ENGLISH LITERATURE BIDA JAVAID NATIONAL UNIVERISTY OF MODREN LANGUAGES (NUML] DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS
Jul 30, 2015
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
18th century English Literature
Romantic English Literature
19th century English Literature
20th century 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
19th century English Literature
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
William Shakespeare back
Great comedies:
The Merchant of Venice
As You Like It
Twelfth Night
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
William Shakespeare back
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.
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Restoration Literature
John Milton: Paradise Lost
The Country Wife
Pilgrim’s Progress
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Augustan Literature
Jonathan Swift: A Tale of a Tub
Gulliver’s Travels
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18th Century
Age of Enlightment.
Age of Sensibility.
Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto
Romanticism
Industrialism.
William Blake: Romantic Age
Oscar Wilde
Mary Shelley:
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Victorian Literature
Charles Dickens.
Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlok Holmes
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English Literature since 1900
Modernism: Rudyard Kipling, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf
Post-Modern Literature: Truman Capote
Post World War II: J.R.R. Tolkien
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