← The timeline
1100–15002 annotated works
Middle English
After the Norman Conquest of 1066, French floods the language and English rebuilds itself with a far bigger vocabulary and a new habit of rhyme. This is where literature starts to sound like a person talking: gossipy, funny, and interested in ordinary people rather than heroes.
✦Rhyme and regular metre
✦Estates satire — mocking each social class in turn
✦Dream visions and frame stories
✦A vocabulary roughly doubled by French
Writing then
Read itVerse narrativeMiddle English
The Canterbury Tales — General Prologue
Geoffrey Chaucer · c. 1387
Thirty pilgrims, one storytelling contest, and a poet pretending to be naive.
Steady · 3 minRead→
Verse narrativeMedieval
The Divine Comedy
Dante Alighieri · 1321
A guided tour of the afterlife, written with the poet's enemies in the right places.
Demanding · Study guideExplore→