Middle English Literature: Chaucer, Romance, and Vernacular Voices
A guide to Middle English literature — Chaucer, romance, vernacular, The Canterbury Tales, and close reading methods.
Middle English literature (c. 1066–1500) is the bridge between the Anglo-Saxon past and the Renaissance future. It is the period in which English reasserted itself as a literary language after the Norman Conquest, and it produced the first great English poet: Geoffrey Chaucer.
The Norman Conquest of 1066 brought French to England as the language of the court and the aristocracy. English survived as the language of the common people, and by the fourteenth century, it had re-emerged as a literary language. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (c. 1387–1400) is the period’s greatest achievement — a collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims traveling to Canterbury.
1. The Vernacular
Middle English literature is written in English — not Latin or French. This was a revolutionary choice that helped establish English as a literary language.
2. Romance
The romance — a narrative of adventure, love, and chivalry — was the period’s dominant genre. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the finest Middle English romance.
3. Chaucer
Chaucer is the period’s greatest writer. His Canterbury Tales is a panoramic portrait of medieval English society, told through the voices of characters from every social class — knights, merchants, clergy, peasants.
4. Religious Literature
The period produced important religious writing — Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love, the mystery plays, and Langland’s Piers Plowman.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is one of the greatest works in English literature. A group of pilgrims — thirty people from every level of medieval society — travel from London to Canterbury, telling stories to pass the time. The tales range from courtly romance to bawdy fabliau, from moral allegory to animal fable.
Chaucer’s genius is his ability to create distinct voices for each pilgrim. The Wife of Bath speaks with a confidence and sexual frankness that was revolutionary for the fourteenth century. The Pardoner is a hypocrite who preaches against greed while practicing it. The Knight tells a tale of honor and chivalry; the Miller tells a tale of adultery and flatulence. The variety is the point: the Canterbury Tales is a portrait of an entire society, seen through the voices of its members.
What is Middle English literature?
English literature of the period c. 1066–1500, written in Middle English.
Who is the most important writer?
Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales.
Middle English literature gave voice to the full range of medieval English society — from the knight to the plowman, from the prioress to the pardoner. It established English as a literary language capable of expressing the full complexity of human experience, and it produced a poet — Chaucer — whose work remains as fresh and funny and profound as the day it was written.