History of english literature

Anglo-Saxon, Middle English and the Renaissance:An Overview... Interest in Classical Literature Greek and Roman and Humanity... General Literary Timeline Oral Stories  Beowulf, Dream o

Anglo-Saxon, Middle English and the Renaissance:

An Overview

General Historical Timeline

 Britons

 Roman Conquest (55 B.C –

410 A.D.)

 Angles, Saxons and Jutes

invade

 Danish Invasion (King Alfred

the Great)

 Norman Conquest (1066)

 Feudal England (Peasants,

Nobility, and Clergy)

 Hundred Years’ War

(1337-1453)

 War of the Roses (1455-1485):

Lancaster v York.

 Reformation (Henry VIII v Rome = Church of England)

 Counter-Reformation (Queen Mary

 Reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603)

 Defeat of the Spanish

“Armada” (1588)

 Renaissance (Rebirth of Letters) – Started Italy 14 th C., spread to Europe Interest in Classical Literature (Greek and Roman) and Humanity.

 Caxton – Printing Press (1475)

General Literary Timeline

 Oral Stories

 Beowulf, Dream of the Rood, and

other A-S poems

 Medieval Romances, translated

from French or Latin (Mallory’s

Le Morte D’Arthur)

 Langland’s Piers the Plowman

 English Ballads (songs/chants):

Robin Hood

 Chaucer (Troilus and Crieseyde,

The Canterbury Tales) – First to

bring his own voice to English

literature and incorporate

Heroic Couplet*

 First English Bible (14 th C.)

 Thomas More (Utopia)

 Translation, Travel and Lyric poems

 The Sonnet

 Edmund Spenser The Faerie

Queene

 Miracle Plays

 Christopher Marlowe (Doctor

Faustus)

 Shakespeare and His Contemporaries

 A-S poem

 Taken from Oral History and Stories

 Written down and influenced by Christian Monks

 Alliterative Verse

 Metaphor and idiom

 Understatement

 Meant to be read aloud or sung

Medieval Romances

 Translated from French or Latin

 Focuses on one Romantic “Hero”

 Matters of Britain (King Arthur)

 Matters of France (Charlemagne)

 Matters of Rome (Alexander the Great)

 See: Le Morte D’Arthur, Sir Gawain and the Green

Knight, Havelok the Dane, etc.

Piers the Plowman

 Written by William Langland (c.1330-c.1400)

 Alliterative verse (but in Early Middle English)

 Dream Poem

 Allegory – using symbols to relate truth

 Shows Feudal England

 Exaltation of the oppressed peasant

 Peasant’s literature (oral)

 Story told in song, usually in 4-line stanzas (abcb

rhyme)

 Oral history, written down much later

 Robin Hood (The Geste of Robin Hood)

 1340-c.1400

 French influence (The Romaunt of the Rose) -

translation

 Italian influence (Troilus and Criseyde) - adaption

 English originality (The Canterbury Tales) – new and

original

 Language: Rhymed Stanza; Heroic Couplet (French) = Blank Verse + Rhyming Couplet; Iambic Pentameter

Thomas More

 1478-1535

 Middle Class scholar and lawyer

 Executed by Henry VIII because of disagreements

 Utopia – More’s vision of an ideal commonwealth

Lyrical Poems

 Renaissance and Elizabethan Era brought about

interest in Classics, Humanism and nationalist feeling

 Translations of Italian and French as well as Latin and Greek

 Travel Literature

 Lyrical Poems

The Sonnet

 14 lines of rhymed iambic pentameter (blank verse)

 2 kinds:

efef, gg

the proposition followed by sestet (two tercets) forming

the resolution rhyme: abba abba, cde cde (or cdc cdc)

 All lines have 10 syllables

 Also, Occitan, Spenserian, and Modern Sonnets

Edmund Spencer

 1552-1599

 The Faerie Queene – long poem in 12 books (only 6

finished)

day a stranger in distress asks for help and a knight is assigned to help

iambic feet; rhyme: ababbcbcc