history of english literature

ENGLISH LITERATURE

BIDA JAVAID

NATIONAL UNIVERISTY OF MODREN LANGUAGES (NUML]

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS

What is literature? What is the nature of

literature?What is the value of literature?Why do we study literature?How do we study literature?

1. What is Literature?

Literature refers to the practice and profession of writing. It comes from human interest in telling a story, in arranging words in artistic forms, in describing in words some aspects of human experiences.

2. Why we read Literature?

Pleasure

Relaxation

Knowledge

Literature1. Histories

2. Romances – pose and verse (Metrical Romances)

3. Tales

4. Dramas

5. Lyric poetry

6. Ballads

ProsePoetry

Drama

Sonnet

Tudor Literature Courtly Literature - romantic by nature Citizen literature – more realistic by nature

Indo-European languages

Overview of English InfluencesPre-History-1066 A.D.C.R.A.V.N.

Celts (Brythons and Gaels) up to 55 B.C.

Roman Conque 55 B.C. - 407 A.D.

Anglo-Saxon Perio 407 A.D. - 787 A.D.

Viking Invasions 787 A.D. - 1066 A.D.

Noman Conquest begins in 1066 A.D.

History of English Literature

Old English Literature

Medieval English Literature

Renaissance English Literature

17th century English Literature


Romantic English Literature



Old English Literature

449A.D.---1066

Formation of England

Formation of Old English

Poetic tradition

The Song of Beowulf---the national epic

Anglo-Saxon period: from tribal society to feudalism

Medieval English Literature

About five centuries

Feudal system, Roman Catholic church

Literary forms: romance, popular ballad

Representatives:Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland

Renaissance English Literature

Late 15th century---early 17th century The rise of bourgeois class Renaissance: the rebirth of letters

the key: humanism Thomas More: the greatest humanist Representatives:

--William Shakespeare: drama

--Edmund Spencer: poetry

--Francis Bacon: essay

17th century English Literature English Revolution, Restoration, the “Glorious

Revolution”--constitutional monarchy Literature of the Revolution:

--Poetry: John Milton

Metaphysical poetry

--Prose: John Bunyan Literature of the Restoration:

--comedies (comedy of manners)

--John Dryden

18th century English Literature The industrial revolution, the rise of bourgeois

middle class The Enlightenment—the struggle of

bourgeoisie against feudalism Neoclassicism: Alexander Pope, Joseph

Addison, Richard Steele Realistic novel: Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift,

Henry Fielding Sentimentalism: Laurence Stern, Thomas Gray Pre-Romanticism: William Blake, Robert Burns

Romantic English Literature

The French Revolution & the industrial revolution

Poetry

William Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge

Robert Southey; Byron, Shelley, Keats

Prose: Charles Lamb

Novel: Walter Scott, Jane Austen


The Victorian period

The struggle between the working class and the capitalists

Critical realism: novel (the 40s and early 50s)

Charles Dickens, W. M. Thackeray, Bronte sisters, George Eliot etc.

Prose & poetry: the mid and late 19th century

Chartist literature

Literary trends at the end of the 19th century

--Naturalism: George Gissing

--Neo-romanticism: Robert Louis Stevenson

--Aestheticism: Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater

20th century English Literature The two world wars New ideas and new theories Realistic writing: early 20th century

--poetry: Thomas Hardy, war poets

--novel: John Galsworthy, H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennett

--drama: George Bernard Shaw Modernism: the 20s and 30s

--a movement of experiments in techniques

-- poetry: W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot.

-- novel: D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Foster, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf

--drama: J.M. Synge English literature since 1945

--postmodernism

--drama: Samuel Becket, John Osborne,Harold Pinter

--novel: William Golding, John Fowles, Kingsley Amis (the Angry Yong man), Martin Amis etc.

--poetry: Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney

BEOWULF: c. 1000

Written in alliterative verse and uses kennings, as does Caedmon’s Hymn. An epic poem in the elegiac mode.

Deals with the Danish King, Hrothgar, whose court is attacked by the monster Grendel and his mother, who kill Many of the kings men.

Beowulf , a young Great, comes boasting to Hrothgar’s court, and avenges these deaths by fighting Grendel and his mother, receiving rich rewards from Hrothgar—his ring-bearer—for these deeds. He then fights a dragon to save his own people, but dies in slaying it. The poem ends in a lament for Beowulf.

Contributions to Literature1. Epic and War poetry

Norman conquest led by William of Normandy “The Conqueror”

EFFECTS/INFLUENCES

Love of law and order

William drew up the code of laws and prepared the Domesday Book w/c includes a gigantic survey of all the real estate & other taxable property of England

great increase in the growth and importance of towns in England

French or Anglo- Norman which is based on Latin.

Many words were introduced.

English grammar was simplified.

Standard English language

The Canterbury Tales next

Chaucer’s masterpiece and one of the monumental works in English literature

Outline of the story The tales: The Wife of Bath

GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1343 – 1400)

The Canterbury Tales (1380s)

24 tales and a framing prologue that sets up the fiction of pilgrims meeting at a tavern as they begin their pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket in Canterbury.

Each agrees to tell a tale. The tales are inked by prologues. The narrator begins the prologue by describing the fine April day and each of the pilgrims in his entourage.

Some characters: Knight, Miller, Wife of Bath, Prioress, Nun’s Priest, Squire, Reeve, Pardoner, Summoner, Cook, Man of Law, Oxford Scholar, etc.

RENAISSANCE LITERATURE (1485 – 1660)

“Renaissance” means “Rebirth”--Rebirth of interest in the Greek and Latin classics.

Emphasis on humanistic education for statesmanship Focus on the individual and a concern with the fullest

possible cultivation of human potential through proper education

Focus on individual consciousness and the interior mind concern with the refinement of the language and the development of a national, vernacular literature

Reformation- movement that aimed for reformation in the Roman Catholic church which gave rise to the Protestant domination empowered by Martin Luther.

Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. He is known for his magnificent blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his own mysterious and untimely death.

Christopher Marlowe

“University Wits” The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus next

1. It is based on a German legend. The hero of the play is Doctor Faustus, a

young and brilliant scholar. The chief feature of his character is a thirst for knowledge.

Faustus takes one by one the chief subjects of academic curriculum, philosophy, medicine and law. He is bored with the orthodox curriculum, and turns to the study of magic in order to understand and possess the kingdoms of the earth.

Then he meet the Devil and the doctor must sell his soul to the Devil so he may live 24 years, with the Devil at his command. Then Faustus signs the bond with his own blood.

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus back

After the contract with the Devil, Faustus makes a tour in the universe on a dragon’s back. Then he gives a display of his magic art and plays tricks upon the Pope at a banquet.

Meanwhile Faustus is drawing near his doom. It is the scholars who are his companions on his last night on earth. Even in his painful expectation of the coming of the devils, he thinks of his friends safety: “ Gentlemen, away, lest you perish with me.” So one hour before midnight, Faustus is left to face his awful destiny alone until he is carried away by the Devil.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard").

Shakespeare in Love

William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s Birthplace

William Shakespeare His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two

long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Historical plays Great comedies Great tragedies

William Shakespeare back

Historical plays:

Henry Ⅳ

Richard III

Henry Ⅴ

Henry VIII


Great comedies:

The Merchant of Venice

As You Like It

Twelfth Night

A Midsummer Night’s Dream


Great tragedies:

Hamlet

Othello

King Lear

Macbeth

Francis Bacon

He is the founder of English materialist philosophy, founder of modern science in England and the first English essayist.

His works: Essays (Of Study, Of Truth) New Instrument Advancement of Learning

Of Study

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.

Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.

John Milton

About the author About Paradise Lost Major works

John Milton

With the Restoration of Charles II, Milton was arrested and imprisoned. His book were burnt. But he was saved, he probably owed his escape from death to his blindness. A fire in London destroyed his house. He moved from place to place until he settled down on the outskirts of London.

His blindness forced him to depend on his daughters for an assistance with his reading and writing. Everyday he dictated his epic Paradise Lost 10 or 20 lines at a time.

Paradise Lost

It is a long epic of 12 books. The story was taken from the Bible.

The Old Testament The New Testament The story was taken from the Old

Testament, the Creation.

Paradise Lost

Content: 1. the rebellion of Satan and his

fellow-angles in Heaven. 2. the Creation of the earth and of

Adam and Eve by God. 3. Satan’s temptation of Eve and

the departure of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

Paradise Lost Satan and his followers are banished

from Heaven and driven into the hell. Satan fearlessly withstands all pains

and passionately strives for victory. He choose for his battlefield the most perfect spot ever created by God--the Garden of Eden, where live the first man and woman--Adam and Eve. They were not permit to eat the fruit that grows on the Tree of Knowledge.

Paradise Lost

Satan persuade her to break God’s command, Eve eats an apple from the forbidden tree and pick for Adam. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden and doomed to an earthly life full of hardships and sufferings.

John Milton back

His masterpiece:

Paradise Lost

Paradise Regained

Samson Agonist

William Wordsworth

His works:

Lyrical Ballads

To the Cuckoo

Lines Written in Early Spring

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

Lucy Poems

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) was an English poet, critic and philosopher who was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets.

He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, as well as his major prose work Biographia Literaria.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

George Gordon Byron

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) was a British poet and a leading figure in Romanticism.

He is regarded as one of the greatest European poets and remains widely read and influential, both in the English-speaking world and beyond.

Byron's fame rests not only on his writings but also on his life, which featured extravagant living, numerous love affairs, debts, separation, and marital exploits. He was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

George Gordon Byron

His major works:

Child Harold’s Pilgrimage

Don Juan

Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) was one of the major

English Romantic poets and is widely considered to be among the finest lyric poets in the English language.

He was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron. The novelist Mary Shelley was his second wife.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

His major works: Prometheus Unbound

A Defence of Poetry Ode to the West Wind The Revolt of Islam

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The trumpet of a prophecy ! O, Wind,

If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

John Keats John Keats (1795–1821) was one of the principal poets

of the English Romantic movement. During his short life, his work received constant critical attacks from periodicals of the day, but his posthumous influence on poets has been immense.

Elaborate word choice and sensual imagery characterize Keats's poetry.

John Keats

Major works: Isabella The Eve of St. Agnes, Lamia Ode to a Nightingale

19th Century Novels

Mary Shelley

Walter Scott

Jane Austen

Bronte Sisters

Charles Dickens

William Makepeace Thackeray

Thomas Hardy

Jane Austen

Her major works:

Pride and Prejudice

Sense and Sensibility

Emma

Northanger Abbey

Mansfield Park

Persuasion

Jane Austen

Jane Austen(1775-1817), is a famous English novelist. With detail, Austen portrayed the quiet, day-to-day life of members of the upper middle class.

Her works combine romantic comedy with social satire and psychological insight.

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens(1812–1870), pen-name "Boz", was one of the most popular English novelists of the Victorian era.

Many of Dickens's novels first appeared in periodicals and magazines in serialized form.

Unlike many other authors who completed entire novels before serial production commenced, Dickens often composed his works in parts, in the order in which they were meant to appear. Such a practice lent his stories a particular rhythm.

Charles Dickens

His Major works:

Oliver Twist

A Tale of Two Cities

Great Expectations

David Copperfield

Charles Dickens

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy(1840–1928) was an English novelist, short story writer, and poet of the naturalist movement, though he saw himself as a poet and wrote novels mainly for financial gain only.

Thomas Hardy

His Major works: Tess of the D’urbervilles Under the Greenwood Tree Far from the Madding Crowd Major of Casterbridge Jude the Obscure

The 20th Century Literature Modernism Joseph Conrad Virginia Woolf D. H. Lawrence E. M. Forster T. S. Eliot William Butler Yeats Oscar Wilde

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was an English novelist and essayist, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group.

Virginia Woolf

The Bloomsbury Group was an English collectivity of friends and relatives who lived in or near London during the first half of the twentieth century.

Their work deeply influenced literature, aesthetics, criticism, and economics as well as modern attitudes towards feminism, pacifism, and sexuality. Its best known members were Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey.

Virginia Woolf She sometimes used the “stream of

consciousness” technique.▶Stream of Consciousness is a

psychological term indicating the flux of conscious and subconscious thoughts and impressions moving in the mind at any given time independently of the person’s will.

▶In the 20th century, under the influence of Fleud’s theory of psychological analysis , a number of writers adopted the Stream of Consciousness as a method of novel writing.

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929), with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Others

T. S. Eliot

William Butler Yeats

Oscar Wilde

Another view of The 20th Century Literature

Postmodernism

George Orwell

John Fowles

Graham Greene

Let us Recap

Pre-Historical/Pre-Roman

Anglo-Saxons-Jutes

Anglo-Saxon LiteratureGermanic ethos that celebrated the warrior and his exploits.

Most storytelling was oral.

Old English Poetry became distinctive...

1. Alliteration- repetition of consonant sounds

2. Kenning- a metaphor expressed as a compound noun - “whale-path” for the seaCaesura- a break or pause in poetry

3. Caesura- a break or pause in poetry

RUNES: Anglo-Saxon alphabet/OLD ENGLISH. Runes were probably brought to Britain in the 5th century by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians, and were used until about the 11th century. Runic inscription are mostly found on jewelry, weapons, stones and other objects. Very few examples of Runic writing on manuscripts have survived.

Anglo-Saxon Poetry and RiddlesThe Book of Exeter

Contains more than 30 poems and 90 riddles.

Written down by monks in about 975, our primary source of Anglo-Saxon poetry

Dominant mood in poetry is elegiac, or mournful

Dominant tone of riddles is light and somewhat bawdy (for entertainment purposes- think SNL).

Beowulf...The major text we will read from this period is the EPIC Beowulf. It is the story of a Scandinavian (GEAT) warrior or knight probably in the sixth century, who comes to help a neighboring tribe, the Danes, who are being attacked by a monster.

We study English history to understand the CONTEXT of Beowulf, and we study Beowulf to understand the world which was OLD ENGLISH.

Consider the fighting, hunting, farming and loving Anglo-Saxon heritage. The Non-Christians only hope was for fame and commemoration in poetry.

Beowulf is considered the shining star of Old English literature.

The Book of Exeter is the largest surviving collection of poetry.

A Brief Glimpse of the History of English from “Our Father”

OLD ENGLISH

400-1066

Beowulf

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum si þin nama gehalgod tobecume þin rice gewurþe þin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us to dæg and forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele soþlice.

Middle English

1066-1485

Chaucer

Oure fadir þat art in heuenes halwid be þi name; þi reume or kyngdom come to be. Be þi wille don in herþe as it is doun in heuene. yeue to us today oure eche dayes bred. And foryeue to us oure dettis þat is oure synnys as we foryeuen to oure dettouris þat is to men þat han synned in us. And lede us not into temptacion but delyuere us from euyl.

Early Modern

English

1485-1800

Shakes-peare

Our father which art in heauen, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heauen. Giue us this day our daily bread. And forgiue us our debts as we forgiue our debters. And lead us not into temptation, but deliuer us from euill. Amen.

Modern English

1800-present

Austen Extra Credit! Write “The Our Father” in Modern English.

So, what do I need to know about the History of the Englsih Language?

Major dates

55 B.C.

43 A.D.

410 A.D.

597 A.D.

1066 A.D.

Major people…

Julius Caesar

St. Augustine

King Ethelbert of Kent

King Alfred “the great”

William the Conqueror

William, Duke of Normandy

3. Old English Period469 AD - 1066 AD

Three conquests.

The Song of Beowulf:

Middle English Literature

Bible translations,

Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales

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Renaissance Literature

Vernacular Literature.

William Caxton.

Book of Common Prayer.

Early Modern Period

Elizabethan Era

Jacobean Literature

Caroline and Cromwellian Literature

Restoration Literature

Augustan Literature.

Elizabethan Era

William Shakespeare Hamlet,

Romeo and Juliet,

The Merchant of Venice

Macbeth

Jacobean Literature

Post-Shakespeare. Dramatist Ben Jonson:

Theory of Humors

Beaumont and Fletcher

The Knight of the Burning Pestle

Caroline and Cromwellian Literature

Commonwealth.

Samuel Pepys.

Great Plague.

Great Fire of London.



Restoration Literature

John Milton: Paradise Lost

The Country Wife

Pilgrim’s Progress



Augustan Literature

Jonathan Swift: A Tale of a Tub

Gulliver’s Travels



18th Century

Age of Enlightment.

Age of Sensibility.

Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto

Romanticism

Industrialism.

William Blake: Romantic Age

Oscar Wilde

Mary Shelley:



Victorian Literature

Charles Dickens.

Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlok Holmes



English Literature since 1900

Modernism: Rudyard Kipling, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf

Post-Modern Literature: Truman Capote

Post World War II: J.R.R. Tolkien



history of english literature

Education

nature of literature

value of literature

century chartist literature

john bunyan literature

nature citizen literature

lyric poetry

french revolution

glorious revolution