Literature and Time Periods :: Writing History Essays

Literature and Time Periods As history has a tendency to categorize events into eras by the time periods that surround them, so does literature with its works. Both categorizations are superficial, ignoring significant distinctions that separate material for the sake of convenience, or present perception. The prehistoric era, for example, is a superficial designation for all time before written historical records, even though there are distinctions within this period, which are markedly different in historical terms. â€Å"Medieval† is defined by Webster’s II New Riverside Dictionary as â€Å"the period of European History extending approximately from A.D. 476 to 1453.† Fortunately, for convenience, this span of time encompasses both the Old English period and the Middle English period as well. As exemplified by the Old English poem Beowulf and the Middle English poetry of Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales and their cohabitation under the heading of â€Å"Medieval Literature†, thi s categorization is not only superficial, but also inaccurate. One defining difference between the two periods of literature and their selected representatives is the language from which they are spawned. Old English was a Germanic dialect spoken by a people who were composed mainly of Angles and Saxons, intermixed with Jutes, Frisians, and Celts, with some Roman blood still in the veins of some inhabitants. Middle English is the result of the Norman Conquest, and was spoken by the now native English people, intermixed with the French. The assimilation of the French language of that already spoken on the Island made for great changes. The lexicon of Old English differed somewhat from Middle English, most of which is completely lost today. There are some words that still have reflexives present in both Modern and Middle English. Beowulf offered his help to the Danish â€Å"cyning†, Old English for â€Å"king†. Chaucer lays mention of a song in the Miller’s tale, â€Å"the Kinges Note† (108). The word is similar but certainly not the same. Beowulf eats â€Å"hlaf†, Old English for â€Å"bread†, while Nicholas, Alisoun, and John eat â€Å"breed†(520) in the Miller’s Tale. Until Grendel came, Hrothgar lived in â€Å"gï â€ lsan†, or luxury, before the appearance of Grendel, who â€Å"amyrrede†, or squandered, his men. The languages differ structurally as well. Old English was a highly inflectional, synthetic language. Grammar was founded on cases, leaving a rather liberal syntactical structure. Middle English, however, was a lesser inflectional, analytic language, which relied on grammar in the syntax itself.