Quotes About Middle English

this development produced what is called Middle English, known especially from Chaucer

In Middle English, a frankeleyn is a free man, an owner of land but not of title: neither a serf nor a peasant but not a nobleman, either. There

Protestantism. Latin. viand n. (usually viands) ARCHAIC an item of food: an unlimited assortment of viands. late Middle English: from Old French viande 'food', from an alteration of Latin vivenda, neuter plural gerundive of vivere 'to live'. via negativa n. a philosophical approach to theology which asserts that no finite concepts or attributes can be adequately used of God, but only negative terms.

It's curious that the Latin root of the Middle English word for tradition, tradere, means not only to "impart" and "give over," but also to "betray.

I have these guilts about never having read Chaucer but I was talked out of learning Early Anglo-Saxon / Middle English by a friend who had to take it for her Ph.D. They told her to write an essay in Early Anglo-Saxon on any-subject-of-her-own-choosing. "Which is all very well," she said bitterly, "but the only essay subject you can find enough Early Anglo-Saxon words for is 'How to Slaughter a Thousand Men in a Mead Hall'.

Middle English is an exciting field - almost uncharted, I begin to think, because as soon as one turns detailed personal attention on to any little corner of it, the received notions and ideas seem to crumple up and fall to pieces - as far as language goes, at any rate.

I studied English literature in the honors program, which means that you had to take courses in various centuries. You had to start with Old English, Middle English, and work your way toward the modern. I figured if I did that it would force me to read some of the things I might not read on my own.