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Matter Of Rome
According to the medieval poet Jean Bodel, the Matter of Rome is the literary cycle of Greek and Roman mythology, together with episodes from the history of classical antiquity, focusing on military heroes like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. Bodel’s division of literary cycles also included the Matter of France and the Matter of Britain (although "non-cyclical" romance also existed). The Matter of Rome includes the Matter of Troy, consisting of romances and other texts based on the Trojan War and its legacy, including the adventures of Aeneas. Subject matter Classical topics were the subjects of a good deal of Old French literature, which in the case of Trojan subject matter ultimately deriving from Homer was built on scant sources; since the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' were unknown, medieval Western poets had to make due with two short prose narratives based on Homer, ascribed to Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius. The paucity of original text did not prevent the 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medieval Poetry
Poetry took numerous forms in medieval Europe, for example, lyric and epic poetry. The troubadours and the minnesänger are known for their lyric poetry about courtly love. Among the most famous of secular poetry is ''Carmina Burana'', a manuscript collection of 254 poems. Twenty-four poems of ''Carmina Burana'' were later set to music by German composer Carl Orff in 1936. Examples of medieval poetry Old English religious poetry includes the poem ''Christ'' by Cynewulf and the poem ''The Dream of the Rood'', preserved in both manuscript form and on the Ruthwell Cross. We do have some secular poetry; in fact a great deal of medieval literature was written in verse, including the Old English epic ''Beowulf''. Scholars are fairly sure, based on a few fragments and on references in historic texts, that much lost secular poetry was set to music, and was spread by traveling minstrels, or bards, across Europe. Thus, the few poems written eventually became ballads or lays, and never ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dictys Cretensis
Dictys Cretensis, i.e. Dictys of Crete (, ; grc, Δίκτυς ὁ Κρής) of Knossos was a legendary companion of Idomeneus during the Trojan War, and the purported author of a diary of its events, that deployed some of the same materials worked up by Homer for the ''Iliad''. The story of his journal, an amusing fiction addressed to a knowledgeable Alexandrian audience, came to be taken literally during Late Antiquity. Literary history In the 4th century AD a certain Q. Septimius brought out ''Dictys Cretensis Ephemeris belli Trojani'' ("Dictys of Crete, chronicle of the Trojan War") in six books, a work that professed to be a Latin translation of the Greek version. Its chief interest lies in the fact that, as knowledge of Greek waned and disappeared in Western Europe, this and the ''De excidio Trojae'' of Dares Phrygius were the sources from which the Homeric legends were transmitted to the Romance literature of the Middle Ages. An elaborate frame story presented in the prol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parthenopeus
In Greek mythology, Parthenopaeus or Parthenopaios (; Ancient Greek: Παρθενοπαῖος, ''Parthenopaîos'') was one of the Seven against Thebes, a native of Arcadia, described as young and outstandingly good-looking, but at the same time arrogant, ruthless and over-confident, although an unproblematic ally for the Argives.Euripides, '' Suppliant Women'', 890 ff. Mythology Early life Parthenopaeus was the son of Atalanta by either her husband Hippomenes (Melanion), or by Meleager, or Ares. A less common version makes him a son of Talaus and Lysimache (which makes him a close relative of the other members of the Seven and thereby motivates his involvement in the war). Hyginus writes that he was left exposed by Atalanta on Mount Parthenius ("virginal") in Arcadia, so that she could conceal the fact that she was not a virgin anymore; the name Parthenopaeus is accordingly interpreted by Hyginus as "seemingly-virginal" or the like, as if referring to the fact that his mot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Language
Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer, ancient Greek literature includes many works ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman De Thèbes
The ''Romance of Thebes'' (''Le Roman de Thèbes'') is a poem of some 10,000 lines that appears to be based on an abridged version of the ''Thebaid'' of Statius. This view is supported by the omission of incidents and details which, in spite of the altered conditions under which the poem was composed, would naturally have been preserved in any imitation of the ''Thebaid'', while again certain modifications of the version of Statius can hardly be due to the author's invention but point to an ancient origin. As in other poems of the same kind, the marvellous disappears; the Greeks adopt the French methods of warfare and the French code of chivalric love. The Roman dates from the 12th century (c. 1150-55), and is written, not in the tirades of the ''chansons de geste'', but in octosyllabic rhymed couplets. It was once attributed to Benoît de Sainte-Maure; but all that can be said is that the ''Thebes'' is prior to the ''Roman de Troie'', of which Benoît was undoubtedly the author. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Courtly Love
Courtly love ( oc, fin'amor ; french: amour courtois ) was a medieval European literary conception of love that emphasized nobility and chivalry. Medieval literature is filled with examples of knights setting out on adventures and performing various deeds or services for ladies because of their "courtly love". This kind of love is originally a literary fiction created for the entertainment of the nobility, but as time passed, these ideas about love changed and attracted a larger audience. In the high Middle Ages, a "game of love" developed around these ideas as a set of social practices. "Loving nobly" was considered to be an enriching and improving practice. Courtly love began in the ducal and princely courts of Aquitaine, Provence, Champagne, ducal Burgundy and the Norman Kingdom of Sicily at the end of the eleventh century. In essence, courtly love was an experience between erotic desire and spiritual attainment, "a love at once illicit and morally elevating, passionate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chanson De Geste
The ''chanson de geste'' (, from Latin 'deeds, actions accomplished') is a medieval narrative, a type of epic poem that appears at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known poems of this genre date from the late 11th and early 12th centuries, shortly before the emergence of the lyric poetry of the troubadours and trouvères, and the earliest verse romances. They reached their highest point of acceptance in the period 1150–1250.Hasenohr, 242. Composed in verse, these narrative poems of moderate length (averaging 4000 lines) were originally sung, or (later) recited, by minstrels or jongleurs. More than one hundred ''chansons de geste'' have survived in approximately three hundred manuscripts''La Chanson de Roland,'' 12. that date from the 12th to the 15th century. Origins Since the 19th century, much critical debate has centered on the origins of the ''chansons de geste'', and particularly on explaining the length of time between the composition of the ''chansons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chivalry
Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal and varying code of conduct developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It was associated with the medieval Christian institution of knighthood; knights' and gentlemen's behaviours were governed by chivalrous social codes. The ideals of chivalry were popularized in medieval literature, particularly the literary cycles known as the Matter of France, relating to the legendary companions of Charlemagne and his men-at-arms, the paladins, and the Matter of Britain, informed by Geoffrey of Monmouth's ''Historia Regum Britanniae'', written in the 1130s, which popularized the legend of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. All of these were taken as historically accurate until the beginnings of modern scholarship in the 19th century. The code of chivalry that developed in medieval Europe had its roots in earlier centuries. It arose in the Carolingian Empire from the idealisation of the cavalryman—involving military brave ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus ( grc-gre, Ἀχιλλεύς) was a hero of the Trojan War, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, and the central character of Homer's '' Iliad''. He was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, king of Phthia. Achilles' most notable feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan prince Hector outside the gates of Troy. Although the death of Achilles is not presented in the ''Iliad'', other sources concur that he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who shot him with an arrow. Later legends (beginning with Statius' unfinished epic ''Achilleid'', written in the 1st century AD) state that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for one heel, because when his mother Thetis dipped him in the river Styx as an infant, she held him by one of his heels. Alluding to these legends, the term " Achilles' heel" has come to mean a point of weakness, especially in someone or something with an otherwise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman De Troie
(''The Romance of Troy'') by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, probably written between 1155 and 1160,Roberto Antonelli "The Birth of Criseyde - An Exemplary Triangle: 'Classical' Troilus and the Question of Love at the Anglo-Norman Court" in Boitani, P. (ed) ''The European Tragedy of Troilus'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press) 1989 pp.21-48. is a 30,000 line epic poem, a medieval retelling of the theme of the Trojan War. It inspired a body of literature in the genre called the , loosely assembled by the poet Jean Bodel as the Matter of Rome. The Trojan subject itself, for which de Sainte-Maure provided an impetus, is referred to as the Matter of Troy. ''Le Roman de Troie'' influenced the works of many in the West, including Chaucer and Shakespeare. In the East it was translated into Greek as ''The War of Troy'' (), by far the longest medieval Greek romance. Of medieval works on this subject, only Guido delle Colonne's ''Historia destructionis Troiae'' was adapted as frequently. Benoît's source ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman D'Alixandre
The ''Roman d'Alexandre'', from the Old French ''Li romans d'Alixandre'' (English: "Romance of Alexander"), is a 16,000-verseHasenohr, 1306. twelfth-centuryThe Medieval Alexander Project at the University of Rochester estimates it was written sometime after 1177. Old French Alexander romance detailing various episodes in the life of Alexander the Great. It is considered by many scholars as the most important of the Medieval Alexander romances. Many of the manuscripts of the work are illustrated. The poem is generally divided into four branches (see below). The final form of the poem is largely credited to Alexandre de Bernay who probably placed the branches in the order we find them, reworked the first branch into alexandrines, incorporated the text of Pierre de Saint-Cloud, and added verses to join each branch. The four branches: # The first branch (derived from the so-called '' Decasyllabic Alexander'': Alexander's childhood leading to the siege of Tyre) derives from an a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epic Poetry
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. Etymology The English word ''epic'' comes from Latin ''epicus'', which itself comes from the Ancient Greek adjective (''epikos''), from (''epos''), "word, story, poem." In ancient Greek, 'epic' could refer to all poetry in dactylic hexameter (''epea''), which included not only Homer but also the wisdom poetry of Hesiod, the utterances of the Delphic oracle, and the strange theological verses attributed to Orpheus. Later tradition, however, has restricted the term 'epic' to ''heroic epic'', as described in this article. Overview Originating before the invention of writing, primary epics, such as those of Homer, were composed by bards who used complex rhetorical and metrical schemes by which they could memorize the epic as receiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
