Be sure to read the introduction to this section ("The Formation of a Western Literature" 1541- 1545) carefully. Latin as a "universal" language of the educated and the continent-wide domination of the Catholic Church made a European culture possible. (By the way, "Catholic" doesn't have the denominational implications in this period that it does since the Reformation: There was only one Church, even if there were some splinter groups). Some literature was written in local languages as well-"The Wanderer" in Anglo-Saxon, Villon's poems in Medieval French, Dante's Divine Comedy in Italian. These works anticipate the development of national literatures at a later period. "The Wanderer" The introduction to this poem describes the Anglo-Saxon four-beat line. Each line has four accented syllables and any number of unaccented syllables. In Anglo-Saxon, at least three of the four beats alliterate, with any vowel alliterating with any other vowel. It is a vigorous and dramatic meter. The translator has reproduced it fairl
The Wanderer's lord has died and left the Wanderer alone, friendless, without a place. His only comfort comes in dreams (1624:36-38). (He speaks of his own experience in the third person, still retaining some reticence.) About line 55, he begins to talk of death. In 1624:59-68, he describes a wise man. In this culture, a wise man is one who is patient and restrained. There is no hint of the kind of spiritual endeavor which Bhartrihari (for one example) speaks of. The Wanderer's spirituality, his view of life's meaning, is summed up in the lines, "Wretchedness fills the realm of earth, / And fates decrees transform the world" (1625:98-99). This is the Wanderer's last word on life, and it is hardly Christian. It much more expresses northern European paganism. (I'm using "Christian" and "pagan" descriptively and not judgmentally.) The first voice then comes back with six lines that agree with some of what the Wanderer has said (a man "must never too quickly unburden his breast" [l. 105]), but essentially changes the
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