English literature
-
Opening Lines of THE CANTERBURY TALES (Middle English Pronunciation)
Geoffrey Chaucer himself was kind enough to recite the first 18 lines of his famous Canterbury Tales in Middle English for Rooted Willow Homeschool. To watch the video, CLICK HERE or on the images below. Below are the first 18 lines in the East Midland dialect of Middle English, the English of Geoffrey Chaucer. “Middle English” is the stage of English lasting (roughly) from 1150-1500 A.D. It is not so different from modern English as the poem Beowulf, which comes from the Old English period (450-1150 A.D.), but, as you can see, it was quite different. (CLICK HERE for my recitation of “Caedmon’s Hymn,” a poem in Old English.) Interestingly,…
-
CÆDMON’S HYMN
According to the Venerable Bede, in the late seventh century A.D. an angel appeared in a dream to Cædmon, a shy, uneducated man, and inspired him to compose the poem we know today as “Cædmon’s Hymn.” “Cædmon’s Hymn” is the oldest surviving poem in English. It is Old English, and the version I am speaking in this video is the West Saxon dialect of Old English. A Northumbrian version appears in the bottom margin of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. You can see this addition in the manuscript photo at the end of the video. The hymn itself beautifully describes God’s creation of the universe. To watch the…