The Epic
Canterbury Tales
Literary Terms
Who Wrote It?
What Did He/She Write?
100
Terrorized the Danes in Herot
Who is Grendel
100

This character is given a punishment by the queen after assaulting a young maiden in "The Wife of Bath's Tale."

Who is a knight?

100
A pause, in poetry
What is a caesura?
100
Beowulf
Who is the Beowulf poet?
100
Margery Kempe
What is "The Book of Margery Kempe"?
200
Anglo-Saxon poet-singers who would go from town to town and tell tales in taverns
Who is a scop?
200

A story within an outer story

What is a frame narrative?

200
A. metaphorical compound words or phrases substituted for simple nouns; “whale’s home” for sea or “givers of gold” for rulers or emperors, for instance
What is a kenning?
200
The Canterbury Tales
Who is Geoffrey Chaucer?
200
Sir Walter Raleigh
What is "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd"?
300

He was a honey hunter

Who is Beowulf?

300
This is the prize for the winner of the storytelling contest.
What is a dinner paid for by the other pilgrims?
300
an extended narrative poem that features sensational subject matter, like a perilous journey, and elements such as dialogue, repetition, and strong rhyme and rhythm
What is a ballad?
300
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Who is Christopher Marlowe?
300
Sir Thomas More
What is "Utopia"?
400
The arrangement between Anglo-Saxons thanes to swear fealty to their king in exchange for rewards
What is comitatus?
400
This character defrauds villagers into believing that they need to pay him to be forgiven of their sins.
Who is the pardoner?
400
an extended metaphor that compares two dissimilar things at length and in various ways in an elaborate, formal, or ingenious way
What is a metaphysical conceit?
400
"To the Virgins to Make Much of Time"
Who is Robert Herrick?
400
John Milton
What is Paradise Lost, "How Soon Hath Time," or "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent"?
500

as in Old English, as in Old English

What is swa swa?

500

These characters' wives think they're all that.

Who are the Guildsmen or Tradesmen?

500
A work with two levels of meaning, a literal one and a symbolic one. In such a work, most of the characters, objects, settings, and events represent abstract qualities.
What is an allegory?
500
Piers Plowman
Who is William Langland?
500
Ben Jonson
What is "On My First Son" or "Song: To Celia"?