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PART ONE: English Literature

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Title: PART ONE: English Literature


1
PART ONE English Literature
  • An Introduction to Old and Medieval English
    Literature

2
Introduction to some necessary concepts
  • Celts member of one of the races that now
    include the Irish, Welsh, Cornish and highland
    Scots.
  • Anglo-Saxons one of the race of people who
    settled in England (from NW Europe ) before the
    Norman Conquest their language ( also called Old
    English )
  • The Normans those who conquered England in 11th
    century (Scandinavian and Frankish descendant

3
The Outline of Time
  • Old English 450-1066 (AD5th -11th century )
  • Medieval English 1100-1500(AD11th-15th century )
  • The Renaissance Period(14th-17th)
  • The Neoclassical Period (17th -18th )
  • The Romantic Period (early 18th-late 18th )
  • The Victorian Period (19th - 20th )
  • The Modern Period (20th - )

4
Old English
  • Time 450-1066 ,the Germanic tribes from the
    Northern Europe brought with them not only the
    Anglo-Saxon language-the basis of Modern
    English, but also specific poetic tradition bold
    ,strong, mournful and elegiac in spirit.
    Generally divided into two main groups the
    religious group( based on biblical themes such as
    Genesis A , Genesis B and Exodus )and the
    secular one. There is also the national epic
    poem such as Beowulf.

5
Beowulf
  • A typical example of Old English poetry, is
    regarded today as the national epic of the
    Anglo-Saxons.

6
The Norman Conquest
  • Time 1066-1500 With the Norman Conquest starts
    the medieval period in English literature
  • Features
  • 1.Politically, a feudalist system was established
    in English
  • 2.Religiously, the Rome-backed Catholic Church
    had a much stronger influence over the country
  • 3.Great changes in languages, that is ,three
    languages French, the official language used by
    the king and the Norman lords Latin the
    principal language in churches and Old English by
    common people co-existed in England.

7
Famous Writers in the Period
  • Geoffrey Chaucer,
  • William Langland
  • John GOWER

8
Romance
  • Romance which uses narrative verse or prose to
    sing knightly adventures or other heroic deeds is
    a popular literary form in the medieval period.
    There is often a liberal use of the impossible
    ,sometimes even the supernatural things in
    romance of the plot .The structure is loose and
    episodic. The hero is usually a knight,
    developing the characteristic medieval themes of
    the quest, the test, the meeting with the evil
    giant and the encounter with the beautiful
    beloved. Romance reflects a chivalric age.

9
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)
  • Personal experience
  • 1.    The father of the English poetry, the
    founder of modern English, Chaucer was born of a
    wine merchant family, with rising fortunes and
    some standing at the court.
  • 2.       1357 served as a court page (boy servant
    ), and in 1359 in an English arm fighting in
    France and was taken prisoner.
  • 3.       Probably in 1361 to 1367 studied at the
    Inner Temple where he received training for a
    career at the court.

10
  • 4.  He might be likely to get married to
    Philippa, a maid of honor to the queen and sister
    of Gaunt, or sister of the future wife of John
    Gaunt, son of the king, the Duke of Lancaster,
    who became his patron (protector ).
  • 5. 1367 he entered the service of the King Edward
    III. Several times he was sent to European
    continent on diplomatic missions, two of which
    took him to Italy, negotiating treaties and
    performing other business for the king.

11
Chaucers Education
  • 6. We know nothing about his formal education.
    There is no evidence that he went to any
    university, but plenty evidence showed that he
    knew university men for example, among the
    Canterbury pilgrims the learned, bookish,
    half-starved clerk, and his fellow Jankins, fifth
    husband of the Wife of Bath, ect.

12
  • 7.In 1374, he was made controller of customs and
    subsidy (money ) of wools, skins and hides which
    he kept for twelve years.
  • 8. In 1385, he became one of the justice of the
    peace for Kent.
  • 9.  In 1386, he was elected Member of Parliament
    for Kent.
  • 10.   He was the first poet buried in Westminster
    Abby, for his great contribution to the making of
    English literature.

13
Conclusion
  • In his life, he served in a great variety of
    occupations, a courtier, an officer-holder,
    soldier, ambassador, legislator and burgher
    (citizen ) of London.
  • He had broad and intimate acquaintance with
    persons high and low in all walks of life, and
    knew well the whole life of his time, which left
    great impression upon his works and particularly
    upon the ) picture of the English society of
    his time to be found in his masterpiece. The
    Canterbury Tales.

14
His literary career
  • Literary historian often divided his literary
    life into three periods, corresponding to the
    predominating literary influences ___French,
    Italian and English.
  • The first period
  • The French___ the period stretching from
    (1360-1372), during which he fell under t

15
  • he influence of French poetry of the Middle Ages.
    Works in this period consist of ones translated
    from the French such as the Romans of the Rose
    The romance of Rose), which was a love allegory,
    enjoying wide spread popularity in 13th and 14th
    century, not only in France but throughout
    Europe. The poem cast in the form of a
    dream-vision. In this poem, Chaucer first
    introduced the coat-syllabic couple into English
    verse. Example

16
  • Of Study took he most care and heed
  • No one word spoke he more than was need.
  • Besides this, he also wrote the Book of the
    Duchess (1369-1370)

17
The second period
  • The second period extending from 1372-1385, under
    the influence of early Renaissance of Italy
    especially under the influence of Dante, the
    author of Divine Comedy, Petrach, an Italian poet
    who created a kind of sonnet, and Bocaccio, the
    writer of Decarmeron. The works of this period
    are
  • 1. The house of Fame (1370) Unfinished.
  • 2.Troilus and Criseyde (13851386) (??????????)
  • 3. The Legend of Good Women (13851386)

18
  • Of the three The legend of Good Women is again a
    love vision.
  • Troilus and Criseyde is taken from Baccaccios
    Filostrato , but Chaucer here partly adopted and
    partly translated from Bacaccios poem, and in
    turn it inspired Henrryson Testament of Criseyde
    in 15th century. Shakespeares Troilus and
    Criseyde in the early 17th century, and John
    Dydens adoption of Shakespeares with the same
    title during the Renaissance.

19
The third period
  • The third period is the period of extending from
    1385 to 1400, during which the poet made a great
    progress and distinguished himself for profound
    delineation of character and truthful description
    of human relations, which showed his maturity in
    versification. The work of this period is his
    master piece.

20
General Introduction to the Canterbury Tales
  • The Canterbury Tales is Chaucers masterpiece and
    one of the monumental works in English literature.

21
Social significance of the work
  • 1. give us a true to life picture of his time.
  • 2.taking from the stand of rising bourgeoisie, he
    affirms men and opposes the dogma of asceticism
    (not allowed to enjoy happiness)?????preached by
    the Church.
  • 3.       As a forerunner of humanism, he praises
    mans energy, intellect, quick wit and love of
    life.
  • 4.       His tales expose and satirize the evils
    of his time, attack degeneration?? of the noble,
    the heartless of the judge, the corruption of the
    Church and so on.

22
Chaucers writing style
  • 1. exact language
  • 2. His poetry is full of vigor and swiftness.
  • 3.He enriched the poetic forms for the English
    poetry.
  • 4.He is the first person who made the London
    vernacular (dialect) the language of his work,
    thus make it the foundation for modern speech and
    establish English as the literary language of the
    country.
  • 5.His language style is remarkably lexical. His
    prose is easy and informal. His works are full of
    genial satires.

23
Chaucers contribution
  • 1.He introduced into England the rhymed stanzas
    of various forms to English poetry instead of the
    old Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse.
  •      Heroic couplet
  •    The rhyme royal
  • c.  The octave (??????), eight-line iambic
    pentameter stanza, rhyming ababbcbc, in which
    Monks Tale is written.
  • 2. He did much in making the dialect of London
    the language of the court, the learned and the
    well-to do.
  •  

24
Alliteration
  • The repetition of the beginning accented
    syllables near to each other with the same
    consonantal sound, as in many idiomatic phrases
    safe and sound thick and thin right as
    rain. Alliteration is thus the opposite of
    rhyme, by which the similar sounds occur at the
    ends of the syllables.
  •  

25
Foot
  • The metrical unit in English, an accented
    syllable with accompanying light syllable or
    syllables.
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