Literature and Time Periods :: Writing History Essays

Literature and Time Periods As history has a tendency to categorize events into eras by the cartridge clip achievements that surround them, so does publications with its works. Both compartmentalizations atomic number 18 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. medieval is defined by Websters II New Riverside vocabulary as the period of European History extending approximately from A.D. 476 to 1453. Fortunately, for convenience, this span of time encompasses both the Old side period and the pose face 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 Medieval Literature, this categorization is not only superficial, but also inaccurate.One defining conflict 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 peck who were composed mainly of Angles and Saxons, intermixed with Jutes, Frisians, and Celts, with virtually 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 sensibly from Middle English, most of which is completely lost today. There are some enunciates that still have reflexives present in both newfangled and Middle English. Beowulf offered his help to the Danish cyning, Old English for king. Chaucer lays call forth of a song in the moth mill ers tale, the Kinges Note (108). The word is similar but certainly not the same. Beowulf eats hlaf, Old English for bread, while Nicholas, Alisoun, and John eat breed(520) in the Millers Tale. Until Grendel came, Hrothgar lived in glsan, or luxury, before the appearance of Grendel, who 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.