What is the history of English literature?
The history of English Literature starts with the Anglo-Saxons and Germanic settlers in Anglo-Saxon England in the 5th century, c.450. The oldest English literature was in Old English which is the earliest form of English and is a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects. Beowolf is the earliest and most popular work in Old English Literature.
What are the characteristics of Old English literature?
Old English literature is mostly chronicle and poetry - lyric, descriptive but chiefly narrative or epic. By the time literacy becomes widespread, Old English is effectively a foreign and dead language. And its forms do not significantly affect subsequent developments in English literature.
What are the most important periods of English literature?
The most important 8 periods of English Literature are: Old English (Anglo-Saxon Period): 450–1066 Middle English Period: 1066-1500 Renaissance: 1500-1600 Neoclassical Period: 1600-1785 Romantic Period: 1785-1832
What is it like to study the history of literature?
In studying the history of literature (or any kind of art), you are challenged to consider what constitutes a given form, how it has developed, and whether it has a future.
What is history of English literature?
The history of English Literature starts with the Anglo-Saxons and Germanic settlers in Anglo-Saxon England in the 5th century, c. 450. The oldest English literature was in Old English which is the earliest form of English and is a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects.
What is literature summary English?
English Literature refers to the study of texts from around the world, written in the English language. By studying a degree in English Literature, you will learn how to analyze a multitude of texts and write clearly using several different styles.
What is the importance of English literature in our history?
They convey the depth of thought, richness of emotion, and insight into the character. Literature takes us beyond the limited experience of our lives to show us the lives of others at a later time. It leads us intellectually and emotionally, and deepens our understanding of our history, society, and each of our lives.
How do you write a history of English literature notes?
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What are the 8 periods of English literature?
A Brief Overview of British Literary PeriodsOld English (Anglo-Saxon) Period (450–1066)Middle English Period (1066–1500)The Renaissance (1500–1660)The Neoclassical Period (1600–1785)The Romantic Period (1785–1832)The Victorian Period (1832–1901)The Edwardian Period (1901–1914)The Georgian Period (1910–1936)More items...•
Who is the father of English literature?
Geoffrey ChaucerGeoffrey Chaucer (/ˈtʃɔːsər/; c. 1340s – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry".
What is the main purpose of literature?
The purpose of literature is to give pleasure to the reader.
What are the characteristics of English literature?
English literature revolves around just a handful of common themes, many of which are shared with Western literature, that describe nearly all its stories. The five most commonly identified and most commonly used are overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, and boy meets girl.
What are the 3 Uses of literature?
Cogitation: Reflecting and applying things having read. Reasoning: Drawing conclusions from requirements already given. Creative thinking: Finding solutions by means of knowledge, principles, and ideas.
What are the 7 literary periods?
Periods of American LiteratureThe Colonial and Early National Period (17th century to 1830) ... The Romantic Period (1830 to 1870) ... Realism and Naturalism (1870 to 1910) ... The Modernist Period (1910 to 1945) ... The Contemporary Period (1945 to present)
Who is the mother of English literature?
Adeline Virginia Woolf (/wʊlf/; née Stephen; 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device....Virginia WoolfAlma materKing's College London11 more rows
What is the first poem in English literature?
The earliest known English poem is a hymn on the creation; Bede attributes this to Cædmon (fl. 658–680), who was, according to legend, an illiterate herdsman who produced extemporaneous poetry at a monastery at Whitby. This is generally taken as marking the beginning of Anglo-Saxon poetry.
When did the English literature start?
What is the history of English Literature? The history of English Literature starts with the Anglo-Saxons and Germanic settlers in Anglo-Saxon England in the 5th century, c.450. The oldest English literature was in Old English which is the earliest form of English and is a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects.
What is the oldest form of English literature?
The oldest English literature was in Old English which is the earliest form of English and is a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects. The history of English Literature is spread over different eras including Old English or Anglo Saxon, The Renaissance, Victorian Era, Modern Era, Postmodern era, amongst others.
What is the most famous work of the English era?
Beowulf is the earliest and most popular work in Old English Literature. As the Normans conquested England, Middle English replaced the Old English and was used by the father of English Literature, Geoffrey Chaucer in his famous work, The Canterbury Tales. William Shakespeare came to be considered as the most iconic and greatest writer in ...
What is the Elizabethan age?
Elizabethan Age a.k.a. The Golden Age of English Literature: 16th Century to Early 17th Century) Courtesy: Nolsey. Bringing a distinctive paradigm shift in the history of English Literature, the Elizabethan Age represents the brilliant century of all the periods and is also known as the Golden Age.
What are some of the most famous poems in the history of English literature?
The history of English Literature starts with the Germanic tradition of Anglo-Saxon settlers which were around 5th to 11th century AD and the first long narrative poems in the history of English Literature were Beowulf and Widsith . These two were highly narrative poems of this early period of the history of English Literature. Beowulf is be considered as the first English Epic poem and some of the other famous works produced during the Old English Literature include, Genesis, Exodus, The Wanderer, Wife’s lament, Husband’s message, The battle of Maldon etc. Earlier, to understand the temperament of readers, writers would make use of alteration rather than a rhyming scheme. Moreover, some of the famous writers of old English literature were Cynewulf and Caedmon.
What was the Middle English period?
Also referred to as the Later Middle English Literary Period , the Medieval English Literature comprises of a diverse range of works as the population of England during this time was literate and a considerable portion was also bilingual and trilingual. Geoffrey Chaucer is amongst the highly regarded poets within the period of 1342 to 1400 and was renowned for his courtly love poetry including the famous “ Canterbury Tales” though it was left incomplete; “The House of Fame”, and ‘ The Book of the Duchess’. He became one of the core political servants in Britains’s court. William Langland’s famous religious works including “Piers Plowman” also deserves a crucial mention as it represents another popular genre of this period of English Literature which was secular and religious prose.
What was the Romantic Age?
The Romantic age of the history of English literature experimented with the earlier forms of poetry and brought many interesting genres of prose fiction. The key feature of the poetry of this period was the emphasis laid on individual thought and personal feeling.
What was the change during the 11th -13th centuries from Gestes to romances of chivalry
The change during the 11th -13th centuries from Gestes (songs of res gestae, Lat. ‘things done’, ‘doings’) to romances of chivalry is part of the rise of feudalism . A knight ’s duty to serve God and the King had a re ligious orientation and a legal .
Who wrote the Latin Historia Regum Britanniae?
Wace, a canon of Bayeux, had in turn based his work on the Latin Historia Regum Britanniae (c.1130 -6) by Geoffrey of Monmouth (d.1155). In Geoffrey’s wonderful History, the kings of Britain descend from Brutus, the original conqueror of the island of Albion, then infested by giants.
What is spontaneous mode in poetry?
The spontaneous mode of Romantic poetry relies, in extended works, upon unusual powers of syntax and form, and also on organization, wh ich cannot be improvised. Keats’s major Odes are superbly organized, but his earlier Hyperion, like some of the ambitious myths of Byron and Shelley, gets lost.
What was the first verse romance?
The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) was the first of the verse romances by which Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) made his name. He had begun by translating German imitation-romances, and collecting the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, continuing the work of Percy and of The Scots Musical Museum.
What is Elizabeth's other name in the poem?
Elizabeth’s other name in the poem, as ‘most royal Queen and Empress’, is Gloriana; the twelfth book was to have described the twelve days of Gloriana ’s annual feast. Spenser wrote three further books, of Friendship, Justice and Co urtesy. Two Cantos of Mutability from the Seventh Book appeared posthumously.
How dangerous was dynastic historiography?
From 1547 the Tudors made sure that their subjects heard regularly from the pulpit about their duty to obey the Crown. Church attendance was the law, and nine times a year homilies were read on the divine appointment of kings and the duty of subjects to order and obedience.
What was Alfred's translation programme?
Alfred’s translation programme had created a body of discursive native prose. This was extended in the 10th century, after the renewal of Benedictine monastic culture under Archbishop Dunstan, by new writing, clerical and civil. The extant prose of Ælfric (c.955 -c.1020) and Wulfstan (d.1023) is substantial.
When did Legouis publish his history of English literature?
Legouis published his larger History of English Literature in 1929, in collaboration with his distinguished colleague Louis Cazamian, largely to answer the demand for such a text from the students he taught at the Sorbonne.
What is the meaning of the poem "The Estorie des Engles"?
Geoffrey Gaimar’s poem, the Estorie des Engles (the ‘history of the English’), began with a (now lost) reiteration of the mythical origins of the Britons before describing the Saxon invasions and the more recent exploits of the Conqueror and his son William Rufus.
What is the meaning of Drapier's letters?
The Drapier’s Letters (1724) stem from a more obviously public and popular indignation at English indifference to Ireland. The five letters, purporting to be the work of ‘M.B.’, a Dublin draper, play on provincial pride and a specifically local grievance.
What is the significance of Hydriotaphia?
Hydriotaphia, like Browne’s posthumously published To A Friend, Upon the Occasion of the Death of his Intimate Friend (1690), suggests a particular concern with the phenomena of decay, death, and disposal in the ancient and modern worlds and with the significance of religious rites and religious comfort.
What is Sir John Davies's meditation on the nature of man and the immortality of the soul?
A similar didacticism marks Sir John Davies’s meditation in quatrains on the nature of man and the immortality of the soul, Nosce Teipsum (1599). Davies (1569-1626) is, however, chiefly remembered for his inventive exploration of the signification of dance in Orchestra Ora Poeme of Dauncing (1596).
When a strong nobility and a richly endowed Church possessed the land, did the monarchy
When a strong nobility and a richly endowed Church possessed the land then monarchy flourished, but, after the dissolution of the monasteries and the redistribution of Church land amongst a new order of rising gentry, the power of the king was weakened.
When did poetry start in Scotland?
Poetry in Scotland in the Fifteenth Century The Kingdom of Scotland, or to put it more precisely the independent realm ruled by the King of Scots, witnessed a distinctive flowering of literature in English in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.
What was the medium of narrative writing in the 16th century?
The popular and very contemporary medium for narrative in the 16th century is the theatre. The earliest novels reflect a bourgeois view of the world because this is the world of the authors and their readers (working people are depicted, but patronizingly, not from inside knowledge).
Where did the English language originate?
English, as we know it, descends from the language spoken by the north Germanic tribes who settled in England from the 5th century A.D. onwards. They had no writing (except runes, used as charms) until they learned the Latin alphabet from Roman missionaries. The earliest written works in Old English (as their language is now known to scholars) were probably composed orally at first, and may have been passed on from speaker to speaker before being written. We know the names of some of the later writers (Cædmon, Ælfric and King Alfred) but most writing is anonymous. Old English literature is mostly chronicle and poetry - lyric, descriptive but chiefly narrative or epic.
What is romanticism in literature?
movement in philosophy but especially in literature, romanticism is the revolt of the senses or passions against the intellect and of the individual against the consensus. Its first stirrings may be seen in the work of William Blake (1757-1827), and in continental writers such as the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the German playwrights Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The publication, in 1798, by the poets William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) of a volume entitled Lyrical Ballads is a significant event in English literary history, though the poems were poorly received and few books sold. The elegant latinisms of Gray are dropped in favour of a kind of English closer to that spoken by real people (supposedly). Actually, the attempts to render the speech of ordinary people are not wholly convincing. Robert Burns (1759 1796) writes lyric verse in the dialect of lowland Scots (a variety of English). After Shakespeare, Burns is perhaps the most often quoted of writers in English. His Auld Lang Syne is sung every New Year's Eve.
Who were the two novelists of the late Victorian and early modern era?
The late Victorian and early modern periods are spanned by two novelists of foreign birth: the American Henry James (1843-1916) and the Pole Joseph Conrad (Josef Korzeniowski; 1857-1924). James relates character to issues of culture and ethics, but his style can be opaque; Conrad's narratives may resemble adventure stories in incident and setting, but his real concern is with issues of character and morality. The best of their work would include James's The Portrait of a Lady and Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Nostromo and The Secret Agent. We should also includeR.L. Stevenson (1850-94) writer of Kidnappe, Treasure Island, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), author of The Importance of Being Earnest, and The Portrait of Dorian Gray.
Who is the most famous poet of the Elizabethan era?
The greatest of Elizabethan lyric poets is John Donne (1572-1631), whose short love poems are characterized by wit and irony, as he seeks to wrest meaning from experience. The preoccupation with the big questions of love, death and religious faith marks out Donne and his successors who are often called metaphysical poets. (This name, coined by Dr. Samuel Johnson in an essay of 1779, was revived and popularized by T.S. Eliot, in an essay of 1921. It can be unhelpful to modern students who are unfamiliar with this adjective, and who are led to think that these poets belonged to some kind of school or group - which is not the case.) After his wife's death, Donne underwent a serious religious conversion, and wrote much fine devotional verse. The best known of the other metaphysicals are George Herbert (1593-1633), Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) and Henry Vaughan (1621-1695).