GENRE: A french term to talk about a kind of literary class.

The major
classical genres were:

 EPIC

 LYRIC

 TRAGEDY

 COMEDY

 SATIRE .

 Now NOVEL and SHORT STORIES too.

From the Renaissance until the 18th century, these genres were carefully
distinguished and writers were expected to follow the rules prescribed for
them.

BC : Before Christ. (590 BC)

AD : Anno Domini. After Christ was born (AD 590).

Old English Period (5th century – 1066)

In the 3rd milleniun BC, a nomadic people started their migration from western Russia.
They reached China to the East and Europe to the west. In 2,000 BC they got to the
British Isles. Their language is called Indo-European (the ancestor of most languages).

The Celts invaded the British Isles in successive waves from circa 600 BC. The main
groups were the Brythonic and Goidelic Celts.

In 55 BC the Romans started raids into Britain but it was not until 43 AD that the country
was incorporated into the Roman Empire.

The Celts, especially those living in towns, were assimilated into the Roman culture,
whereas the rural populations continued to speak Celtic languages.
It was a period of peace and prosperity. When the Roman Empire accepted Christianity
in 313 AD, the new religion also entered the British Isles. St Patrick was responsible for
the introduction of Christianity into Ireland.

The barbarians threatened the Romans and the legions were ordered to defend, Rome
and the Celts, who relied on the Roman army, were left defenceless and were attacked
by Picts and Scots (from Scotland).

Rome fell in 410, an event which signals the end of the Ancient Times and the beginning
of te Middle Ages.

The Angles, Saxons and Jutes (Anglo-Saxons) began to attack the English Isles and by
circa 615 settled down.

In England, the Roman towns were destroyed, Christianity was abandoned and Latin was
displaced by the Anglo-Saxon languages.

However, the Celts continued with their traditions and language, so much that even
today we can find the development of Celtic culture and literature in Scotland (language:
Erse), Wales (language: Cymric – called Welsh today) and Ireland (language: Gaelic).

In 597 St. Augustine arrived from Rome to Christianize the pagan Anglo-Saxons. Thanks
to Christianity England became part of the mainstream of Western civilization.

From 856 the “savage“ Vikings started their raids on the Anglo-Saxons. They brought
death and destruction and by 870 only one Anglo-Saxon kingdom survived : Wessex.

Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, defeated them and demanded a treaty in 878 in which
he received half of England and ensured the Christianization of the Vikings (or Danes).
He was thus the first ruler of all free English men. Northern and eastern England was the
Danelaw, composed of several Viking kingdoms.

In 1017, it was appointed the Danish King Canute, who was thus the first ruler of a
unified England. He was followed by Anglo-Saxon kings until 1066, when the Normans,
under William the Conqueror, gained control of England and put an end to the Anglo-
Saxon period. That was the last invasion Great Britain ever suffered.

SOCIETY

They were war like and illiterate. They were loyal to the tribesmen and to the king (a
revered leader and a wise jugde who gave rewards to loyal warriors. From the warriors
to the king: fighting. From the king to the warriors: rewards (land-gold)

Two social classes: the rulling class (Earls) and the lower class (Churls). Society was
organized by families and clans.

Women were the vehicle to make peace (this is the only way they are mentioned in
poems).

The worst possible crime was to kill a relative of treachery (not being loyal to somebody
that trusts you) i.e not fulfilling your duty of loyalty.

RELIGION: Christianity was abandoned. They were PAGAN and polytheists. Their gods
were mortals. Inmortality was believed to come from dying in battle. They thought that
they would die when Wyrd (fate), the strongest of the gods, wanted it. Destiny was
controlled by Wyrd.

They also believed in the importance of fame, they would be remembered for their
achievements in battle.

In 597 the monk Augustine arrived in Kent and converted the king and Christianity spred
throughout Britain.

LANGUAGE

The Old English (spoken from about 450 to 1150) differs so markedly from our modern
English that is almost a foreing language.

They had a complex grammar with a system of inflections. It was harsh, gluttural and
had clusters of consonants which made it violent. The vocabulary was small and resistant
to change

They wrote using the runic alphabet. Then, the monks brought ink and the Roman
alphabet.

DIALECTS: There were 4 major dialects. Nearly all the surviving Old English manuscripts
were written in the West Saxon dialect.

IMPORTANCE OF OLD ENGLISH PERIOD: Now is thought to be the greatest Germanic

literature of its time.
The English of today resulted from a fusion of the language of the Germanic tribes who
came to England. It’s of the Indo-European family.

OLD ENGLISH POETRY

THERE WERE 3 TYPES OF POEMS:

1. Epics

2. Lyrical poems

3. Religious poems

Characteristics:

 Rhythm – Old English verse has four main emphases (or beats) in each line.

Scops (or Bards) sang their verses to audiences in mead halls. They didn’t use
much rhyme because they lacked vowels, they played with consonants
(alliteration).

 Rapid narrative style – Unnecesary details are ommited so that the story can
move forward.

 Themes – Blood. Heroes. Battles. Non-religious.

 Alliteration – Sound device. The verse was highly alliterative, four or five stressed
words which might begin with the same consonant.

 Caesura – The line was divided by caesura and joined by alliteration.

Devices used in poems

 Repetition: Statements are repeated for emphasis.

 Kennings : (Only in OE Poetry). They are unique figures of speech. Compounds

used to evoke a series of associations to help achieve alliteration and also for
variety. Eg : the swan road (sea) – the twilight sparler (dragon).

 Litotes : The use of a negative or weak statement to empasize a positive

meaning. Eg : He wasn’t slow to accept the offer (he was quick).
  Genealogy: To refer to a person by naming his father or mother.

KINDS OF POETRY--- SECULAR (non-religious) epic and lyrical poetry. Riddles.

AND CHRISTIAN (Old and New Testament with lives of Saints, School of Caedmon and
of Cynewulf).

They are PAGAN and LONG NARRATIVE POEMS about warrior deeds and heroic battle
feats. These poems reflect many of the valious typically found in the Anglosaxon Culture,
such as bravery, the idea of revenge, etc. They embody the history and aspirations of a
nation in a lofty or grandiose manner.

Epics were primary ORALLY COMPOSED or recited (Primary epics) they were intended to
be chanted by Scoops and then WRITTEN DOWN (Secondary epics) by monks. They are
composed in verse.

The PROTAGONIST was the warrior, it was considered for them honourable to die in
battle. They believed in the concept of faith and destiny and they were looking for
internal glory and renown.

LANGUAGE: Was LOFTY, serious and dignified. They wanted to stir up a spirit of
nationalism and to persuade warriors to imitate the others who died in battle.

examples: Beowulf, The Illiad and Odyssey, Troye. The Battle of Maldon.

 Use of supernatural elements: monsters, dragons in order to add variety and to

magnify the warriors because of their bravery.

 Invocation to the muse.

 Epithets: Alexander "The Great", Richard "the Lion Hearthed". They used
adjectives to qualify the worriors.

 Repetition of long passages of the narrative or dialogue.

  This poetry is composed without rhyme, in a characteristic line or verse of four
stressed syllables-

DEVICES:

 Rhythm: they used 4 accent per line.

 Kennings

 Alliteration: It’s a sound device, they repeat the consonantal sound at the
beginning of words in stressed syllables “the wolves of war”

 Rapidity of movements: Many details are omitted, taken for granted.

BEOWULF—It’s considered the chief surviving monument of Old English literature.

It’s the oldest know Anglo-Saxon epic narrative poem. It was composed in
Northumbria, England, about 750 AD and written down about 1000 in Wessex.

There are many allusions to the Bible. God is said to be the creator of all things, the
monster Grendel is called a descendant of Cain.

BATTLE OF MALDON—It’s considered the greatest battle poem in English. It’s an

anonymous Anglo-Saxon poem. It describes a battle between the English and Viking
warriors from Denmark in 991 AD at Maldon, Essex.

The poem manages to convey the sense of the whole battle through a series of
speeches and individual actions.

They are songs to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre. They are secular (non
religious) and usually short.

They express the feelings and emotions of a single speaker in a personal and subjective
way. (Usually negative, with a sense of loss, banishment (destierro), sorrow and
loneliness. If the feelings are sad they are called Elegies.
RIDDLES: Have double entendre, talk about an inanimate object and
are difficult to understand.

Monks composed them to convert people. They took stories from the Bible using their
own traditional elements (OE devices). Eg : saints were executed because they were
defending their God (loyalty, heroes, revenge). These poems are anonymous, except
for :

o School of Caedmon : (658-680)

Caedmon is considered the first Old English Christian Poet, he became the founder of a
school of Christian poetry. Number of poems based on the Old Testament. Its subject is
the Creation. Eg : Caedmon’s Hymn, Judith, Genesis, Exodus.

THE HARP PASSES HE NEVER COULD COMPOUSE ETC

o School of Cynewulf : (750-825)

With Cynewulf, Anglo-Saxon religious poetry moves beyond biblical paraphrase into the
didactic, the devotional, and the mystical.

He is famous for his religious compositions, and is regarded as one of the pre-eminent
figures of Christian Old English poetry. He embodies his name in the poems by using
runes, they were read as a word in the line but as a sound in the column.

Best known for “The Dream of the Rood“, a poem about the Crucifixion as told by the
Cross itself. It’s considered the finest of the OE religious poems because of its tenderness
and imaginativeness. Eg: Christ, Juliana, Elene, and The Fates of the Apostles. It uses
dream contention before its appearance.

Old English Prose: The Venerable Bede and King Alfred

The Venerable Bede: (673-735) He was a Christian monk regarded as “the father of
English History“. He wrote “Ecclesiastical History of the English People" This five volume
work records events in Britain from the raids by Julius Caesar in 55-54 BC to the arrival of
Saint Augustine in 597. Written in Latin.
Bede's writings are considered the best summary of this period of history ever prepared.
Some have called it "the finest historical work of the early Middle Ages."

King Alfred: He wrote “The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle“ it was the first original narrative
prose in the people’s vernacular language.

He saw the need for educating his people and translated Latin works into the language
used by that time: Old English. He added explanations and expasion of the text. He is
called the “Father of English Prose“.

Middle English Period (1066-1485)

It begins with the Norman conquest.

In this period the Church had a lot of power since it was a god-centred society and that’s
reflected in the literature of that period. They were more sophisticated, owing to their
contact with other civilized peoples, and were devoted to music and poetry.

England enjoyed remarkable prosperity and achievement under the leadership of the
Norman kings and was integrated to the continent.

William the Conqueror created the Great Council (called Parliament since 1240). Henry I
established the Royal Judiciary System. In 1215 the Magna Carta was the first
constitutional struggle in English history.

The monasteries were the repositories of knowledge and learning. Oxford and
Cambridge Universities were founded in the 13th century.

The literary development was interrupted and English poetry and prose were forced into
background. But the new influence was not merely negative. It brought about the
merging of two literary traditions, the Teutonic and Romance.

LANGUAGE:

French was the language of the governing class.

Latin: Language of the Church

English: the language of the uncultivated. It continued to be spoken by the mass of the
people. It became richer. Changes:
 1. It incorporated many words from French. These words were so assimilated into
English that today we seldom realise their French origin.

2. The pronunciation and grammar were simplified.

3. Word order became important, no more inflections to show the function of

words in the sentence.

4. The Teutonic alliterative verse was replaced by the French syllabic line, standard
in Europe. English continued to be spoken by the mass of the people but it was
the language of the uncultivated.

5. The harsh, guttural sounds of the OE were softened because of the effort
required to pronounce them. For this to happen lots of vowels were introduced.

6. The natural gender evolved in the ME. Male as masculine and Female as feminine.

LITERATURE:

 It’s IMPERSONAL, due to different factors: a) Most of ME literature is

ANONYMOUS. b) The reproduction of books by hand tended to give them a
communal character and exposed them to alterations and changes. c)
originality was not a major requirement of medieval authors.

 Presence of women in the audience (they used a courtly tone).

 It was meant to be listened rather than to be read.

 Use of allegory and dream convention. Allegory: a story, play in which each
character or event is a symbol representing an idea or quality (truth, evil,
death).

POETRY:

Introduction of RHYME (because of the introduction of many vowels) and METRE AND
FOOT.

Foot: pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Metre: number of feet in a line.

 ROMANCES: most popular type of French poem.
The medieval romance is a story of adventure – fictitious and marvellous or
supernatural – written in verse and then in prose. The basic material is knightly activity
and adventure.

They differ from epics because they have less unity of action and the characters are
not so well defined. They are types rather than individuals. NO pagan elements.

Most of the English romances belong to the 14th century and nearly all of them are
translations of adaptations from French originals.

TONE: a courtly and more lively tone, it became softer and wasn’t as serious as epics.
It was meant to teach a moral lesson and entertain, and it was meant to the upper class
(aristocracy). They are ANONYMOUS and more impersonal (little is known about the
author’s personality).

PROTAGONIST: The hero conforms to the pattern of the ideal Knight, who must
prove himself worthy in order to become better Christian. The Knights protected ladies
and damsels. They were men of courage, honour, dignity and courtesy.

The quests of the Knight where focused in 3 themes: of the Holy Grail (connected
with the Crusades), of identity (theme of the missing heir), and of a princess (women
are idealised and are superior in purity, chastity and beauty. The knight wishes for
Platonic love).

 Supernatural devices: Giants or dragons.

 Versification: octosyllabic couplets (tetrameter)

 Use of conventional elements: the enemy is an infidel (a Muslim) or a

mythological creature (giant, ogre, dragon).

 Abundant references to Christian religion.

 ANONYMOUS

i. Matter of classical antiquity or of Rome

 They had to do with one of four subjects: Alexander the Great, the Trojan War, the siege
of Thebes and the adventures of Aeneas. It represented the medieval poets'
interpretations of Ancient Greek and Roman mythology.

These subjects were made into long French romances in the 12 th century and they have
also English offspring. But only two are popular in England:

Alexander (written in exameter, 12 syllables, 6 iambic foot), Alexandrine verse or line.

Fall of Troy: they only had two short prose accounts, translated from late Greek.

ii. Matter of France

It is associated with the history of France, in particular involving Charlemagne and his
paladins, especially Roland, his nephew. There is limited representation of this collection
of stories, and those found in England seem to be written without special enthusiasm

iii. Matter of England

They are based on Teutonic heroes. Most of them written in English before 1300 were
concerned with English subjects. Eg: Havelock the Dane. The most outstanding
characteristic is the inclusion of bourgeois elements.

Richard the Lion Hearted is one instance in which history furnishes a hero and a series of
adventures adequate and ready to the poet’s hand for the purposes of romance.

iv. Matter of Britain

It’s more popular in Europe. The central figure is King Arthur and the Knights of the
Round Table. The story of Arthur belongs to Celtic tradition.

It remained a matter of local interest until the 11th or 12th century.

How fully developed were Arthurian stories in Celtic tradition? Scholars split into two
schools:

a. CELTICISTS—who believe that the writers of French romances derived an

important part of their material from Welsh and Breton tradition (either written
or oral).

b. INVENTIONISTS—who feel that the indebtedness of French authors to Celtic

 sources has been overstressed because they were not folklorists but poets
possessed with creative imagination.

(1350-1400)

Short narratives accompanied by a singing and dancing which tell their stories in a highly
dramatic way. Action is frequently developed through dialogue.

The incidents are the ones that happen to common people, domestic episodes. They
show a folk-view of life, an ironic acceptance of tragedy and a rich background of
popular myth, of ghosts and fairies.

 They are free from rhetorical device.

 They use repetition in three or in sevens.

 Rapidity of movement: they present the story in a series of rapid flashes, there is
practically no explanation or comment.

 Use of stock phrases or clichés.

 Stylized description of heroes and heroines.

 ANONYMOUS (all). They have come to us after centuries of transmission through

the memories of simple people who never thought of them as literature.
Exception: The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)

 IMPERSONAL in character, there are different versions of the same ballad which
have been found in England, Scotland, Ireland and America.

 Themes: Magic and supernatural, stories of romance (Robin Hood, Lady Alice),
stories based on the Bible, historical stories, based on Arthurian and other
romances.

 Tone: highly dramatic (not lofty). Simple language, to produce identification with
ordinary people.

 Audience: common people.

 Eg: Judas (13th century).

  A ballad must be composed by somebody, the process of oral transmission
amounts to a second act of composition. What gives them singularity is that,
whoever wrote them, wrote them for the people.

Form: Stanza of 4 lines (quatrain), alternating tetrameters and trimetres, rhyming

abcb (popular ballad) or abab (art ballad).

The Alliterative Revival (1350-1400)

In the late 1400, the term used to the resurgence of poetry using the alliterative
verse of Old English period. Over twenty Middle English poems were written in the
alliterative style of OE. The poets belonged to the rural areas in the northern and
west zone of England. They declaim the life of ordinary people, their voices and their
points of view, in opposition to the one of the upper classes.

1) They seem written to be recited.

2) They show little of the personality of the author (impersonal)

3) Use myths and conventional subjects.

4) Rhyme.

5) Contain religious subjects and imply folk humour, satire, myth, ritual, dream
convention.

6) Seek to teach a lesson, usually through allegory.

7) Dream visions: Eg : the dream allegory « Pearl », in which the poet is

lamenting the death of his two-year-old daughter and he envisions Paradise,
and a divine message tells him that she is in a sacred place and that he doesn’t
have to grieve her anymore.

8) Alliteration: It doesn’t have the same usage as in OE poetry. It has a decorative

purpose, to embellish the poem rather than a narrative device.

The Pearl Poet- The authorship of several anonymous alliterative poems in similar style,
diction and dialect have been attributed to the “Pearl Poet”
  “Pearl” (a dream allegory lamenting the death of the poet’s two-year-old
daughter).

Time of composition: c1390.

Author: The Pearl Poet. (anonymous).

Genre: Alliterative poem.

Subgenre: dream vision, allegory poem, elegy.

Theme: grieve, sorrow.

Tone: sorrowful and bleak. At first dark and solemn.

 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. (vivid narrative poem, attributed by some to the
Pearl Poet, it is divided in 4 parts or fits. This allegory is intended to teach the
virtues of chivalry and knighthood)

 Piers Plowman: William Langland is the conjectured author of this 14th century
dream-vision poem. It is second only to the Canterbury Tales in giving vivid scenes
of medieval life.

 Pacience, Purity, Pearl

GEOFFREY CHAUCHER (1340-1400)

Geoffrey Caucher wrote an extraordinary body of poetry that touched all phases of
English life and art. He was a king’s man and a diplomat. He writes in verse and didn’t
reveal nothing of his personality.

To him, writing was a hobby, he left several works unfinished. His literary career had
been divided into 3 periods that reflect the influence and styles that affected his
writings:

1. French period—He followed French poetic allegory and dream convention.

Octosyllabic couplets. Its characters are types or abstractions (similar to M.E). Eg:
“The Book of the Duchess” (1369). He translated into English “Roman de la Rose”,
the most popular of all French poems in the Middle Ages.
 2. Italian period—He visited Italy on diplomatic missions, he was influenced to write
“Troilus and Cressida”, his longest complete poem. Dream allegory: “The House of
Fame” and “The Legend of Good Women”. Versification: Chaucerian stanza (7
decasyllabic lines ababbcc); heroic couplet—iambic pentameter rhyming in
couplets. Tone: humour.

3. English period—Here Chaucer adds his own personality. In “The Canterbury

Tales”, Chaucer’s most celebrated work, he describes, with a tolerant humour,
nearly every type of person found in medieval England. It contains 17,000 lines in
prose and verse of various metres (primarily in rhymed couplets).

Why Chaucer wasn’t a typical Middle Age writer?

- Authorship (most poems were anonymous).

- Written poetry.

- Individualized characterization (individuality of characters).

- Poetry to entertain (the other were to teach).

- Subjective (he wrote from his perspective; he didn’t present everything he says as
a truth). In general, M.E poems were objective.

- He uses the dialect of London, of Government, of universities, of prestige.

- Originality.

Prose- John Wycliffe (c.1320-1384)

He encouraged the first translation of the Bible into English, so that people could
interpret the Scriptures individually. He completed his translation of the Bible into
vernacular English in 1382 “Wycliffe’s Bible”. He incorporated more than a thousand
Latin words not found previously in English.

His followers were known as Lollards (a somewhat rebellious movement) which

preached anticlerical and biblically-centred reforms. The Lollard movement was a
precursor to the Protestant Reformation (for this reason, Wycliffe is sometimes called
"The Morning Star of the Reformation"). He was one of the earliest opponents of papal
authority influencing secular power. He attacked the Church’s power in his sermons,
advocating that the state took over the vast landholdings of the Church.

(14th and 15th century)

Medieval Drama began in England in churches. Services were spoken in Latin, which
most ordinary people didn’t understand so the priests acted out scenes from the Bible
for the congregation to watch and therefore, to understand.(scenes from Creation to
Doomsday). They wore costumes and speak their lines in vernacular English.

After a while, this drama scenes moved out to the streets and ordinary people started to
act and alter them a little; they added extra scenes or present interesting characters like
the Devil.

By the end of the 13th century the Church banished all dramas from holy ground.

The subject matter was still religious.

MISTERY PLAYS

In the 14th century, drama was free of Church control.

Mystery Plays were based on scenes and stories from the Bible and were often
performed in a series called “cycles“ .

They were performed during the summer on moving corts (pageant wagons paedzents),
they moved around the town, stopping at different points to perform their part of the
story. Each wagon was the responsibility of a different trade guild (such as bakers,
carpenters, shipwrights,goldsmiths). The guild produced the play, built the sets, made
the costumes. They often performed stories related to their craft:

• The shipwrights performed Noah's Ark.

• The goldsmiths performed the Three Wise Men.

• The shepherds performed The Nativity.

The most famous cycles are: Wakefield, York (48 pageants), Chester (the most faithful to
the religious nature of the original stories) and N-town (N stands for the Latin «nomen »
(name), any town could use their own name for that cycle)

Episodes: the Fall of Lucifer, Cain and Abel,Noah and the Flood, Abraham and Isaac,
the Nativity, the Raising of Lazarus, the Passion, and the Resurrection.

As the plays moved away from the Church's control, the more secular they became, and
elements of humour found their way through.

MIRACLE PLAYS

Instead of Bible stories, they dramatized the lives, the legends and miracles of Roman
Catholic saints, such as Virgin Mary, St. George, and St. Nicholas.

MORALITY PLAYS (15th and 16th c.)

They differ from Mystery and Miracle in that they focused neither on The Bible nor the
saints, but on the common man.

Theme: The struggle for salvation.The main character must make a conscious decision
against temptation to be saved

- They used allegory. Eg: the character of Knowledge in “Everyman“, The Seven
Deadly Sins in “The Castle of Perseverance“, Mercy and Mischief in “Mankind“.

- humour to tell their story. The main character in Everyman has to find a
companion to go with him to God. His cousin explains he can't go because he has
a cramp in his toe…

Professional actors performed these plays, they belonged to travelling companies.

They had lessons of right living and what to do on earth in order to reach heaven. They
showed the fate of the single human person.

Eg : The Castle of Perseverance (first and most complete), Everyman (most famous),
Mankind, Magnyfycence.
UNIT 3 : THE RENAISSANCE (1485 First Tudor Monarch-1660,
Restoration, Charles II)

Renaissance- a rebirth of literature and art inspired by the rediscovery of classical

manuscripts from antiquity.

Humanists (scholars) begin studying the classical literature (Greek and Roman).

LITERATURE

 Human-centered society, emphasis on human potential, not God’s power. One’s

role in life should be action, not religious contemplation.

 There was a spirit of scientific inquiry and doubt. Men’s impulse was given to
learning.

 Increasing trade leads to individual wealth, general prosperity, nationalism and

materialism.

 Increase in literacy.

 Considered the Golden Age of the Sonnet.

LANGUAGE

English triumph over French as the spoken language. It became the language of
scholarship, replacing Latin.

 Vocabulary: new words from Latin and Greek. Also explorers and overseas
tradesmen brought and influx of words from foreing languages. New words were
invented daily.

 Pronounciation and spelling: Spelling was erratic and words were stressed on
different syllables.

 Changes in Grammar: Pronouns: ye was replaces by you. Verbs : the endings –th
changed to s.
The early Renaissance
Humanism—A system of thought that considers that solving human problems with the
help of reason is more important than religious beliefs. The basic nature of humans is
good. It is secular-minded. Religion is no longer the orientation.

Sir Thomas More—He was a humanist and a lawyer, the first layman to become
Chancellor. Best known for his work “Utopia”, written first in Latin in 1516. The story
tells of an ideal state with a truly representative government. It describes a land of
prosperity, where work-days are only six hours long, both women and men are
educated, all religions are tolerated, war is detested, etc. His work gave rise to the
Utopian literature (new genre), presented as an ideal of perfection.

Translations of the Bible— It is the major period of Bible translations. They were made
by Protestants, to let people interpret the Bible by themselves. These translations were
made by the originals, they didn’t rely on Latin made translations.

William Tyndale was the first translator of the Renaissance and he produced the first
English version of the Bible between 1525 and 1531. He was influenced by the work
of Desiderius Erasmus, who made the Greek New Testament available in Europe. He
uses the Greek and Hebrew texts of the New and Old Testaments and he was the first to
use the printing press to distribute thousands of copies through England.

There were 3 authorised versions: 1- the Great Bible. 2-Bishop’s Bible. 3- the version
made by King James. He used and archaic language so as to sound formal, show respect
and create a more distante atmosphere. It was a collected work of all the previous
translations.

Protestant/Anglican : Tyndale, Coverdale

Protestant/Calvinist : Geneva Bible

Catolic : Douay Bible.

THE SONNET
A short song, a lyrical poem in 14 lines.
Origin : Sicily, Giacomo Dalentino invented the sonnet form. Sir Thomas Wyatt brought
the sonnet to England.

Themes:

- Courtly love : love as a pain, unrequired ; love as pasion stronger than will ; love
as chains, you cannot scape, as a labyrinth.

- Art.

- Time : poetry could stop the passage of time, it could preserve a particular
moment.

- Death.

- Historical figures.

- Written by people working for the king/queen with the idea of entertaining the
monarch, to be as creative as possible in order to climb up the social scale.

Petrarchan sonnet—

o Structure : 14 lines. Each line has 5 feet consisting of either one unstressed
syllable followed by one stressed (iambic pentameter). Each line has 10 syllables
in all.

o The poem is divided in 2 parts : one octave (8 lines, divided in two groups of 4)
and a sestet (6 lines, divided in two groups of 3 lines).

o Between the octave and the sestet two main ideas are compared or balanced.
Octave : presentation, problem, question, argument. Sestet : solution, conclusion,
answer.

o Rhyme : abba-abba- and either cdcdcd or cdecde.

o Themes : love is never corresponded, unrequited love. The poet insists on getting
the love of the lady, who is very cruel. Love=pain. Lady=perfect and unattainable.
Love is parodied, mocked.

MINIATURE POEMS
 Elizabethan, Shakespearian or English sonnet:

o Structure: 14 lines. Each line is in iambic pentameter.

o The poem is divided in four parts: 3 quatrains (4 lines each) and a final couplet
(2 lines).

o Rhyme scheme : abab-cdcd-efef/gg – Shakespeare. Or abab-bcbc-cdcd/ee—

Spenser.

o Themes : Shakespeare mocked the idealised love of the Petrarchan sonnet. He

talks about the paradoxical nature of love. Lady: the dark lady, not perfect.
Time as a cruel destroyer. Religious themes. Nature. Insomnia (poet suffering
because he isn’t loved back).

PROSE
Prose gains a lot of importance ; everything is printed and written down from the
beginning. NO more anonymous work.

Early Tudor period : Thomas More (Humanism). Translations of the Bible.

Thomas Wyatt (He adapted the Italian sonnet to an English variant with 3 quatrains and
a couplet. He follows petrarchan theme of courtly love).

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey : Influenced by Wyatt, he popularizes English form of

sonnet and added the theme of nature. He translated the Aeneid, making first use of
blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter).

Elizabethan period : Two types of prose were widely read : fiction and chronicles.
Accounts of travels and historical events.

John Lyly

Best known for “Euphues“ (1580)(euphuism style). It has trivial and twisted plots but
it has an alliterative style and extravagant language. He is involved in the writing of
Drama. He takes his imagery from classical learning. There are classical allusions,
symmetry, parallelism, alliteration, repetition, rhetorical questions. People love it so
much that he wrote a second part of Euphues.
 Sir Philip Sidney

He was the first English literary critic. He argues that poetry has the function of both
teaching and delighting. The great end of learning is the living of a virtous life, and
the inspired poet can lead readers to the highest truths.

Prose: “Arcadia”-- as Lily, he used the prose for decoration and had a twisted plot.
Devices: pathetic fallacy, beyond personification. He gives inanimate objects willings
and feelings of their own. He uses imagery from nature (to sound more fresh).

Poetry: “Astrophel and Stella“ – first sequence of related sonnets (108 and 11 songs)
in English. Combining the Greek words, 'aster' (star) and 'phil' (lover), and the Latin
word 'stella' meaning star. He adopts the Petrarchan rhyme scheme, though he uses
it with such freedom that fifteen variants are employed.

Edmund Spenser

He was the first important modern English poet. His poetry continues the allegorical
verse tradition of the Middle Ages. However, his allegories are much more complex
on 3 levels : moral, historical and personal. Allegories are suggested by the
character’s name : Vanity, Queen of Pride, Gluttony.

He divides a nine line stanza, rhyming abab-bcbc-c, known as the Spenserian stanza.
The first 8 lines are in iambic pentameter, the last is an Alexandrine (iambic
hexameter)

« Fairie Queene » culmination of allegorical tradition. It brings together history,

folklore, patriotism, political thought, humanism, Protestan idealism, epic and
romance.

« Amoretti » a sonnet sequence.

Drama includes any work meant to be performed on a stage by actors. Blank verse
(unrhymed iambic pentameter) becomes the standard form for Drama. It is
allegorical, flexible for adaptation.

Types of Drama :

- Interludes.

- Court Drama.

- Academic Drama.

- Public Theatre.

-Interludes—Secular plays, didactic and more comic and realistics, the heroes are
more individualized. Use of music. Purpose : entertainment. Audience : royalty and
nobility. They were performed during banquets, very short and had few characters. A
Lot of dialogue and discussion of trivialities.

Eg : The 4 P ‘S (by Heywood),Palmer, Pardoner, Pothycary, Pedlar.

-Court Drama—Place : Houses of the nobility, private theatres. Performers :

choirboys. Audience : nobility. Authors : Courtiers , sometimes university Wits (John
Lily). Characteristics : use of songs, rich costumes, plots with little elaboration,
comedy, use of prose. Use of masques (Ben Jonson), plays written in verse, often
with music and dancing.

-Academic Drama—Place : Universities. Performers : students. Audience : students.

Authors : teachers and students started composing and performing plays in imitation
of the classes. Characteristics : didactic purpose, obeyance of classical conventions,
comedy : based on Terence and Plautus (use of stock characters). Tragedy : based on
Seneca. Time : the action should not take longer than a day to believe the events of
the play. One setting. Plot : no subordinate or second plots to distract you from the
main events.

Comedy : Deals in an amusing way with ordinay and stock caracters in everyday
situations. They have label names (names that tell about their characteristics). Men
are of middle fortune, the dangers they run into are neither serious nor pressing and
their actions conclude happily. Frequent solution: marriage.
There was a sub-genre: satirical comedy, characterized by criticism behind the
purpose. It had a double purpose : entertain and didactic. Style : humble.
Representatives : Plautus, Terence.

Tragedy : Form of drama concerned with the fortunes and misfortunes, and the
disasters that befall human beings of title, power and position. What makes them
tragic figures is that they have qualities of excellence, they have virtues and gifts but
these attributes seem to be insufficient to save them either from self-destruction of
from destruction broguht upon them. There is no hope for them. The change in the
hero’s fortune must be from happiness to misey. His misfortune comes to him by
some error. The expectator experiences pity and fear and is purged.

Senecan Tragedy: It contained little or no action. The characters rarely voices feelings
similar to those experienced by most human beings. The ilussion of action was
evoked by words, the plot was thrown onto the language. They talk about events but
you don’t see them on stage.

Five-act structure with a chorus marking the end of each act. Themes : revenge,
usually introduced by a ghost of a wronged person.

-Public Theatre—Place : Innyards, Playhouses (theatres). Performers : professional

actors organized in companies (boys for female roles). Audience : all social classes (so
they have to providena variety of themes). Authors : professional playwrights,
Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson.

No respect for unities (place, time, plot, tone). Blank verse for tragedies.

 Christopher Marlowe : Early Renaissance dramatist. His heroes were

monsters, he chose villains and made them heroes. He created the mightly
line- blank verse with rhythmic energy. Each line has a final verse which begs
to be shouted. Eg: “Dr. Faustus“, who sells his soul for knowledge.

 Ben Jonson: He enriched the genre of “comedy of humours“, where stock

characters are played against each other. This was satirical and not popular in
the public theatre, but enjoyed in court theatre. “Humours“ refers to the 4
liquids- phlegmatic, sanguine, choleric and melancholy. They were thought to
be in a person’s body, which influenced in health and character. His characters
were similar to those of Moralities because thay are personified abstractions.
He differs from Moralities in that his plays criticise from a social point of view.
Eg : « Volpone » considered the greatest satiric comedy in English.
 William Shakespeare: He appeared after Marlowe had died. He wrote poems
(best known “The Sonnets“ famous for their beautiful language and strong
emotion). He didn’t go to university so he invented words. He presented
universal plots, different themes and topics (not only about love). He averaged
comedy, tragedy and finally, romance. The characters had meaningful
speeches, they were not there just to fill the space. Variety of genres and
tones. He included poetry, rhyme clearly marked, sonnets, blank verse for
tragedies, prose (Romeo speaks in prose to mark the tone of the plot). His
scenes end in couplets (sense of finality). Place: exotic settings, Verona,
Denmark (Hamlet).

Shakespeare uses prose and verse to distinguish between classes of his characters - the
higher characters, usually the protagonist and people from higher social classes talk in
verse, using rhyme schemes and a rhythm pattern to show their education. Characters
from a lower social class, usually found in the sub-plot, talk in prose, their lack of rhyme
and rhythm showing their uneducated nature and highlighting their debased position.

The clown becomes a philosopher.

LATER RENAISSANCE: Period of scientific development, chaos, incoherence, anxiety,

instability.

POETRY

 Metaphysical poetry—It synthesizes passion and intellect, to display both, feeling

and learning. Subjects: religion and romantic love.

Startling imagery and far-fetching allusions to philosophy, geography and

astronomy give complexity to themes that were quite simple to the Cavalier
Poets. It refers to difficult to understand. Use of metaphors from new knowledge.

 John Donne—He made a strong break with the flowery poetry of the Elizabethans
and the Cavaliers. His poems deal with both secular and religious themes, full of
paradoxes and ambiguities. He used unusual imagery in traditional situations.
Death.
  The Cavalier Poets—Influenced by Ben Jonson. They were sophisticated poets
who supported the King and opposed the sober Puritans. They belonged to the
court.

Style: their lyrics are characterized by symmetry of form, sensuousness and a

playful tone. Short lines, idiomatic diction and urban wit. 4 ballad stanzas. Eg: “To
the Virgins”, “To Make Much of Time” by Robert Herrick (he extolled the idea of
Carpe Diem).

 John Milton—A Puritan second to Shakespeare. His writings combine the

intellectual spirit of the earlier period with the later emphasis on religion and
politics. His religious poetry is unrelated to ordinary life: the visions he saw in this
blindness were of Heaven of Hell.

Epic Poem: “Paradise Lost” (expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Edan)

- Periodic sentences: subordinate clauses at the beginning for delay.

- Latinised vocabulary (Latin origin), very difficult to follow.

- Long adjectival phrases and similies.

- Style: rich allusiveness (exophoric reference). Ellipsis. Hyperbaton. Sonorous

proper names. Blank verse, lofty meter. Fixed foot and metre.

PROSE

o BACON: He wrote intellectual essays in the Renaissance period. His primary

purpose was to teach young aristocrats how to succeed. He expressed knowledge
and challenged prejudices against learning.

o BUNYAN: He wrote the most successful allegory in English literature: Pilgrim’s

Progress, considered the culmination of medieval allegory in the uncultured mind.
Bunyan kept his readers in suspense while teaching a moral lesson with his holy
parables.

Style: use of concrete language and vividly observed details in a style similar to
the prose of the King James Bible.
UNIT 4: NEOCLASSICISM (1660-1798)
General Characteristics

In 1649, Charles I was executed after the Civil War and a republic was formed led by
Oliver Cromwell, the “Lord Protector”. Puritan Parliament

NEOCLASSICISM begins with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Charles II, son of
the executed Charles I, was requested to become the king of England. He ruled a nation
weary (tired) of revolution and Civil War.

The end of the 17th century marked the true beginning of the era we still live. The
intellectual and ruling classes had accepted a scientific, rationalistic, materialistic
viewpoint.

 Commonsense: gentility, secular reason and the scientific mind were to be the
new bases for society.

 The 18th century was an age of transition, marked by the beginning of the
industrial revolution and the emergence of the British Empire.

 Intellectual accomplishments led to a new respect for order and reason, fostering
the love of conventional rules.

 Aristotle’s concepts (unities of time, place and action in drama) became the fixed
norm. The influence of the classical tradition led to a love of moderation, balance
and grace, coupled with the respect for intelligence and dignity.

 Society: great wealth and rational order existed among the aristocracy, but the
poor lived in miserable poverty at the mercy of a severe penal code.

 Literary scene: the first half of the 18th century was an age of great practically in
common sense, reason and rationality, the latter half saw the rise of highly
emotional, melancholy poets referred to as the “Graveyard School”, precursors of
the Romantic age. It was also an age of great-satire in prose and poetry. Popular
literature, especially poetry, flourished.

 Enlightenment: The Age of Reason—the term “Enlightenment” is used to

characterize the main trend of the European thoughts throughout the 18 th
 century. It advocated a rationalistic and scientific approach to the religious, social
and economic questions of the time.

 The Reason is universal, uniform and leads you to do what is good for mankind. It
is characterized by scientific spirit (secular order).

 Rationalism and Scepticism

 Traditionalists: conventions were respected.

 Emphasis on: logic, restrain, harmony, balance.

 Literature writing as an art. Little room for imagination.

 It meant the common sense of gentlemen.

 The 18th century is a transitional age, often called “the Decline of Neoclassicism”,
sowed that there was a growing discontent with the intellectual concept of art.

Sub-periods:

-Restoration Age (1660-1700).

- Augustan Age (1700-1750).

- Age of Jonson (1750-1798).

POETRY- MOCK EPIC (first half of 18th century)

It is a comic poem with an exaggerated epic form, but trivial subject. It’s typically a satire
or parody that mocks common classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature. It
works either putting a fool in the role of the hero or exaggerating the heroic qualities to
such a point that they become absurd.

Tone: humorous, ironic, satirical, exaggerated.

They also wanted to expose in a ridiculous way the foibles or failures of the 18th century
upper-class society.

It took place in the Augustan Age (when Roman classical literature was revived).
 - JOHN DRYDEN

He wrote heroic plays and tragedies, satiric poetry and occasional poems.

Style: he sharpened the heroic couplet in sophisticated poetic instruments and was
innovative in adding conversational rhythms to prose and poetry.

Literary criticism: he defended English drama against the French, which he believed was
“too strictly tided up” with Neoclassical rules.

Satire: written in heroic couplets. Eg: MacFlecknoe (1678, published in 1682) It is the
outcome of a series of disagreements between Thomas Shadwell and Dryden. Their
quarrels were because of many reasons: the merits of Ben Jonson’s comedies; the
preference of Dryden for comedy of wit and and of Shadwell, for humors comedy, 3) a
sharp disagreement over the true purpose of comedy and 4) Shadwell saw himself as
one of Jonson’s sons. So Dryden represented Shadwell as son of MacFlecknoe who is
called to rule the kingdom of the “Poetic Dullness”. He was trying to diminish Shadwell.
Poetry: He had long written poems to commemorate great occasions. He wrote Heroic
Stanzas.

- Alexander Pope

He was the most brilliant man of letters in the early 18 th century. His most famous satire
is The Rape of the Lock (1712), it is a humorous indictment (acusacion) of the high-
society and it’s based on a quarrel between two upper families. He intended to
encourage his friends to laugh at their own folly. He believed that high society had failed
to distinguish between things that matter and things that do not.

Pope’s poem uses the traditional high stature of classical epics to emphasise the triviality
of the incident. Evocation of an epic atmosphere (fight, night, spear) and use of high-
sounding words and supernatural elements.

PROSE: Journalism

For the first time, prose began to excel poetry in quantity and quality in the early part of
the 18th century.

Periodicals: Londoners gathered around to read the news sheets and the literary
periodicals. The Tatler and The Spectator were the best – their writers became powerful
influences on the English prose style.
Spectator: Joseph Addison: Literary fame from this periodical essays on literature and
the foibles of society. He stated that imaginative feelings are stimulated by “what is
great, uncommon or beautiful”. The purpose of the Spectator was to enliven morality
with wit (inteligencia), and to temper wit with morality. Materialism and superciality
were satirized in vivid pictures of city life.

Tatler: Richard Steele: Though he had more originality, he lacked Addison’s shrewd wit
and literary craftsmanship. He lacked elegance and correctness, but wrote warmer,
more emotional than Addison. Sentimental dramas.

Daniel Defoe (1659-1731)

It was not until the 18th century that the novel emerged as a form with a tight
structure and an interplay between individuals and their relationships to society.

His method was somewhat journalistic (narratives that are always fictional
autobiographies pretending to be true). He didn’t fully understand the complex
possibilities of structure in the novel, but he created a variety of superbly detailed
episodes (not a novel, in the final analysis it lacked plot).

Robinson Crusoe (1719) is a fictional grafting on the adventures of the shipwrecked

Alexander Serkirk, whose return to London caused a journalistic furor.

Defoe’s versatility: no English writer has been more profilic and wide-ranging than
Defoe. (He wrote a lot).

The Satire of Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

He was a controversial clergyman, he is considered the foremost prose satirist of

English literature.

He had a misanthrope vision of society (he wrote that though he loved individuals, he
hated mankind in general).

Gulliver’s Travels (1726): Swift’s most universal satire, it adopts the ancient device of
an imagery voyage, with Gulliver travelling to four remote nations; enabling Swift to
approach the foibles to mankind from a fresh viewpoint.

-Attacking all human things. Bitter, almost insane scorn (desprecio).

-Style: clean-cut, precise style.

-Coarse humour, tinged with irony.

THE NOVEL

A novel may be defined as a work of narrative fiction, usually written in prose. As a

distinct form, the novel came into being in Britain in the 18th century.

Literary influences

 Journalism—Early journalism aimed to record the facts of daily living, paying

attention to detail, easy readability and immediacy of interest. It set out more
to enlighten than entertain the reader.

 Parallel art forms—Biography, diaries and personal memoirs.

 Letter writing—It was cultivated as an art, letters were composed with care
and at length.^’

 Travel literature—With the growth of overseas trade, books concerning

journeys, voyages and travels were widely read. They were written in a lively,
straightforward and contained precise scientific observation.

 The Restoration Comedies of Manners—1660-1710. Elegant comic plays with

plots containing love intrigues, witty sexual suggestiveness and sparkling
conversational repartee. They were noted for their humour, their realism and
their satire of the social surface of life.

 The Picaresque Convention—A form of prose fiction originated in Spain in the

16th century dealing with the adventures of rogues – mischievous, dishonest
people who were fond of playing tricks. In English fiction the term
“picaresque” refers to a series of episodes where the often daring hero is
forced to seek his fortune outside of stable society.

 The Mock Romance of Knight Errantry (Don Quijote de la Mancha)—were

wandering knights try to put injustices to right.
Other Influences

 Puritanism—This had always encouraged:

a- A practical attitude to world affairs- practical principles began to dominate

religious thought. Writers were expected to inform, to be “useful” and to urge
moral behaviour.

b- A belief in the individual conscience.

c- A spirit of self-inquiry – development of the “spiritual autobiography”.

d- A love of truth – stricter Puritans equated theatre (works of fiction) with lies.
Later Puritans (Dissenters) saw art as irrelevant to the serious business of living.

 The rise of the middle class—The increase of the middle class in the 17 th century
provided a new and large reading public in the 18 th cent. Education was available
to more people and was less exclusively “classical” than the education available to
the upper classes. There was more leisure time. There was a growing desire to be
opened up to new worlds outside one’s existence.

 Scientific philosophy—“Natural philosophers” were consistent with the greater

belief in reason at the expense of the imagination. After the Restoration,
moderation and religious tolerance replaced passionate religious conviction and
the attention was focused on the social destiny of the individual and the facts and
circumstances of the social world.

Samuel Richardson (1689-1761)

He presented Pamela, the first novel to be guided throughout by a single motif (love).

Epistolary novel: He wrote all his works in the epistolary form (made up of letters). He
liked the immediacy of the form and called it “writing to the moment”.

Moral tone: Being of the middle class, Richardson understood well their two principal
preoccupations: deportment and conscience. His novels were to be instructive of the art
of living in several contexts.
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) and Tobias Smollet (1721-1771)

Richardon’s moral pretensions led Fielding to become a novelist: Perceiving Pamela as

overly sentimental and ethically shallow, he began to write a burlesque of it in the form
of a picaresque novel (Shamela).

Smollet also wrote picaresque novels which featured a roguish hero on the road to
success of escapades.

Both authors advanced the novel to a higher place.

Fielding’s books show a dislike of high society – he wrote that “the highest life is much
the dullest, and affords little humour of entertaining”. He cared little for the rewards of
virtue, believing poverty and contempt as likely to be virtue’s rewards as happiness. This
attitudes and his use of the prose epic are his chief contributions to the novel form.

Laurence Sterne (1713-1768)

The orderly, suspenseful structure of novels by Fielding led this virtuous author to
experiment with form, setting and new types of comic subject matter.

Tone: Although Sterne was a clergyman, he had a preference for gross and indecent
humour.

Works: His career was short, and his work is limited to seven small volumes of sermons
and two works of fiction.

Legacy: This innovator is now assumed to be the founding father of a long line of writers
interested in the “Stream of Consciousness”. One of the most delightful aspects of his
fictions is the ingenious parodies of the developing clichés in the still-new novel form.

When the monarchy was restored (1660) the London theatres were reopened after 24
years of silence imposed by the Puritan Parliament.
Audience was restricted to nobility. Women started performing (their parts were daring
and shocking). These plays were sophisticated, witty but low in morality.

New type of Play: COMMEDY OF MANNERS. Influenced by Ben Jonson’s Comedy of

Humor.

-Subject matter: they hold the mirror up to an artificial society motivated by a desire for
pleasure. They satirize those who try to enter the fashionable charmed circle. The
manners of the high society people are being satirized.

- Style: they relied on verbal fencing and repartee (quick, witty replies). Tone: witty,
bawdy (talking about sex), cynical and amoral.

-Written mainly in prose, with passages of verse reserved for the most romantic
moments.

-Characters: fashionable people, the Fop (vain main, who pretended to be intelligent but
was a fool).

-Purpose: laughter was the only aim (comedy was needed after the trauma of the
Restoration).

-Superficial.

-Sexual explicitness

First Wave: 1660-80: It was encouraged by Charles II. Bustling and crowded plots,
Aristocratic audiences; vulgar vocabulary, obscenity, sexual explicitness. Eg: “The
Country Wife”by Wycherley.

Second Wave (1690). Wider audience: middle-class, female spectators. Public opinion
turned to respectability and seriousness. Focus on marital relations, “Wit duels”
between lovers. Eg: “The Way of the World” by Congreve.

HEROIC DRAMA AND CLASSICAL TRAGEDY????

18th century Drama

There were more theatres playing regularly and more varied audiences. The importance
of the actor grew, plays were adapted to suit them (in complete disrespect for authors).
Adaptations of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson.

Sentiment is introduced.

In 1737, by the Licensing Act, all plays had to be submitted to the approval of the Lord
Chamberlain (beginning of censorship, no play could attack the government).

Plays.

 Domestic/Middle Class Drama/Tragedy

Middle class themes and characters. Appeal to pity for the heroine. Sometimes no real
catastrophe.

 Sentimental Comedy

Aimed to tears and pity rather than laughter. It was moralistic and didactic:
presented manners that were becoming social problems (gambling, dwelling) so as to
correct them. Hero and heroine patterns of virtue. The villain is allowed to repent
and reform himself.

 Commedy of Manners

 Comic Opera: A stage farce (farsa) or comedy set to extensive music

UNIT 5 – ROMANTICISM (1798-1832/37)

Romanticism means going back to the days of the Romance (Medieval Period).

It was preferred to feel rather than to think (Neoclassicism)

This period was born in a turbulent age that saw 3 revolutions – the American, the
French and the Industrial. Poets reflect the profound changes in the society which
turned from rural and agricultural to urban and manufacturing.

Authors abandoned Neoclassical formalism and changed the nature of English literature.
The Romantic Revival was a shift in sensibility in art and literature. Poets and novelists
expressed their anger and despair in the increased dehumanization of life.
The Romantic period begins with the publication of “Lyrical Ballads” in 1798.

Neoclassicism Romantic Revival

-Importance of rules (in form, subject -Importance of the individual as a new
matter). value to inspiration). Emphasis on
freedom: to choose protagonists, subject
matter, form, language (simple, of
ordinary people)
-Interest in classics: restraint and -Interest in national heritage: freedom
discipline. of imagination.

-Saw themselves as wits: they elevated -Saw themselves as singers: they spoke
above their readers. as a “man speaking to men”.
-Particular mood and temper, special
sensibility to respond to wild, the
supernatural, love for the natural, the
unspoilt: naturalism.
-Society was the best for the internal -Man in contact with nature away from
progress of man. the city, not spoiled by society
(primitivism).
-Fixed forms. -Form subsidiary to subject matter.
Experimentation, innovation, revival of
old forms: sonnets, blank verse,
Spenserian stanza.
-Use of poetic diction (the choice and -Tried to simplify diction. Used
use of words in literature). Heroic rhetorical figures only when justified by
couplet. expression or added vividness (never
for ornamentation).

Tendencies: a new custom that starts to develop in this period. Each writer focused on
one of them.

o Humanitarianism—belief in the quality and inherent worth of every human.

o Medievalism—fascination with the glamour of the Middle Ages. The element of

the quest in medieval romances were shown in Romanticism as an internal quest
for self knowledge.
 o Orientalism—the Orient was regarded as an exotic, richly coloured, erotic place.

o Primitivism

o Naturalism—everything in the world and life is based on natural causes and laws,
and not on spiritual or supernatural ones.

o Emotionalism—development and enjoyment of emotions and feelings.

o Confessionalism—presentation of personal problems.

o Originality—vs previous importance of imitation and following the rules

(neoclassicism).

o Democracy-Equalitarianism—conviction of human equality. Hostility to

monarchical authority and established institutions.

o Anti-intellectualism—distrust of the completely logical and rational. Belief in the

innate goodness of human nature.

o Love of the wild and picturesque in external and human nature.

o Idea of progress—man is now progressing to a more glorious tomorrow.

POETRY: Older Romantics and Younger/Later Romantics

Older Romantics: first generation

 Lake Poets

Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey believed their poetry (in particular the one
that refer to nature) could bring people back to health.

Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote a book of poems called “Lyrical Ballads”. It was
the first major work of Romantic literature. The principal object was to choose
incidents from common life and describe them as far as was possible and, at the
same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination.

The harmony and peace of nature were contrasted with the cruelty human beings
inflicts upon each other.
 Coleridge was an innovative poet, he wrote strange poems of the supernatural as
well as persona’s meditations called “conversation poems”.

 William Blake

English artist and poet who from childhood claimed to have visions (religios
experiences like dreams) and talk to beings from heaven. He had a very personal
style, full of religious symbols. He produced “illuminated books”, containing
poems and paitings to illustrate them.

Younger or Later Romantics

 Keats

He wrote highly personal sonnets. Themes: beauty of nature and the short time
available for human life and happiness. He used all his senses in concrete imagery
and lost his own identity in contemplating the external world.

 Byron

He was more Neoclassical than romantic at first, but then he became the
personification of Romanticism. He wrote a large and remarkably varied body of
poetry. He established the Byronic hero, a moody cynical commentator.

Byronic heroe:

 Shelley

He was characterized by revolutionary fervor and radical idealism joined with great
literary talent. He believed that mankind was moving steadily towards perfection. He
was atheist (no God) and anarchist (there should be no laws or government), whose
love of freedom and left-wing political opinions influenced some of his poems.

PROSE: The development of the Novel (different trends)

 Sentimental Novel: Sentimentality was viewed as in drama: exaggerated

expression of emotions. This genre became very fashionable, especially for
women, who were starting to be taught to read. Most of these novels are not
considered literature because they didn’t last.
  Gothic Novel

Based on fear, medievalism, pleasure arising from creating terror, fantastic and
supernatural elements, crude events.

“Frankestein” by Mary Shelley, introduces the scientific approach originating science

fiction. It’s a novel about serious concepts: any living thing is inherently good, it is
mistreatment that makes it bad. It reveals the author’s romantic personality.

Mary was torn between her strongly emotional nature and the rigid intellectual
discipline imposed by her father. She feels that such treatment will destroy human
values and human beings.

 Domestic Novel

The description of events shows great interest in human behaviour, motivations, the
frivolous and superficial things of daily life.

The 19th century

 Historical Novel

Sir Walter Scott “Rob Roy” “Ivanhoe”. He was acquainted with the past of Scotland,
which he had explored in documents, history and legends, but fiction plays were
important in his novels, he takes liberties with historical details.

His novels represent the triumph of Romanticism in the imaginative recreation part.

 Domestic Novel

Jane Austen, “Sense and sensibility”, “Pride and Prejudice” “Persuasion”.

Her novels tell of the restricted circle of home life and all social interests are
gathered round it. The atmosphere is one of provincial calm with a very limited
outlook, where the extremes of poverty and wealth are unknown. There is an
extraordinary degree of truth.

THE AMERICAN LITERATURE

In the 1830s America settles down and starts to create its own national identity. One of
the elements they used was literature, which had been previously used without literary
objective, only in letters or journals.

America’s first literary period is Romanticism. European Romanticism was rebelling

against Neoclassicism, but America’s was rebelling against European Romanticism.

Irving

He influenced the early stages of Romanticism in America through his descriptions of

nature’s beauty, is utilization of gothic imagery and his belief that man was
inherently good. He used themes of supernatural and fantasy.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

His works were highly original, and considered part of the Dark Romanticism which
presents individuals as sinners and self destructive. His works describe the evil and
sin of humanity. They contain moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration and have
deep psychological complexity.

“The Scarlett Letter” is his masterpiece where he explores themes of sin and guilt.

James Fennimore Cooper

He is considered the first true American novelist, he wrote over thirty novels. His love
of nature and his own experience in the Navy marked his books. Stly: lack of polish
and originality.

He also wrote many short-stories and non-fiction words criticizing American values
and morals, “The Democrat”.

His first novel, “Precaution” wasn’t popular, but “the Spy” then yes.

Edgar Allan Poe

American writer, poet, editor and critic best known for his tales of mystery and the
macabre.

His best known fiction works are Gothic. Themes: questions of death, effects of
decomposition, the reanimation of the dead and mourning.
 In his works we can see his darkly passionate sensibilities, his neurotic obsession with
death and violence and appreciation for the beautiful yet tragic mysteries of life.

He uses repetitions and irony and create an image of the situation in the reader’s
mind.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” “The Black Cat” “The Raven”

Herman Melville

American novelist, short story writer, essayist and poet. His novel “Moby Dick” and
“Billy Budd”. His popularity decay in the mid 1850s and never recovered during his
lifetime. When he died he was almost forgotten until the “Melville Revival” in the
early 20th century when “Moby Dick” was hailed as one of the literary masterpieces
of both American and world literature.

Trascencentalism
American transcendentalism was an important movement in philosophy and literature
which was based on intuitive thought and human instinct, on the nature structure
opposing formal religious structure and on individual insight (opposing dogma). For the
transcendentalists, the soul of each individual is identical with the soul of the world and
contains what the world contains.

Walt Whitman
Whitman’s goal in his writing was to make people change their belief. He maintained
that poet’s style should be simple and natural, without orthodox meter or rhyme. This
showed Whitman’s style in his poems: simple and personal. He used free verse and
spoke directly to the reader using the common “I”; he identified with the people and the
republic itself.
His poems were written to be spoken; though they have great variety in rhythm and
tonal volume. Almost all of them talk of patriotism and democracy, and contain vivid use
of imagery.
His masterpiece is Leaves of Grass, a collection of poetry considered controversial for
its over sexuality.

Ralph Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American writer, lecturer, essayist and poet. He stated
that American culture had been influenced by European cultures so it was time for
Americans to create its own identity. He encouraged American writers to create their
own writing style “literature of democracy”.
 Emerson writes about:
-The individuality and freedom of the man;
-The relationship between the soul and the world;
-In his essay, “Self-Reliance”, he talks about the need of each individual to follow his own
ideas and instincts;
-Education: in The American Scholar he states that a scholar should be educated
according to nature (investigate and understand natureincludes the human mind),
books (to learn from the past and also to create own principles) and action (to interact
with other people and create a better world);
-Power: an artistic or intellectual power rather than political;
-Grief: writes about the deaths of his wife and son;
He considered the universe was composed of the Nature and the Soul and truth would
be perceived directly from nature; God wouldn’t reveal it.

Henry Thoreau
He was a poet-naturalist and a prose writer. Readers find him modern as stimulation in
his ideas as in his style.

He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural
surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to
civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.

VICTORIANISM
While in the preceding Romantic period, poetry had been the dominant genre, it was the
novel that was most important in the Victorian period.

POETRY
In the early years of the Victorian Period, poetry was still the most visible of literary
forms. Like everything else, poetry and poetics underwent an evolution during the
nineteenth century. Both the purpose of poetry and its basic style and tone changed
drastically during the Victorian Period. In the first half of the nineteenth century, poetry
was still mired in the escapist, abstract imagery and themes of the earlier generation.
While essayists and novelists were confronting social issues head-on, poets for their part
remained ambivalent at best. This self-induced coma gradually lifted, and by mid-
century most poets had moved away from the abstractions and metaphysical tropes of
the Romantics and fashioned a more down-to-earth, realistic kind of verse.

The subject matter of Victorian poetry was quite often socially-oriented, but this was by
no means set in stone. Victorian poets were nothing if not masters of variety and
inventiveness.

TENNYSON

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was the master of simple, earthy lyricism to which everyone could
relate. His In Memoriam shows off this simplicity and economy of verse, while remaining
an effective and moving elegy for his deceased friend Arthur Hallam. The obsession with
the natural world and the imagination that so clearly distinguished the Romantic poets
was supplanted during the Victorian Period by a clear-headed, almost utilitarian kind of
poetics.

Idylls of the King (1859–85). An Arthurian epic constructed as a series of idylls, or “little
pictures,” it offers a sombre vision of an idealistic community in decay, implicitly
articulating Tennyson’s anxieties about contemporary society. ->patriotic theme

BROWNING

Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues covered a wide array of subjects, from lucid
dreams to the nature of art and even the meaning of existence. Throughout his various
aesthetic experiments, Browning never failed to inject humanity into his subject matter.

In 1868, after five years work he completed and published the long blank-verse poem
The Ring and the Book. Based on a convoluted murder-case from 1690s Rome, the poem
is composed of 12 books: essentially 10 lengthy dramatic monologues narrated by
various characters in the story, showing their individual perspectives on events,
bookended by an introduction and conclusion by Browning himself.

His The Ring and the Book (1868–69) gives the dramatic monologue format
unprecedented scope. Published in parts, like a Dickens novel, it tells a sordid murder
story in a way that both explores moral issues and suggests the problematic nature of
human knowledge. Browning’s work after this date, though voluminous, is uneven.

PROSE: THE VICTORIAN NOVEL

Historians, philosophers, and scientists were all beginning to apply the idea of evolution
to new areas of study of the human experience. Traditional conceptions of man’s nature
and place in the world were, as a consequence, under threat.

The economic crisis of the 1840s was long past. But the fierce political debates that led
first to the Second Reform Act of 1867 and then to the battles for the enfranchisement
of women were accompanied by a deepening crisis of belief.

Late Victorian fiction may express doubts and uncertainties, but in aesthetic terms it
displays a new sophistication and self-confidence.

GEORGE ELIOT -> Mary Anne Evans

English Victorian novelist who developed the method of psychological analysis

characteristic of modern fiction.

Although female authors were published under their own names during her lifetime, she
wanted to escape the stereotype of women's writing being limited to lighthearted
romances. She also wanted to have her fiction judged separately from her already
extensive and widely known work as an editor and critic.

The novel is set in the fictitious Midlands town of Middlemarch during 1829–32, and
follows several distinct, intersecting stories with a large cast of characters. Issues include
the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy,
political reform, and education. Despite comic elements, Middlemarch is a work of
realism encompassing historical events: the 1832 Reform Act, the beginnings of the
railways, and the death of King George IV and succession of his brother, the Duke of
Clarence (King William IV).

DICKENS

Charles Dickens is the most famous Victorian novelist. Extraordinarily popular in his day
with his characters taking on a life of their own beyond the page; Dickens is still one of
the most popular and read authors of the world. Dickens worked diligently and
prolifically to produce the entertaining writing that the public wanted, but also to offer
commentary on social problems and the plight of the poor and oppressed.

Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his
novels, evoke images of early Victorian London.
Charlotte and Emily Brontë

Emily's only work, is an example of Gothic Romanticism from a woman's point of view,
which examines class, myth, and gender. Wuthering Heights's violence and passion led
the Victorian public and many early reviewers to think that it had been written by a man.
It was controversial because of its unusually stark depiction of mental and physical
cruelty, and it challenged strict Victorian ideals of the day regarding religious hypocrisy,
morality, social classes and gender inequality.

Jane Eyre (1847), by her sister Charlotte, is another major nineteenth century novel that
has gothic themes. The novel revolutionised prose fiction in that the focus on Jane's
moral and spiritual development is told through an intimate, first-person narrative,
where actions and events are coloured by a psychological intensity. The book contains
elements of social criticism, with a strong sense of Christian morality at its core and is
considered by many to be ahead of its time because of Jane's individualistic character
and how the novel approaches the topics of class, sexuality, religion and feminism.

Thackery

He is known for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of
English society.

The book's title comes from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress first published in 1678. In
that work, "Vanity Fair" refers to a stop along the pilgrim's route: a never-ending fair
held in a town called Vanity, which is meant to represent man's sinful attachment to
worldly things.

The subtitle, A Novel without a Hero, is apt because the characters are all flawed to a
greater or lesser degree; even the most sympathetic have weaknesses, for example
Captain Dobbin, who is prone to vanity and melancholy. The human weaknesses
Thackeray illustrates are mostly to do with greed, idleness, and snobbery, and the
scheming, deceit and hypocrisy which mask them.

The novel is a satire of society as a whole, characterised by hypocrisy and opportunism,

but it is not a reforming novel; there is no suggestion that social or political changes or
greater piety and moral reformism could improve the nature of society.

Thomas Hardy
He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of
rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England.

Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social
circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially
based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom.

DRAMA
Oscar Wilde

Born on October 16, 1854 in Dublin, author, playwright and poet Oscar Wilde was a
popular literary figure in late Victorian England, known for his brilliant wit, flamboyant
style and infamous imprisonment for homosexuality. After graduating from Oxford
University, he lectured as a poet, art critic and a leading proponent of the principles of
aestheticism. In 1891, he published The Picture of Dorian Gray, his only novel which was
panned as immoral by Victorian critics, but is now considered one of his most notable
works. As a dramatist, many of Wilde’s plays were well received including his satirical
comedies Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal
Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), his most famous play.
Unconventional in his writing and life, Wilde’s affair with a young man led to his arrest
on charges of "gross indecency" in 1895. He was imprisoned for two years and died in
poverty three years after his release at the age of 46.

The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest was an early experiment in Victorian melodrama. Part
satire, part comedy of manners, and part intellectual farce, this play seems to have
nothing at stake because the world it presents is so blatantly and ostentatiously artificial.
Below the surface of the light, brittle comedy, however, is a serious subtext that takes
aim at self-righteous moralism and hypocrisy, the very aspects of Victorian society that
would, in part, bring about Wilde’s downfall.

G. B. Shaw

REALISM
Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen
name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and
lecturer. His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, the
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885).

Realism brought about events and characters with-in stories that could be easily
imagined and related too. The main contributor during the period of realism was Mark
Twain with his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain incorporated his
own real life experiences into the novels he wrote. Twain expresses many beliefs within
society of the time period. Twain accurately and vividly describes settings, places, and
emotions. Twain’s depiction of the morals and events of the main character in the novel
are the most important part of how the story incorporates realism.

Twain gives the two main characters of the book, Tom and Huck, realistic character
traits. Both boys live befriend each other and the longer they are friends the more their
friendship grows and develops. The boys portray a nice and sincere attitude, but they
use a devious and teenage attitude much more. They both tend to get into trouble like
any teenager would (Twain).
Twain’s dialogue throughout the story is “common talk”. This means the story does not
include any poetic writings or anything of that nature. The dialogue is true spoken as if it
was just a conversation between to normal people. No overly fancy words are used, just
normal well known and common vocabulary. Using common vocabulary within story
dialect is a crucial part in allowing the reader to relate to the characters. Mark Twain
even tells the reader beforehand within the preface of the book about his dialects.

W.D. Howells.
Howells believed the future of American writing was not in poetry but in novels, a form
which he saw shifting from "romance" to a serious form.

Howells was a Christian socialist whose ideals were greatly influenced by Russian writer
Leo Tolstoy. He joined a Christian socialist group in Boston between 1889 and 1891and
attended several churches, including the First Spiritual Temple and the Church of the
Carpenter, the latter being affiliated with the Episcopal Church and the Society of
Christian Socialists. These influences led him to write on issues of social justice from a
moral and egalitarian point of view, being critic of the social effects of industrial
capitalism. He was, however, not a Marxist.
DEVICES
 Alliteration--Is the repetition of consonant sounds or of the same kinds of
sounds at the beginning of words or within them, in any syllables that,
according to the poem's meter, are stressed. Function: unity, stress and
musical effect. Eg: “Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers".

 Allegory-- It’s a form of extended metaphor in which objects, characters

and actions in the story are equated with meanings that lie outside the
narrative itself. There is always an abstraction in the form of a concrete
image. Characters are usually personification of abstract qualities (good
deeds, mercy). An allegorical story can be interpreted in 2 levels: a literal
and a symbolical (which could be religious, historical, political).

 Dialogue-- Dialogue can reveal to the reader a number of things about

particular characters, and its own personality.

 Image—Language referring to something that can be perceived through

one or more of the senses. It can also be a symbol as in Imagery: The use of
vivid language to generate ideas and evoke mental images, not only of
visual sense in the reader’s mind. It also applies to concrete things brought
to mind.

 Kennings (only Old English)

A figurative, usually compound expression used in place of a name or noun.
Eg: world candle – sun. Bone-house: body. Sea-horse: ship.

 Repetition—The repetition of words, phrases of specific sounds (alliteration

and rhyme) to produce a particular effects. Functions: For emphasis, to
draw attention to a particular theme of pointing out contrasting uses of
given words, to make the poem easier to memorize or to replace some
formal components of poetry.

 Rapidity of movements—Many details are omitted, taken for granted

 Caesura-- A pause within a line of poetry, often resulting from the natural
 rhythm of language and not necessarily indicated by punctuation.
Sometimes there is more than one caesura in a line. Medial of Final
Caesura.

 Analogy-- A comparison of similar things, often for the purpose of using

something familiar to explain something unfamiliar. Although the two items
being compared in an analogy may be similar in a number of ways, they are
not identical. The whole truth about one is not the whole truth about the
other.

 Extended metaphor-- A metaphor, or implied comparison, that is sustained

for several lines or that becomes the controlling image of an entire poem.

 Ellision-- The omission of unstressed syllables (e.g., “ere” for “ever,”

“tother” for “the other”), usually to fit a metrical scheme. “What dire
offence from am’rous causes springs,” goes the first line of Alexander
Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, in which “amorous” is elided to “am’rous” to
establish the pentameter (five-foot) line.

 Epithet—an adjective that is used to qualify a person or thing “Alfred The

Great”.

 High-sounding words--

 Hyperbaton--words in an sentence are not in their expected order. It is used

to emphasize a particular word or phrase.

 Hyperbole-- Extravagant exaggerations or overstatements, not intended to

be taken literally, but used figuratively to create humor or emphasis.

 Irony--Words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is

different from the actual meaning of the words. There are three basic types
of irony used in poetry: verbal irony, situational irony and dramatic irony.
Poets will use irony for a variety of reasons, including satire or to make a
political point.

 Litote-- the speaker makes an assertion by essentially negating the

 opposite of that assertion to emphasise it.

 Metaphor-- A figure of speech, an implied analogy in which the qualities of

something are ascribed to something else, qualities that it ordinarily does
not possess.

 Oxymoron-- is a figure of speech that juxtaposes elements that appear to

be contradictory. The loud silence, the beautiful pain

 Parallelism-- The technique of showing that words, phrases, clauses, or

larger structures are comparable in content and importance by placing
them side by side and making them similar in form.

 Personification-- A figure of speech in which human characteristics and

sensibilities are attributed to animals, plants, inanimate objects, natural
forces, or abstract ideas.

 Polysendeton-- a passage uses more conjunctions than are grammatically

required (and, or)

 Pun-on words or Puns-- play on the sound of words to achieve a certain

effect. It can introduce ambuigity or make you think.

 Rhyme-- The similarity of sound between two words. Eg: old/cold;

foam/dome.

 Rhythm-- The patterned flow of sound in poetry and prose. It is based on

the combination of accent and numbers of syllables known as meter. Other
sound devices, such as rhyme, alliteration, assonance, and onomatopoeia,
contribute greatly to rhythm. Whether words are made up of harsh sounds
or soft sounds also affects the rhythm of a line of poetry.

 Simile—Form of comparison by using “like” or “as” to create a mental

picture for the reader or linking together different parts of the poem.

 Synecdoche— A figure of speech in which a part represents the whole, as in

the expression “hired hands” for workmen or, less commonly, the whole
represents a part, as in the use of the word “society” to mean high society.
 Function: to create vivid imagery. Whereas Metonymy is the replacement
of a word by one closely related to the original.

 Symbol-- Anything that signifies, or stands for, something else. It is usually

something concrete an object, a place, a character, an action—that stands
for or suggests something abstract.

 Media-res --the poem starts in the middle of the story

the attribute that is substituting for the whole is part of the whole (synecdoche), or
merely associated with it (metonymy).

A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic
and narrative poetry; it refers to poems constructed from a sequence of rhyming
pairs of lines in iambic pentameter. Use of the heroic couplet was pioneered by
Geoffrey Chaucer in the Legend of Good Women and the Canterbury Tales.,[1]
and was perfected by John Dryden in the Restoration Age.

Tone: The reflection in a work of the author's attitude toward his or her subject,
characters, and readers