History of English Literature

1. History of English
Literature
From Beowulf to Dickens

2. Course of
Action
• Lessons
• Lectures
• Close reading of literary works
• Creative exercises
• Examination
• Group discussion
• Multiple Choice Test
Jeff Buck’s Modern Bridge, Old Gatehouse at Beeston Castle at www.geograph.com. CC BY-SA 2.0

3. Literature Periods
Old English Literature 450-1150
Middle English Literature 1150-1500
The Renaissance 1500-1650
The Restoration Period 1650-1789
The Romantic Period 1789-1837
The Victorian Age 1837-1901
…Modernism and Post Modernism will
be covered in English 7
Image: Public Domain

4. Old English 450-1150
Not accessible to us

5. Old English – Beowulf
First English masterpiece
Beowulf is both the first English literary masterpiece and one
of the earliest European Epics written in a language that
wasn’t Latin. Only one single copy of it has been found.
Rythm & Alliteration
Beowulf was probably composed – not written – during the
8th century. People retold the story to each other through
generations. Beowulf uses two techniques to make it easier to
remember – Rhythm and Alliteration. Scholars believe it was
written down sometime during the 11th century.
The plot
The poem, set in Scandinavia, sometime during the 4th century,
tells the story of a Geat hero saving people from a man-eating
monster and a fire spitting dragon
Public domain

6. Old English – Beowulf
Ða wæs on burgum Beowulf Scyldinga,
leof leodcyning, longe þrage
folcum gefræge fæder ellor hwearf,
aldor of earde, oþþæt him eft onwoc
heah Healfdene; heold þenden lifde,
gamol ond guðreouw, glæde Scyldingas.
ðæm feower bearn forð gerimed
Now Beowulf bode in the burg of the Scyldings,
leader beloved, and long he ruled
in fame with all folk, since his father had gone
away from the world, till awoke an heir,
haughty Healfdene, who held through life,
sage and sturdy, the Scyldings glad.
Then, one after one, there woke to him,
Old English is difficult to understand because it has different:
Letters Grammar Spelling Vocabulary Pronunciation

7. Middle English 1150-1500
The Age of Chaucer
Image: Public domain:

8. Middle English – The Canterbury Tales
By Geoffrey Chaucer
Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
(That slepen al the nyght with open eye)
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes…
…And palmers to be seeking foreign strands,
To distant shrines renowned in sundry lands.
And then from every English countryside
Especially to Canterbury they ride,
There to the holy sainted martyr kneeling
That in their sickness sent them help and healing.
Now in that season it befell one day
In Southwark at the Tabard as I lay,
Ready upon my pilgrimage to start
Toward Canterbury, reverent of heart,
There came at night into that hostelry
Full nine and twenty in a company,
People of all kinds that had chanced to fall
In fellowship, and they were pilgrims all
Riding to Canterbury.

9. The Renaissance 1500-1650
By David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada (Shakespeare`s Globe Theatre Uploaded by russavia) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Rebirth – Old classics were rediscovered

10. The Renaissance – Sonnets
Sonnet 18
by William Shakespeare
!
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
14 lines
a Rhyme scheme
b
a
b
c
d
c
d
e
f
e
f
g
g
Metrical line is iambic pentameter
Unstressed syllable
followed by a stressed
Each line has five iambs
Use of similees

11. The Renaissance – Sonnets
Sonnet 18
by William Shakespeare
!
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Summary
by schmoop.com
!
The speaker begins by asking whether he should or will
compare "thee" to a summer day. He says that his beloved is
more lovely and more even-tempered.
He then runs off a list of reasons why summer isn’t all
that great: winds shake the buds that emerged in Spring,
summer ends too quickly, and the sun can get too hot or be
obscured by clouds.
He goes on, saying that everything beautiful eventually
fades by chance or by nature’s inevitable changes. Coming
back to the beloved, though, he argues that his or her summer
(or happy, beautiful years) won’t go away, nor will his or her
beauty fade away.
Moreover, death will never be able to take the beloved,
since the beloved exists in eternal lines (meaning poetry).
The speaker concludes that as long as humans exist and
can see, the poem he’s writing will live on, allowing the
beloved to keep living as well.

12. Sonnet exercise
In groups of four, create a sonnet on the theme of today’s love
By le vent le cri (Love you!) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

13. The Renaissance – Drama
From religious and moral
problems to tragedies and
comedies with personal
dilemmas
From travelling companies to
playhouses
Men only
Public domain
William Shakespeare 1564-1616

14. Romeo and Juliet – The Balcony Scene
Pair up with a friend and
read the dialogue
Watch the clip
Act it out
Public domain

15. By John Barker [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The Restoration Period – 1650-1789
Monarchy restored after civil war

16. The Restoration Period
Age of Reason
Age of Satire
Age of Poetry

17. A Modest Proposal
!
What does Swift propose?
What problem does Swift
seek to solve?
Who are Swift’s real targets?
Jonathan Swift 1667-1745
Public domain

18. Satire Exercise
In pairs, find a target or a problem of today and propose a satirical solution
Public domain

19. The Romantic Period 1789-1837
The Age of Revolution
Eugène Delacroix [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

20. The Romantic Period
Caspar David Friedrich [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Freedom and Equality
The political revolutions in America and France
motivated young poets to revolt against social norms
of the age of reason. Inspired by the calls for
freedom and equality, they emphasized strong
emotions, rather than being rational.
Escape from reality
People tried to escape the restrictions from
population growth, extended urbanization and
industrialism made people yearn for something else.
Style
• Use of everyday language
• Imagination essential
• Overflowing emotions common
• Inspired by untamed nature & the exotic far
east
• Folk traditions & medieval tales of knights
• Gothic novels

21. The Romantic Period – The Gothic Novel
Focused a lot on the grotesque, occult,
supernatural or human psychology
Medieval association
Edgar Allan Poe wrote gothic mystery
and detective fiction
William Wordsworth wrote gothic
poetry for the masses.
Av Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Google books) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Exercise
Read ”Understanding the Gothic
Style” and do the exercise on
finding enticing phrases which
will thrill the reader

22. The Raven
What is the poem about?
What possible themes can you detect?
During the course of The Raven, what
changes occur in the narrator's attitude
towards the bird?
How does the narrator's emotional state
change during the poem?
Do you think the speaker is insane? Why, or
why not?
Is it a representative poem for the Romantic
Period? Why, or why not?
Av w:Gustave Dore (The Raven) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

23. Elihu Vedder [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The Victorian Age 1837-1901
The Age of Faith and Doubt

24. The Victorian Age
Transition period
The Victorian age is a transition period between the old
and the modern art styles. The period is also a cultural
and social conversion era as mankind went from the old
way of living to the modern way of life.
A period of peace and prosperity
The period of relative peace in Europe (Pax Britannica
1815-1914) and being leaders of world trade led to that The
British Empire was the dominant force of the world and
boosted the nation’s confidence and pride.
Style
• Poetry: Melancholic and political
• Novels: Realistic, simple language & happy
endings
• Children’s literature
• Science & discovery

25. How to read a poem
Follow your ears
Become an archaeologist
Do not skim
Be patient
Look who’s talking