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I Sing Of A Maiden
"I syng of a mayden" (sometimes titled "As Dewe in Aprille") is a Middle English lyric poem or carol of the 15th century celebrating the Annunciation and the Virgin Birth of Jesus. It has been described as one of the most admired short vernacular English poems of the late Middle Ages.Laura Saetveit MilesThe Annunciation as Model of Meditation: Stillness, Speech and Transformation in Middle English Drama and Lyricin ''Marginalia'', Vol. 2 – 2004–2005 Cambridge Yearbook (Cambridge, 2005). Written by an anonymous hand, the text is now only to be found in British Library Sloane MS 2593, a collection of medieval lyrics now held in the British Library, although contemporary sources suggest it was well known in its day. Originally intended to be sung, no evidence of the work's musical setting survives, and since its rediscovery and popularisation it has formed the basis for a number of modern choral and vocal works. Analysis The work has been described by Laura Saetveit Miles, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First-person Narrative
A first-person narrative is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from their own point of view using the first person It may be narrated by a first-person protagonist (or other focal character), first-person re-teller, first-person witness, or first-person peripheral. A classic example of a first-person protagonist narrator is Charlotte Brontë's ''Jane Eyre'' (1847), in which the title character is also the narrator telling her own story, "I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me". This device allows the audience to see the narrator's mind's eye view of the fictional universe, but it is limited to the narrator's experiences and awareness of the true state of affairs. In some stories, first-person narrators may relay dialogue with other characters or refer to information they heard from the other characters, in order to try to deliver a larger point of view. Other stories may switch the narrator to different cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Anglia
East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in what is now Northern Germany. Area Definitions of what constitutes East Anglia vary. The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia, established in the 6th century, originally consisted of the modern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and expanded west into at least part of Cambridgeshire, typically the northernmost parts known as The Fens. The modern NUTS 3 statistical unit of East Anglia comprises Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire (including the City of Peterborough unitary authority). Those three counties have formed the Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia since 1976, and were the subject of a possible government devolution package in 2016. Essex has sometimes been included in definitions of East Anglia, including by the London Society o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mystery Play
Mystery plays and miracle plays (they are distinguished as two different forms although the terms are often used interchangeably) are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They told of subjects such as the Creation, Adam and Eve, the murder of Abel, and the Last Judgment. Often they were performed together in cycles which could last for days. The name derives from ''mystery'' used in its sense of ''miracle,'' but an occasionally quoted derivation is from ''ministerium'', meaning ''craft'', and so the 'mysteries' or plays performed by the craft guilds. Origins As early as the fifth century living tableaux were introduced into sacred services. The plays originated as simple ''tropes'', verbal embellishments of liturgical texts, and slowly became more elaborate. At an early period chants from the service of the day were added t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warwickshire
Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon and Victorian novelist George Eliot, (born Mary Ann Evans), at Nuneaton. Other significant towns include Rugby, Leamington Spa, Bedworth, Kenilworth and Atherstone. The county offers a mix of historic towns and large rural areas. It is a popular destination for international and domestic tourists to explore both medieval and more recent history. The county is divided into five districts of North Warwickshire, Nuneaton and Bedworth, Rugby, Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon. The current county boundaries were set in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972. The historic county boundaries included Coventry, Sutton Coldfield and Solihull, as well as much of Birmingham and Tamworth. Geography Warwickshire is bordered by Leicestershire to the nort ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry V Of England
Henry V (16 September 1386 – 31 August 1422), also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1413 until his death in 1422. Despite his relatively short reign, Henry's outstanding military successes in the Hundred Years' War against France made England one of the strongest military powers in Europe. Immortalised in Shakespeare's "Henriad" plays, Henry is known and celebrated as one of the greatest warrior-kings of medieval England. During the reign of his father Henry IV, Henry gained military experience fighting the Welsh during the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr and against the powerful aristocratic Percy family of Northumberland at the Battle of Shrewsbury. Henry acquired an increased role in England's government due to the king's declining health, but disagreements between father and son led to political conflict between the two. After his father's death in 1413, Henry assumed control of the country and asserted the pending English claim t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Ritson
Joseph Ritson (2 October 1752 – 23 September 1803) was an English antiquary who was well known for his 1795 compilation of the Robin Hood legend. After a visit to France in 1791, he became a staunch supporter of the ideals of the French Revolution. He was also an influential vegetarianism activist.Spencer, Colin. (1995). ''The Heretic's Feast: A History of Vegetarianism''. University Press of New England. pp. 233-234. He is also known for his collections of English nursery rhymes, such as " Roses Are Red" and "Little Bo-Peep", in ''Gammer Gurton's Garland or The Nursery Parnassus'', published in London by Joseph Johnson. Early life He was born in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, of a Westmorland yeoman family. He was educated for the law, mainly by Ralph Bradley the leading conveyancer. He then settled in London as a conveyancer at 22. Author He devoted his spare time to literature, and in 1782, he published an attack on Thomas Warton's '' History of English Poetry''. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Wright (antiquarian)
Thomas Wright (23 April 181023 December 1877) was an English antiquarian and writer. Life Wright was born near Ludlow at Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire descended from a Quaker family formerly living at Bradford. He was educated at Ludlow Grammar School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, whence he graduated in 1834. While at Cambridge he contributed to the ''Gentleman's Magazine'' and other periodicals, and in 1835 he came to London to devote himself to a literary career. His first separate work was ''Early English Poetry in Black Letter, with Prefaces and Notes'' (1836, 4 vols. 12mo), which was followed during the next forty years by an extensive series of publications, many of lasting value. He helped to found the British Archaeological Association and the Percy, Camden and Shakespeare Societies. In 1842 he was elected corresponding member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres of Paris, and was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries as well as member of many ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lullay, Mine Liking
"Lullay, mine liking" is a Middle English lyric poem or carol of the 15th century which frames a narrative describing an encounter of the Nativity with a song sung by the Virgin Mary to the infant Christ. The refrain is an early example of an English lullaby; the term "lullaby" is thought to originate with the "lu lu" or "la la" sound made by mothers or nurses to calm children, and "by" or "bye bye", another lulling sound (for example in the similarly ancient Coventry Carol).H. Carpenter and M. Prichard, ''The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature'' (Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 326. There are a number of surviving medieval English verses associated with the birth of Jesus which take the form of a lullaby, of which this is probably the most famous example. Written by an anonymous hand, the text is found uniquely in Sloane MS 2593, a collection of medieval lyrics now held in the British Library. Originally intended to be sung, no evidence of the work's musical setting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riddle Songs
A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and ''conundra'', which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the answer. Archer Taylor says that "we can probably say that riddling is a universal art" and cites riddles from hundreds of different cultures including Finnish, Hungarian, American Indian, Chinese, Russian, Dutch and Filipino sources amongst many others. Many riddles and riddle-themes are internationally widespread. In the assessment of Elli Köngäs-Maranda (originally writing about Malaitian riddles, but with an insight that has been taken up more widely), whereas myths serve to encode and establish social norms, "riddles make a point of playing with conceptual boundaries and cross ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adam Lay Ybounden
"Adam lay ybounden", originally titled Adam lay i-bowndyn, is a 15th-century English Christian text of unknown authorship. It relates the Biblical events of Genesis, Chapter 3 on the Fall of Man. Originally a song text, no contemporary musical settings survive, although there are many notable modern choral settings of the text, such as that by Boris Ord. Origins The manuscript on which the poem is found (Sloane MS 2593, ff. 10v-11) is held by the British Library, who date the work to c.1400 and speculate that the lyrics may have belonged to a wandering minstrel; other poems included on the same page in the manuscript include "I have a gentil cok", the famous lyric poem " I syng of a mayden" and two riddle songs – "A minstrel's begging song" and "I have a yong suster". Analysis of their dialect by K.R. Palti (2008) places them within the song tradition of East Anglia and more specifically Norfolk; two further carol manuscripts from the county contain songs from Sloane MS 2593. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minstrel
A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer who sang songs and played musical instruments. Description Minstrels performed songs which told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty and high society. As the courts became more sophisticated, minstrels were eventually replaced at court by the troubadours, and many became wandering minstrels, performing in the streets; a decline in their popularity began in the late 15th century. Minstrels fed into later traditions of travelling entertainers, which continued to be moderately strong into the early 20th century, and which has some continuity in the form of today's bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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