![]() Of these two great English alliterative poems, the second is entirely anonymous and the first virtually so. Piers Plowman and Sir Gawain: 14th century By contrast Chaucer, a poet of the court, ushers in a new era of English literature. Piers Plowman and Sir Gawain are masterpieces which look back to Old English. The hammer blows of alliteration are a type of verbal athleticism more likely to draw applause in a hall full of warriors.īoth traditions achieve a magnificent flowering in England in the late 14th century, towards the end of the Middle English period. Elegant or subtle rhymes have a courtly flavour. German poetry depends more on rhythm and stress, with repeated consonants (alliteration) to bind the phrases. The French poetic tradition inclines to lines of a regular metrical length, usually linked by rhyme into couplets or stanzas. ![]() ![]() French and Germanic influences subsequently compete for the mainstream role in English literature. ![]() The most significant turning point, from about 1100, is the development of Middle English - differing from Old English in the addition of a French vocabulary after the Norman conquest. Even so, there is a continuous linguistic development between the two. It is incomprehensible to a reader familiar only with modern English. This epic poem of the 8th century is in Anglo-Saxon, now more usually described as Old English. The story of English literature begins with the Germanic tradition of the Anglo-Saxon settlers.
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