PART ONE: English Literature

1
PART ONE English Literature

• An Introduction to Old and Medieval English
  Literature

2
Introduction to some necessary concepts

• Celts member of one of the races that now
  include the Irish, Welsh, Cornish and highland
  Scots.
• Anglo-Saxons one of the race of people who
  settled in England (from NW Europe ) before the
  Norman Conquest their language ( also called Old
  English )
• The Normans those who conquered England in 11th
  century (Scandinavian and Frankish descendant

3
The Outline of Time

• Old English 450-1066 (AD5th -11th century )
• Medieval English 1100-1500(AD11th-15th century )
• The Renaissance Period(14th-17th)
• The Neoclassical Period (17th -18th )
• The Romantic Period (early 18th-late 18th )
• The Victorian Period (19th - 20th )
• The Modern Period (20th - )

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Old English

• Time 450-1066 ,the Germanic tribes from the
  Northern Europe brought with them not only the
  Anglo-Saxon language-the basis of Modern
  English, but also specific poetic tradition bold
  ,strong, mournful and elegiac in spirit.
  Generally divided into two main groups the
  religious group( based on biblical themes such as
  Genesis A , Genesis B and Exodus )and the
  secular one. There is also the national epic
  poem such as Beowulf.

5
Beowulf

• A typical example of Old English poetry, is
  regarded today as the national epic of the
  Anglo-Saxons.

6
The Norman Conquest

• Time 1066-1500 With the Norman Conquest starts
  the medieval period in English literature
• Features
• 1.Politically, a feudalist system was established
  in English
• 2.Religiously, the Rome-backed Catholic Church
  had a much stronger influence over the country
• 3.Great changes in languages, that is ,three
  languages French, the official language used by
  the king and the Norman lords Latin the
  principal language in churches and Old English by
  common people co-existed in England.

7
Famous Writers in the Period

• Geoffrey Chaucer,
• William Langland
• John GOWER

8
Romance

• Romance which uses narrative verse or prose to
  sing knightly adventures or other heroic deeds is
  a popular literary form in the medieval period.
  There is often a liberal use of the impossible
  ,sometimes even the supernatural things in
  romance of the plot .The structure is loose and
  episodic. The hero is usually a knight,
  developing the characteristic medieval themes of
  the quest, the test, the meeting with the evil
  giant and the encounter with the beautiful
  beloved. Romance reflects a chivalric age.

9
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)

• Personal experience
• 1.    The father of the English poetry, the
  founder of modern English, Chaucer was born of a
  wine merchant family, with rising fortunes and
  some standing at the court.
• 2.       1357 served as a court page (boy servant
  ), and in 1359 in an English arm fighting in
  France and was taken prisoner.
• 3.       Probably in 1361 to 1367 studied at the
  Inner Temple where he received training for a
  career at the court.

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• 4.  He might be likely to get married to
  Philippa, a maid of honor to the queen and sister
  of Gaunt, or sister of the future wife of John
  Gaunt, son of the king, the Duke of Lancaster,
  who became his patron (protector ).
• 5. 1367 he entered the service of the King Edward
  III. Several times he was sent to European
  continent on diplomatic missions, two of which
  took him to Italy, negotiating treaties and
  performing other business for the king.

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Chaucers Education

• 6. We know nothing about his formal education.
  There is no evidence that he went to any
  university, but plenty evidence showed that he
  knew university men for example, among the
  Canterbury pilgrims the learned, bookish,
  half-starved clerk, and his fellow Jankins, fifth
  husband of the Wife of Bath, ect.

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• 7.In 1374, he was made controller of customs and
  subsidy (money ) of wools, skins and hides which
  he kept for twelve years.
• 8. In 1385, he became one of the justice of the
  peace for Kent.
• 9.  In 1386, he was elected Member of Parliament
  for Kent.
• 10.   He was the first poet buried in Westminster
  Abby, for his great contribution to the making of
  English literature.

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Conclusion

• In his life, he served in a great variety of
  occupations, a courtier, an officer-holder,
  soldier, ambassador, legislator and burgher
  (citizen ) of London.
• He had broad and intimate acquaintance with
  persons high and low in all walks of life, and
  knew well the whole life of his time, which left
  great impression upon his works and particularly
  upon the ) picture of the English society of
  his time to be found in his masterpiece. The
  Canterbury Tales.

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His literary career

• Literary historian often divided his literary
  life into three periods, corresponding to the
  predominating literary influences ___French,
  Italian and English.
• The first period
• The French___ the period stretching from
  (1360-1372), during which he fell under t

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• he influence of French poetry of the Middle Ages.
  Works in this period consist of ones translated
  from the French such as the Romans of the Rose
  The romance of Rose), which was a love allegory,
  enjoying wide spread popularity in 13th and 14th
  century, not only in France but throughout
  Europe. The poem cast in the form of a
  dream-vision. In this poem, Chaucer first
  introduced the coat-syllabic couple into English
  verse. Example

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• Of Study took he most care and heed
• No one word spoke he more than was need.
• Besides this, he also wrote the Book of the
  Duchess (1369-1370)

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The second period

• The second period extending from 1372-1385, under
  the influence of early Renaissance of Italy
  especially under the influence of Dante, the
  author of Divine Comedy, Petrach, an Italian poet
  who created a kind of sonnet, and Bocaccio, the
  writer of Decarmeron. The works of this period
  are
• 1. The house of Fame (1370) Unfinished.
• 2.Troilus and Criseyde (13851386) (??????????)
• 3. The Legend of Good Women (13851386)

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• Of the three The legend of Good Women is again a
  love vision.
• Troilus and Criseyde is taken from Baccaccios
  Filostrato , but Chaucer here partly adopted and
  partly translated from Bacaccios poem, and in
  turn it inspired Henrryson Testament of Criseyde
  in 15th century. Shakespeares Troilus and
  Criseyde in the early 17th century, and John
  Dydens adoption of Shakespeares with the same
  title during the Renaissance.

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The third period

• The third period is the period of extending from
  1385 to 1400, during which the poet made a great
  progress and distinguished himself for profound
  delineation of character and truthful description
  of human relations, which showed his maturity in
  versification. The work of this period is his
  master piece.

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General Introduction to the Canterbury Tales

• The Canterbury Tales is Chaucers masterpiece and
  one of the monumental works in English literature.

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Social significance of the work

• 1. give us a true to life picture of his time.
• 2.taking from the stand of rising bourgeoisie, he
  affirms men and opposes the dogma of asceticism
  (not allowed to enjoy happiness)?????preached by
  the Church.
• 3.       As a forerunner of humanism, he praises
  mans energy, intellect, quick wit and love of
  life.
• 4.       His tales expose and satirize the evils
  of his time, attack degeneration?? of the noble,
  the heartless of the judge, the corruption of the
  Church and so on.

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Chaucers writing style

• 1. exact language
• 2. His poetry is full of vigor and swiftness.
• 3.He enriched the poetic forms for the English
  poetry.
• 4.He is the first person who made the London
  vernacular (dialect) the language of his work,
  thus make it the foundation for modern speech and
  establish English as the literary language of the
  country.
• 5.His language style is remarkably lexical. His
  prose is easy and informal. His works are full of
  genial satires.

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Chaucers contribution

• 1.He introduced into England the rhymed stanzas
  of various forms to English poetry instead of the
  old Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse.
•      Heroic couplet
•    The rhyme royal
• c.  The octave (??????), eight-line iambic
  pentameter stanza, rhyming ababbcbc, in which
  Monks Tale is written.
• 2. He did much in making the dialect of London
  the language of the court, the learned and the
  well-to do.
•  

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Alliteration

• The repetition of the beginning accented
  syllables near to each other with the same
  consonantal sound, as in many idiomatic phrases
  safe and sound thick and thin right as
  rain. Alliteration is thus the opposite of
  rhyme, by which the similar sounds occur at the
  ends of the syllables.
•  

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Foot

• The metrical unit in English, an accented
  syllable with accompanying light syllable or
  syllables.