BRITISH CRITICISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES--Blamiers

M. Phil English, Bharathiar University--Blamiers--Approaches--Unit I

The Middle Ages

BRITISH CRITICISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Summary by Dr. S. Sreekumar

Romans left Britain at the beginning of the fifth century. Subsequent invasion by the Angles and Saxons created two centuries of skirmishes, wars and other uncertainties leaving little chance for any cultural flowering. We have to wait till the 7^th century to see the establishment of order and sanity in civil life. In this century we see Ireland and England shining as the centres of Latin culture. A Benedictine Abbey was founded in 674 at Wearmouth and books were brought from Rome to the monastic library. One of the most celebrated of English scholars, Bede, spent his time in the cloisters. He was not only a Biblical scholar but also one very much interested in history and science.

As for literary criticism and critical theory there was very little in Bede’s writing except one book——On Figures and Tropes of Holy Writ. By figures Bede means variations in word-order, and use of repetition. By ‘tropes’ he means figures of speech, such as metaphor, synecdoche, and onomatopoeia, as well as devices such as irony and sarcasm. Bede inaugurated a branch of study in England by applying critical theory to the books of the Bible.

·        After Bede’s death, his pupil Egbert founded a school at York and taught theology there.

·        Alcuin was the disciple of Egbert and he tried to improve educational standards in England.

·        Alcuin produced various text books——On Orthography, On Grammar and On Rhetoric.

·        In On Rhetoric he is indebted to Cicero, who has defined the constituents of rhetoric——inventio (the creative faculty), disposito (form and structure), elecutio ( diction and style), memorio (memory), and pronuntatio (delivery). Alcuin classified the five elements and treated them separately.

The Danish invasion interfered with the continuous development of Anglo-Saxon literature. The invaders destroyed the libraries. King Alfred did much to restore culture and learning from complete destruction. He laid special emphasis on Latin scholarship and encouraged translations. However, we see that in another two centuries English language lost its prime importance in England. With the Norman conquest of 1066, Norman French became the dominant language. English regained its status only by 14^th century. During the Norman rule, the noted literary figure in England was John of Salisbury.

John of Salisbury

He was one of the finest Latin scholars of the period. He was deeply read in Aristotle and he wrote Policraticus and Metalogicon.

·        Policraticus lays down a philosophy of government, and

·        Metalogicon is concerned with the study of logic.

John said much on the values of eloquence and stressed the importance of Grammar and literature. He was much influenced by Cicero, Horace, and Quintilian. His recommendation for good writing laid stress on clarity, decorum, appropriateness, breadth of vocabulary, fluency and restraint.

John was a lover of classics. He spoke about the delight and consolation he obtained from them. He stressed the need to interpret the Bible with attention to metaphorical and allegorical as well as literal meanings.

Geoffrey de Vinsauf

He flourished about 1200. He produced a systematic study of poetic rhetoric——Poetria Nova —— which became a standard text book.

In Geoffrey de Vinsauf we get the fullest expression of methods of presentation.

·        Descriptio —— a person or scene is portrayed,

·        Exclamatio —— an emotional outburst is directed at some person or thing,

·        Conformatio —— one endows objects or abstractions with capacity to speak,

·        Expolitio —— saying the same thing in a variety of different ways,

·        Circumlocutio  —— contrast,

·        Similitudo —— comparison,  and lastly

·        Diversio —— Digression.

Geoffrey tries to systematize methods of stylish embellishment. In Ornatus, he lists over sixty devices. Many of these are obvious devices, such as superlatio (exaggeration) and translation (Metaphor). Some others are reduplications of each other.

Geoffrey’s more general observations on literature are conventional recommendations about appropriateness of style to matter, consistency of style, restraint in the use of figurative devices, avoidance of strained images, and excessive syntactical complexity.

Conclusion

The middle ages were not in any way remarkable in the history of English criticism. We have to wait till the Renaissance to see genuine progress in literary criticism.

Dr. S. Sreekumar