English 12 / Unit 1: Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Literature
1.6 Medieval Literary Forms
Notes
Medieval writers used several popular forms besides epic.
- Romance: tales of knights, quests, courtly love and honor, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1485).
- Ballad: a short song-story passed down orally, with simple language, repetition and a refrain, often about love, death or tragedy.
- Morality play: a drama with allegorical characters (Good Deeds, Knowledge, Death) teaching how to live a good Christian life. Everyman is the best-known example.
- Allegory: a story in which characters or events stand for larger ideas.
Practice
In a medieval play the characters are named Good Deeds, Knowledge and Death. This is most likely:
Characters named for ideas are allegorical, which is typical of morality plays such as Everyman.
Which feature is most typical of a traditional ballad?
Ballads were meant to be sung and remembered, so they use repetition and a simple structure.
A tale follows a young knight who leaves King Arthur's court on a quest, faces a test of honor and returns changed. Which genre is this?
Quests, chivalry and testing of honor define the medieval romance.
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