that this work made to English literature was in pop? the literary use of vernacular English, rather than French or L?. English had, however, been used as a literary language for centuries b? Chaucer's life. It is unclear to what extent Chaucer was responsible for starting a t? rather than simply being part of it.

5. Topic Implications. The main teaching focus of this topic is clear: the Arthurian Legend. It is a very motivating and interesting topic to introduce in the classroom and it is our responsibility to make it f? and didactic for the students. We can tackle King Arthur and his legend with challenging web? for the students. In the form of texts and questions, they can learn about the story and myths of King Arthur and the Round Table. We cannot forget its literary component and how it might help foster reading in our students since this may be a topic appealing to them when we use it as a g? reader. The content of this topic connects especially with the legislation in force, LOMLOE 3/2020 and Royal Decrees 217 & 243/2022, the national decrees that regulate the curricula in the Spanish territory for Secondary Education and Bachillerato, and Decree ? in Murcia. It is stated in content block ?, 'Interculturality', that students must be familiar with the socio-cultural values of the foreign language. The content of this topic deals with the competence in linguistic comm? and it also touches on the cultural awareness and expression and operational descriptors CAE 1, and CAE 2, because learning a language is also learning its culture, which is stated in Annex 1 of Royal Decree ?/2022.

6. Conclusion Let us finish off this paper by stating that this is arguably one of the most app? topics in the set. It deals with the Art? Legend which has remained popular and ali? for centuries because it is a timeless tale of adventure, ch?, and romance. The tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table have been retold in countless forms, from medieval romances to modern films and te? shows. The characters are archetypal and relatable, and the themes of honor, lo?, and the quest for the Holy G? continue to resonate with audiences. Additionally, the Arthurian legend has been passed down through the centuries through oral tradition, which has contributed to its longevity. We have also covered The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer in detail, one of the most famous examples of medieval literature and considered to be a c¿ of English literature. Besides, it is undeniable how well they fit into the foreign language classroom. In that sense, they are timeless topics. As Joseph Campbell stated, “You don’t have to believe there was a King Arthur to find significance to these stories.” All in all, we hope the readers enjoyed this paper, finding it attractive and informative, which was, after all, the main purpose of this competitive exam.