Favorite Medieval Literature?

Pick one from the list. Please discuss why you choose it. Also, try and capture its level of influence in that time period and discuss its background if possible.

Le Morte D'Arthur is great literature. It's got a fairly nice feel to it.

I'm not particularly sure of it's influence on the public at the time, so...

But great read, anyway.

Beowulf was the best on the list, but its defficult for me to choose because I really never liked the middle ages. The only reason I picked Beowulf is because I've read John Gardner's Grende which was a wonderful commentary on Beowulf. 😄

Anything involving werewolves.

Originally posted by Alliance
Beowulf was the best on the list, but its defficult for me to choose because I really never liked the middle ages. The only reason I picked Beowulf is because I've read John Gardner's Grende which was a wonderful commentary on Beowulf. 😄

Grendel was really good...I enjoyed it a lot...I can't pick a favourite medievil literature though....

Yeah it was good. I wonder if Gardner had the intention of writing more nihilist parodies. Too bad he died in that motorcycle crash. 🙁

Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales

to be honest its the only one from that list that i have looked into and read and i did a few school plays about them ..

Nibelungenlid, tale of the cycle of betrayal and revenge in the cursed Burgendian royal family. I think it was written during the early 13th century in Germany or Austria. I also like Beowulf but not as much as Niebelungenlied.

I liked Beowulf and Canterbury Tales

where's "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"?

Originally posted by Swirly Girl
Le Morte D'Arthur is great literature. It's got a fairly nice feel to it.

I'm not particularly sure of it's influence on the public at the time, so...

But great read, anyway.

This was my pic. I loved that book.

Beowulf. But I can't stand translations of it for some reason. I prefer to read it in the original Old English, and keep a translation handy to let me know what's going on.

Canterbury Tales...pretty much has everthing...Comedy, Action, Philosophy, etc...

Knights Tale is always been a personal faveroite.

I liked Shakespeare.........or am I in the wrong time period?...

Especially his works:

A Midsummers Night Dream
The Tempest
MacBeth

My crown is in my heart, not on my head;
Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,
Nor to be seen; my crown is called "content";
A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy.
King Henry VI., Part 3d - III. 1.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Julius Caesar -- II. 2.

We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
The Tempest -- IV. 1.

Oh, and I like this one too, can't forget this one:

Love looks not with the eyes,
but with the mind.
Idem.

This is true!!

Ok done now *leaves*

Shakespeare ? Your in the totally wrong time period

🙁 Renaissance??

Elizabethan.

I'd have to say other:

Blind Harry's epic poem Wallace.

Blind Harry was blind, Scottish and a poet that is about all that is known of him.

"Wallace" is the life story of William Wallace. Although Harry was not of Wallace's time, he claimed to have obtained eye-witness accounts and he claimted to have had access to Wallace's priest's diaries.

However much of the tale is ludicrously exaggerated and many parts maybe false. Some parts definitely are false.

Yet, unsurprisingly his portrayal of the English as bloodthirsty tyrants and basically the embodiment of evil combined with William Wallace taking on almost superhuman powers of strength and intelligence as well as enduring the loss of his true-love has ingrained itself to such an extent in the Scottish phsyche that most scots idea of Wallace is far closer to that of Harry's poem than to the real man.

The surprising lack of hard evidence of Wallace's life can also explain why Harry's epic is still so popular. It is one document that fills the holes that history cannot.

The poem's importance to scottish literature is huge and during the Victorian interest in all things scottish the only book more widely read in Scotland was the Bible.

It's also a bloody good read. Lots of cleaving and hacking and hewing. Love, loss, good and evil.

And most of it is slightly true.

Originally posted by WrathfulDwarf
Canterbury Tales...pretty much has everthing...Comedy, Action, Philosophy, etc...

Knights Tale is always been a personal faveroite.

Agreed....Knight's tale has always been my favorite....And the Monk's Tale as well.

Originally posted by Darth Macabre
Agreed....Knight's tale has always been my favorite....And the Monk's Tale as well.

Knight's Tale? No way! Miller's Tale and Pardoner's Tale reign supreme!