John Mandeville

John Mandeville is best known by the work The Travels of John Mandeville. It is written in the Midland dialect which was then becoming the literary language of England. It is now established that Sir John Mandeville is a fictitious hero very much like Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Mandeville is the imaginary English knight who narrates his journey to Palestine and China. The author confesses that he traveled through strange countries where men were fed on serpents and hissed like them. He also described dog-headed men and many such fantastic things. Fantasy is the soul of the narrative of Mandeville because truth and fiction are strongly mingled by its simple effortless and almost nursery style. The book had a happy effect on the development of English prose which in the Middle English period was very nascent. Mandeville's name is uttered with another name, that is of John Wycliffe. Although Wycliffe's prose was grave in tone, Mandeville's prose was imaginative and marked by a child like simplicity.

Caxton

The beginning of the revival of learning was one important feature of Renaissance of Europe and England. After the fall of Constantinople, the monks who possessed the manuscripts of Greek literature and philosophy, took shelter in Mylam, Venice and Florence. Quite naturally there was a need for printing new books on new literature. It was Caxton who bore the entire responsibility for publishing books for spreading the message of humanism. In 1476 Caxton established his printing press in England and promoted 'New Learning' by printing Lydgate's Temple of Glass. It is the first printed book in Europe. In 1485 Caxton published Malory's Morte d' Arthur which was a manifestation of the Renaissance spirit. Caxton himself translated some of the books from latin and printed them with the zeal of reformer. Caxton was more than a mere printer of books. He embodied Renaissance ideals through his publications.