giáo trình văn học anh - a course in british literature

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY
UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL AND SCIENCIES AND HUMANITIES

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For Third-Year English Majors

NGUYEN THI KIEU THU
NGUYEN THI NGOC DUNG










VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HOCHIMINH CITY PUBLISHING HOUSE

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA TP HỒ CHÍ MINH

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KHOA HỌC XÃ HỘI VÀ NHÂN VĂN
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Giáo trình





DÀNH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ BA
CHUYÊN NGÀNH NGỮ VĂN ANH


NGUYỄN THỊ KIỀU THU
NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC DUNG

NHÀ XUẤT BẢN ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA TP HỒ CHÍ MINH – 2003
LỜI GIỚI THIỆU


Quyển giáo trình này được biên soạn để đáp ứng yêu cầu giảng dạy và học tập môn
văn học Anh thuộc chương trình năm thứ ba chuyên ngữ của Khoa Ngữ văn Anh, Trường
Đại học Khoa học Xã hội và Nhân văn, ĐHQG TP HCM dựa trên cơ sở đề cương giảng
dạy môn học đã được Hội đồng Khoa học của khoa chấp thuận trong khuôn khổ tái cấu
trúc chương trình giảng dạy của trường.
Mục đích của quyển giáo trình này chỉ là cung cấp những kiến thức cơ bản về văn
học Anh bao gồm bối cảnh lòch sử, văn hóa, xã hội và các hoạt động văn học trong từng
giai đoạn của lòch sử văn học Anh mà qua đó sinh viên nắm được những hiểu biết cần phải
có. Những vấn đề nêu ra trong giáo trình này sẽ là nền tảng vững chắc để từ đó sinh viên
có thể tự mình đònh hướng tìm kiếm thêm các tư liệu liên quan đến vấn đề mà họ quan
tâm trong sách báo chuyên ngành văn học Anh do các nhà nghiên cứu, phê bình Anh và
quốc tế biên soạn, cũng như kho tư liệu vô tận trên mạng.
Tên gọi “Văn học Anh” của giáo trình này được hiểu với nghóa rộng, do vậy trong
giáo trình này độc giả có thể tìm thấy bên cạnh các tác giả “chính gốc” Anh như William
Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Graham Greene … còn có Robert Burns của Scotland, James
Joyce của Bắc Ireland, Dylan Thomas của Wales. Tuy số lượng tác phẩm được giới thiệu
trong quyển sách này là khiêm tốn so với kho tàng đồ sộ của văn học Anh kể từ giai đoạn
tiếng Anh cổ ở thế kỷ thứ 5 đến giai đoạn hiện đại của thế kỷ 20, những tác phẩm này
thỏa mãn được các tiêu chuẩn sau:
1. Tác giả là những người có vò trí quan trọng nhất đònh trong văn đàn Anh
2. Nội dung tác phẩm đặc sắc nhưng không quá khó với trình độ sinh viên chuyên
ngữ năm thứ ba khoa ngữ văn Anh về ý nghóa cũng như ngôn ngữ.
Ngoài ra, giáo trình này được xây dựng trên cơ sở sinh viên đã qua một khóa nhập

môn về lý thuyết văn học, hoặc đã có vốn kiến thức nhất đònh về văn học Anh như thi
pháp Anh, các biện pháp tu từ, các yếu tố của văn xuôi nói chung hay của thể loại truyện
ngắn nói riêng.
Quyển giáo trình này gồm hai phần :
Phần 1: Sơ khảo các giai đoạn quan trọng trong lòch sử phát triển văn học Anh.
Trong phần này, chúng tôi tổng hợp các nguồn tài liệu khác nhau để biên soạn lại
dưới dạng đề cương chi tiết những thông tin, kiến thức cơ bản nhất mà sinh viên cần
phải biết.
Phần 2: Những tác phẩm chọn lọc của văn học Anh gồm hai mảng:
- Những tác phẩm minh họa cho các giai đoạn lòch sử văn học đã đề cập trong
phần 1. Chủ yếu trong mảng này là thơ ca và có thêm trích đoạn một tiểu thuyết.
- Bảy truyện ngắn của các nhà văn Anh thế kỷ 20 bao gồm các nhà văn quen
thuộc với độc giả Việt Nam như D. H. Lawrence, Graham Green, ngoài ra chúng
tôi còn giới thiệu thêm một số nhà văn thành danh trong giai đoạn nửa cuối thế
kỷ 20 như Doris Lessing, H.E. Bates, W. W. Jacobs
Mỗi phân đoạn nhỏ bao gồm tiểu sử tác giả cùng nguyên bản tác phẩm và các câu
hỏi hướng dẫn để dạy và học. Các câu hỏi này gồm hai loại:

Part A: Để giúp sinh viên Việt Nam tiếp cận được một tác phẩm văn học bằng
tiếng nước ngoài, chúng tôi đã soạn các câu hỏi thuộc loại “đọc hiểu” nhằm giúp
sinh viên nắm bắt được nghóa “thô” (nghóa đen) của tác phẩm đó. Với các tác
phẩm thơ ca, chúng tôi soạn thêm một phần là các câu hỏi về hình thức, kỹ thuật
bao gồm các gợi ý tìm ra những biện pháp tu từ được tác giả dùng, cũng như
những câu hỏi nhằm tập trung sự chú ý của sinh viên đến cách sử dụng các biện
pháp âm thanh như cách gieo vần (rhyme scheme), lập âm (repetition,
alliteration, assonance)… để tạo được hiệu ứng của âm nhạc trong thơ.

Part B: Đây là những câu hỏi giúp sinh viên nâng cao mức độ cảm thụ được ý
nghóa ẩn dấu sau những từ vựng xuất hiện trên bề mặt văn bản, cũng như qua các
chi tiết trong tác phẩm và hành động nhân vật để nghiệm ra những gì tác giả

muốn nhắn gửi qua tác phẩm của mình. Những câu hỏi trong phần này chú trọng
đến cách các nhà văn sử dụng các biện pháp văn học như thế nào để nâng cao
hiệu quả chuyển đạt ý tưởng của mình qua ngôn ngữ.
Bên cạnh đó, do một trong những mục đích của việc dạy văn học là tạo ra được
hiệu ứng tốt trong việc cảm thụ một tác phẩm văn học, chúng tôi xin giới thiệu
cùng độc giả một số “thành phẩm” của các sinh viên khóa trước. Đó là một vài
bài thơ dòch sang tiếng Việt mang tính ngẫu hứng khi từng nhóm học tập thuyết
trình trước lớp. Đó có thể là một vài bài viết mang tính tự do không có chủ đề
nhất đònh, thể hiện cảm xúc cá nhân khi đọc một truyện ngắn hiện đại. Đó cũng
có thể là một bài tự luận mang tính học thuật về một tác phẩm. Chúng tôi đã cố
tình để nguyên “hiện trạng” của các bài viết mà không hiệu đính lại các lỗi ngữ
pháp hoặc chính tả cốt để giữ lại tính độc đáo của các bài viết này.
Dù chúng tôi đã cố gắng rất nhiều nhưng chắc chắn sẽ vẫn còn những sai sót trong
quyển giáo trình này về mặt nội dung cũng như hình thức. Rất mong sự đóng góp của các
bạn đồng nghiệp và sinh viên để chúng tôi có thể sửa chữa trong những lần tái bản.
Những đóng góp xin gửi về đòa chỉ sau:

Nguyễn Thò Kiều Thu
Khoa ngữ Văn Anh Trường Đại học Khoa học Xã hội và Nhân văn –
Đại học Quốc gia TP HCM, 12 Đinh Tiên Hoàng, Q.1, Tp Hồ Chí Minh
Xin chân thành cám ơn.


NGUYỄN THỊ KIỀU THU
NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC DUNG
MUẽC LUẽC

Lụứi giụựi thieọu

Part I: A Short History of English Literature

9
Old English Period (450-1066) 11
The Middle Age (1066-1485) 13
The Elizabethan Period (1485-1603) 16
The Seventeenth Century Period (1603-1660) 20
The Restoration and the 18
th
Century Period (1660-1798) 24
The Romantic Period (1798-1832) 28
The Victorian Period (1832-1901) 31
The Twentieth Century Period 36

Part II: Selected Works
45

Sonnet 73 William Shakespeare 47
The Sun Rising John Donne 55
Queen and Huntress Ben Jonson 65
A Red, Red Rose Robert Burns 71
Daffodils William Wordsworth 81
Ode to the West Wind Percy Bysshe Shelley 91
Oliver Twist Charles Dickens 103
When I Was One-and-Twenty A. E. Housman 117
Fern Hill Dylan Thomas 123
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Dylan Thomas 130

* * *

Araby James Joyce 133
The Rocking-Horse Winner D. H. Lawrence 143

Mr. Lovedays Little Outing Evelyn Waugh 163
A Shocking Accident Graham Greene 177
Never H. E. Bates 187
Flight Doris Lessing 195
The Monkeys Paw W.W. Jacobs 209
Bibliography 224


9






PART I







10

11
I
II
I

OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE (450-1066)


A. Historical background
449 The Germanic tribes invaded England and brought with them Anglo-
Saxon, the language which is the basis of Modern English
597 St. Augustine brought Roman Christianity to England
871 -1016 The Danish Invasion
1170 Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury was murdered
1066 The Norman Conquest led by William the Conqueror and the
introduction of strict Norman feudal system.
B. Literature
1. Poetry:
- to be chanted with harp accompaniment
- bold and strong, but also mournful and elegiac in spirit
- without rhyme, abundant use of alliteration
- Important works:
• Beowulf: the first surviving epic written in the English language. The single
existing copy of the manuscript dated from the late tenth century, although
some scholars believe it dates from the first part of the eleventh century. It is
found in a large volume that features stories involving mythical creatures and
people. There is no knowledge about the poet as well as the day of the poem’s
composition.
Beowulf is short, with 3182 verses, yet it is the longest as well as the richest
of Old English poems. The first great work of English literature is not set in
Britain; Beowulf opens with the mysterious figure of Scyld, founder of the
Scylding dynasty of Denmark, who would have lived c.400, before England
existed.
Beowulf is about King of the Danes, Hrothgar and about a brave young man,
Beowulf, from Southern Sweden, who goes to help him. The King’s great hall,

called Heorot, is visited at night by a terrible creature, Grendel, which lives in
the lake and comes to kill and eat Hrothgar’s men. One night Beowulf waits
secretly for Grendel and attacks it and in a fierce fight pulls its arm off. It
manages to reach the lake, but dies there. Then its mother comes to the hall
and the attacks begin. Beowulf follows her to the lake and kills her there. In

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later days Beowulf, now king of his people, has to defend his country against a
fire-breathing dragon. He kills the animal but is badly wounded in the fight and
dies.
• Religious writings reflecting Christian doctrine: The dedicated Christian
literature of Anglo-Saxon England is of various kinds. There are verse
paraphrases of Old Testaments stories, such as Caedmon’s: Genesis and
Exodus, Daniel and Judith. They emphasize faith rewarded. There are lives of
saints, historical lives of contemporaries, sermons, etc.
• Elegies: Short lyrical poems evoking the Anglo-Saxon sense of harshness of
circumstance and the sadness of the human lot. The Wanderer, The Seafarer
and The Ruin are among the most beautiful elegies.
1. Prose:
- mainly religious works written in Latin
- Important works:
• Ecclesiastical History of the English People written by Bede in 731.
• The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius is an Old English translation
which is about Platonic philosophy adaptable to Christian thought, and is of
great influence on English literature.

Further reading
Alexander, M. Old English Literature (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1983: Peterborough,
Ontario: Broadview, revd edn 2001).
Mitchell, B. and F. C. Robinson. A Guide to Old English, 5

th
edn (Oxford: Blackwell,
1995). A grammar, reader and study guide for students.




13
II
IIII
II



MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE (1066-1485)

A. Historical background
1066 The Norman Conquest led by William the Conqueror
1215 King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta
1338 Hundred Years War with France began
1348-1349 Black Death struck England
1381 Peasants’ Revolt
1415 The victory over French at Agincourt
1453 Defeat in France to end Hundred Years War
1454 Wars of Roses began
1476 William Caxton set up first printing press in London
1492 Columbus sailed to America

B. Literature
Extensive influence of French literature on native English forms and themes

1. Drama
The beginning of native English drama was closely associated with the church
celebrations of traditional religious feasts. Two major types are:
• Miracle or Mystery plays: cycles of religious dramas, performed by town
guilds, craft associations of a religious kind
• Morality plays: these plays personified such abstractions as Health, Death,
Sin, etc. and showed the fate of the single human person, played by
travelling companies.
2. Poetry
Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343-1400): Chaucer was a professional courtier, a kind of
civil servant. He was born into a family of wine-traders. His work took him to Kent
(which he represented in Parliament from 1386), to France, and twice to Italy.
Chaucer’s first book, The Book of the Duchess, is a dream poem on the death of
Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster. The simplicity and directness of the emotion, and the
handling of dialogue, show Chaucer’s capacity to bring language, situation and
emotion together effectively. The House of Fame is another dream poem, this time

14
influenced by the Italian of Dante. Other Chaucer’s works are Troylus and Cryseyde
(1372-7?) is about the love of the two young people, and The Legend of Good Women
(1385). Chaucer’s last work The Canterbury Tales is today his most popular. It’s
opening ‘When that April with his shoures soote’ is the first line of English verse that
is widely known.
The Canterbury Tales was first conceived in 1836 when Chaucer was in
Greenwich, consisting of 24 stories in rhymed couplets, concerning a host of
subjects: religious innocence, married chastity, villainous hypocrisy, female
volubility – all illumed by great humour told by a group of about 30 pilgrims
who set off from the Tabard Inn in Southwark, London, to visit the shrine of St.
Thomas Becket , the Archbishop of Canterbury murdered in his own cathedral
in 1170. They are representatives of most of the classes in medieval England.

Each of them was to tell four stories: two on the way, two on the way back. The
teller of the best story would be given a free dinner by the cheerful host of the
Tabard. In fact the collection is incomplete.
Chaucer’s world in the Canterbury Tales brings together for the first time, a
diversity of characters, social levels, attitudes and ways of life. The tales
themselves make use of a similarly wide range of forms and styles. Literature,
with Chaucer, has taken on a new role: as well as forming a developing
language, it is a mirror of its times – but a mirror which teases as it reveals,
which questions while it narrates, and which opens up a range of issues and
questions, instead of providing simple, easy answers.
PROLOGUE
The Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer is the poem which introduces the
Canterbury Tales. It is written in ten-syllable couplets and is 558 lines long.
Here at the beginning there is a sense of harmony between man and nature.
The stirrings of spring in nature are associated with the impulse among people
to go on pilgrimages
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathes 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 halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
The slepen al the nyght with opn ye
(So pricketh hem nature in his corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

15

A modern version of the Prologue
When in April the sweet showers fall
And pierce the drought of March to the root and fall
The veins are bathed in liquor of such power
As brings about the engendering of the flower,
When also Zephyrus with his sweet and breath
Exhales an air in every grove and heath
Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun
His half course in the sign of the Ram has run
And the small fowl are making melody
That sleep away the night with open eyes
(So nature pricks them and their heart engages)
Then people long to go on pilgrimages
William Langland (c.1330-c.1386): a married cleric in minor orders, Langland
wrote Piers Plowman (or The Vision of Piers the Ploughman) in the form of
dream visions, protesting the plight of the poor, the avarice of the powerful, the
sinfulness of all the people
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1370? by anonymous author): a romance of
knightly adventure and love of the general medieval type introduced by the
French.
3. Prose
Sir Thomas Malory (? - 1471): He was probably the Sir Thomas Malory of
Warwickshire who in the 1440s was charged with crimes of violence and spent
most of the 1450s in jail, escaping twice. In 1468 he was jailed again, on charges
plotting again Edward IV. He wrote the book The Death of Arthur in prison and
finished it in 1469. Malory wrote eight separate tales of King Arthur and his
knights, but when William Caxton printed the book in 1485 he joined them in
one long story. Arthur is a shadowy figure of the past but probably really lived.
The Death of Arthur is, in a way, a climax of a tradition of writing, bringing
together myth and history, with an emphasis on chivalry as a kind of moral code

of honour.
Further reading
Burrow, J. and T. Turville-Petre (eds). A Book of Middle English, 2
nd
edn (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1996). A textbook anthology, well designed and annotated.
Pearsall, D. (ed). Chauce to Spenser: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999)





16
III
IIIIII
III



THE ELIZABETHAN PERIOD (1485-1603)

A. Historical background
1485 Henry Tudor became king as Henry VII, ending the War of the
Roses
1509 The accession of Henry VIII
1517 The Protestant Reformation began
1534 Henry VIII became Supreme Head of the Anglican Church
1553-1558 The religious conflicts between the Roman Catholic and the
Protestant under the reign of Queen Mary I
1558 Elizabeth I ascended the throne and maintained social stability.

1588 Spanish Armada defeated by the English fleet
1595 Sir Walter Ralegh’ s first expedition to South America
1603 Death of Elizabeth I; ascension of James I, the first Stuart King
B. Literature
The Renaissance: It was the revival of Greek and Roman studies that emphasized
the value of the classics for their own sake, rather than for their relevance to Christianity.
In literature the Renaissance was led by humanists, scholars and poets. The invention of
printing contributed to the spread of ideas. Among the notable writers of the Renaissance
in England were Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Shakespeare, and Sir Francis
Bacon
Humanism is the term most often used to describe the cultural and literary
movement that spread through Western Europe in the 14
th
and 15
th
centuries. It was the
greatest cultural achievement of the period. There is no systematic theory of humanism,
but any world-view which claims that the source of value in the world is man, or more
loosely that man supplies the true measure of value, may be described as humanist.
1. Drama
- In late 15
th
C there were plays with secular plots and characters in elaborate
verse style.
- The invention of short plays called ‘Interludes’
- The fusion of classical form with English content: more mature and artistic
- The coming of professional theatrical groups with plays written by professional
playwrights; the first men were called ‘University Wits’, so named since they

17

were all university men, who, instead of going into the church or teaching,
turned to writing to earn their living
- The golden age of English drama with a lot of great playwrights such as
Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare
2. Poetry:
- Generally less important than drama.
- Two most important poets were Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser.
- Three chief forms of poetry which flourished in the Elizabethan Age were:
(i) Lyric, a short poem that expresses a poet’s personal emotions in a
songlike style. Thomas Campion (1567-1620) wrote many beautiful
lyrics in his ‘Books of Airs’ (1601-1617)
(ii) The sonnet: a 14 line poem with a certain pattern of rhyme and rhythm
(iii) Narrative poetry: a narrative poem that tells a story
3. Prose:
- Translation works: ‘The Translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians
and Romans’ (1579) by Sir Thomas North
- The beginning of English novels: Lyly’s Euphues started a fashion which spread
in books and conversation. The style is filled with tricks and alliteration; the
sentences are long and complicated; and a large number of similes are brought
in. Readers forget the thoughts behind the words, and look for the machine-like
arrangement of the sentences. Robert Greene (1558-1592), Thomas Nashe
(1567-1601) are among the first novelists of the time. However, the Elizabethan
novels are of little value on the whole.
C. Major authors
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593): the first great English dramatist and most important
Elizabethan dramatist. He gave to the English popular theater the foundation upon which
Shakespeare was to build. His best known works were:
 Tamburlaine the Great (1590): the play is based on the life and achievements of
Timur, the bloody 14
th

century conqueror of Central Asia and India. In this early
play Marlowe already shows the ability to view a tragic hero from more than one
angle, achieving a simultaneous vision of grandeur and impotence.
 Edward II (1594): a study in the operation of power: the weak king loses his throne
to rebel nobles who resent his sexual infatuation with the low Gaveston and
conspire with his wife to depose him.
 The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1604): The play was based on the well-
known story of a man who sold his soul to the devil so as to have power and riches
in his life.

18
 The Jew of Malta (1633): the play deals with great human passions such as revenge
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): playwright and poet, recognized in much of the world
as the greatest of all the dramatists. (See next section for more information)
The Earl of Surrey (1514-1547) was the first to use blank verse, unrhymed iambic
pentameter, in his versions of Virgil’s Aeneid II and IV
Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542): best remembered for his individualistic poems that deal
candidly in everyday speech with the trials of romantic love. Some of his remarkable
works: Certayne Psalmes, The Book of Songes and Sonnettes.
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599): like Sidney, displaying the ornate, somewhat florid, highly
figured style characteristic of Elizabethan poetic expressions. The Shepherd’s Calendar, a
poem in twelve books, one for each month of the year was produced in 1579. He is most
remembered for his allegorical romance, The Faerie Queene, which is written in a special
metre called the ‘Spenserian Stanza’ of nine lines; of these the last has six feet, the others
five. The rhyme plan is ababbcbbc. He published the first three books in 1590 and added
three more in 1596. Spenser dedicated his heroic romance to the Queen. It is now the chief
literary monument of her cult.
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) He initiated the sonnet cycle (courtly love poems), which
idealized womanhood in the Platonic manner. It leads to a perception of the good, the true,
the beautiful and consequently of the divine. His major works are:

 Astrophel and Stella (1591): a suite of 108 sonnets of various kinds,moments in the
love of Starlover (Astrophil: Greek) for Star (Stella: Lat.). This is the first English
sonnet sequence in English interspersed with songs.
 The Arcadia: a prose romance interspersed with many poems and songs. It is a
complex and still controversial mixture of pastoral romance, narrative intrigue, and
evocative poetry of love and nature. It is a work which has no equivalent in English
literature. The Old Arcadia was finished by about 1580, and The New Arcadia,
unfinished, was published in 1590.
Thomas More (1478-1535): the most prominent humanist writer in England with his Latin
prose narrative Utopia written in Latin which describes an ideal country. The book was
brought up in 1517, and its English version was published in 1551. His other works are: Of
the Dignity of Man (1486), History of Richard III (unfinished).
John Lyly (c.1554-1606): He was important in the history of prose style and the
development of Elizabethan popular comedy of high literary quality. He established his
literary reputation with Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578), a fashionable book
combining essay and fiction. Its artificial style, called ‘euphuism’ set a new pattern for
sophisticated English prose. His comedies treat idealized love and flatteringly reflect
attitudes of the Elizabethan courtier. Campaspe (1584) and Endymion (1588) are typical of
Lyly’s plays which are supposed to have influence on Shakespeare’s romantic comedies.

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Further reading
Braunmuller, A. R. and M. Hattaway (eds). The Cambridge Companion to English
Renaissance Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
Jones, E. (ed.), New Oxford Book of Sixteenth–Century Verse (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1992).
Lewis, C. S., Poetry and Prose in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama (Oxford: Oxford
Univesity Press, 1994).

20
IV
IVIV
IV



THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY PERIOD (1603-1660)

A. Historical background
1603 Death of Elizabeth Tudor and the accession of James Stuart
1605: Guy Fawkes - Catholic extremist forming the Gunpowder plot to
blow up Parliament.

1620 The search for religious freedom in America and Holland
1625 Death of James I and the accession of Charles I
1630 The split between the King and Parliament
1642 Outbreak of English Civil War and the closing of all theatres
1649 Civil War ended with Charles I beheaded
The beginning of Cromwellian Protectorate
1660 The end of the Protectorate and the accession of Charles II
B. Literature
1. Drama
- Public theatres flourished under Charles I until Parliament closed them in 1642:
in more sober and careful style than those of Elizabethan period.
- The emergence of comedies with inimitable verse and imagination.
- The coming of tragicomedies: morally dubious situations, surprising reversals of
fortune, and sentimentality combined with hollow rhetoric.
- The Masque became an important theatrical form during the reigns of James I
and Charles I; court entertainment held in private royal halls with lavish
costumes, elaborate stage designs and machinery.
- Major figures in Jacobean drama are Thomas Middleton, John Webster,
Thomas Dekker, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.
2. Poetry
- Epic poetry: especially by John Milton; noble and beautiful, but also difficult
- The lyrical poetry: two trends
• Metaphysical poetry: led by John Donne. The term ‘metaphysical’ was used
by Samuel Johnson with a pejorative meaning. He attacked the poets’lack
of feeling, their learning, and the surprising range of images and
comparisons they used. It is now used to describe the modern impact of their

21
writing. John Donne and his followers can be seen as experimenters both in
forms and the subject matter they used. They reflect in poetry the

intellectual and spiritual challenges of an age which wanted to expand
human horizons. This literary trend has some typical characteristics as
follows:
 Abundant use of far-fetched metaphors and images called ‘conceits’
 Daring, colloquial, passionate
 Against accepted rules of poetic rhythm and diction
 Deliberately rough meter with short syllables, irregular spaced as in
everyday speech
• Neoclassical poetry or Cavalier poetry: initially led by Ben Jonson and his
followers Robert Herrick (1591-1674), Thomas Carew (1594-1640),
Richard Lovelace (1618-1658), and Sir John Suckling (1609-1642), a
group of monarchists collectively known as the ‘Cavalier poets’. They are
associated with neoclassicism for their style:
 Admiration of ancient classics
 Restrained in language and feeling to achieve precision and brevity
 Intellectually thin but meticulously clear and incisive in expression
 Preference for the closed couplet
 Strong syntactically, i.e. closely knit in grammar
 Use of balanced, parallel and antithetical phrases
3. Prose
- Prose became plainer, less elaborate than the previous period
- King James Bible or The Authorized Version (1611) was the best translation of
the original text in the reign of King James
- Scientific and biographical works :’The Anatomy of Melancholy’ of Robert
Burton (1577-1640)
- Developments in realistic fiction with Thomas Overbury’s A Wife (1614) and
Thomas Fuller’s Holy and Profane State (1642)
- Essays: first introduced by Francis Bacon.
C. Major authors
Ben Jonson (1572-1637): cavalier poet and great playwright with his comedies such as

Every Man in His Humour, which was the first of the so called ‘comedies of humors’.
Volpone, The Alchemist are two supreme satiric comedies of the English stage. Jonson
wrote for the court a series of masques, thus he became closely involving with the life of
the court, a connection which was formalised in 1616, when he was appointed poet
laureate.

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John Donne (1572-1631): metaphysical poet, Anglican priest and appointed dean of St.
Paul’s Cathedral. He produces a lot of works in his life. The major style of his works are
love poems and religious poems. His poetry demands imaginative effort of the reader, and
absorbs him in a tense, complex experience. Donne was a great churchman in the 17
th

century, but in his youth he was well known in a circle of readers for his love poems,
which circulated in manuscript and were not published until years later. In his love poetry,
he broke all traditional rules to create a new sensibility, a new kind of love poem. It is
more intimate and more personal than that of his predecessors.
Robert Herrick (1591-1674): a clergyman in Devonshire, some of his best known works
are: To the Virgins, To Daffodils. Although most of Herrick’s poems were not published
until almost the middle of the 17
th
century, they seem like poems of the early Renaissance.
Many of his poems represent a sense of life, a freshness, a buoyancy closer to the 16
th
than
to the 17
th
century
John Milton (1608-1674): well known for his epic poems Paradise Lost, Paradise
Regained and other works L’Allegro, Lycidas. He was also a typical prose writer. His works

fall into three groups: short poems, prose and epics, concentrated on two major themes,
politics and religion. His concept of life is one of struggle and human beings are
responsible for their actions.
 L’Allegro (the happy man) (1632) describing the joys of life in the country in
spring; outside in the field in the morning, but at home in the evening, enjoying
music and books.
 Il Pensero (the thoughtful man) (1632) the poem is set in autumn; the poet studies
during the day and goes to a great church in the evening to listen to the splendid
music.
 Lycidas (1637) is a sorrowful pastoral elegy on the death by drowning of a fellow
student at Cambridge
 Aropagitica (1664) is probably Milton’s best prose work, expressing his sincere
belief in the importance of freedom of writing and speech
 Paradise Lost (first printed in 1667) was planned in ten books, but written in
twelve. The book is about the Fall of the Angels and the Fall of Man (the story of
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden)
 Paradise Regained (published in 1671) is more severe, less splendid than Paradise
Lost; it is not about the Redemption but about the temptation in the desert. The
Son’s rejection of Satan’s offer of the (pagan) learning of Athens stands out in the
dry landscape.
 Samson’s Agonistes (1671), a tragedy on a Greek model, describes the last day of
Samson, when he is blind and the prisoner of the Philistines at Gaza.

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Richard Lovelace (1618-1658): He fought on the side of the King in the tragic civil war,
and was one of the most handsome and talented of the ‘Cavalier poets’, who wrote and
fought in a time of great public disorder and great private heroism. ‘Lucasta, Going to the
Wars’ is one of the most popular poems of Richard Lovelace.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626): an essayist vigorously and widely active in the late 16
th

centuries. He held a number of governmental positions and in 1618 was made Lord
Chancellor. His ‘Essays’ (first appeared in 1597) was written in short, sharp and effective
sentences. Some of the best-known sayings in English come from Bacon’s book. Other
books by Bacon include A History of Henry VII (1622), The Advancement of Learning
(1605). In one of his last works, The New Atlantis (1626) Bacon sketched out his ideal
scientific society.
Further reading
Corns, T. N. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry, Donne to Marvell
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Danielson, D. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to John Milton (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999).
Parry, G. The Seventeenth Century: The Intellectual and Cultural Context of English
Literature,1603-1700 (Harlow: Longman, 1989).

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V
VV
V



THE RESTORATION & THE 18
th
CENTURY PERIOD
(1660-1798)

A. Historical background
1660 Charles II came to the throne from exile: restoration of the English
monarchy
1665-1666 Great Plague in England
1666 Great Fire in London
1685 James II became king of England

1689 William of Orange and his wife Anne reigned England.
1707 Scotland joined England and the UK was formed
1751 The Enlightenment movement in France
1775 American Revolution
1789 French Revolution
B. Literature
 A period of novelty, change and refoundation rather than of great writing
 Chiefly a literature of wit, concerned with civilization and social relationship
 A literature ‘from the head, not the heart’
 Lyric becoming minor: reason is more important than emotion, form – more
important than content
 The development of the novel
1. Drama
- Plots, language and morals of early plays are trimmed to suit fashions
influenced by the French plays of Pierre Corneille (1616-1684) and Jean
Racine (1639-1699)
- Drama now tries to be purely comic or purely tragic
- Tragic drama is made up mainly of heroic plays in which men are splendidly
brave, and the women wonderfully beautiful
- The coming of a new kind of comedy called ‘Comedy of Manners’
- Some remarkable plays of the period are: Dryden’s The Conquest of Granada
(1670), Wycherley’s The Country’s Wife (1675), Oliver Goldsmith’s She
Stoops to Conquer (1773), Sheridan’s The School for Scandal (1777).

25
2. Poetry
- Satire in poetry could be found in John Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel
(1681), Alexander Pope’s The Dunciad (1728), The Rape of the Lock (1712-
1714)
- The invention of heroic couplet: 2 rhymed pentameters

- Poetry becomes minor in this period
- ‘The churchyard school of poets’ include Edward Young (1683-1765),
Robert Blair (1699-1746). These poets revel at great length in death and
morbidity, creating an atmosphere of ‘delightful gloom’. The trend toward this
kind of melancholy traveled to Europe and became fashionable during the
height of European Romanticism.
- Other poets of the period are: Thomas Gray (1711-1771) and his romantic
poems, William Blake (1757-1827) and his revolt against reason, and Robert
Burns (1759-1796) with his robust and passionate lyrics.
3. Prose
- This is the age of prose with many great writers of literary criticism such as
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), of philosophy- David Hume (1711-1776), of
history- Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)
- Style built upon the principle of neoclassicism: elaborately balanced use of
parallels and antitheses
- Dryden’s prose is important (Essay of Dramatic Poesie, 1668)
- The development of satire in prose: Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, A
Modest Proposal
- Diarists such as John Evelyn (1620-1706), Samuel Pepys (1633-1703)
- The emergence of novel as a new type of literature with Samuel Richardson’s
Pamela, which is in the form of letter-writing
- The development of the novel of terror (Gothic fiction) with Horace Walpole
(1717-1797) and his work The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic story (1764); Mrs
Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) and her The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
- The beginning of newspaper such as The Spectator, The Guardian
- Some important writers are: John Buynan (1628-1688), Richard Steele (1672-
1729), Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
C. Major authors
John Dryden (1631-1700): the dominant figure, writing in all contemporary forms: verse,
play, satire, translation, critical essay…An extraordinarily prolific talent, Dryden influenced

many of the great writers of the 18
th
century. He was made Poet Laureate in 1668. His
important works are:

26
 Absalom and Achitophel (1681): Dryden’s great satire, uses a Bible story as a basis
on which to attack politicians
 Mac Flecknoe (published in 1682) a satire, turning heroic into mock-heroic, a mode
which does not ridicule heroism, but uses heroic style to belittle pretension. It is an
attack on the poet and playwright Thomas Shadwell.
 All for Love (1677-78) is written in blank verse
 The Conquest of Granada (1670): one of Dryden’s best heroic plays
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): the greatest poet of his time, the leader of neoclassical
literature. His famous works are: An Essay on Criticism (1711), The Rape of the Lock
(1712) which concerns the quarrel between two fashionable Roman Catholic families. It
starts when Lord Petre cuts off a lock of hair, which he wishes to ‘possess’, from the head
of Miss Arabella Fermor, the lady to whom he is engaged to. Pope writes the poem in
mock-epic style. An Essay on Man (1733-1734), The Dunciad (1728), A Tale of a Tub,
Journal to Stella
John Locke (1632-1704): essayist, a key figure in British cultural history. Publishing after
1689, he formulated an empirical philosophy which derived knowledge from experience
and a theory of government as a contract between governor and the governed. His Essay
concerning Human Understanding holds that knowledge comes from the reason reflecting
upon sense-impressions, and monitoring the association of ideas. This epistemology and
psychology became part of the common sense of the 18
th
century
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731): novelist, journalist, creator of modern novel with his story
Robinson Crusoe (1719)

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): Swift- a satirist and poet, born of English parents in Dublin
after his father’s death became Dean of Dublin’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1713. He lives
in Dublin in indignant opposition to the Whig government in London, defending Ireland
and the Anglican Church. He contributes to journals The Tattler and The Spectator. He
writes a number of pamphlets in support of the oppressed Irish . He is a passionate English
churchman, who shows integrity, courage and cunning in defending Catholic Ireland
against English exploitation. Swift defines man not as rational animal but as an animal
capable of reason. Those who have suggested that he is misanthropic have misunderstood
his irony, but he is anti-romantic, hating false hearts and false ideals.
 A Modest Proposal (1729) solves a human problem by an economic calculus which
ignores human love and treats the poor as cattle. Swift attacks the way the English
use the Irish for profit, leaving them poor and hungry.
 Gulliver’s Travels (1726) Captain Gulliver records his voyages to the lands of the
tiny people, of the giants, of experimental scientists and horses. The first two
voyages are often retold for children; the simply-told wonder-tale delights both
readers who guess at Swift’s proposal and readers who don’t.

27
Samuel Richardson (1689-1761): a creator of modern novel. His works are for and about
women such as Pamela (1740), Clarissa (1747-1748)
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): poet, essayist, scholar- He is remembered for his
Dictionary of the English Language, for his novel, Rasselas (1759)
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) and his novels The Story of Tom Jones, a foundling (1749),
Amelia (1751)
Further reading
Fairer, D. and C. Gerrard (eds). Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1998).
Rogers, P. (ed.). The Eighteenth Century (London: Methuen, 1978).

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VI
VIVI
VI



THE ROMANTIC PERIOD (1798-1832)

A. Historical background
- The Industrial Revolution in the late 18
th
century: the gap between
the rich and the poor, social change, unrest and turbulence
- The coming of the new middle class
1793-1815 The war between England and France: high taxes and inflation
1820 The long reign of George III ended
1832 The Reform Bill was carried out in Parliament: progress towards
democracy
The ‘Holy Alliance’ consisting of England and other European
countries: the suppression of democratic trends and revolutionary
ideas and the disillusionment in Europe
B. Literature
English Romanticism:
 Extending roughly from 1798 with the publication of the Lyrical Ballads by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, known as the Lake
Poets.

 The embodiment of disillusionment and negative attitudes towards the actual
world.
 The embodiment of the revolt against Classicism both in topic and style
 Main features of English Romanticism:
• Concept of poetry: Poetry is to express the poet’s mind and feeling 
stress on subjective emotion than reason
• Love of nature
• Sympathy of the humble common people
• Imagination to construct a fantastic dreaming world, remote in time and
place
• Return to the past (both in content and form; ballad is popular)
• Sense of melancholy and loneliness
• Love of freedom and a feeling of rebellion against tyrannical authority