I. Language change

a. 14^th century, more national languages emerge

b. vernacular=common languages; national languages were both spoken and written now

II. Dante and Divine Comedy

a. Poem and an allegory (story with meaning or is symbolic of something bigger)

b. Dante describes his trip from Hell to Paradise

c. Virgil (Roman statesman), Beatrice (beauty, grace, love, purity), and St. Bernard (“mystic contemplation”)

d. Hell—witnesses tormented; discusses ills of the time

e. Purgatory—how souls are purified (how they’re made right or justified)

f. Paradise—Beatrice leads him to paradise, St. Bernard leads him to Mary, Mary leads him to a vision of God

g. Importance—shows people’s desire for salvation (they may wrestle with it), shows criticism of the church, it’s in vernacular and so it’s ‘modern”

III. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales

a. Lengthy, wordy, poem

b. 30 very different folks on a pilgrimage share tales. Ie.:

i. Christian knight

ii. The miller

iii. The Wife of Bath

iv. The Prioress

c. importance—shows cultural tensions, reflects interests in worldliness and Heaven

IV. Fracois Villon and Grand Testament

a. Francois’s wild and raucous background

b. Tone is rebellious, knee-slapping, gritty, emotional

c. Celebrates beauty and life

d. Grand Testament shows people as human in every sense of the word

e. Importance—completely modern…topic (see above) and form (vernacular of the despised poor and criminals)

V. Christine de Pisan

a. City of Ladies—explains how to be a lady rather than a ____

b. Lady qualities…

i. If a man whispers to her…

ii. Play decent games

iii. Not frolicsome with heads raised like wild deer

iv. Modest

v. No plunging necklines

vi. No saucy women!