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Canterbury Tales
''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''magnum opus''. The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return. It has been suggested that the greatest contribution of ''The Canterbury Tales'' to English literature was the popularisation of the English vernacular in mainstream literature, as opposed to French, Italian or Latin. English had, however, been used as a literary language centuries before Chaucer's time, and several of Chaucer's contemporaries—John Gower, William Langland, the Pearl Poet, and J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Dyson (composer)
Sir George Dyson (28 May 188328 September 1964) was an English musician and composer. After studying at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London, and army service in the First World War, he was a schoolmaster and college lecturer. In 1938 he became director of the RCM, the first of its alumni to do so. As director he instituted financial and organisational reforms and steered the college through the difficult days of the Second World War. As a composer Dyson wrote in a traditional idiom, reflecting the influence of his teachers at the RCM, Hubert Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford. His works were well known during his lifetime but underwent a period of neglect before being revived in the late 20th century. Life and career Early years Dyson was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, Halifax, Yorkshire, the eldest of the three children of John William Dyson, a blacksmith, and his wife, Alice, ''née'' Greenwood, a weaver.Foreman, Lewis"Dyson, Sir George (1883–1964)" Oxford Dictiona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vernacular
A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, normally spoken informally rather than written, and seen as of lower status than more codified forms. It may vary from more prestigious speech varieties in different ways, in that the vernacular can be a distinct stylistic register, a regional dialect, a sociolect, or an independent language. Vernacular is a term for a type of speech variety, generally used to refer to a local language or dialect, as distinct from what is seen as a standard language. The vernacular is contrasted with higher-prestige forms of language, such as national, literary, liturgical or scientific idiom, or a ''lingua franca'', used to facilitate communication across a large area. According to another definition, a vernacular is a language that has not develope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scrivener
A scrivener (or scribe) was a person who could read and write or who wrote letters to court and legal documents. Scriveners were people who made their living by writing or copying written material. This usually indicated secretarial and administrative duties such as dictation and keeping business, judicial, and historical records for kings, nobles, temples, and cities. Scriveners later developed into public servants, accountants, lawyers and petition writers, and in England and Wales, scrivener notaries. Current role Scriveners remain common in countries where literacy rates remain low, for example India; they read letters for illiterate customers, as well as write letters or fill out forms for a fee. Many now use portable typewriters to prepare letters for their clients. In areas with very high literacy rates, they are far less common; however, social services organizations, libraries, and the like sometimes offer assistance to service users with low literacy skills to help t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folger Shakespeare Library
The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., United States. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materials from the early modern period (1500–1750) in Britain and Europe. The library was established by Henry Clay Folger in association with his wife, Emily Jordan Folger. It opened in 1932, two years after his death. The library offers advanced scholarly programs and national outreach to K–12 (education), K–12 classroom teachers on Shakespeare education. Other performances and events at the Folger include the award-winning Folger Theatre, which produces Shakespeare-inspired theater; Folger Consort, the early-music ensemble-in-residence; the O.B. Hardison Poetry Series; the PEN/Faulkner Reading Series; and numerous other exhibits, seminars, talks and lectures, and family programs. It also has several publications, including the Folger Libr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British Library receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the UK. The Library is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The British Library is a major research library, with items in many languages and in many formats, both print and digital: books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, videos, play-scripts, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings. The Library's collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial holdings of manuscripts and items dating as far back as 2000 BC. The library maintains a programme for content acquis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellesmere Chaucer
The Ellesmere Chaucer, or Ellesmere Manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, is an early 15th-century illuminated manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales'', owned by the Huntington Library, in San Marino, California (EL 26 C 9). It is considered one of the most significant copies of the ''Tales''. History Written most likely in the first or second decade of the fifteenth century, the early history of the manuscript is uncertain, but it seems to have been owned by John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford (1408–1462). The manuscript takes its popular name from the fact that it later belonged to Sir Thomas Egerton (1540–1617), Baron Ellesmere and Viscount Brackley, who apparently obtained it from Roger North, 2nd Baron North (1530/31-1600). The library of manuscripts, known as the Bridgewater Library, remained at the Egerton house, Ashridge, Hertfordshire, until 1802 when it was removed to London. Francis Egerton, created Earl of Ellesmere in 1846, inherited the library, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hengwrt Chaucer
The Hengwrt Chaucer manuscript is an early-15th-century manuscript of the ''Canterbury Tales'', held in the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth. It is an important source for Chaucer's text, and was possibly written by someone with access to an original authorial holograph, now lost. The ''Hengwrt Chaucer'' is part of a collection called the Peniarth Manuscripts which is included by UNESCO in its UK Memory of the World Register, a list of documentary heritage which holds cultural significance specific to the UK. It is catalogued as MS Peniarth 392D. Following the terminology developed by John M. Manly and Edith Rickert, the manuscript is conventionally referred to as Hg in most editions giving variant readings.See Manly and Rickert, ''The Text of the Canterbury Tales, I: Descriptions of the Manuscripts'', 1940, p.266 History of the manuscript The Hengwrt Chaucer has been in Wales for at least 400 years. This was one of the collection of manuscripts amassed at the mansio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Prick Of Conscience
] The ''Prick of Conscience'' is a Middle English poem dating from the first half of the fourteenth century promoting penitential reflection. It is, in terms of the number of surviving manuscripts, the most popular poem written in English before print, with over 130 known copies. The text is divided into seven sections: man's sinfulness, the transient nature of the world, death, purgatory, Doomsday and its tokens, Hell, and Heaven. Date and authorship The ''Prick of Conscience'' itself says nothing to identify its date, but it can be roughly dated from works which refer to it, showing that it existed when they were written, and from works on which it draws, showing that those works existed when it was written. On this basis its editors place it "in the second quarter of the fourteenth century", i.e. roughly 1325–1350. The poem also contains no identifying information about its author. Five manuscripts attribute it to Richard Rolle, three attribute it to Robert Grosseteste, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Incunabula
In the history of printing, an incunable or incunabulum (plural incunables or incunabula, respectively), is a book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. Incunabula were produced before the printing press became widespread on the continent and are distinct from manuscripts, which are documents written by hand. Some authorities include block books from the same time period as incunabula, whereas others limit the term to works printed using movable type. there are about 30,000 distinct incunable editions known. The probable number of surviving individual copies is much higher, estimated at around 125,000 in Germany alone. Through statistical analysis, it is estimated that the number of lost editions is at least 20,000. Around 550,000 copies of around 27,500 different works have been preserved worldwide. Terminology Incunable is the anglicised form of ''incunabulum'', reconstructed singular of Latin ''in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Prologue
The General Prologue is the first part of ''The Canterbury Tales'' by Geoffrey Chaucer. It introduces the frame story, in which a group of pilgrims travelling to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury agree to take part in a storytelling competition, and describes the pilgrims themselves. Synopsis The frame story of the poem, as set out in the 858 lines of Middle English which make up the General Prologue, is of a religious pilgrimage. The narrator, Geoffrey Chaucer, is in The Tabard Inn in Southwark, where he meets a group of 'sundry folk' who are all on the way to Canterbury, the site of the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket, a martyr reputed to have the power of healing the sinful. The setting is April, and the prologue starts by singing the praises of that month whose rains and warm western wind restore life and fertility to the earth and its inhabitants. This abundance of life, the narrator says, prompts people to go on pilgrimages; in England, the goal of such pilgrimage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julian Of Norwich
Julian of Norwich (1343 – after 1416), also known as Juliana of Norwich, Dame Julian or Mother Julian, was an English mystic and anchoress of the Middle Ages. Her writings, now known as ''Revelations of Divine Love'', are the earliest surviving English language works by a woman, although it is possible that some anonymous works may have had female authors. They are also the only surviving English language works by an anchoress. The Anglican communion and some Catholics regard Julian as a saint. Julian lived in the English city of Norwich, an important centre for commerce that also had a vibrant religious life. During her lifetime, the city suffered the devastating effects of the Black Death of 13481350, the Peasants' Revolt (which affected large parts of England in 1381), and the suppression of the Lollards. In 1373, aged 30 and so seriously ill she thought she was on her deathbed, Julian received a series of visions or shewings of the Passion of Christ. She reco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Pearl Poet
The "Gawain Poet" (), or less commonly the "Pearl Poet",Andrew, M. "Theories of Authorship" (1997) in Brewer (ed). ''A Companion to the Gawain-poet'', Boydell & Brewer, p.23 (''fl.'' late 14th century) is the name given to the author of ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'', an alliterative poem written in 14th-century Middle English. Its author appears also to have written the poems ''Pearl'', ''Patience'', and ''Cleanness''; some scholars suggest the author may also have composed '' Saint Erkenwald''. Save for the last (found in BL-MS ''Harley 2250''), all these works are known from a single surviving manuscript, the British Library holding ''Cotton Nero A.x''. This body of work includes some of the most highly-regarded poetry written in Middle English. The Gawain Poet is unidentified. Various scholars have suggested that the poem is attributable to a member of the landed Massey family of Cheshire, and in particular John Massey of Cotton. This is not widely accepted, however, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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