History Of English Literature

History of English Literature – Tips a) Invasions There is the Anglo-Saxon invasion which comes from 3 Germanic tribes: the Jutes, the Angles and the Saxons. They brought the name of Britain, its language and its links with Germania. To the Christian Romans, these Germanic tribes were pagans, they had primitive ways of thinking. They were barbarians and their life and society reflected heroic ideals. The Anglo-Saxons had to face the Viking’s invasions in the end of th the 8 and in the beginning of the 9th centuries. They were coming from Norway and Denmark. Alfred the Great (king of Wessex) defeated the Danes and christianised them. There were the Danish Invasions in the 10th and 11th centuries. One of their leaders, Canute, became king of England. He wanted to unify the Danes and the Saxons. His successor was Edward the Confessor. He chose Harold of Wessex as successor but the throne was claimed by Canute’s family and William the Normandy (Edward’s cousin). William defeated Harold of Wessex and became William the Conqueror and king of England in 1066.

b) Religion

In the Old English Period, there was the Christianisation in the 7thC. It is the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon to Christianity. A monk, Augustine, from Rome, was sent by pope Gregory the Great in 597 to England to establish Christianity. He became archbishop of Canterbury. He received the help of Celtic missionaries coming from Wales, Ireland & Scotland. 2 Christian churches try to christianise Britain: the Roman Catholic church which was interested in authority and organization and the Celtic Church which was interested in ordinary people. There was a crisis between both because they disagreed over the date of Easter. But the king of Northumbria supported the Roman Church so the Celtic Church had to retreat and the Roma, Church extended. In the Middle-Ages, John Wycliffe was important because he was a reformer. He attacked the Church because he thought that the church should keep its original poverty. Since the Church was corrupt, he wanted to allow common people to read the Bible in English and not in Latin, in order to have a direct and individual relation to God through the Bible. He tried to give a more direct and personal meaning to religious life at a time when the Clergy and the Church seemed more concerned with their own riches than with spiritual life: he announced the protestant attitude by his beliefs and anticipated the Reformation which divided Europe in the 16th C. During the Renaissance, there was the Reformation. Henry 8 broke with the pope simply because he wanted a divorce which he did not get. So, he declared himself the Head of the Church in England. In 1534, the Act of Supremacy was passed, abolishing the power of the pope in England. Under Queen Mary (Bloody Mary), there was a return to Catholicism. There were many persecutions and hangings, so that many Protestants fled into exile and contacted continental reformers such as Calvin (a French theologian who was the leader of the protestant Reformation in France and Switzerland). When they came back under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, they were ever more ardent supporters of Protestantism, with news ideas and their opposition to the Church hierarchy and the privileges of the Clergy were the causes of the Puritan revolution in England in the 17th C. Under Queen Elizabeth I, we have a

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period of religious toleration, but there was an opposition between the Anglicans and the Puritans. The Anglicans were the Official Church of England, with the monarch at its head and was represented by the high Clergy (there was an established order). The Puritans were represented by the lower Clergy (more democratic and hold stricter views in doctrine and matters of moral behaviour). This led to an opposition between Church (of England < Anglicans) and Chapel (Protestant groups < Puritans).

c) Trace the evolution of the prose in the course In the Old English Period (begins with poetry not with prose!), prose is the result of Christianisation, and its development does not come from Germanic origins. Anglo-Saxon prose was written in Latin in England. The Venerable Bede wrote “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People” in Latin. In the 9th C, the Danish invasions broke up the new Christian civilization and destroyed the monasteries. But King Alfred tried to save this earlier prose work by translating Latin works into English. These translations contributed to the beginning of English Prose. Old English secular prose begins under the reign of King Alfred who unified the little kingdoms to fight against the Danes and developed a national feeling. He contributed to the development of the prose in England - By translating works from Latin into old English (vernacular): “Pastoral Rule” by Pope Gregory; “Ecclesiastical History of the English Race” by Bede; “History of the World” by Orosiu - By writing a “Book of Blossoms” derived from St Augustine’s monologues (the past can be useful to build the present) and – through his historical works in prose and not in poetry. His purpose was to bring to his contemporaries knowledge of the works of the past. The English were the 1st to use prose rather than poetry in historical works (because it was more precise). “The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles” began under his reign. It was written by monks at different periods and it presented the English History from the time of Caesar’s invasions to the Germanic invasions. Then, it went on in the form of annals. Religious Prose (10/11th c) with Aelfric who wrote homilies and lives of saints and was the 1st translator of the 1st 7 books of the Old Testament into English; with Wulfstan who wrote sermons and “Sermon to the English” & with Aldred who did translations from Latin into the vernacular. The beginning of the Middle English Period was great for the A.S. prose (translations from Latin + historical writing). But in the 12th C, Latin and French prose were used for historical records so it was a drawback for English prose. But this one was still used by the Clergy to instruct common people (esp. women) in religious matters. These works ensured the continuity of English prose until the 15th C. Early religious prose works in English with “The Katherine Group” which was the name given to 5 Middle English prose works. 3 of which were based on the lives of a virgin saint (Katherine, Juliana & Margaret). And with “Ancrene Wisse” which was a book of devotional advice, a manual of instruction written by a chaplain for 3 young girls. It gave some advice on all sorts of domestic matters. It is the greatest prose work of the early Middle English Period. Later religious prose works in English (14th C): the religious prose works were no longer only didactic but some were written by mystical writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole, Walter Hilton (“The Scale of perfection”), Julian of Norwich (“16 revelations of divine love”) and John Wycliffe (“Of servants and lords”, wedded men and wives”). More prose works in English: “The travels of Sir de Mandeville” by a French writer and “Polychronikon” by John Trevista who anticipated the prose of the Renaissance (euphuism < Lyly). All the prose works of the MEP permitted to the English prose to stay alive until

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the late 15th C despite the predominance of French verse. Prose in the 15th C, religious prose: “The Book” by Margery Kempe which is her spiritual autobiography (and the 1st in English); secular prose: the growth of the reading public which now included the merchant class, was also shown by the use of prose for works which would earlier have been written in verse. There is prose romance with “La morte d’Arthur” by Malory; courtesy books which are treatises and correspondence with “The Paston Letters” During the Renaissance, with humanism and the reformation influenced the development of literature at the time, Elyot (humanist) created an English prose style to deal with serious philosophical and cultural matters: no more in Latin (>< in MA = vernacular used for the edification of common people). The Reformation caused the writing and publication of important prose works, notably translations of the Bible into English and of the Book of Common People. The development in the field of prose in effected by translation works under Elizabeth and chronicles (interest in history) in prose were written (Hall’s and Holinshed’s Chronicle = source for Shakespeare). Sidney had an influence on prose romance with “Arcadia”. Prose was going to be used in works of fiction for the 1st time, for the sake of entertainment. Prose narrative: with the romance: there were first translations of Italian and French narratives in prose (novellas) and introduced new themes and materials into English literature (“The palace of pleasure”). The, the English wrote their own romances in prose; there were 3 main writers of English romances: Lyly who wanted to refine English prose by innovating a new kind of prose style extremely mannered and artificial: euphuism (decoration of style by images, comparisons, parallels) and his innovations continued the work started by the early humanists i.e. he helped to refine the English prose style by writing for ladies, Sidney who was more artistic and less superficial than Lyly was and his sophistication in style was only the reflection of a corresponding complexity of feeling (“Arcadia”)& Greene who increased the love interest, accelerated the narrative and made it more vivid but he turned to realism or the writing of realistic prose tales which describe the low life of Elizabethan London (“Conversion of an English Courtesan”). Translations: the most significant ones were devoted to the text of the Bible(The Tyndale & Coverdale Bible; The Geneva Bible; the Bishops’ Bible); translations from the classics and from the Italian writers; but the Elizabethan translations adapted the original works to the tastes of the time. Treatises or rhetoric: Sidney with “Apology for Poesy”. Pamphlet:: Heywood with “Apology for actors”. Prose under Elizabethan period, if used no longer for didactic works but for the sake of entertainment, for translations, treatises and pamphlets. There are 2 main varieties of prose narrative: the romance with Lyly, Sidney (& Greene) and the realistic prose tales with Greene.

d) Aspect and technique of the poetry Old English Period: begins with poetry which were recorded in manuscripts by clerics and written in old English. The earlier texts were based on a tradition of oral poetry (brought by Germanic invaders) which was written down by clerics after the Christianisation in the 7th C. The verse is alliterative, stressed and with no rhyme. Each line contains 4 stressed syllables, 2 or 3 alliterations, a number of unstressed syllables and a caesura. That technique is clearly the product of an oral tradition where poems were recited by gleemen called “scop” when they were particularly skilled and attached to a court. This poetry dealt with continental heroes and their deeds in Germania and was for an aristocratic

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audience. There were heroic poetry, elegiac poetry, riddles or enigmas and gnomic verses. There was also a religious poetry with Caedmon (7th C) and Cynewulf (9th C). Middle English Period: the tradition of religious didactic poetry was inaugurated by Ceadmon and Cynewulf in the OEP. This kind of poetry was written for ordinary people and in alliterative verse. In the 13th C, the alliterative verse was gradually replaced by the French octosyllabic rhyming couplet but the alliterative verse survived in the background and led in the 14th C to the Alliterative Revival. There were also the secular didactic poetry (13th c) and verses romance for aristocraty (originally a French genre). In the mid-13th C, there were English romances divided into 3 categories. There were also the fabliau, the fable, ballads. There was Middle English lyrical poetry with secular poetry, religious poetry. The Renaissance: Lyrical poetry with Wyatt who continued the Middle English love song tradition and introduced the sonnet from the Petrarchan sonnet which is a poem of 14 lines (octave + sextet) and it is a conventionalized form and a sophisticated idealistic content (courtly love). Surrey uses the blank verse (decasyllabic line with no rhyme). Both Surrey and Wyatt transformed the pattern of the sonnet : they tended to divide the 14 lines into 3 quatrains and a final rhyming couplet (form used later by Shakespeare). But lyrical poetry and the sonnet did not replace the satirical verse from the Middle Ages (which were in the fabliau, with Langland, Chaucer and Lydgate in the 15th C.). Under the reign of Elizabeth : there was still lyrical poetry with the sonnet (theme = courtly love) but also the song or lyrics (songs also in the MA) and the Pastoral. Lyrical poetry had almost a social function under the reign of Elizabeth because it was a means to ask sth from the Queen and a means of expressing criticism. Narrative poetry which was the main form of poetry in the MA, continued alongside lyrical poetry with Sackville, Daniel, Drayton. Sidney wrote 108 sonnets. Spenser used the Pastoral themes in satirical purposes

e) Speaking about the alliteration revival

In the 13th century, the alliterative verse was gradually replaced by the French octosyllabic rhyming couplet in the Middle English Period. But the alliterative verse survived in the background and led in the 14th century to the Alliterative Revival. There were 4 poems probably written by the same anonymous hand, the Pearl Poet: Pearl, Purity, Patience and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Pearl is a narrative poem as well as an elegy in the form of a dream allegory. The poet recalls how he lost a pearl; it is intense in mood, in tone and emotional effect. Patience and Purity are both allegorical and narrative poems which try to encourage moral and religious fervour, at a time where there was much corruption in Church, Government and Court. However, they lack the special kind of sensibility which makes Pearl so impressive. There are also many poems expressing protest against a government which tolerated too many abuses. This criticism came from people who did not belong to the classes exercising power, so it is not surprising that these poems should be written in alliterative verse and not in the French octosyllabic rhyming line used at the court. Piers Plowman is the most famous. Piers Plowman, by Langland, is a narrative poem expressing religious, moral and social protest against the vices of the society, which is Christian only in name, in the form of an allegory. The poet simply demanded a return to the true teaching of the gospels; gives a satirical

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picture of the actual world; shows a powerful imagination; is convinced (like Wycliffe) of the need of a reform for the Clergy but he did not want any innovations in the doctrine so, it is not a revolutionary poem; describes the growing corruption and materialism among the rich and the growing suffering among the poor (peasant’s revolt of 1381). It is a work of a religious idealist who tries to create a large vision of what is wrong in the society.

f) Arthur in literature Old English Period: / Middle English Period: Anglo-Latin works are translated into French and then into English. “Historia Regum Britanniae” by Monmouth gives a picture of Anglo-Saxons invasions trough the eyes of retreating Celts and it is full of characters such as King Arthur and his exploits. Wace translated it into French and then Layamon translated Wace’s works into English verse. This is how King Arthur’s legend appeared in English Literature. English romances are divided into 3 categories and for the matter of Britain, the romances are based on the Celtic tradition of King Arthur (“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”). Secular prose romance in the 15th C: “La Morte d’Arthur” translated from the French by Malory which is a collection of late versions of the Legends of King Arthur. The Renaissance: with Spenser, the medieval and the Renaissance met because he drew together traditions from medieval English poetry (Arthurian tales) and from Latin and Greek classics and from the Renaissance.

g) Translations Old English Period: some of riddles or enigmas are translations from a Latin original. Anglo-Latin prose: King Alfred tried to save earlier prose by translating Latin works into English which contributed to the beginning of English Prose (Pope Gregory, Bede, Orosius). Religious prose: Aelfric translated the 1st seven books of the Old Testament into Old English. Middle English Period: Anglo-Latin works are translated into French and then into English. “Historia Regum Britanniae” by Monmouth. Wace translated it into French and then Layamon translated Wace’s works into English verse. Later religious prose works (14th C): Wycliffe translated the end of the Bible because he wanted to allow common people to read the Bible in English to have a direct and individual relation with God through the Bible. “The Travels of Sir John De Mandeville” was first written in French and then translated into English and became very popular. John Trevista translated many medieval Latin works into the Vernacular (“Polychronikon”). Narrative poetry: in the mid-13th C, the French romances were translated into English. Chaucer, during his French period, translated part of the “Roman de la Rose” into English (“Romaunt of the Rose”). Secular prose romance in the 15th C: “La Morte d’Arthur” which was translated from the French by Malory. The Renaissance: Caxton introduced printing in 1476 and imported translated texts such as Virgil’s Eneydos. More (humanist) wrote “Utopia” in Latin and was translated into English after his death. The Reformation caused translations of the Bible into English and of the Book of Common Prayer. Surrey used the blank verse in his translation of Virgil’sAeneid. Romances in the Renaissance were first translations of Italian and French narratives in prose (novellas) and they introduced new themes and materials into English Literature (“The palace of pleasure”). Translations from the classics and from the Italian writers; but the Elizabethan translations adapted the original works to the tastes of the time.

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h) Translations of the Bible The Tyndale and Coverdale Bible patronized by the King. The Geneva Bible by Puritans exiled. The Bishops’ Bible by bishops who translated the Bible into English. The Roman Church was opposed to a vernacular version.

i) Female writers (few in the syllabus) Two woman poets of the Elizabethan age: Isabella Whitney and Mary Sidney (sister of Philip Sidney). Isabella Whitney is an educated but lower middle-class writer; used the ballad; her poems are occasional; uses classical and biblical references, but many of her sources are vernacular and popular, deriving from earlier English adaptations of classical stories (Chaucer, Gower) as well as recent translations; wrote Will and Testament (part of the collection A Sweet Nosgay). Mary Sidney : highly educated, in upper class circles; involved in a militant form of Protestantism; most of her poetic production consists of translations  The Psalms of David and Petrarch’s Triumph of Death

j) Didactic literature Old English Period: / Middle English Period: “Historia Regum Britanniae” by Monmouth gives a picture of Anglo-Saxon invasions through the eyes of the retreating Celts; religious prose works were didactic (and mystical in the 14th C); John Trevista with “Polychronikon” which is a history of the world; Ballads are orally transmitted narrative poems, often dealing with a tragic or violent subject matter, and involving international folk song, popular class heroes and historical or semi-historical events; Lydgate had didactic interest; “La Morte d’Arthur” (prose romance of the 15th C) is a collection of late versions of the Legends of King Arthur with contemporary downfall of medieval England in the War of the Roses. The Renaissance: the reformation caused translations of the Bible into English and of the Book of Common Prayer; Elizabeth tragedies of Shakespeare such as Richard 3/2 and Henry 4/5 where he simply followed the life and career of a king.

k) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

By Langland; belongs to the alliterative revival of the 14th century; belongs to the English romances, especially in the matter of Britain; this romance is not didactic but told for entertainment, for the pleasure of an English aristocracy interested in an idealized and unrealistic view of life and themselves; combines the Anglo-Saxon tradition (A-S vigour + alliterative verse), the Celtic tradition (magical folk elements + Arthurian legend), the French tradition (sophistication and the 5 short rhyming lines at the end of each stanza); has a succession of scenes and situations full of colour, movements and vivid details; the poet shows an intense feeling for the nature and a great sensibility to the movement of the seasons; universal message at the end is the fallibility of the human condition (moral failure is not a heroic deed). Summary : In the story, Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious knight who is completely green. The "Green Knight" offers to allow anyone to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts the challenge, and takes off his head in one blow, only to have the Knight stand up, pick up his head, and remind Gawain to meet him at the appointed time.

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l) Define what an allegory is, and give an example

(many to be found in morality plays) An allegory is a representation of an abstraction through something concrete. In morality plays, the characters are personification of virtues (truth) or bad qualities (revenge). Ex: Everyman where life on earth is a spiritual journey in which the only hope in success lays on the acceptance of God’s will.

m) What are the typical authors of the Renaissance? Wyatt and Earl of Surrey, Daniel, Spenser, Drayton, Sidney, Shakespeare for the lyrical poetry. Campion, Gascoigne, Shakespeare for the songs (lyrics). Sackville, Daniel, Drayton for the narrative poetry. Skelton and Barclay for the satirical poetry. Heywood for the drama and pamphlet. Lyly, Sidney, Greene for the romance. Greene for the realistic prose tale. Sidney for treatises on rhetoric. Udall for first comedies (adaptation of Latin works). Lyly, Greene for first comedies (adaptations of Italian works). Sackville, Norton, Kyd for first tragedies. Marlowe. Shakespeare.

n) In what way is Marlowe a figure of the Renaissance

while still belonging to the Middle Ages? From the Renaissance: he was a man of the Renaissance with a free and daring mind; he glorifies life on this earth; he tended not to respect the rule of the 3 unities (Place, Plot, Time); his tragedies are centred around a central figure who is driven by a passion that finally leads him to dead; the tragic hero is responsible of wathever happens to him; has a secular humanist view; his figure of speech is hyperbole; his plays have the ambition ti achieve infinite knowledge which is typical of the Renaissance. From the MA: his plays have characteristic of the medieval morality play, the conflict between vice and virtue for the possession of man’s soul (“Doctor Faustus”); death is the end of his play “Tamburlaine the Great” as in “Everyman”, the medieval morality play.

o) In what way Chaucer are between Middle Ages and

Renaissance? From the Renaissance: he was influenced by what happened in France and in Italy (where the Renaissance was already beginning); he is modernist; he had a good knowledge of his contemporaries, a remarkable largeness of view, a wide knowledge and experience of life; in his “Canterbury Tales”, he embodied his great secular vision of his fellow men: he brought to life the psychological and social world of the time, he gave a picture which appears to represent our own age, as indeed any other age. From the MA: his French period : he wrote in the courtly love tradition of the French Romance (“Romaunt of the Roses”); he wrote “The Book of the Duchess” in octosyllabic rhyming couplet and it is an elegy in the dream allegory tradition; his Italian period: “Troilus and Cressida” based on a legend of obscure origins and bases on “Il filostrato”, a poem of tragic love set in Ancient Times.

p) In what way Shakespeare is between Middle Ages and Renaissance? 7

From the MA: he depended on his predecessors (Marlowe and Kyd); he used the blank verse; he took his subjects out of stories that already existed but no plagiarism; under Elizabeth, he followed the fashionable trends of the time: sonnet in poetry but adapted to his own personal situation; wrote also long narrative poems; for his Elizabethan tragedies, he was influenced by the concept of the “fall of Princes” (“Mirrors for Magistrates” by Sackville), by the medieval morality play with the distinction between good and evil and the presentation of the tragic hero as a prototype of humanity; under James, his last plays or romances contained elements of mythology, folklore and magic. From the Renaissance: he did not respect the rule of the 3 unities; his characters perceive a better world, they are positive; in his Elizabethan tragedies, he had a sense of citizenship and of responsibility of the ruler towards his people; under James, his last plays or romances were optimist, reflected a new attitude to both life and art. For him, language was not only expressive but also cognitive to explore the human condition. He combined the supreme craftsmanship of the man of the theatre, a human curiosity about the human condition, an ability to conceive and create characters, and an unrivalled mastery if the English vocabulary.

q) What are Shakespeare’s influences? For his history plays (Richard 3, 2; Henry 4, 5): Hall’s and Holinshed’s Chronicle in prose. For Richard III, he used the Blank Verse (no rhyme) of Marlowe. For his tragedies of revenge or of blood (Titus Andronicus, Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet): Seneca with the ghost and the revenge (was popularised by Kyd in England); the concept of the ‘Fall of Princes’ from the Mirror of the Magistrates by Sackeville in the narrative poetry (16th c) which consisted that the fall of kings is caused by the character of the hero himself Wyatt and Surrey: their use of the Sonnet  division of the 14 lines into 3 quatrains and a final rhyming couplet. Green’s Pandosto: for the Winter’s Tale (Last plays or romances), which is an euphuistic romance. (Euphuism is the decoration of style by images, comparisons and parallels). Lodge’s Rosalynd was influenced by Green’s romances. Shakespeare transformed it in As you like it. Kyd: he introduced a play within a play wich goes against the rules of the 3 unities (time, place, plot). It influenced Shakespeare for Hamlet and The Tempest) Marlowe: the tragic hero who is led to self-destruction because of the corruption of his own virtues.

q) Evolution of drama? Old English Period: / Middle English Period: the origins of drama with tropes; miracles or mystery plays (12th C); the morality play (15th C); the interlude = secular morality play (15th C) with “The play of the Weather” by Heywood The Renaissance: the interlude; drama under the reign of Elizabeth with the first comedies in English [Terence & Plautus] (adaptations from Latin comedies with Udall and from Italian Comedies with Lyly, Greene) + CONCLUSION p 27; the first tragedies in English [Seneca] with Sackville & Norton, Kyd and English chronicle or history plays and Domestic tragedies; Marlowe wrote tragedies in blank verse and used hyperbole (Tamburlaine the Great, The Jew of Malta, Doctor Faustus) and history plays such as Edward II; Shakespeare used the blank verse and metaphor; he wrote the

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sunny comedies, the dark comedies, history plays, tragedies of revenge or of blood under the reign of Elizabeth. He also wrote his dark satirical comedies, his tragedies between 1603 & 1609 and his last plays or romances between 1609 & 1612 under James.

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