The Periods of English Literature

1
VY_32_INOVACE_3B15
Gymnázium a Strední odborná škola, Lužická 423,
551 23 Jaromer
Mgr. Budinská Jaroslava

The Periods of British Literature
2
A. The Anglo Saxon Period ( 5 th 1066)
1. The Middle Ages (5 th century -1500)

• Distinctive Features
• Authors anonymity
• Influence of the Celts, Saxons, Romans
• Literary relics written in the West- Saxon
  dialect Old English - OE poetry
  ( heroic poems)
• Latin - OE prose
  (religious works, chronicles)

3

• The best known work
• Beowulf - heroic poem
  ( manuscript Cotton Vitelius)
• depicts pagan life
• the hero is a brave Christian knight
• struggle of goodness and evil
• 3 parts in each one heroic action of B.

4
B. The Period after the Norman Conquest (
1066 1500)

• DF
• French at the royal court
• Latin by the Church ( monastries)
• Old English by common people ( N, S, Central,
  Kent dialects)
• OE metrical romances in verse , at the end of
  MA in prose ( cycle about Artur)
• medieval short stories , comic tales, ballads
  ( Robin Hood..) ---- source for Geoffrey
  Chaucer ( Canterbury Tales etc.)

5
2. Renaissance ( 1500- 1640)

• DF
• new philosophical learning humanism
• interest in a human being
• development of science
• printing introduced (W. Caxton)

6

• William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
• Comedies The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the
  Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merchant
  of Venice, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Merry Wives
  of Windsor, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like
  It, Twelfth Night.

7

• History Plays Henry VI, Richard III, Richard II,
  Henry IV, Henry V, Julius Caesar, Edward III
• Tragedies Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet,
  King Lear, Othello

8
3.The Civil War period Restauration of the
Stuarts ( 1640- 1720)

• DF
• Political struggle between aristocracy and rising
  bourgeoasie --- conflict culminated into the
  Civil war(1640-49)entertainment prohibited,
  theatres closed
• John Milton Paradise Lost - poem in 12 parts,
  based on the Old Law
• After Stuarts comebackflourishment of drama

9
4. The Age of Reason, Enlightment ( 1720
1789)

• DF
• All branches of science developed
• Technical progress
• Industrial revolution
• Reason stressed
• Journalism
• Novels
• Jonathan Swift (Gullivers Travels)
• Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe )

10
5. The Pre Romantic Period (turn of the
18- 19 cent.)

• poetry- Robert Burns, William Blake
• prose gothic novels( escape from the world of
  industrialisation into fantasy, exotics, MA..)
• Ann Radcliff, Matthew Lewis..

11
6. Romanticism (beg. of the 19 cent.)

• DF
• Industrial Revolution
• French Revolution
• American Revolution
• The Greek struggle for independence against
  Turkey
• EQUALITY FREEDOM, return to nature.
• Prose Sir Walter Scott
• Poetry The Lake poets ( William Wordsworth,
  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey)
• The Late poets (George Gordon Byron, P. B.
  Shelley, John Keats)

12
7. From Romanticism into Realism

• The Bronte sisters
• Charlotte Jane Eyre
• Emily Wuthering Heights

13
8. Critical Realism ( 1835- 1914)

• DF
• Victorian Age
• W.M. Thackeray (Vanity Fair)
• Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist, Little Dorrit,
  Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Christmas
  Carol)

14
9. The 1st Half of the 20 century
Contemporary Literature ( after WWII-
nowadays)

• DF
• Many topics, many authors
• R. L. Stevenson, O. Wilde, H. G. Wells, G. B.
  Shaw, D. H. Lawrence, G. Orwell, K. Amis, W.
  Golding, T. Stoppard, etc.

15

• Gymnázium a Strední odborná škola, Lužická 423,
  551 23 Jaromer
• Projekt Škola v digitálním svete
  aneb Uchop svoji šanci
• Registracní císlo CZ.1.07/1.5.00/34.0210
• Císlo DUM VY_32_INOVACE_3B15
• Jméno autora Mgr. Jaroslava Budinská
• Název práce The Periods of British
  Literature
• Predmet anglický jazyk
• Rocník 3 - 4 (B1-B2) pilotováno
  ve 4. rocníku
• Casová dotace cca 20 minut
• Vzdelávací cíl seznámit se s historií a
  literaturou anglicky mluvící zeme
• Inovace využití prostredku ICT,
  mezipredmetové vztahy
• Poznámka prezentace slouží jako prehled
  literatury UK
• Vytvoreno 1.2.2013