Medieval Poetry - Examples of Medieval Poetry

Examples of Medieval Poetry

Old English religious poetry includes the poem Christ by Cynewulf and the poem The Dream of the Rood, preserved in both manuscript form and on the Ruthwell Cross. We do have some secular poetry; in fact a great deal of medieval literature was written in verse, including the Old English epic Beowulf. Scholars are fairly sure, based on a few fragments and on references in historic texts, that much lost secular poetry was set to music, and was spread by traveling minstrels, or bards, across Europe. Thus, the few poems written eventually became ballads or lays, and never made it to being recited without song or other music.

Read more about this topic:  Medieval Poetry

Famous quotes containing the words examples of, examples, medieval and/or poetry:

    Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
    Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

    No rules exist, and examples are simply life-savers answering the appeals of rules making vain attempts to exist.
    André Breton (1896–1966)

    The medieval university looked backwards; it professed to be a storehouse of old knowledge.... The modern university looks forward, and is a factory of new knowledge.
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)

    Like a poetry lesson til sooner
    Or later it faltered at the line where
    —W.H. (Wystan Hugh)