Simple forms : essays on medieval English popular literature /
Simple Forms is a study of popular or folk literature in the medieval period. Focusing both on the vast body of oral literature that lies behind the written texts which have survived from the medieval period and on the popular literature provided by literate authors for audiences of hearers or reade...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford ; New York :
Oxford University Press,
2015.
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | Simple Forms is a study of popular or folk literature in the medieval period. Focusing both on the vast body of oral literature that lies behind the written texts which have survived from the medieval period and on the popular literature provided by literate authors for audiences of hearers or readers with varying degrees of literacy, Douglas Gray leads new readers to a productively complicated understanding of the relationship between medieval popular culture and the culture of the learned. He argues that medieval society was stratified, in what seems to us a rigid way, but that culturally it was more flexible. Literary topics, themes, and forms moved, there was much borrowing and a constant interaction. Popular tales, motifs and ideas passed into learned or courtly works. Learned forms and attitudes made their way in into popular culture. All in all this seems to have been a fruitful symbiosis. The book's twelve chapters are principally organized genre, covering epics, ballads, popular romances, folktales, the German sage, legends, animal tales and fables, proverbs, riddles, satires, songs and drama. |
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| Physical Description: | ix, 267 pages ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-262) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780198706090 019870609X |