78-703: The Stanzaic Morte Arthur is an anonymous 14th-century Middle English poem in 3,969 lines, about the adulterous affair between Lancelot and Guinevere , and Lancelot's tragic dissension with King Arthur . The poem is usually called the Stanzaic Morte Arthur or Stanzaic Morte (formerly also the Harleian Morte Arthur ) to distinguish it from another Middle English poem, the Alliterative Morte Arthure . It exercised enough influence on Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur to have, in
156-561: A Northern man. He useth many Saxon or obsolete Words, and very often delighted himself (as did the Author of ' Piers Plowman ') in the Chime of words beginning with the same letter." Thomas Percy , mentioning the Stanzaic Morte in his widely influential Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), suggested that it could be older than Wanley thought, since the first line was, he believed, quoted in
234-732: A demonstrative ( þis , þat ), after a possessive pronoun (e.g., hir , our ), or with a name or in a form of address. This derives from the Old English "weak" declension of adjectives. This inflexion continued to be used in writing even after final -e had ceased to be pronounced. In earlier texts, multisyllable adjectives also receive a final -e in these situations, but this occurs less regularly in later Middle English texts. Otherwise, adjectives have no ending and adjectives already ending in -e etymologically receive no ending as well. Earlier texts sometimes inflect adjectives for case as well. Layamon's Brut inflects adjectives for
312-493: A largely Anglo-Saxon vocabulary (with many Norse borrowings in the northern parts of the country) but a greatly simplified inflectional system. The grammatical relations that were expressed in Old English by the dative and instrumental cases were replaced in Early Middle English with prepositional constructions. The Old English genitive - es survives in the -'s of the modern English possessive , but most of
390-486: A lengthened – and later also modified – pronunciation of a preceding vowel. For example, in name , originally pronounced as two syllables, the /a/ in the first syllable (originally an open syllable) lengthened, the final weak vowel was later dropped, and the remaining long vowel was modified in the Great Vowel Shift (for these sound changes, see Phonology , above). The final ⟨e⟩ , now silent, thus became
468-488: A lesser extent), and, therefore, it cannot be attributed simply to the influence of French-speaking sections of the population: English did, after all, remain the vernacular . It is also argued that Norse immigrants to England had a great impact on the loss of inflectional endings in Middle English. One argument is that, although Norse and English speakers were somewhat comprehensible to each other due to similar morphology,
546-507: A life of penance, and Lancelot accordingly becomes a monk. The poem ends with their death and burial seven years later. The poem is the work of an anonymous writer who lived during the 14th century in the north Midlands . His source was the French prose romance La Mort Artu , but he compressed it to a romance only about one fifth of the Mort Artu ' s length. He probably intended his work for
624-451: A poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation . Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes , but they are not required to have either. There are many different forms of stanzas . Some stanzaic forms are simple, such as four-line quatrains . Other forms are more complex, such as the Spenserian stanza . Fixed verse poems , such as sestinas , can be defined by
702-572: A process called apophony ), as in Modern English. With the discontinuation of the Late West Saxon standard used for the writing of Old English in the period prior to the Norman Conquest, Middle English came to be written in a wide variety of scribal forms, reflecting different regional dialects and orthographic conventions. Later in the Middle English period, however, and particularly with
780-482: A second dream Gawain warns him he must call a truce so as to give Lancelot's army time to join him. The next day Arthur and Mordred, each accompanied by fourteen knights, meet to discuss peace terms. The truce is broken by mistake when one of the knights draws his sword to kill an adder. Battle is joined and the armies are so equally matched that both are exterminated, with the exception of Mordred, Arthur, and Arthur's knights Bedivere and Lucan . Arthur kills Mordred, but
858-518: A variant of the Northumbrian dialect (prevalent in northern England and spoken in southeast Scotland ). During the Middle English period, many Old English grammatical features either became simplified or disappeared altogether. Noun, adjective, and verb inflections were simplified by the reduction (and eventual elimination) of most grammatical case distinctions. Middle English also saw considerable adoption of Anglo-Norman vocabulary, especially in
SECTION 10
#1732852825493936-425: A wide and relatively unsophisticated audience. He cast his work in the metre of a minstrel romance ballad, each stanza containing eight lines rhyming ABABABAB , and each line having four beats. As the poem has come down to us there are seven places where the stanza is two lines short, but the original poem may not have had that fault. The poet took many liberties with his rhymes, and also used more alliteration than
1014-696: Is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the University of Valencia states the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500. This stage of the development of the English language roughly coincided with
1092-497: Is analogous with the paragraph in prose : related thoughts are grouped into units. This short poem by Emily Dickinson has two stanzas of four lines each: I had no time to hate, because The grave would hinder me, And life was not so ample I Could finish enmity. Nor had I time to love; but since Some industry must be, The little toil of love, I thought, was large enough for me. This poem by Andrew John Young has three stanzas of six lines each: Frost called to
1170-449: Is common in a Middle English rhyming romance. It survives in one manuscript only, British Museum Harley 2252, a collection of texts compiled in the early 16th century by a London bookseller called John Colyns. Close study has shown that the section containing the Stanzaic Morte was originally a separate commercially produced booklet. One leaf, dealing with the burial of the Maid of Astolat,
1248-407: Is extraordinarily limited", and that "he lacks the vigour of imagination, the intensity of feeling and the originality in description that the poet of the [Alliterative] Morte Arthure possessed", but went on "he manifests real power as an easy and agreeable story-teller…Perhaps his most noticeable characteristic is his facility in bringing before us by a few direct dramatic words the human interest of
1326-419: Is himself mortally wounded. At Arthur's command, Bedivere throws Excalibur into the sea. Three ladies come to take Arthur to Avalon to be healed, but they fail in this purpose, and the next day Bedivere comes across Arthur's newly erected tomb. Guinevere, repenting of her adultery, takes the veil at Amesbury . Lancelot arrives on the scene belatedly and visits Guinevere. They renounce each other in favour of
1404-431: Is injured at the tournament, and is invited by the earl to recuperate at Ascolat. Lancelot leaves when he has recovered, giving the earl's daughter his armour as a memento. Ascolat is then visited by Gawain , who has come from Camelot to search for Lancelot. The earl's daughter, still not knowing Lancelot's name, shows Gawain the armour, which he recognises. On his return to Camelot Gawain tells Arthur that Lancelot loves
1482-527: Is now missing. By 1570, the manuscript had passed into the possession of one Robert Farrers. The manuscript was studied by Humfrey Wanley , keeper of the Harleian Library, who in 1759 catalogued it with the notation, "This I take to be translated from the French Romance of K. Arthur"; also "I know not who this Poet was, but guess that he lived about the time of K. Henry VII , and that he might have been
1560-433: Is now rare and used only in oxen and as part of a double plural , in children and brethren . Some dialects still have forms such as eyen (for eyes ), shoon (for shoes ), hosen (for hose(s) ), kine (for cows ), and been (for bees ). Grammatical gender survived to a limited extent in early Middle English before being replaced by natural gender in the course of the Middle English period. Grammatical gender
1638-513: The Augustinian canon Orrm wrote the Ormulum , one of the oldest surviving texts in Middle English. The influence of Old Norse aided the development of English from a synthetic language with relatively free word order to a more analytic language with a stricter word order. Both Old English and Old Norse were synthetic languages with complicated inflections. Communication between Vikings in
SECTION 20
#17328528254931716-592: The Danelaw and their Anglo-Saxon neighbours resulted in the erosion of inflection in both languages. Old Norse may have had a more profound impact on Middle and Modern English development than any other language. The effect of Old Norse on Old English was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character. Like close cousins, Old Norse and Old English resembled each other, and with some words and grammatical structures in common, speakers of each language roughly understood each other, but according to historian Simeon Potler
1794-600: The Early Modern English and Modern English eras. Middle English generally did not have silent letters . For example, knight was pronounced [ˈkniçt] (with both the ⟨k⟩ and the ⟨gh⟩ pronounced, the latter sounding as the ⟨ch⟩ in German Knecht ). The major exception was the silent ⟨e⟩ – originally pronounced but lost in normal speech by Chaucer's time. This letter, however, came to indicate
1872-472: The High and Late Middle Ages . Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography . Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. Examples of writing from this period that have survived show extensive regional variation. The more standardized Old English literary variety broke down and writing in English became fragmented and localized and was, for
1950-517: The Norman Conquest , had normally been written in French. Like Chaucer's work, this new standard was based on the East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Clerks using this standard were usually familiar with French and Latin , influencing the forms they chose. The Chancery Standard, which was adopted slowly, was used in England by bureaucrats for most official purposes, excluding those of
2028-621: The 12th century, incorporating a unique phonetic spelling system; and the Ancrene Wisse and the Katherine Group , religious texts written for anchoresses , apparently in the West Midlands in the early 13th century. The language found in the last two works is sometimes called the AB language . Additional literary sources of the 12th and 13th centuries include Layamon's Brut and The Owl and
2106-422: The 13th century and was replaced by thorn. Thorn mostly fell out of use during the 14th century and was replaced by ⟨th⟩ . Anachronistic usage of the scribal abbreviation [REDACTED] ( þe , "the") has led to the modern mispronunciation of thorn as ⟨ y ⟩ in this context; see ye olde . Wynn, which represented the phoneme /w/ , was replaced by ⟨ w ⟩ during
2184-409: The 13th century. Due to its similarity to the letter ⟨p⟩ , it is mostly represented by ⟨w⟩ in modern editions of Old and Middle English texts even when the manuscript has wynn. Under Norman influence, the continental Carolingian minuscule replaced the insular script that had been used for Old English. However, because of the significant difference in appearance between
2262-467: The 14th century, even after the loss of the majority of the continental possessions of the English monarchy . In the aftermath of the Black Death of the 14th century, there was significant migration into London , of people to the counties of the southeast of England and from the east and central Midlands of England, and a new prestige London dialect began to develop as a result of this clash of
2340-597: The 1540s after the printing and wide distribution of the English Bible and Prayer Book , which made the new standard of English publicly recognizable and lasted until about 1650. The main changes between the Old English sound system and that of Middle English include: The combination of the last three processes listed above led to the spelling conventions associated with silent ⟨e⟩ and doubled consonants (see under Orthography , below). Middle English retains only two distinct noun-ending patterns from
2418-568: The Church and legalities, which used Latin and Law French respectively. The Chancery Standard's influence on later forms of written English is disputed, but it did undoubtedly provide the core around which Early Modern English formed. Early Modern English emerged with the help of William Caxton 's printing press, developed during the 1470s. The press stabilized English through a push towards standardization, led by Chancery Standard enthusiast and writer Richard Pynson . Early Modern English began in
Stanzaic Morte Arthur - Misplaced Pages Continue
2496-483: The English treatment of central Arthurian subject-matter before Malory's Morte Darthur ." Praise from some others has been more measured. Jennifer Goodman wrote that "The verse is workmanlike: an acute sense of character and action allow the poet to focus in on the essential elements of fate and personality that combine to create Arthur's tragedy." Lucy Allen Paton complained of the Morte' s poet that "his supply of rhyme-words
2574-547: The Middle English romance of Beves of Hamtoun . Thomas Warton 's History of English Poetry (1774–81) includes a short extract from the Morte , and dates it to the early 14th century. In Observations on the Three First Volumes of The History of English Poetry (1782), and again in Ancient Engleish Metrical Romanceës (1802), the antiquary Joseph Ritson ridiculed Warton's and Percy's views of
2652-545: The Nightingale . Some scholars have defined "Early Middle English" as encompassing English texts up to 1350. This longer time frame would extend the corpus to include many Middle English Romances (especially those of the Auchinleck manuscript c. 1330 ). Gradually, the wealthy and the government Anglicised again, although Norman (and subsequently French ) remained the dominant language of literature and law until
2730-571: The Norse speakers' inability to reproduce the ending sounds of English words influenced Middle English's loss of inflectional endings. Important texts for the reconstruction of the evolution of Middle English out of Old English are the Peterborough Chronicle , which continued to be compiled up to 1154; the Ormulum , a biblical commentary probably composed in Lincolnshire in the second half of
2808-544: The Old English -eþ , Midland dialects showing -en from about 1200, and Northern forms using -es in the third person singular as well as the plural. The past tense of weak verbs was formed by adding an -ed(e) , -d(e) , or -t(e) ending. The past-tense forms, without their personal endings, also served as past participles with past-participle prefixes derived from Old English: i- , y- , and sometimes bi- . Strong verbs , by contrast, formed their past tense by changing their stem vowel (e.g., binden became bound ,
2886-680: The Old Norse influence was strongest in the dialects under Danish control that composed the southern part of the Northern England (corresponding to the Scandinavian Kingdom of Jórvík ), the East Midlands and the East of England , words in the spoken language emerged in the 10th and 11th centuries near the transition from Old to Middle English. Influence on the written languages only appeared from
2964-710: The abundance of Modern English words for the mechanisms of government that are derived from Anglo-Norman, such as court , judge , jury , appeal , and parliament . There are also many Norman-derived terms relating to the chivalric cultures that arose in the 12th century, an era of feudalism , seigneurialism , and crusading . Words were often taken from Latin, usually through French transmission. This gave rise to various synonyms, including kingly (inherited from Old English), royal (from French, inherited from Vulgar Latin), and regal (from French, which borrowed it from Classical Latin). Later French appropriations were derived from standard, rather than Norman, French. Examples of
3042-494: The areas of politics, law, the arts, and religion, as well as poetic and emotive diction. Conventional English vocabulary remained primarily Germanic in its sources, with Old Norse influences becoming more apparent. Significant changes in pronunciation took place, particularly involving long vowels and diphthongs, which in the later Middle English period began to undergo the Great Vowel Shift . Little survives of early Middle English literature , due in part to Norman domination and
3120-567: The beginning of the 13th century, this delay in Scandinavian lexical influence in English has been attributed to the lack of written evidence from the areas of Danish control, as the majority of written sources from Old English were produced in the West Saxon dialect spoken in Wessex , the heart of Anglo-Saxon political power at the time. The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 saw the replacement of
3198-414: The clergy for written communication and record-keeping. A significant number of Norman words were borrowed into English and used alongside native Germanic words with similar meanings. Examples of Norman/Germanic pairs in Modern English include pig and pork , calf and veal , wood and forest , and freedom and liberty . The role of Anglo-Norman as the language of government and law can be seen in
Stanzaic Morte Arthur - Misplaced Pages Continue
3276-507: The comparative and superlative (e.g., greet , great; gretter , greater). Adjectives ending in -ly or -lich formed comparatives either with -lier , -liest or -loker , -lokest . A few adjectives also displayed Germanic umlaut in their comparatives and superlatives, such as long , lenger . Other irregular forms were mostly the same as in modern English. Middle English personal pronouns were mostly developed from those of Old English , with
3354-452: The custody of Mordred. Gawain, now an inveterate enemy of Lancelot, fights a single combat with him, and is defeated. Word comes that Mordred has crowned himself king and plans to marry Guinevere. Arthur returns home and defeats Mordred's army in two battles, but Gawain is killed. Before a third battle can be fought Arthur dreams that he is cast down from the high point of the Wheel of Fortune . In
3432-478: The development of the Chancery Standard in the 15th century, orthography became relatively standardised in a form based on the East Midlands-influenced speech of London. Spelling at the time was mostly quite regular . (There was a fairly consistent correspondence between letters and sounds.) The irregularity of present-day English orthography is largely due to pronunciation changes that have taken place over
3510-488: The different dialects, that was based chiefly on the speech of the East Midlands but also influenced by that of other regions. The writing of this period, however, continues to reflect a variety of regional forms of English. The Ayenbite of Inwyt , a translation of a French confessional prose work, completed in 1340, is written in a Kentish dialect . The best known writer of Middle English, Geoffrey Chaucer , wrote in
3588-531: The double consonant represented a sound that was (or had previously been) geminated (i.e., had genuinely been "doubled" and would thus have regularly blocked the lengthening of the preceding vowel). In other cases, by analogy, the consonant was written double merely to indicate the lack of lengthening. The basic Old English Latin alphabet consisted of 20 standard letters plus four additional letters: ash ⟨æ⟩ , eth ⟨ð⟩ , thorn ⟨þ⟩ , and wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ . There
3666-486: The drama of the closing books of his work." Brian Stone thought that "with its swiftly moving narrative and realistic clash of character" it is more like an extended tragic ballad than a romance. He preferred its ending to that of the Morte Darthur , and considered the poem to be "of prime importance in our culture". Dieter Mehl referred to "The by no means simple, but skilfully handled metrical form"; to "a rare balance in
3744-407: The earl's daughter. When Lancelot arrives at Camelot he receives so little welcome from his lover, Guinevere, that he leaves again in confusion. Guinevere then finds herself falsely accused of murdering a Scottish knight, and must find a champion to defend her in a trial by combat . The body of the maid of Ascolat is discovered in a boat, floating down the river into Camelot, along with a note in which
3822-468: The end of the Middle English period only the strong -'s ending (variously spelled) was in use. Some formerly feminine nouns, as well as some weak nouns, continued to make their genitive forms with -e or no ending (e.g., fole hoves , horses' hooves), and nouns of relationship ending in -er frequently have no genitive ending (e.g., fader bone , "father's bane"). The strong -(e)s plural form has survived into Modern English. The weak -(e)n form
3900-418: The exception of the third person plural, a borrowing from Old Norse (the original Old English form clashed with the third person singular and was eventually dropped). Also, the nominative form of the feminine third person singular was replaced by a form of the demonstrative that developed into sche (modern she ), but the alternative heyr remained in some areas for a long time. As with nouns, there
3978-412: The indicator of the longer and changed pronunciation of ⟨a⟩ . In fact, vowels could have this lengthened and modified pronunciation in various positions, particularly before a single consonant letter and another vowel or before certain pairs of consonants. A related convention involved the doubling of consonant letters to show that the preceding vowel was not to be lengthened. In some cases,
SECTION 50
#17328528254934056-704: The maid bewails Lancelot's refusal of her love. Lancelot returns to successfully defend Guinevere, and since she now knows that he is true to her she is reconciled with him. The two are surprised in bed together by several of Arthur's knights, but Lancelot escapes, killing in the process all of the knights except Mordred . Guinevere is sentenced to death, but Lancelot again rescues her and takes her to his castle, Joyous Gard . Arthur besieges Joyous Gard, but without effect. The Pope now orders Lancelot to send Guinevere back to Arthur, and Arthur to accept her. Both comply, but Lancelot goes into exile. Arthur takes his army abroad to levy war against Lancelot, leaving Guinevere behind in
4134-556: The main difference lied on their inflectional endings, which led to much confusion within the mixed population that existed in the Danelaw, this endings tended gradually to become obscured and finally lost, "simplifying English grammar" in the process. In time, the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged. Viking influence on Old English is most apparent in pronouns , modals, comparatives, pronominal adverbs (like hence and together ), conjunctions, and prepositions show
4212-417: The masculine accusative, genitive, and dative, the feminine dative, and the plural genitive. The Owl and the Nightingale adds a final -e to all adjectives not in the nominative, here only inflecting adjectives in the weak declension (as described above). Comparatives and superlatives were usually formed by adding -er and -est . Adjectives with long vowels sometimes shortened these vowels in
4290-427: The more complex system of inflection in Old English : Nouns of the weak declension are primarily inherited from Old English n -stem nouns but also from ō -stem, wō -stem, and u -stem nouns, which did not inflect in the same way as n -stem nouns in Old English, but joined the weak declension in Middle English. Nouns of the strong declension are inherited from the other Old English noun stem classes. Some nouns of
4368-484: The most marked Danish influence. The best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in extensive word borrowings; however, texts from the period in Scandinavia and Northern England do not provide certain evidence of an influence on syntax. However, at least one scholarly study of this influence shows that Old English may have been replaced entirely by Norse, by virtue of the change from Old English to Norse syntax. While
4446-547: The most part, being improvised. By the end of the period (about 1470), and aided by the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439, a standard based on the London dialects (Chancery Standard) had become established. This largely formed the basis for Modern English spelling, although pronunciation has changed considerably since that time. Middle English was succeeded in England by Early Modern English , which lasted until about 1650. Scots developed concurrently from
4524-539: The number and form of their stanzas. The stanza has also been known by terms such as batch , fit , and stave . The term stanza has a similar meaning to strophe , though strophe sometimes refers to an irregular set of lines, as opposed to regular, rhymed stanzas. Even though the term "stanza" is taken from Italian, in the Italian language the word "strofa" is more commonly used. In music, groups of lines are typically referred to as verses . The stanza in poetry
4602-681: The old insular g and the Carolingian g (modern g ), the former continued in use as a separate letter, known as yogh , written ⟨ȝ⟩ . This was adopted for use to represent a variety of sounds: [ɣ], [j], [dʒ], [x], [ç] , while the Carolingian g was normally used for [g]. Instances of yogh were eventually replaced by ⟨j⟩ or ⟨y⟩ and by ⟨gh⟩ in words like night and laugh . In Middle Scots , yogh became indistinguishable from cursive z , and printers tended to use ⟨z⟩ when yogh
4680-423: The other case endings disappeared in the Early Middle English period, including most of the roughly one dozen forms of the definite article ("the"). The dual personal pronouns (denoting exactly two) also disappeared from English during this period. The loss of case endings was part of a general trend from inflections to fixed word order that also occurred in other Germanic languages (though more slowly and to
4758-676: The poem was there rejected. A complete edition of the Morte by Thomas Ponton was published by the Roxburghe Club in 1819. It is now widely accepted that the last two stories of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, "The Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere" and "The Most Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthur", are derived from his reading of the Stanzaic Morte Arthur and its source, the Mort Artu. Several key moments in these final stories, such as
SECTION 60
#17328528254934836-480: The poem's date, and asserted that Wanley was correct in assigning it to the reign of Henry VII. He noticed the similarities with Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur , but believed that the poem was based on Malory rather than vice versa . A lengthy but rather facetious synopsis of the Morte , with quotations, figured in the Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances (1805) by George Ellis . Ritson's late date for
4914-469: The poignant scene of renunciation between Lancelot and Guinevere at Amesbury, and the tragic incident where a knight inadvertently breaks the truce between Arthur and Mordred by killing an adder, are notably influenced by the Stanzaic Morte. In places he even reproduces the exact words of the Middle English poem. According to Jennifer Goodman, "Malory owes to the stanzaic Morte Arthur an important share of
4992-403: The prestige that came with writing in French rather than English. During the 14th century, a new style of literature emerged with the works of writers including John Wycliffe and Geoffrey Chaucer , whose Canterbury Tales remains the most studied and read work of the period. The transition from Late Old English to Early Middle English had taken place by the 1150s to 1180s, the period when
5070-564: The resulting doublet pairs include warden (from Norman) and guardian (from later French; both share a common ancestor loaned from Germanic). The end of Anglo-Saxon rule did not result in immediate changes to the language. The general population would have spoken the same dialects as they had before the Conquest. Once the writing of Old English came to an end, Middle English had no standard language, only dialects that evolved individually from Old English. Early Middle English (1150–1350) has
5148-471: The scenes that he is describing." Robert W. Ackerman judged that "Though marred by faults typical of the minstrel style, it tells a moving story vividly and swiftly." George Kane's opinion was that "Never once in its four thousand lines does it attain to brilliance, yet its effect is so unmistakably one of fulfillment and of harmony between intention and result that it must be regarded as a success." Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME )
5226-795: The second half of the 14th century in the emerging London dialect, although he also portrays some of his characters as speaking in northern dialects, as in " The Reeve's Tale ". In the English-speaking areas of lowland Scotland , an independent standard was developing, based on the Northumbrian dialect . This would develop into what came to be known as the Scots language . A large number of terms for abstract concepts were adopted directly from scholastic philosophical Latin (rather than via French). Examples are "absolute", "act", "demonstration", and "probable". The Chancery Standard of written English emerged c. 1430 in official documents that, since
5304-458: The second person singular in -(e)st (e.g., þou spekest , "thou speakest"), and the third person singular in -eþ (e.g., he comeþ , "he cometh/he comes"). ( þ (the letter "thorn") is pronounced like the unvoiced th in "think", but under certain circumstances, it may be like the voiced th in "that"). The following table illustrates a typical conjugation pattern: Plural forms vary strongly by dialect, with Southern dialects preserving
5382-409: The strong type have an -e in the nominative/accusative singular, like the weak declension, but otherwise strong endings. Often, these are the same nouns that had an -e in the nominative/accusative singular of Old English (they, in turn, were inherited from Proto-Germanic ja -stem and i -stem nouns). The distinct dative case was lost in early Middle English, and although the genitive survived, by
5460-416: The structure of the plot, a strict subordination of details to the theme of the poem, and a notable lack of digressions which could slow down the tempo of the narration"; and to a "conscious simplicity and detachment that distinguish Le Morte Arthur from most other romances and make it so particularly attractive and appealing to modern taste." Rosemary Woolf called the Stanzaic Morte "the finest example of
5538-440: The top levels of the English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchies by Norman rulers who spoke a dialect of Old French , now known as Old Norman , which developed in England into Anglo-Norman . The use of Norman as the preferred language of literature and polite discourse fundamentally altered the role of Old English in education and administration, even though many Normans of this period were illiterate and depended on
5616-472: The water Halt And crusted the moist snow with sparkling salt; Brooks, their one bridges, stop, And icicles in long stalactites drop. And tench in water-holes Lurk under gluey glass-like fish in bowls. In the hard-rutted lane At every footstep breaks a brittle pane, And tinkling trees ice-bound, Changed into weeping willows, sweep the ground; Dead boughs take root in ponds And ferns on windows shoot their ghostly fronds. But vainly
5694-505: The words of one recent scholar, "played a decisive though largely unacknowledged role in the way succeeding generations have read the Arthurian legend". King Arthur holds a tournament, which Sir Lancelot attends in disguise. He stays for one night at the castle of the Earl of Ascolat , and there the earl's daughter falls in love with him, even though she knows Lancelot loves someone else. Lancelot
5772-425: Was indicated by agreement of articles and pronouns (e.g., þo ule "the feminine owl") or using the pronoun he to refer to masculine nouns such as helm ("helmet"), or phrases such as scaft stærcne (strong shaft), with the masculine accusative adjective ending -ne . Single-syllable adjectives added -e when modifying a noun in the plural and when used after the definite article ( þe ), after
5850-448: Was not available in their fonts; this led to new spellings (often giving rise to new pronunciations), as in McKenzie , where the ⟨z⟩ replaced a yogh, which had the pronunciation /j/ . Stanza In poetry , a stanza ( / ˈ s t æ n z ə / ; from Italian stanza , Italian: [ˈstantsa] ; lit. ' room ' ) is a group of lines within
5928-520: Was not yet a distinct j , v , or w , and Old English scribes did not generally use k , q , or z . Ash was no longer required in Middle English, as the Old English vowel /æ/ that it represented had merged into /a/ . The symbol nonetheless came to be used as a ligature for the digraph ⟨ae⟩ in many words of Greek or Latin origin, as did ⟨œ⟩ for ⟨oe⟩ . Eth and thorn both represented /θ/ or its allophone / ð / in Old English. Eth fell out of use during
6006-417: Was ousted by it in most dialects by the 15th. The following table shows some of the various Middle English pronouns. Many other variations are noted in Middle English sources because of differences in spellings and pronunciations at different times and in different dialects. As a general rule, the indicative first person singular of verbs in the present tense ended in -e (e.g., ich here , "I hear"),
6084-469: Was some inflectional simplification (the distinct Old English dual forms were lost), but pronouns, unlike nouns, retained distinct nominative and accusative forms. Third person pronouns also retained a distinction between accusative and dative forms, but that was gradually lost: The masculine hine was replaced by him south of the River Thames by the early 14th century, and the neuter dative him
#492507