%5Cchapter1 old english

ENGLISH LITERATURE
A Survey and Appreciation
of English literature


Introduction of English
Literature
Chapter One
Old English Period
The National Epic: Beowulf


A Introduction of the Development
Stages of English Literature
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Latin literature
Old English literature
Late medieval (middle English) literature in Englan
d
Other medieval literatures
Early Modern English literature
*Elizabethan and Jacobean eras
*1660 to 1800

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Non English-language literatures from the 16th century t
o the 19th century
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19th century English language literature
*Romanticism
*The 19th century novel
*Victorian poets
*Ireland
*Wales
*Scotland
English language literature since 1900
Non English language literatures since 1900


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Latin literature in Britain
Chroniclers such as Bede, with his
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, and Gildas
were figures in the development of indigenous Latin
literature, mostly ecclesiastical, in the centuries
following the withdrawal of the Roman Empire.

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Old English literature (Anglo-Saxon literature )
The earliest form of English literature developed
after the settlement of the Saxons and other
Germanic tribes in England after the withdrawal of
the Romans and is known as Old English or AngloSaxon. The most famous work in Old English is the
epic poem Beowulf. The only surviving manuscript is
the Cotton manuscript. The precise date of the
manuscript is debated, but most estimates place it
close to the year 1000.(The oldest surviving text in
English is Cædmon's Hymn)


 Late medieval literature in England

circulated among the educated classes.
Following the Norman Conquest, the development
of Anglo-Norman literature in the Anglo-Norman
realm introduced literary trends from
Continental Europe.
*Geoffrey Chaucer, father of English literature
In the later medieval period a new form of English
now known as Middle English evolved.
Latin literature


This is the earliest form which is comprehensible to
modern readers and listeners, albeit not easily.
The most significant Middle English author was the

poet Geoffrey Chaucer who was active in the late 14th
century. His main works were The Canterbury Tales
and Troilus and Criseyde.


Early Modern English literature
Elizabethan literature
Shakespeare's career straddled the change of
Tudor and Stuart dynasties and encompassed
English history and the emerging imperial idea of
the 17th century
*The sonnet form and other Italian literary
influences arrived in English literature. The sonnet
was introduced into English by Thomas Wyatt in
the early 16th century.

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*In the later 16th century English poetry was
characterised by elaboration of language and
extensive allusion to classical myths. The most
important poets of this era include Edmund Spenser
and Sir Philip Sidney.
*The most important literary achievements of the
English Renaissance were in drama.
William Shakespeare, widely regarded as the greatest
writer in the English language, wrote 37 plays in
several genres, including tragedy, comedy, and
history .

*Other leading playwrights of the time included
Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe.
 Jacobean era literature
*At the Reformation the translation of liturgy and
Bible into vernacular languages provided new
literary models. The Anglican
Book of Common Prayer and the
Authorized King James Version of the Bible have
been influential.
*Major poets of the 17th century included John Donne
and other metaphysical poets, and John Milton,
religious epic Paradise Lost


1660 to 1800
*Restoration period, Augustan poetry , and
Augustan literature
*The position of Poet Laureate was formalised in this
period.
*Accounts of great events, such as the
Great Plague of London, the Great Fire of London.
*The publication of The Pilgrim's Progress in 1678
established John Bunyan as a notable writer of
English literature.
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*The early 18th century is known as the Augustan Age

of English literature. The poetry of the time was
highly formal, as exemplified by the works of
Alexander Pope.
*Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who
were two of the most successful playwrights on the
London stage in the 18th century.
*The English novel developed during the 18th century,
partly in response to an expansion of the
middle-class reading public.


*One of the major early works in this
genre was the seminal castaway novel
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The
18th century novel tended to be loosely
structured and semi-comic. Major
novelists of the middle and later part of
the century included Henry Fielding,
Laurence Sterne, and Tobias Smollett,
who was a great influence on
Charles Dickens


*Although the epics of Celtic Ireland were written in
prose and not verse, most people would probably
consider that Irish fiction proper begins in the 18th
century with the works of Jonathan Swift (especially
Gulliver's Travels) and Oliver Goldsmith (especially
The Vicar of Wakefield).

19th century English language
literature
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Major political and social changes at the end of the
eighteenth century, particularly the
French Revolution, prompted a new breed of
writing now known as Romanticism.
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
began the trend for bringing emotionalism and
introspection to English literature, with a new
concentration on the individual and the common
man. The reaction to urbanism and
industrialisation prompted poets to explore nature,
for example the Lake Poets.


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At around the same time, the iconoclastic printer
William Blake, largely disconnected from the major
streams of elite literature of the time, was
constructing his own highly idiosyncratic poetic
creations, while the Scottish nationalist poet
Robert Burns was collecting and adapting the folk
songs of Scotland into a body of national poetry for
his homeland.

The major "second generation" Romantic poets
included George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron.
They flouted social convention and often used
poetry as a political voice.


Amongst Lord Byron's best-known works are the
brief poems She Walks in Beauty,
When We Two Parted, and
So, we'll go no more a roving, in addition to
narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and
Don Juan. Another key poet of Romantic movement
John Keats, his letters, which expound on his
aesthetic theory of negative capability, are among
the most celebrated by any writer.


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Percy Shelley famous for his association with John
Keats and Lord Byron, was the third major romantic
poet of the second generation. Critically regarded
among the finest lyric poets in the English language,
Shelley is most famous for such classic anthology
verse works as Ozymandias, and long visionary
poems which included Prometheus Unbound. (They
three are called “Satanic poets”)


The 19th century novel (Victorian period)

*At the same time, Jane Austen was writing highly
polished novels about the life of the landed gentry,
seen from a woman's point of view, and wryly
focused on practical social issues, especially
marriage and money, notably with,
Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility
Mansfield Park and Emma.
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* Walter Scott's novel-writing career was launched in
1814 with Waverley, often called the first
historical novel, and was followed by Ivanhoe. His
popularity in England and further abroad did much
to form the modern stereotype of Scottish culture.
Other novels by Scott which contributed to the
image of him as a patriot include Rob Roy. He was
the highest earning and most popular author up to
that time.


*From the mid-1820s to mid-1840s, fashionable novels
depicting the lives of the upper class dominated the
literature market.
*Charles Dickens emerged on the literary scene in the
1830s, confirming the trend for serial publication.
Dickens wrote vividly about London life and the
struggles of the poor, but in a good-humoured
fashion which was accessible to readers of all classes.
His early works such as The Pickwick Papers are

masterpieces of comedy. Later his works became
darker, without losing his genius for caricature.


*It was in the Victorian era (1837-1901) that the novel
became the leading form of literature in English.
Most writers were now more concerned to meet the
tastes of a large middle-class reading public than to
please aristocratic patrons. The best known works of
the era include the emotionally powerful works of the
Brontë sisters; Charlotte's Jane Eyre, Emily's
Wuthering Heights and Anne's Agnes Grey were
released in 1847 after their long search to secure
publishers; the satire Vanity Fair by
William Makepeace Thackeray and
Anthony Trollope's insightful portrayals of the lives of
the landowning and professional classes of Victorian
England.


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George Eliot's novels are frequently held in the
highest regard for their combination of high
Victorian literary detail combined with an intellectual
breadth that removes them from the narrow confines
they often depict. An alternative to mainstream
works, Penny Dreadful publications were aimed at
working class adolescents, one such series
introduced the infamous Sweeney Todd

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An interest in rural matters and the changing social
and economic situation of the countryside may be
seen in the novels of Thomas Hardy and others.
Wilkie Collins novel The Moonstone, is generally
considered the first detective novel in the English
language.
Victorian poets
*Leading poetic figures of the Victorian era
included Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson,
Robert Browning (and his wife,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning), and Matthew Arnold,