2. Writings in Middle English

The English language existed in the form of several dialects at the very beginning of the Middle English period. The Southern group of dialects represented by the descendants of Kentish, West and East Saxon dialects of Old English. The following literary documents exemplify it: South-Eastern, or Kentish (Dan Michel's "Ayenbite of inwit" 1340; William of Shoreham's "Poems" early 14th century, "Poema morale" (anonymous) early 13 th c.); South-Western (Layamon's "Brut", contains elements of the Midland dialect, too 13 c., "Ancren Riwle" (Statute for Nuns) 13 c, Robert of Gloucester's "Rhymed Chronicle" ab. 1300, John Trevisa's "Polychronicon"', translation from Latin 1387.

Midland, or central dialects are subdivided into: West Midland, where the best known literary works are:

"William of Palerme" (romance, early 13 c);

"Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight" (14 c); and East Midland, where such works were written as

Peterborough Chronicle (a sequel to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)

Robert Mannyng of Bourne's "Handlyng Synne" - about 1300

"King Horn" romance 13 c;

"Havelock the Dane" - 13 c;

metric homilies of Orm "Ormulum" 13 c;

Genesis, Exodus (religious poems) 13 c. The dialect of London belonged to the same group of Midland dialects, and is also represented by a group of works: the Proclamation by Henry III 1258, the earliest official document written in Middle English, the poem "Evil Times of Edward IF, Adam Davy's "Poems" dated by early 14th century.

But real masterpieces of the period written in London dialect are the works of J. Gower and G. Chaucer. The poems of John Gower (1330-1408), a poet whose work, although largely neglected today, was once favorably compared with that of his friend Geoffrey Chaucer were very popular. Gower wrote in Latin and French, but his masteipiece is the long poem in English, "Confessio Amantis" (1390). Mixing medieval learning with classical stories often taken from the Latin poet Ovid, it discusses the Seven Deadly Sins and also develops the theme of courtly love with considerable rhetorical skill and delicacy.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400), is recognized as one of England's greatest poets. Modern study of the setting of his art has made clear that in his work there is a range of subtlety surpassing that of all other medieval writers, with the exception of Dante Alighieri. He is best remembered for The Canterbury Tales. But his contribution to language development and English literature is not limited to it. He was an able translator, having a good command of three languages (Latin, French and Italian); he did much to bring the masterpieces of world literature to the English reader. His earliest models were probably French, the culture most familiar to the English court. A surviving copy of a partial translation of "Le Roman de la Rose" may be his; Chaucer claims to have translated that most influential poem, and echoes of it abound in much that he wrote. He also translated (1380) a number of meditative Latin works whose terms had been, and would increasingly become, important in his own artistic terminology: Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" Pope Innocent Ill's "On the Misery of the Human Condition", the translation of which is lost but survives in part in the Canterbury Tales in the "Man of Law's Tale" and "A Life of Saint Cecilia" from the "Golden Legend". He may also have translated a condensed French version of part of the "Book of Consolation and Counsel" by Albertanus of Brescia, which appears as the "Tale of Melibeus" in "The Canterbury Tales".

At about the same time Chaucer also wrote or began to write a satirical dream-vision, "The Parliament of Fowls" (1382), "The Legend of Good Women", an unfinished series of nine so-called lives of Cupid's saints like Cleopatra and Dido, and "Trailus and Criseyde". "The latter, being", a penetrating and humane "tragedy" in five books and more than 8,200 lines in rhymed royal stanzas, is often called the finest of all medieval romances.

Between 1386 and his death Chaucer sought to complete The Canterbury Tales, an undertaking which, in its final form, would have presented 30 tellers and tales within a unified dramatic and philosophical design. Twenty-four tales, a few of them incomplete, were written. They range from the lofty to the scurrilous. Chaucer made consummate use of all the intellectual and poetic possibilities of his day and expanded them. He subtly adapted language and perspectives to his individual tellers and thus established a model for Shakespeare and the Elizabethan dramatists.

Chaucer's generous good humor, wit, and ability to tell a good story well have always been recognized. Today he is generally valued, in addition, as a highly sophisticated intellectual writer who incorporated into his poetry the major philosophical and artistic concerns of his age. He did so with an apparent ease achieved by no other English poet before Shakespeare.

The Northern dialects developed from Old English Northumbrian. In the Middle English such works as Richard Rolle de Hampole's "The Pricke of Conscience" (14 c.), Townley Plays (14 c.) and York Plays (early 15 c.) appear in this dialect.

Scotland, separate though closely related with the English state at that time, developed a distinct dialect of English - Lowland Scots that has been significant as a literary language since the time of John Barbour's Bruce (1375) and the works of the 15th-century Scottish Chaucerians Gawin Douglas, Robert Henryson, and William Dunbar, whose poetry was notable for its satirical and epic qualities and its richness of language.

John Barbour (1316-1395) is often considered Scotland's first identifiable poet. While archdeacon of Aberdeen (1357-95) he wrote the national epic romance "The Bruce" (1375). This work, based largely on fact, celebrates Scotland's victory under King Robert the Bruce over the English at the Battle of Bannockburn (1314).

There was no general standard in spelling as well as in choice of words and grammatical forms, but the London dialect as that of the political center of the country gradually develops into the prevailing and officially recognized.

The material for analysis chosen in our study will be limited to the samples from Geoffrey Chaucer's works as the most representative of the general line of the language development.