Unit 2 Norman Conquest

Unit 2 Norman Conquest

Plauge - middle class - skilled workers - merchant, clergical - cause the fall of french as the prestige language
-English vs. French - nobility prestige language didn't stay that way because then we would speak it today.
-Black plaguge hit largest in cities - large quantites of trash rats and population-Aristocracy survives but because many pesants die then the remaining pesants create the middle class.-Creates a class who has value who the aristocrats have to communicate eveyday

Geoffrey Chaucer (1200-1300)
-Moves english to be come prestigue language
-Born of th middle class
- could be come wealthy
-Became a servant in a royal household and worked his way up - became a member of the civil service
-Spent a lot of time in court - wrote poetry in EnglishLegit form of public expression Proves english is a language suitable for the arts and doing so legitimatized the language
-Canterbury tales his greatest works (14 orginal copies) copies not made unless someone wanted them

-Canterbury tales - canterburytales.org
-Frame narrative -pilgrams from London to Canterbury to visit the cathedral/shrine of thomas abeckett
-Narrative the pilgrams told the tales of pilgrams who made the journey. He wanted the 22 pilgrams who traveled to tell 2 on the way there and 2 on the way back


Assignments
-read the general prolouge
-memorization the 1st 18 lines of the Canterbury tales -the general prolouge

Bonus -options
1. Memorize in middle English as well as modern English and write
2. Memorize the modern English and recite it.
3. Memorize both modern and middle English and recite in middle English
* listen to online recordings

These are the notes from Thursday October 22, 2009


Kiera