...Sir Gawain Versus Beowulf Strength can be described as the audacity to fight until the last breath. In the case of both Sir Gawain and Beowulf these were the ideals that these men followed. In the poems Sir Gawain and The Green Knight and Beowulf, the main characters, Sir Gawain and Beowulf, show the physical attribute of strength and valor. However, Sir Gawain and Beowulf are different in the form of strength and qualities. One represented a king who fought for the people and the other who showed loyalty towards the kingship. Beowulf was regarded as an ideal hero by the Anglo Saxon community. The main trait that regards him as the perfect hero was his courage and strength that he shows at the very end of his life. Beowulf shows his physicality throughout the story. "Beowulf, Higlac follower and the strongest of the Geats - greater and stronger than anyone anywhere in the world"(Beowulf 46). This quote exemplifies the fact that Beowulf is considered the best warrior in the region. He is also considered by many people to have superhuman abilities and superhuman strength when he ferociously rips the arm off of Grendel in the poem. Beowulf portrays the ideals of an epic hero as well as the elements of Germanic tribes which gave him super human strength and super human qualities. He is also " A man of great strength " (Helen web). This also reinstates the detail that shows the agile nature in Beowulf and also physical toughness of him as a whole. As a result, Beowulf is a sign...
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...there are many differences between the lead characters in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Beowulf—Beowulf is able to save many people during his battles and is more spiritual, while Gawain’s battle was with himself and he pays more attention to his morals—there are also similarities between the two. In fact, many fail to recognize that both characters share similarities throughout their individual stories. These similarities come with human error making each knight memorable and more realistic. Sir Gawain and Beowulf are very similar in that they both display heroism and feel a need to prove their worth, ultimately showing that one can prevail even when mistakes are made. Sir Gawain and Beowulf, both feel the need to prove themselves,...
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...hero and medieval hero will be the focus of this essay. Three great heroes from the early classic to medieval periods are Beowulf, Achilles, and Sir Gawain. The paper will look at the similarities and differences of literary heroes in order to discover how heroes changed over time. Beowulf and Sir Gawain are romantic heroes full of bravery, loyalty, humility, courage, and virtue. Beowulf and Sir Gawain were both involved in battles of great magnitude and admired for their super human strength. Both of them battle with the intent to bring honor to the King: Sir Gawain to honor King Arthur and Beowulf to honor Hrothgar. The battles they fight are against good and evil, “Grendel is a shepherd of evil” and the Green Knight represents pre- Christian tribal paganism. The custom of the time period was to keep their word and honor the one who helped them rise to knighthood. Beowulf kept his word as seen in the poem as he returns from the adventures and presents all his gifts to Hygelac as a sign of loyalty (line 2145). Sir Gawain keeps his word with Lord Bertilak, by agreeing to exchange their winnings at the end of each day (Sir Gawain 1105-1113). Beowulf and Sir Gawain differ as heroes in several ways. First, Sir Gawain is an Arthurian Hero and as such holds to a Christian faith while Beowulf holds to the pagan history of Britain. Sir Gawain draws strength from his devotion to Christ and the five social graces of generosity, brotherly love, chastity, courtesie, and piety. Beowulf...
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...not afraid to stand on their own. In the epics, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Beowulf, the heroes are Sir Gawain and Beowulf. Sir Gawain and Beowulf show these qualities in many ways, even though there are some ways in which they differ, when talking about heroic acts they are very similar. Beowulf and Sir Gawain are strong warriors. In Beowulf, Beowulf was known for fighting monsters and anything that would try to harm his people. He shows his strength and courage when Beowulf went to fight Grendel. For example, “Fastened those claws in his...
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...The Role of Lady Bertilak in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The role of women was a key role in medieval times. In the poem of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, two women represent this role. They are Lady Bertilak, who is Lord Bertilak’s wife, and Morgan La Faye. It all starts when Sir Gawain is welcomed to Lord Bertilak’s castle and then he meets these two women living there. At all times, Bertilak requests Gawain to feel at home and socialize with these women without problems. Bertilak trusts Gawain even though he would be away and Gawain would remain alone with women. However, his nameless wife uses many different ways to chase Sir Gawain and take advantage of her condition as the host’s wife. Lady Bertilak is a superior being that uses seduction and a supernatural power as a tool to hunt Sir Gawain in order to break his Christian, chivalric and loyal codes. Scholars, that I’ll mention it later, agree that women can emotionally manipulate men, but lacked political power in real life. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight poem is represented by two women mentioned above. “Morgan the Goddess therefore is now her name; none has such high haughtiness that she cannot make full tame” (¶ 98, P. 83). Even though Morgan la Faye, considered to be “The Goddess”, does not appear much in the poem, she represents a certain passive feminine power. Nonetheless, Lord Bertilak’s wife is shown as an active feminine power. She embodies a male character and specifically in the room scenes...
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...life? • Set of rules which everyone/all needed to follow; there was a moral obligation to serve the “lord” in faith and/or valor (courage/bravery) • Follow a chain of command; respect for authority (Abbott and King of the court) • Establishes commitment within a community (religious or court/chivalric code) to bring unity • ? powers used to tempt or destroy o The Green Knight – the beheading game; Lady Bertilak at the castle (3 temptations/seductions); the green girdle o Rule of St. Benedict (Prologue lines 17?)...
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...noticed right off the bat that “As You Like It” had many similarities regarding love and gender role in “Twelfth Night.” Another connection I found was in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” in regards to leaving court and out into the wilderness. I also found connections that many people face in every day like rejection which is seen at first in Silvius and Phoebe. First off I noticed a lot of similarities with “Twelfth Night.” One of similarities was a female character disguising and dressing herself as a man. Rosalind disguises herself as Ganymede; just like Viola disguised herself as Cesario. Both take on the role of a man to prevent showing their true social status. When both Rosalind and Viola dress as men, this causes different comical situations throughout the play to arise. Other similarities include how characters seem to fall in love so quickly. Many of these characters have only known each other for short periods of time yet they have fallen head over heels for each other. In “As You Like It” many character either flee or are banished from court. In “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” we also come across Gawain having to leave court as well. In each of these pieces if literature, we see that leaving court is a big deal. They don’t have the comforts or safety of living within the court walls. By leaving the court these characters can develop and situations can arise. Rejection of love is another similarity. Silvius loves Phoebe but at first Phoebe rejects and detests...
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...While watching movies does one ever wonder why so many events the protagonist experiences reflect such dramatic similarities ? Probably not. Likewise, in literature, the books make one wonder about the consistencies in the plot. This redundancy can be most readily understood if one were to view these works through the lens of archetypal analysis, or through patterns within the “Monomyth,” as revealed in The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. In Beowulf, for instance, Beowulf is the hero; meanwhile Grendel is his nemesis until his death. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain is also the hero, but he is not the trickster in the story. Therefore, similarities both of these works do have, but contradictions also exist. . Certain similarities and differences, however, stem not from age-old Monomythic patterns, but rather from differences in worldviews, varied paradigms held by cultures separated by roughly 350 years of development. Thus, some values...
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...fundamental similarities to Modern German. If Anglo-Saxon had then developed undisturbed for several centuries we might have no more trouble reading an Old English text than we do reading something written by Chaucer at the end of the fourteenth century (students can start reading Chaucer with no special linguistic instruction, although they may need the help of footnotes for the first few weeks of a course). But political and cultural events changed the Anglo-Saxon language into the language we speak today. The most important influence upon the language was the Norman Conquest of 1066, when William the Conqueror, a prince of Normandy (a part of France) conquered England. William made French the official language of the aristocracy and the law courts. Anglo-Norman French was an elite language, and the common people did not necessarily learn it as children, but it was the official language of the nation. Over the next two centuries, however, Anglo-Norman French mixed with Anglo-Saxon, probably because the children of the Norman-French aristocracy were being raised by servants who spoke Anglo-Saxon among themselves. Eventually the two languages blended together, mixing the grammars and vocabularies of Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Saxon. This mixture, which was also influenced by the Latin used by the Church, became the language we recognize as Middle English, the language of Chaucer, William Langland, and the anonymous poet who wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. But as you...
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...with the hero at his lowest point “in the middle of things”, earlier portions of the story appear later as flashbacks..) Main characterstics of novels are theme, plot or setting, structure, action or events in a sequence, strong characterization and expressive language. The genre of extended prose fiction or narrative fictional prose i.e. novel is rooted in the tradition of medieval "romances" or the heroic romance in prose. The term ‘roman or romance’ linked fictions back to the histories that had appeared in the Romance language of 11th and 12th-century southern France. The typical Arthurian romance became a fashion in the late 12th century. The unexpected and peculiar adventures surprised the audience in romances like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1380).The romance had become a stable generic term by the beginning of the 13th century, as in the Roman de la Rose (c. 1230), famous today in English through Geoffrey Chaucer's late 14th-century translation. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (1380–87) is a late example of this European fashion. Prose narrators wrote narrative patterns as employed in fairy tales and with complex plot structures, the work of Boccaccio and Chaucer share this model of construction with modern jokes, In the 14th and 15th centuries when prose legends became fashionable among the female urban elite, prose became the medium of the urban commercial book market in the 15th century. But the world of these romances had not much affinity with the actual...
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...Narrative A narrative is a sequence of events that a narrator tells in story form. A narrator is a storyteller of any kind, whether the authorial voice in a novel or a friend telling you about last night’s party. Point of View The point of view is the perspective that a narrative takes toward the events it describes. First-person narration: A narrative in which the narrator tells the story from his/her own point of view and refers to him/herself as “I.” The narrator may be an active participant in the story or just an observer. When the point of view represented is specifically the author’s, and not a fictional narrator’s, the story is autobiographical and may be nonfictional (see Common Literary Forms and Genres below). Third-person narration: The narrator remains outside the story and describes the characters in the story using proper names and the third-person pronouns “he,” “she,” “it,” and “they.” • Omniscient narration: The narrator knows all of the actions, feelings, and motivations of all of the characters. For example, the narrator of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina seems to know everything about all the characters and events in the story. • Limited omniscient narration: The narrator knows the actions, feelings, and motivations of only one or a handful of characters. For example, the narrator of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has full knowledge of only Alice. • Free indirect discourse: The narrator conveys a character’s inner thoughts...
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...G U I D E T E A C H E R’S A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE BY SOLOMON NORTHUP bY Jeanne M. McGlInn anD JaMes e. McGlInn 2 A Teacher’s Guide to Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup Table of Contents SYNOPSIS......................................................................................................................................3 ABOUT THE AUTHOR...............................................................................................................3 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY GUIDE............................................................................3 MEETING COMMON CORE STANDARDS.............................................................3 THE SLAVE NARRATIVE GENRE...............................................................................3 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW..........................................................................................................4 DURING READING.....................................................................................................................6 SYNTHESIZING DISCUSSION QUESTIONS.......................................................................9 ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES.......................................................................................................9 ACTIVITIES FOR USING THE FILM ADAPTATION........................................................ 11 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES.....................................................................................
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...CONTENTS INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………3 CHAPTER 1. LINGUISTIC SITUATION IN OLD ENGLISH AND MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD……………………………………………………………..5 1.1 THE DEVELOPMENT OF FUTHARK……………………………………5 1.1.1 THE RUNIC ALPHABET AS AN OLD GERMANIC WRITING TRADITION……………………………………………………………………6 1.1.2 OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE PERIOD OF ANGLO-SAXON ETHNIC EXTENSION…………………………………………………………7 1.2 LINGUISTIC SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE ENGLISH………………..11 1.2.1 LINGUISTIC SITUATION IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND AFTER THE NORMAN CONQUEST……………………………………………….……….11 1.2.2 DIALECTAL DIVERSITY IN THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD.…...13 1.3 THE MIDDLE ENGLISH CORPUS……………………………………….15 1.3.1 GEOFFREY CHAUCER AND HIS LENDING SUPPORT OF THE LONDON STANDARD’S DIFFUSION……………………………………….17 1.3.2 THE ROLE OF THE PRINTING IN THE FORMATION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE………………………………………………….…….19 1.3.3 PRINCIPAL MIDDLE ENGLISH WRITTEN RECORDS AS A REFLECTION OF ONGOING CHANGES IN STANDARDIZATION………25 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………….…………....28 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………….30 APPENDIX 1……………………………………………………………………33 INTODUCTION linguistic history english language The English language has had a remarkable history. When we first catch it in historical records, it is a language of none-too-civilized tribes on the continent of Europe along the North Sea. From those murky and undistinguished beginnings, English has become the most widespread language in the world, used by more peoples for more purposes than any language on...
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...THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE This page intentionally left blank THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE SIXTH EDITION ± ± John Algeo ± ± ± ± ± Based on the original work of ± ± ± ± ± Thomas Pyles Australia • Brazil • Japan • Korea • Mexico • Singapore • Spain • United Kingdom • United States The Origins and Development of the English Language: Sixth Edition John Algeo Publisher: Michael Rosenberg Development Editor: Joan Flaherty Assistant Editor: Megan Garvey Editorial Assistant: Rebekah Matthews Senior Media Editor: Cara Douglass-Graff Marketing Manager: Christina Shea Marketing Communications Manager: Beth Rodio Content Project Manager: Corinna Dibble Senior Art Director: Cate Rickard Barr Production Technology Analyst: Jamie MacLachlan Senior Print Buyer: Betsy Donaghey Rights Acquisitions Manager Text: Tim Sisler Production Service: Pre-Press PMG Rights Acquisitions Manager Image: Mandy Groszko Cover Designer: Susan Shapiro Cover Image: Kobal Collection Art Archive collection Dagli Orti Prayer with illuminated border, from c. 1480 Flemish manuscript Book of Hours of Philippe de Conrault, The Art Archive/ Bodleian Library Oxford © 2010, 2005 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including...
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...A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE COURSE GUIDE Professor Michael D.C. Drout WHEATON COLLEGE A History of the English Language Professor Michael D.C. Drout Wheaton College Recorded Books™ is a trademark of Recorded Books, LLC. All rights reserved. A History of the English Language Professor Michael D.C. Drout Executive Producer John J. Alexander Executive Editor Donna F. Carnahan RECORDING Producer - David Markowitz Director - Matthew Cavnar COURSE GUIDE Editor - James Gallagher Design - Ed White Lecture content ©2006 by Michael D.C. Drout Course guide ©2006 by Recorded Books, LLC 72006 by Recorded Books, LLC Cover image: © PhotoDisc #UT088 ISBN: 978-1-4281-1730-3 All beliefs and opinions expressed in this audio/video program and accompanying course guide are those of the author and not of Recorded Books, LLC, or its employees. Course Syllabus A History of the English Language About Your Professor...................................................................................................4 Introduction Lecture 1 ...............................................................................................................5 The Foundations of Language: Brain, Development, Acquisition ......................................................................6 Signs and Meanings: Semantics .........................................................13 Sounds of Language: Phonetics..........................................................20 Sound...
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