Both 13th-century works retain elements of the Anglo-Saxon heroic tradition.

Both 13th-century works retain elements of the Anglo-Saxon heroic tradition. However, French romances were far more influential than their English counterparts. In England French romances popularized ideas of adventure and heroism quite contrary to those of Anglo-Saxon heroic literature and were representative of wholly different values and tastes.

Ideals of courtly love, together with its elaborate manners and rituals, replaced those of the heroic code; adventure and feats of courage were pursued for the sake of the knight's lady rather than for the sake of the hero's honor or the glory of his tribal king. Continental verse forms based on metrics and rhyme replaced the Anglo-Saxon alliterative line in Middle English poetry. Many French literary forms also became popular, such as a moral tale, the animal fable, and the dream vision.

The continental allegorical tradition, which derived from classical literature, is exemplified by the Roman de la Rose, which had a strong impact on English literature. Medieval works of literature often center on the inevitability, sadness, change, loss, and death; and the vanity of human grandeur.

A number of 13th-century secular and religious Middle English lyrics are extant, but like Middle English literature in general, the lyric reached its fullest flower during the second half of the 14th cent. Lyrics continued popular in the 15th cent., from which time the ballad also dates. The Fourteenth Century The poetry of the alliterative revival includes some of the best poetry in Middle English.

The Christian allegory The Pearl is a poem of great intricacy and sensibility that is meaningful on several symbolic levels. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by the same anonymous author, is also of high literary sophistication, and its intelligence, vividness, and symbolic interest render it possibly the finest Arthurian poem in English.

Other important alliterative poems are the moral allegory Piers Plowman , attributed to William Langland, and the alliterative Morte Arthur , which, like nearly all English poetry until the mid-14th cent., was anonymous. Pearl It is a Middle English alliterative poem written in the late 14th century. Its unknown author, designated the "Pearl poet" or "Gawain poet", is generally assumed to be the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , Patience , and Cleanness and may have composed St.

Erkenwald.