Timeline of British Literature

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Timeline of British Literature
Old English - Renaissance Literature
680- 1660
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Old English Literature c. 680- 1066 658-680
Caedmons Hymnearliest poem in
English recorded in Bedes Ecclesiastical History
of the English People (completed in 731). The
first vernacular poem in English. Alliterative
verse. Uses compound words or kennings. Nu
sculon herigean heofonrices Weard (Now we
shall praise Heaven-Kingdons
Guardian,) Meotodes Meahte and his
modgethanc (The Measurers Might and his
mindthoughts,) Weorc Wuldor-Faeder swa he
wundra gewhaes (The work of the Glory-Father
when he of wonders had,)
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Ece Drihten or
onstealde. (eternal Lord,
established the beginning.) He aerest sceop
eorthan bearnum (He first created
for the sons of earth) Heofon to hrofe
halig Scyppend (Heaven as a roof,
the holy Maker, Tha middangeard
moncynnes Weard (Then middle-earth
mankinds Guardian, Ece Drihten
aefter teode (The eternal Lord,
afterwards made,) Firum foldan
Frea Aelmihtig (The earth for men, the
Master almighty.)
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Old English Elegies The Wanderer (c. 975) an
elegy or lament for the loss of ones lord and
companions loneliness, exile, and utter
desolation. Heavy with the thought of mortality
and the end of all being. Speaker is in exile
from his kin, his lord is dead his companions
lost in war. Other elegies The Seafarer,The
Husbands Lament, the Wifes Lament
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Beowulf (c. 1000)
Written in alliterative verse and uses kennings,
as does Caedmons Hymn. An epic poem in the
elegiac mode. Deals with the Danish King,
Hrothgar, whose court is attacked by the monster
Grendel and his mother, who kill Many of the
kings men. Beowulf , a young Geat, comes
boasting to Hrothgars court, and avenges these
deaths by fighting Grendel and his mother,
receiving rich rewards from Hrothgarhis
ring-bearerfor these deeds. He then fights a
dragon to save his own people, but dies
in slaying it. The poem ends in a lament for
Beowulf.
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Middle English Literature (1350-1485) William
Langland (c. 1330-1387) The Vision of William
Concerning Piers the Plowman (1362, A text) An
allegorical dream vision poem divided into three
parts, each with a different vision. The poem is
written in unrhymed, alliterative verse with four
stressed beats to each line and
alliteration between the initial consonants in
the first and second parts of the line. It is
both a social satire, a satire upon the Catholic
church, and a call to live a pious and
humble life. The dreamer, William, beholds a
field full of folk all before him as he begins
his first vision. He encounters Lady Meed, who
tries to seduce him, and Holy Church, who also
vies for his attention.
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Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400) The Canterbury
Tales (1380s) 24 tales and a framing
prologue that sets up the fiction of pilgrims
meeting at a tavern as they begin their
pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket
in Canterbury. Each agrees to tell a tale. The
tales are linked by prologues. The narrator
begins the prologue by describing the fine April
day and each of the pilgrims in his entourage.
Some characters Knight, Miller, Wife of Bath,
Prioress, Nuns Priest, Squire, Reeve, Pardoner,
Summoner, Cook, Man of Law, Oxford Scholar, etc.
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
(1375-1500) Written by the unknown Pearl poet,
who also wrote the allegorical dream-vision poem,
Pearl. Arthurian Romance in Alliterative
Verse Involves Sir Gawains quest to confront
the Green Knight, who has disrupted Arthurs
court. The Green Knight may represent fertility.
Gawains chastity is tested by his hosts wife,
who tries to seduce him. Gawain fails his test of
trust by taking the girdle the woman offers him
it has protective power. The host turns out to
be the shape-shifting Green Knight, who spares
Gawains life in a beheading game. He Gives
Gawain a green girdle as a token of Gs weakness
and need for forgiveness.
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Medieval Lyrics Both Secular and
Religious 13th 15th Centuries. Lyric poems,
some of which were set to music. Themes love,
the beauty of the beloved, the seasons, the pain
of unrequited love, Religious themes, Biblical
and liturgical themes, devotion to the virgin
Mary, other devotional themes. Cuckoo Song
Sumer is ycomen in,
Loude sing cuckou! (Ezra Pound
parodies) Western Wind Western wind, when will
thou blow? The small
rain down can rain.
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again.
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Mystery Plays or Cycle Drama Late 14th15th
Centuries Cycles of religious plays based on
Biblical stories. A cycle started with a creation
play and ended with a Second Coming and Judgment
play. They were acted by the crafts guilds of
towns once a year. Each play moved through the
streets on a wagon from one stopping place to
the next. Four complete cycles have survived
from the guilds of four towns Wakefield,
Coventry, York, and Chester. The Chester
Noahs Flood play has a shrewish Noahs wife, who
boozes it up with her girlfriends and cuffs Noah
on the ear. Wakefield Second Shepherds Play
Mak, Gil, sheep
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Sir Thomas Malory (1405-1471) Le Morte Darthur
(1485) Prose Arthurian Romance Contains much of
the Arthurian material used by later English
writers. Inspired Alfred, Lord Tennysons The
Idylls of the King Inspired Mark Twains A
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court Some
call it a precursor to the novel
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Renaissance Literature (1485-1660) Renaissance
means Rebirth--Rebirth of interest in the
Greek and Latin classics Emphasis on humanistic
education for statesmanship Focus on the
individual and a concern with the
fullest possible cultivation of human potential
through proper education focus on individual
consciousness and the Interior mind Concern
with the refinement of the language and the
development of a national, vernacular literature
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Tudor England (1500-1557) Henry VII (acceded to
throne in 1485) Henry VIII (acceded to throne in
1509) Edward VI (acceded to the throne in
1547) Mary I (acceded to the throne in 1553 and
ruled until 1557) Queen Elizabeth I 1558-1603.
Elizabethan literature is full of references to
Cynthia, Diana, Gloriana that symbolize or
allegorize the queen.
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Thomas More (1478-1553) Utopia (1516) A satiric
prose fictional travelers report back from a
supposedly ideal commonwealth where there is no
private property, pre-marital sex is punished
by forbidding the offenders from ever marrying,
and courtship takes place in the nude! More was
satirizing his own society by suggesting that
this non-Christian commonwealth had attained a
greater degree of peace and order than had his
own England. The fictional traveler, Ralph
Hythloday, reports about his visit to a fictional
Thomas More, who is the narrator of the piece.
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Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) Lyric poet who
introduced the sonnet form into
English Translated some of Petrarchs sonnets
into English (Whoso list to hunt, / I know
where is an hind ) Unlike Petrarch, who
idealizes love as transforming, Wyatt stresses
the anguish and disillusionment of love. The
speaker in some of the poems is bitter, cynical,
Angry, longing and pained. They flee from
me In Mine Own John Poins, a Verse Epistle,
he says he Will flee the corruption of the royal
court and retreat home
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Roger Ascham (1515-1568) Educator Toxophilus
(1545) A treatise on the art of shooting a bow.
He advocates skill, balance, and
concentration which he calls Comelinessin all
things, not just in learning to shoot a
bow. The Schoolmaster (1570) A treatise on
education and the proper teaching of Latin, etc.
He attacks the vanity of Englishmen who travel to
Italy and come back all corrupted in manners and
dress.
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• Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547)
• Like Wyatt, Surrey was a courtier in the court of
  Henry
• Unlike Wyatt, he was beheaded.
• Wrote sonnets in imitation of Petrarch and
  developed the
• English sonnet form that Shakespeare later used,
  with
• 14 lines, divided into 3 quatrains and a couplet.
• Wrote a verse translation of Vergils Aeneid in
  which
• he devised a new verse form in English Blank
  Verse.
• Shakespeare and Marlowe wrote plays in blank
  verse.
• Blank Verse unrhymed iambic pentameter poetry.

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Elizabethan England (1558-1603)
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) The Shepheardes
Calender (1579). Written in Imitation of
Vergils Ecologues, the Calender has an ecologue
for each month of the year. Ecologue a short
pastoral poem written as a dialogue or soliloquy.
Conversations among shepherds and rustic
folk. Characters Cuddy, Piers, Colin Clout
(the poet figure), Hobbinol, Gloriana
(represents Queen Elizabeth), etc. Spenser uses
13 different verse forms and clearly wants
to prove he is our new poet.
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Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene (1590 1596)
A LONG narrative poem, an allegorical epic in six
books. Each book contains twelve cantos, each
of which contains At least 40 stanza. Each
stanza is composed of nine lines. 1-8 are
iambic pentameter, and 9 is iambic hexameter
(alexandrine) each stanza is rhymed ababbcbcc.
This form is called a Spenserian stanza.
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The Faerie Queene
Spenser planned to write 12 books of the Faerie
Queene, one for each of the "twelve private
moral virtues" from Aristotle (although there
are no such virtues in Aristotle), which Arthur
represents. In each book, a different
hero represents one of these moral
virtues. Arthur is "magnificence," the sum of all
the virtues. Gloriana in the Faerie Queene
represents Queen Elizabeth.
Throughout the whole poem, Arthur appears,
disappears, and reappears, looking for Gloriana,
with whom he has fallen in love. He longs to
marry her. Spenser completed only six books of
his intended project (thank God for small
favors).
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Book I is devoted to the virtue of Holiness
Redcrosse Knight is the hero Book II
Temperance -Sir Guyon is hero Book III
Chastity - Britomart, the virgin, female warrior
is hero. (Another allegorical figure for
Elizabeth.) Book IV Friendship - Cambel and
Triamond are heros Book V Justice Artegal is
hero Book VI Courtesy - Calidore
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Edmund Spenser Amoretti (1595) A sonnet
sequence of 89 sonnets that tell the story of a
love relationship in which the couple move
toward marriage (unlike all other sonnet
sequences of the period).
Some Other English Sonnet Sequences Philip
Sidney, Astrophel and Stella (1591) Samuel
Daniel, Delia (1592) Michael Drayton, Idea's
Mirror (1594) Shakespeare, Sonnets (1609
written earlier) Michael Drayton, Idea (1619)
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Phillip Sidney (1554-1586) The Countess of
Pembrokes Arcadia (1578-83). A prose pastoral
romance dealing with shepherds and courtly people
disguised as shepherds. The plot involves
mistaken identities, disguises, amazon women,
crossdressed men, wild coincidences, melodramatic
incidents, and tangled love intrigues. Some
characters Pyrocles, Philoclea (with whom hes
in love), Musidorus, the Amazon Zelmane. The
Defense of Poesy (1579 published 1595). An
important prose defense of poetry in which Sidney
argues for the dignity, moral importance, and
social effectiveness of poetry, which teaches and
delights so that one will aspire toward virtue
and shun vice.
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Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593). Poet
Playwright.
Dr. Faustus (1604) Play about a man of learning
who Strikes a bargain with Lucifer so that he can
have forbidden knowledge and the power that
brings. He rejects his former legitimate studies
for Black magic. His fall is caused by his
pride and ambition. Characters Faustus,
Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mephastophilis, the Pope,
Wagner, Valdes, Cornelius, the Seven Deadly Sins,
and more. Marlowe writes his plays in Blank
Verse. Critics admired Marlowes Mighty Line.

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William Shakespeare (1564-1616) See handout on
Shakespeares dramatic canon. Check out the web
site that has synopses of all the
plays. Sonnets Venus and Adonis. Long
narrative poem about the love affair between
these two characters. It is highly erotic and
sensuous in its verse.
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Seventeenth Century
Jacobean Era1603-1625-- the rule of King James I
Caroline Era1625-1640the rule of Charles I,
who was deposed in 1640 and executed in 1649
1642 The Civil Wars Begin
1649-1653 England is a Commonwealth under the
rule of Parliament
1653-1658 England is a Protectorate under the
rule of Oliver Cromwell, the Protector
(Right!) 1660 Charles II is recalled and
monarchy restored
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John Donne (1572-1631) the Metaphysical Poets
Metaphysical poetry is characterized by
--energetic, rough, or uneven movement, unlike
the studied elegance, sweetness, and smoothness
of 16th century verse
--elaborate, strained, or far-fetched conceits
--dazzling displays of wit
--a tendency toward logical argumentation or the
structure of an argument in a poem
--an interest in philosophical questions and
speculation
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Metaphysical Conceits Examples from Donne A
womans naked body as an explorers mapOh,
my America! Two lovers bodies as a compass
with two legs and a fulcrum point holding the
two parts together The action of Gods grace as
a battering ram, a metal worker melting and
hammering a dented vessel, a rapist A fleas
body that has just bitten both lovers as a sacred
altar or a marriage bed
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How to Recognize a Donne Poem --dramatic, in
medias res, opening --a dramatic situation in
which there is a speaker and one spoken to, who
is always silent --fairly rough, irregular
rhythm --a conversational tone --highly
imaginative and unlikely drawing of likenesses
between things --images drawn from all sorts of
sources that seem more worldly than the lovely
images of 16th century poetry
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Donnes Works
--Songs and Sonnets (not printed in his life
time begun in 1595 and probably written over the
next 20 years)
The Flea The Good Morrow Song The Sun
Rising (an aubade or dawn poem) The
Canonization
--Holy Sonnets. Nineteen religious sonnets as
part of his Divine Poems.
Sermons. As an Anglican preacher, Donne
preached Volumes of sermons, including his last,
Deaths Duell
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Other Metaphysical Poets
George Herbert (1593-1633) The Temple (1633)
The Altar Redemption
Easter Wings Affliction I
Church Monuments The Windows The
Collar Death Love
Henry Vaughan (1621-1695) Silex Scintillans
Regeneration, The Retreat, The
World They Are All Gone into the World of
Light, Cock-Crowing
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Other Metaphysical Poets
Richard Crashaw (1613-1649) Steps to the Temple
(1646) To the Infant Martyrs The Weeper
calls Mary Magdalenes tears portable and
compendious oceans and a breakfast for cherubs
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) Poems (published
after his death) Damon the Mower The
Mowers Song The Mower Against Gardens
The Mowers Song To His Coy Mistress
Upon Appleton House
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The Cavalier Poets, or Sons of Ben or Tribe of Ben
Ben Jonson (1572-1637) Poet, Playwright, Prose
Writer Plays Every Man In His Humour (1598)
Every Man Out of His Humour (1599) Volpone The
Alchemist and Epicoene (1609) Bartholomew Fair
(1614) ETC. Poetry Epigrams On my First
Son On my First Daughter, To my Book, On
Something that Walks Somewhere The
Forest To Penshurst Song To Celia
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Sons of Ben OR Cavalier Poets Robert Herrick
(1591-1674) Hesperides (1648) Upon the
Loss of His Mistress, The Vine, Delight
in Disorder, Upon Julias Clothes,
Upon the Nipple on Julias Breast, To the
Virgins to Make Much of Their Timea carpe diem
poem, one that urges the reader to seize the day
because time sweeps all into death. Sir John
Suckling (1609-1642) Song (Why So Pale and Wan,
fond lover?/Prithee, why so pale?
Fragmenta Aurea (1646) Richard Lovelace
(1618-1657) Lucasta (1649) To Lucasta, Going
to War
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