A History of English Literature

Sweetly clear exemplification of doctrine is the aim of some lyrics, as it was of the

paintings of Fra Angelico. A perfect one is:

I syng of a mayden

that is makeles, without peer

Kyng of alle kynges

to here sone she ches. chose

He cam also stille as silently

there his moder was where

As dew in Aprille

that falleth on the gras.

He cam also stille

to his moderes bowr bower

As dew in Aprille

that falleth on the flour ...

The coming of the dew is likened to the Holy Ghost, who comes to the Virgin

Mary with the delicacy and reverence of a courtly wooer.

English religious painting was whitewashed over at the Reformation, but Italian

painting offers a parallel to the wealth of the English lyric. Lyrics on Christmas and

on the Crucifixion combine the theological poise of ‘I syng of a mayden’ with the

human dignity of the panels of Duccio’s Maestàin Siena. Others have the emotional

realism of Giotto. Friars used lyrics to induce pity and repentance; the preaching

book of the Franciscan John of Grimestone, made in 1372, contains almost 250

such lyrics, chiefly penitential, as notes or illustrations for sermons. But most lyrics

are Anon.

Some have refrains, as in the Corpus Christi Carol: ‘Lully lullay, lully, lullay, /

The faucon hath borne me make [love] away.’ Another is the complaint of Christ the

lover of mankind:

In the vaile of restles mynd vale

I sought in mounteyn and in mede, meadow

Trustyng a trewe love for to fynd.

Upon an hyll than toke I hede, took I heed

A voice I herd (and nere I yede) nearer I went

In gret dolour complaynyng tho, grief then

‘See, dere soule, my sides blede, bleed

Quia amore langueo.’ Because I am sick for love

This stanza shows how well a rhyming stanza can use alliteration to link and shape

syllabic phrases. The refrain, from the Song of Songs, is found in other lyrics. In the

re ligious lyric, as in the ‘Showings’ of Julian of Norwich, the keynote is the personal

love of the Saviour for each member of humankind.

Deaths of Arthur

The oldest prose narrative still familiar in English, apart from those in scripture, is

Le Morte Darthur (1470) of Sir Thomas Malory. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history

branched into many romances of chivalry: of these, the most remarkable in English

between Gawainand Malory are the Stanzaic Le Morte Arthur (contemporary with

Gawain, and from the same area) and the Morte Arthure ofc.1400, known as the

68 2 · MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE: 1066–1500