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Middle English literature is written, then, in the many dialects that correspond to the history, culture, and background of the individual writers. While Anglo-Norman or Latin was preferred for high culture and administration, English literature by no means died out, and a number of important works illustrate the development of the language.
This consists of medieval literature in the Anglo-Norman tongue, and also in French.The French epic appeared in England at an early date. [5] It is believed that the Chanson de Roland was sung at the Battle of Hastings, [6] and some Anglo-Norman manuscripts of Chansons de geste have survived to this day. [7]
Additionally, a fifteenth-century play of the life of Mary Magdalene, The Brome Abraham and Isaac and a sixteenth-century play of the Conversion of Saint Paul exist, all hailing from East Anglia. Besides the Middle English drama, there are three surviving plays in Cornish known as the Ordinalia. These biblical plays differ widely in content.
Piers is considered by many critics to be one of the early great works of English literature along with Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight during the Middle Ages. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late-14th-century Middle English alliterative romance. It is one of the better-known Arthurian stories, of an ...
The themes were almost always religious. The most famous examples are the English cycle dramas, the York Mystery Plays, the Chester Mystery Plays, the Wakefield Mystery Plays, and the N-Town Plays, as well as the morality play known as Everyman. One of the first surviving secular plays in English is The Interlude of the Student and the Girl (c ...
William Shakespeare's influence extends from theater and literatures to present-day movies, Western philosophy, and the English language itself. William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the history of the English language, [1] and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.
With the English Renaissance, literature in the Early Modern English style appeared. William Shakespeare, whose works include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, remains one of the most championed authors in English literature. [56] He is widely regarded as the greatest dramatist of all time. [57] [58]
Instead he began with the impact of the Norman Conquest on the English language, before moving on to the vernacular chronicles. Then follow a series of studies of various Middle English romances, of Piers Plowman, and of Early Scots historical writing. The volume ends with a long and detailed look at the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. The second ...