6-) English Literature

6-) English Literature 

 

English Renaissance (1500–1660)

The English Renaissance as a part of the Northern Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th to the 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. Like most of northern Europe, England saw little of these developments until more than a century later — Renaissance style and ideas were slow in penetrating England. Many scholars see the beginnings of the English Renaissance during the reign of Henry VIII and the Elizabethan era in the second half of the 16th century is usually regarded as the height of the English

Renaissance.

The influence of the Italian Renaissance can also be found in the poetry of Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542), one of the earliest English Renaissance poets. He was responsible for many innovations in English poetry, and alongside Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516/1517–1547) introduced the sonnet from Italy into England in the early 16th century. After William Caxton introduced the printing press in England in 1476, vernacular literature flourished. The Reformation inspired the production of vernacular liturgy which led to the Book of Common Prayer (1549), a lasting influence on literary language.

Elizabethan period (1558–1603)

Poetry

One of the most important poets of Elizabethan period is Edmund Spenser (1552-1599). He has been addressed “the poets’ poet”. His pastoral poem, The Shepeard’s Calendar (1579) is in 12 books, one for each month of the year. Spenser’s Amoretti, 88 Petrarchan sonnets clebrates his progress of love. The joy of his marriage with Elizabeth Boyle is expressed in his ode Epithalamion. His Prothalamion is written in honour of the double marriage of the daughters of the Earl of Worester. Spenser’s allegorical poem, The Faerie Queene is his greatest achievement.  Spenser invented a special metre for The Faerie Queene. The verse has nine lines and the rhyme plan is ababbcbcc. This verse is known as the ‘Spenserian Stanza’.

Edmund Spenser (c. 1552–1599) was one of the most important poets of the Elizabethan period, author of The Faerie Queene (1590 and 1596), an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. Another major figure, Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586), was an English poet, whose works include Astrophel and Stella, The Defence of Poetry, and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. Poems intended to be set to music as songs, such as those by Thomas Campion (1567–1620), became popular as printed literature was disseminated more widely in households. John Donne was another important figure in Elizabethan poetry (see Jacobean poetry below).

After the death of Geoffrey Chaucer in 1400, a century has gone without great literary outputs. This period is known as Barren Age of literature.

Even though there are many differences in their work, Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey are often mentioned together. Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced the Sonnet in England whereas Surrey wrote the first blank verse in English.

Thomas Wyatt followed the Italian poet Petrarch to compose sonnets. In this form, the 14 lines rhyme abbaabba (8) + 2 or 3 rhymes in the last six lines.

The Earl of Surrey’s blank verse is remarkable. Christopher Marlow, Shakespeare, Milton and many other writers made use of it.

Tottel’s Songs and Sonnets (1557) is the first printed anthology of English poetry. It contained 40 poems by Surrey and 96 by Wyatt. There were 135 by other authors. Some of these poems were fine, some childish.

In 1609, a collection of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets was printed. These sonnets were addressed to one “Mr. W.H.”. The most probable explanation of the identity of “W.H.” is that he was William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.

Other people mentioned in the sonnets are a girl, a rival poet, and a dark-eyed beauty.  Shakespeare’s two long poems, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece are notable.

Michael Drayton and Sir Walter Raleigh are other important poets of Elizabethan England. Famous Elizabethan dramatist Ben Jonson produced fine poems also.

The University Wits John Lyly, Thomas Kyd, George Peele, Thomas Lodge, Robert Green, Christopher Marlow, and Thomas Nash also wrote good number of poems. John Lyly is most widely known as the author of prose romance entitled Euphues. The style Lyly used in his Euphues is known as Euphuism. The sentences are long and complicated. It is filled with tricks and alliteration. Large number of similes are brought in.

John Donne’s works add the beauty of Elizabethan literature. He was the chief figure of Metaphysical Poetry. Donne’s poems are noted for its originality and striking images and conceits. Satires, Songs and Sonnets, Elegies, The Flea, A Valediction: forbidding mourning, A Valediction: of weeping etc. are his famous works.

PROSE

Sir Philip Sidney is remembered for his prose romance, Arcadia. His critical essay Apology for Poetry, sonnet collection Astrophel and Stella are elegant.

Ben Jonson’s essays are compiled in The Timber or Discoveries. His essays are aphoristic like those of Bacon. Jonson is considered as the father of English literary criticism.

Many attempts were carried out to translate Bible into English. After the death of John Wycliff, William Tyndale tried on this project. Coverdale carried on the work of Tyndale. The Authorized Version of Bible was published in 1611.

Sir Francis Bacon is a versatile genius of Elizabethan England. He is considered as the father of English essays. His Essays first appeared in 1597, the second edition in 1612 and the third edition in 1625. Besides essays, he wrote The Advancement of Learning, New Atlantis and History of Henry VII.

Bacon’s popular essays are Of Truth, Of Friendship, Of Love, Of Travel, Of Parents and Children, Of Marriage and Single Life, Of Anger, Of Revenge, Of Death, etc.

Drama

The English dramas have gone through great transformation in Elizabethan period. The chief literary glory of the Elizabethan age was its drama. The first regular English comedy was Ralph Roister Doister written by Nicholas Udall. Another comedy Gammar Gurton’s Needle is about the loss and the finding of a needle with which the old woman Gammar Gurton mends clothes. Among the earliest Elizabethan plays are Gorboduc (1561) by Sackville and Norton, and Thomas Kyd's (1558–1594) The Spanish Tragedy (1592)..

The first English tragedy was Gorboduc, in blank verse. The first three acts of Gorboduc writtern by Thomas Norton and the other two by Thomas Sackville. Gorboduc is notable especially as the first verse drama in English to employ blank verse, and for the way it developed elements, from the earlier morality plays and Senecan tragedy, in the direction which would be followed by later playwrights. The Spanish Tragedy is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592, which was popular and influential in its time, and established a new genre in English literature theatre, the revenge play

The University Wits contributed hugely for the growth of Elizabethan drama. The University Wits were young men associated with Oxford and Cambridge. They were fond of heroic themes. The most notable figures are Christopher Marlow, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Nash, Thomas Lodge, Robert Greene, and George Peele.

Christopher Marlow was the greatest of pre-Shakespearean dramatist. Marlow wrote only tragedies. His most famous works are  Edward II, Tamburlaine the Great, The Jew of Malta, The Massacre at Paris, and Doctor Faustus. Marlow popularized the blank verse. Ben Jonson called it “the mighty line of Marlow”.

Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy is a Senecan play. It resembles Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Its horrific plot gave the play a great and lasting popularity.

Poet and playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the world's greatest dramatists. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. In the nineteenth century Sir Walter Scott's historical romances inspired a generation of painters, composers, and writers throughout Europe.

The greatest literary figure of English, William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon on April 26, 1564. He did odd jobs and left to London for a career. In London, he wrote plays for Lord Chamberlain’s company.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) stands out in this period as a poet and playwright as yet unsurpassed. Shakespeare wrote plays in a variety of genres, including histories (such as Richard III and Henry IV), tragedies (such as Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth) comedies (such as Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night) and the late romances, or tragicomedies. Shakespeare's career continues in the Jacobean period.

Other important figures in Elizabethan theatre include Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont.

Shakespeare’s plays can be classified as the following

1.The Early Comedies: in these immature plays the plots are not original. The characters are less finished and the style lacks the genius of Shakespeare. They are full of wit and word play. Of this type are The Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

2.The English Histories: These plays show a rapid maturing of Shakespeare’s technique. His characterization has improved. The plays in this group are Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V.

3. The Mature Comedies: The jovial good humour of Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, the urban worldywise comedy of Touchstone in As You Like It, and the comic scenes in The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing etc. are full of vitality. They contain many comic situations.

4.The  Sombre Plays: In this group are All’s Well that Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and Trolius and Cressida. These plays show a cynical attitude to life and are realistic in plot.

5. The Great Tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear are the climax of Shakespeare’s art. These plays stand supreme in intensity of emotion, depth of psychological insight, and power of style.

6. The Roman Plays: Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus etc. follow the great tragic period. Unlike Marlow, Shakespeare is relaxed in the intensity of tragedy.

7. The Last Plays: The notable last plays of Shakespeare are Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest.

The immense power and variety of Shakespeare’s work have led to the idea that one man cannot have written it all; yet it must be true that one man did. Thus Shakespeare remains as the greatest English dramatist even after four centuries of his death.

Other dramatist who flourished during the Elizabethan period is Ben Jonson. He introduced the “comedy of humours’’, which portrays the individual as dominated by one marked characteristic. He is best known for his Every Man  in his Humour. Other important plays of Jonson are Every Man out of his Humour, Volpone or the Fox, and The Alchemist,

John Webster’s The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi are important Elizabethan dramas. Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Heywood, Beaumont and Fletcher etc. are other noted Elizabethan playwrights. 

John Milton and His Time

John Milton (1608- 1674) was born in London and educated at Christ’s College, Cambridge. After leaving university, he studied at home. Milton was a great poet, polemic, pamphleteer, theologian, and parliamentarian. In 1643, Milton married a woman much younger than himself. She left Milton and did not return for two years. This unfortunate incident led Milton to write two strong pamphlets on divorce. The greatest of all his political writings is Areopagitica, a notable and impassioned plea for the liberty of the press.

Milton’s early poems include On Shakespeare, and On Arriving at the Age of Twenty-three. L’Allegro(the happy man and Il Penseroso (the sad man) two long narrative poems.  Comus is a masque written by Milton when he was at Cambridge.

His pastoral elegy Lycidas is on his friend, Edward King who drowned to death on a voyage to Ireland. Milton’s one of the sonnets deals with the theme of his blindness.

Milton is remembered for his greatest epic poem Paradise Lost. Paradise Lost contained twelve books and published in 1677. Milton composed it in blank verse. Paradise Lost covers the rebellion of Satan(Lucifer) in heaven and his expulsion. Paradise Lost contains hundreds of remarkable lines. Milton coined many words in this poem.

Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes are other two major poems of Milton.

Milton occupies a central position in English literature. He was a great Puritan and supported Oliver Cromwell in the Civil War. He wrote many pamphlet in support of parliament.

LYRIC POETS DURING MILTON’S PERIOD (THE CAVALIER POETS)

Milton’s period produced immense lyric poetry. These lyrical poets dealt chiefly with love and war.

Richard Lovelace’s Lucasta contains the best of his shorter pieces. His best known lyrics, such as To Althea, from Prison and To Lucasta, going in the Wars, are simple and sincere.

Sir John Suckling was a famous wit at court. His poems are generous and witty. His famous poem is  Ballad upon a Wedding.

Robert Herrick wrote some fresh and passionate lyrics. Among his best known shorter poems are To Althea, To Julia, and Cherry Ripe.

Philip Massinger and John Ford produced some notable in this period.

Many prose writers flourished during Milton’s age. Sir Thomas Browne is the best prose writer of the period. His ReligioMedici is a curious mixture of religious faith and scientific skepticism. Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Vulgar Errors is another important work.

Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, Thomas Fuller’s The History of the Holy War are other important prose works during this period. Izaac Walton’s biography of John Donne is a very famous work of Milton’s period. His Compleat Angler discusses the art of river fishing.

Jacobean period (1603–1625)

Drama

In the early 17th century Shakespeare wrote the so-called "problem plays", as well as a number of his best known tragedies, including Macbeth and King Lear. In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays, including The Tempest. Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially tragic errors

After Shakespeare's death, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson (1572–1637) was the leading literary figure of the Jacobean era. Jonson's aesthetics hark back to the Middle Ages and his characters embody the theory of humours, which was based on contemporary medical theory.[57] Jonson's comedies include Volpone (1605 or 1606) and Bartholomew Fair (1614). Others who followed Jonson's style include Beaumont and Fletcher, who wrote the popular comedy, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (probably 1607–08), a satire of the rising middle class.

Another popular style of theatre during Jacobean times was the revenge play, which was popularized in the Elizabethan era by Thomas Kyd (1558–1594), and then further developed later by John Webster (?1578–?1632), The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1613). Other revenge tragedies include The Changeling written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley.[59]

Poetry

George Chapman (c. 1559 – c. 1634) is remembered chiefly for his famous translation in 1616 of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into English verse.[60] This was the first ever complete translations of either poem into the English language. The translation had a profound influence on English literature and inspired John Keats's famous sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (1816).

Shakespeare popularized the English sonnet, which made significant changes to Petrarch's model. A collection of 154 by sonnets, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality, were first published in a 1609 quarto.

Besides Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, the major poets of the early 17th century included the Metaphysical poets: John Donne (1572–1631), George Herbert (1593–1633), Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, and Richard Crashaw.[61] Their style was characterized by wit and metaphysical conceits, that is far-fetched or unusual similes or metaphors.

Prose

The most important prose work of the early 17th century was the King James Bible. This, one of the most massive translation projects in the history of English up to this time, was started in 1604 and completed in 1611. This represents the culmination of a tradition of Bible translation into English that began with the work of William Tyndale, and it became the standard Bible of the Church of England.

5-) English Literature

5-) English Literature 

Middle English literature (1066–1500)

After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the written form of the Anglo-Saxon language became less common. Under the influence of the new aristocracy, French became the standard language of courts, parliament, and polite society. As the invaders integrated, their language and literature mingled with that of the natives, and the Norman dialects of the ruling classes became Anglo-Norman. From then until the 12th century, Anglo-Saxon underwent a gradual transition into Middle English. Political power was no longer in English hands, so that the West Saxon literary language had no more influence than any other dialect and Middle English literature was written in many dialects that corresponded to the region, history, culture, and background of individual writers.

In this period religious literature continued to enjoy popularity and Hagiographies were written, adapted and translated: for example, The Life of Saint Audrey, Eadmer's (c. 1060 – c. 1126). At the end of the 12th century, Layamon in Brut adapted the Norman-French of Wace to produce the first English-language work to present the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It was also the first historiography written in English since the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Middle English Bible translations, notably Wycliffe's Bible, helped to establish English as a literary language. Wycliffe's Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of, or at the instigation of, John Wycliffe. They appeared between about 1382 and 1395. These Bible translations were the chief inspiration and cause of the Lollard movement, a pre-Reformation movement that rejected many of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Another literary genre, that of Romances, appears in English from the 13th century, with King Horn and Havelock the Dane, based on Anglo-Norman originals such as the Romance of Horn (c. 1170), but it was in the 14th century that major writers in English first appeared. These were William Langland, Geoffrey Chaucer and the so-called Pearl Poet, whose most famous work is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

William Langland,  (born c. 1330—died c. 1400), presumed author of one of the greatest examples of Middle English alliterative poetry, generally known as Piers Plowman, an allegorical work with a complex variety of religious themes. One of the major achievements of Piers Plowman is that it translates the language and conceptions of the cloister into symbols and images that could be understood by the layman. In general, the language of the poem is simple and colloquial, but some of the author’s imagery is powerful and direct.

Langland's Piers Plowman (written c. 1360–87) or Visio Willelmi de Petro Plowman (William's Vision of Piers Plowman) is a Middle English allegorical narrative poem, written in unrhymed alliterative verse.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English alliterative romance. It is one of the better-known Arthurian stories of an established type known as the "beheading game". Developing from Welsh, Irish and English tradition, Sir Gawain highlights the importance of honour and chivalry. Preserved in the same manuscript with Sir Gawayne were three other poems, now generally accepted as the work of the same author, including an intricate elegiac poem, Pearl. The English dialect of these poems from the Midlands is markedly different from that of the London-based Chaucer and, though influenced by French in the scenes at court in Sir Gawain, there are in the poems also many dialect words, often of Scandinavian origin, that belonged to northwest England.

Middle English lasted until the 1470s, when the Chancery Standard, a London-based form of English, became widespread and the printing press started to standardise the language. Chaucer is best known today for The Canterbury Tales. This is a collection of stories written in Middle English (mostly in verse although some are in prose), that are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from Southwark to the shrine of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Chaucer is a significant figure in the development of the legitimacy of the vernacular, Middle English, at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were still French and Latin.

At this time, literature in England was being written in various languages, including Latin, Norman-French, and English: the multilingual nature of the audience for literature in the 14th century is illustrated by the example of John Gower (c. 1330–1408). A contemporary of William Langland and a personal friend of Chaucer, Gower is remembered primarily for three major works: the Mirroir de l'Omme, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis, three long poems written in Anglo-Norman, Latin and Middle English respectively, which are united by common moral and political themes.

Significant religious works were also created in the 14th century, including those of Julian of Norwich (c. 1342 – c. 1416) and Richard Rolle. Julian's Revelations of Divine Love (about 1393) is believed to be the first published book written by a woman in the English language.

A major work from the 15th century is Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, which was printed by Caxton in 1485. This is a compilation of some French and English Arthurian romances, and was among the earliest books printed in England. It was popular and influential in the later revival of interest in the Arthurian legends.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400), author of The Canterbury Tales, was a significant figure in the development of the legitimacy of vernacular Middle English at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were still French and Latin. The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439 also helped to standardise the language, as did the King James Bible (1611) , and the Great Vowel Shift.

Poet Geoffrey Chaucer was born circa 1340 in London, England. In 1357 he became a public servant to Countess Elizabeth of Ulster and continued in that capacity with the British court throughout his lifetime. The Canterbury Tales became his best known and most acclaimed work. He died in 1400 and was the first to be buried in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner.

Chaucer’s first major work was ‘The Book of the Duchess’, an elegy for the first wife of his patron John of Gaunt. Other works include ‘Parlement of Foules’, ‘The Legend of Good Women’ and ‘Troilus and Criseyde’. In 1387, he began his most famous work, ‘The Canterbury Tales’, in which a diverse group of people recount stories to pass the time on a pilgrimage to Canterbury.

Medieval theatre

In the Middle Ages, drama in the vernacular languages of Europe may have emerged from enactments of the liturgy. Mystery plays were presented in the porches of cathedrals or by strolling players on feast days. Miracle and mystery plays, along with morality plays (or "interludes"), later evolved into more elaborate forms of drama, such as was seen on the Elizabethan stages. Another form of medieval theatre was the mummers' plays, a form of early street theatre associated with the Morris dance, concentrating on themes such as Saint George and the Dragon and Robin Hood. These were folk tales re-telling old stories, and the actors travelled from town to town performing these for their audiences in return for money and hospitality.

Mystery plays and miracle plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They developed from the 10th to the 16th century, reaching the height of their popularity in the 15th century before being rendered obsolete by the rise of professional theatre.

There are four complete or nearly complete extant English biblical collections of plays from the late medieval period. The most complete is the York cycle of 48 pageants. They were performed in the city of York, from the middle of the 14th century until 1569. Besides the Middle English drama, there are three surviving plays in Cornish known as the Ordinalia.

Having grown out of the religiously based mystery plays of the Middle Ages, the morality play is a genre of medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment, which represented a shift towards a more secular base for European theatre. Morality plays are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of various moral attributes who try to prompt him to choose a godly life over one of evil. The plays were most popular in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries.

The Somonyng of Everyman (The Summoning of Everyman) (c. 1509–1519), usually referred to simply as Everyman, is a late 15th-century English morality play. Like John Bunyan's allegory Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Everyman examines the question of Christian salvation through the use of allegorical characters.

PERIODS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DRAMA

In Europe, as in Greece, the drama had a distinctly religious origin. The first characters were drawn from the New Testament, and the object of the first plays was to make the church service more impressive, or to emphasize moral lessons by showing the reward of the good and the punishment of the evil doer. In the latter days of the Roman Empire the Church found the stage possessed by frightful plays, which debased the morals of a people already fallen too low. Reform seemed impossible; the corrupt drama was driven from the stage, and plays of every kind were forbidden. But mankind loves a spectacle, and soon the Church itself provided a substitute for the forbidden plays in the famous Mysteries and Miracles.

MIRACLE AND MYSTERY PLAYS

In France the name miracle was given to any play representing the lives of the saints, while the mystère represented scenes from the life of Christ or stories from the Old Testament associated with the coming of Messiah. In England this distinction was almost unknown; the name Miracle was used indiscriminately for all plays having their origin in the Bible or in the lives of the saints; and the name Mystery, to distinguish a certain class of plays, was not used until long after the religious drama had passed away.

The earliest Miracle of which we have any record in England is the Ludus de Sancta Katharina, which was performed in Dunstable about the year 1110. It is not known who wrote the original play of St. Catherine, but our first version was prepared by Geoffrey of St. Albans, a French schoolteacher of Dunstable. Whether or not the play was given in English is not known, but it was customary in the earliest plays for the chief actors to speak in Latin or French, to show their importance, while minor and comic parts of the same play were given in English.

For four centuries after this first recorded play the Miracles increased steadily in number and popularity in England. They were given first very simply and impressively in the churches; then, as the actors increased in number and the plays in liveliness, they overflowed to the churchyards; but when fun and hilarity began to predominate even in the most sacred representations, the scandalized priests forbade plays altogether on church grounds. By the year 1300 the Miracles were out of ecclesiastical hands and adopted eagerly by the town guilds; and in the following two centuries we find the Church preaching against the abuse of the religious drama which it had itself introduced, and which at first had served a purely religious purpose. But by this time the Miracles had taken strong hold upon the English people, and they continued to be immensely popular until, in the sixteenth century, they were replaced by the Elizabethan drama.

The early Miracle plays of England were divided into two classes: the first, given at Christmas, included all plays connected with the birth of Christ; the second, at Easter, included the plays relating to his death and triumph. By the beginning of the fourteenth century all these plays were, in various localities, united in single cycles beginning with the Creation and ending with the Final Judgment. The complete cycle was presented every spring, beginning on Corpus Christi day; and as the presentation of so many plays meant a continuous outdoor festival of a week or more, this day was looked forward to as the happiest of the whole year.

Probably every important town in England had its own cycle of plays for its own guilds to perform, but nearly all have been lost. At the present day only four cycles exist (except in the most fragmentary condition), and these, though they furnish an interesting commentary on the times, add very little to our literature. The four cycles are the Chester and York plays, so called from the towns in which they were given; the Towneley or Wakefield plays, named for the Towneley family, which for a long time owned the manuscript; and the Coventry plays, which on doubtful evidence have been associated with the Grey Friars (Franciscans) of Coventry. The Chester cycle has 25 plays, the Wakefield 30, the Coventry 42, and the York 48. It is impossible to fix either the date or the authorship of any of these plays; we only know certainly that they were in great favor from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. The York plays are generally considered to be the best; but those of Wakefield show more humor and variety, and better workmanship. The former cycle especially shows a certain unity resulting from its aim to represent the whole of man’s life from birth to death. The same thing is noticeable in Cursor Mundi, which, with the York and Wakefield cycles, belongs to the fourteenth century.

After these plays were written according to the general outline of the Bible stories, no change was tolerated, the audience insisting, like children at “Punch and Judy,” upon seeing the same things year after year. No originality in plot or treatment was possible, therefore; the only variety was in new songs and jokes, and in the pranks of the devil. Childish as such plays seem to us, they are part of the religious development of all uneducated people. Even now the Persian play of the “Martyrdom of Ali” is celebrated yearly, and the famous “Passion Play,” a true Miracle, is given every ten years at Oberammergau.

THE MORAL PERIOD OF THE DRAMA

The second or moral period of the drama is shown by the increasing prevalence of the Morality plays. In these the characters were allegorical personages,–Life, Death, Repentance, Goodness, Love, Greed, and other virtues and vices. The Moralities may be regarded, therefore, as the dramatic counterpart of the once popular allegorical poetry exemplified by the Romance of the Rose. It did not occur to our first, unknown dramatists to portray men and women as they are until they had first made characters of abstract human qualities. Nevertheless, the Morality marks a distinct advance over the Miracle in that it gave free scope to the imagination for new plots and incidents. In Spain and Portugal these plays, under the name auto, were wonderfully developed by the genius of Calderon and Gil Vicente; but in England the Morality was a dreary kind of performance, like the allegorical poetry which preceded it.

To enliven the audience the devil of the Miracle plays was introduced; and another lively personage called the Vice was the predecessor of our modern clown and jester. His business was to torment the “virtues” by mischievous pranks, and especially to make the devil’s life a burden by beating him with a bladder or a wooden sword at every opportunity. The Morality generally ended in the triumph of virtue, the devil leaping into hell-mouth with Vice on his back.

The best known of the Moralities is “Everyman,” which has recently been revived in England and America. The subject of the play is the summoning of every man by Death; and the moral is that nothing can take away the terror of the inevitable summons but an honest life and the comforts of religion. In its dramatic unity it suggests the pure Greek drama; there is no change of time or scene, and the stage is never empty from the beginning to the end of the performance. Other well-known Moralities are the “Pride of Life,” “Hyckescorner,” and “Castell of Perseverance.” In the latter, man is represented as shut up in a castle garrisoned by the virtues and besieged by the vices.

Like the Miracle plays, most of the old Moralities are of unknown date and origin. Of the known authors of Moralities, two of the best are John Skelton, who wrote “Magnificence,” and probably also “The Necromancer”; and Sir David Lindsay (1490-1555), “the poet of the Scotch Reformation,” whose religious business it was to make rulers uncomfortable by telling them unpleasant truths in the form of poetry. With these men a new element enters into the Moralities. They satirize or denounce abuses of Church and State, and introduce living personages thinly disguised as allegories; so that the stage first becomes a power in shaping events and correcting abuses.

THE INTERLUDES

It is impossible to draw any accurate line of distinction between the Moralities and Interludes. In general we may think of the latter as dramatic scenes, sometimes given by themselves (usually with music and singing) at banquets and entertainments where a little fun was wanted; and again slipped into a Miracle play to enliven the audience after a solemn scene. Thus on the margin of a page of one of the old Chester plays we read, “The boye and pigge when the kinges are gone.” Certainly this was no part of the original scene between Herod and the three kings. So also the quarrel between Noah and his wife is probably a late addition to an old play. The Interludes originated, undoubtedly, in a sense of humor; and to John Heywood (1497?-1580?), a favorite retainer and jester at the court of Mary, is due the credit for raising the Interlude to the distinct dramatic form known as comedy.

Heywood’s Interludes were written between 1520 and 1540. His most famous is “The Four P’s,” a contest of wit between a “Pardoner, a Palmer, a Pedlar and a Poticary.” The characters here strongly suggest those of Chaucer.  Another interesting Interlude is called “The Play of the Weather.” In this Jupiter and the gods assemble to listen to complaints about the weather and to reform abuses. Naturally everybody wants his own kind of weather. The climax is reached by a boy who announces that a boy’s pleasure consists in two things, catching birds and throwing snowballs, and begs for the weather to be such that he can always do both. Jupiter decides that he will do just as he pleases about the weather, and everybody goes home satisfied.

All these early plays were written, for the most part, in a mingling of prose and wretched doggerel, and add nothing to our literature. Their great work was to train actors, to keep alive the dramatic spirit, and to prepare the way for the true drama. 

4-) English Literature

4-) English Literature 

 

OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE

The Old English language or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest form of English. The period is a long one and it is generally considered that Old English was spoken from about A.D. 600 to about 1100. Many of the poems of the period are pagan, in particular Widsith and Beowulf.

Old English literature (c. 450–1066)

Old English literature, or Anglo-Saxon literature, encompasses the surviving literature written in Old English in Anglo-Saxon England, in the period after the settlement of the Saxons and other Germanic tribes in England (Jutes and the Angles) c. 450, after the withdrawal of the Romans, and "ending soon after the Norman Conquest" in 1066. These works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles and riddles. In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period.

Widsith, which appears in the Exeter Book of the late 10th century, gives a list of kings of tribes ordered according to their popularity and impact on history, with Attila King of the Huns coming first, followed by Eormanric of the Ostrogoths.   It may also be the oldest extant work that tells the Battle of the Goths and Huns, which is also told in such later Scandinavian works as Hervarar's saga and Gesta Danorum.   Lotte Hedeager argues that the work is far older, however, and that it likely dates back to the late 6th or early 7th century, citing the author's knowledge of historical details and accuracy as proof of its authenticity.   She does note, however, that some authors, such as John Niles, have argued the work was invented in the 10th century.  

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English, from the 9th century, that chronicles the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The poem Battle of Maldon also deals with history. This is a work of uncertain date, celebrating the Battle of Maldon of 991, at which the Anglo-Saxons failed to prevent a Viking invasion.

Oral tradition was very strong in early English culture and most literary works were written to be performed. Epic poems were very popular, and some, including Beowulf, have survived to the present day. Beowulf is the most famous work in Old English, and has achieved national epic status in England, despite being set in Scandinavia. The only surviving manuscript is the Nowell Codex, the precise date of which is debated, but most estimates place it close to the year 1000. Beowulf is the conventional title, and its composition is dated between the 8th and the early 11th century.

Nearly all Anglo-Saxon authors are anonymous: twelve are known by name from medieval sources, but only four of those are known by their vernacular works with any certainty: Cædmon, Bede, Alfred the Great, and Cynewulf. Cædmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known, and his only known surviving work Cædmon's Hymn probably dates from the late 7th century. The poem is one of the earliest attested examples of Old English and is, with the runic Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry. It is also one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language. The poem, The Dream of the Rood, was inscribed upon the Ruthwell Cross.

Two Old English poems from the late 10th century are The Wanderer and The Seafarer. Both have a religious theme, and Richard Marsden describes The Seafarer as "an exhortatory and didactic poem, in which the miseries of winter seafaring are used as a metaphor for the challenge faced by the committed Christian [...]".

Classical antiquity was not forgotten in Anglo-Saxon England, and several Old English poems are adaptations of late classical philosophical texts. The longest is King Alfred's (849–899) 9th-century translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy.

The greatest English poem, Beowulf is the first English epic. The author of Beowulf is anonymous. It is a story of a brave young man Beowulf in 3182 lines.  In this epic poem, Beowulf sails to Denmark with a band of warriors to save the King of Denmark, Hrothgar.  Beowulf saves Danish King Hrothgar from a terrible monster called Grendel. The mother of Grendel who sought vengeance for the death of her son was also killed by Beowulf. Beowulf was rewarded and became King. After a prosperous reign of some forty years, Beowulf slays a dragon but in the fight he himself receives a mortal wound and dies. The poem concludes with the funeral ceremonies in honour of the dead hero. Though the poem Beowulf is little interesting to contemporary readers, it is a very important poem in the Old English period because it gives an interesting picture of the life and practices of old days.

Besides Beowulf, there are many other Old English poems. Widsith, Genesis A, Genesis B, Exodus, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Wife’s Lament, Husband’s Message, Christ and Satan, Daniel, Andreas, Guthlac, The Dream of the Rood, The Battle of Maldon etc. are some of the examples.

Two important figures in Old English poetry are Cynewulf and Caedmon. Cynewulf wrote religious poems and the four poems, Juliana, The Fates of the Apostles, Christ and Elene are always credited with him. Caedmon is famous for his Hymn.

Alfred enriched Old English prose with his translations especially Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. Aelfric is another important prose writer during Old English period. He is famous for his Grammar, Homilies and Lives of the Saints. Aelfric’s prose is natural and easy and is very often alliterative.

3-] English Literature

3-] English Literature

 

An Outline Of English Literature

The history of English Literature starts with the Germanic tradition of Anglo-Saxon settlers which were around 5th to 11th century AD and the first long narrative poems in the history of English Literature were Beowulf and Widsith. These two were highly narrative poems of this early period of the history of English Literature. Beowulf is considered as the first English Epic poem and some of the other famous works produced during the Old English Literature include, Genesis, Exodus, The Wanderer, Wife’s lament, Husband’s message, The battle of Maldon etc. Earlier, to understand the temperament of readers, writers would make use of alteration rather than a rhyming scheme.Moreover, some of the famous writers of old English literature were Cynewulf and Caedmon.

Also referred to as the Later Middle English Literary Period, the Medieval English Literature comprises of a diverse range of works as the population of England during this time was literate and a considerable portion was also bilingual and trilingual. Geoffrey Chaucer is amongst the highly regarded poets within the period of 1342 to 1400 and was renowned for his courtly love poetry including the famous “Canterbury Tales” though it was left incomplete; “The House of Fame”, and ‘The Book of the Duchess’. He became one of the core political servants in Britains’s court. William Langland’s famous religious works including “Piers Plowman” also deserves a crucial mention as it represents another popular genre of this period of English Literature which was secular and religious prose.

During the era of Medieval English Literature, the most esteemed works also include morality plays, miracle plays and interludes. ‘Everyman’ was a noted Morality play of the time and Miracle plays were taken from the Bible and were frequently performed in churches.

Bringing a distinctive paradigm shift in the history of English Literature, the Elizabethan Age represents the brilliant century of all the periods and is also known as the Golden Age. Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey) has a massive contribution to this age. Thomas introduced Sonnets to Great Britain and the Earl of Surrey brought the use of blank verse which was later utilised by celebrated Elizabethan writers like Shakespeare, Christopher Marlow, John Milton, to name a few. ‘Tottel’s Miscellany’ is considered as the first printed book amongst the different poetry works of this period.

The Golden Age in the history of English Literature brought a gallery of authors of genius and literary masterpieces. It was a dynamic age filled with intellectual and religious revolutions and upheavals. As the new humanism surged, there were many significant works like Sir Thomas Hoby’s Castiglione and Sir Thomas North’s Plutarch. Edmund Spenser is another prolific names in Golden age who is also known as the poet’s poet. His famous poem in 1579, ‘The Shapaheardes Calander’ under 89 sonnets got highly popular. Sir Philip Sidney’s ‘Archadia’, ‘Michel Drayton’, ‘Sir Walter Raleigh’, ‘Ben Johnson’ are some of the important names in the medieval English literature. There was a famous group in the Golden age which was known as the ‘University Wits.’ This group would include noted alumni writers from the University of Cambridge and University of Oxford. John Lyly, Christopher Marlow, Thomas Nashe, George Peele were some of the celebrated names under this group.

John Donne also played a greater role in metaphysical poetry and beautiful sonnets of the Elizabethan age. Sir Francis Bacon popularized the scientific method of analysis and wrote many intellectual and analytical essays in this period. Moreover, Literary Dramas have a crucial role to play in making this age Golden. The first comedy play under this age was ‘Ralph Roister Doister’ by Nicholas Udall. From ‘Hamlet’, ‘King Lear’, ‘Othello’ and ‘Julius Ceasar’ to ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, ‘As You Like It’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’, William Shakespeare contributed many historical dramas and tragedies as well as romantic plays and comedies to the Golden Age. Notable writers of the Elizabethan era also include John Milton, John Webster, Thomas Kyd, George Peele, Ben Jonson, amongst others.

Another revolutionary change in the history of English literature was brought forward by the Restoration Age which immensely reflected the political conflict of the late 17th century. John Dryden emerged as one of the prominent literary figures of this age. He wrote a famous heroic poem, ‘Astra Radix’ and was also known for ‘Mac Flecknoe’. To attack his contemporaries, he wrote mock poems and wrote ‘essay on criticism’ Oliver Goldsmith’s The traveller and the deserted village was highly popular in this era. Another prominent writer for the Restoration Literature was John Milton, a well-known controversialist who wrote the famous Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. Thomas Gray, William Blake, Robert Burns are unavoidable names whose literary work has been highly acclaimed. The eminent philosopher of this era was John Locke who wrote many essays like ‘The Essay Concerning Human Understanding’ and most of his works delved deeper into the unravelling the workings of the civil society as well as debate and explorations on the human intelligence.

Concluding the Restoration period of the history of English Literature, the 18th century witnessed the publication of political literature as well as the advent of novels. Robert Harley, Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift were amongst the major political writers of this era. During the mid 18th and late 18th century, novels were introduced in the world. Daniel Defoe experimented with the prose narrative and wrote a novel called ‘Robinson Crusoe’. He was one of the esteemed and prominent writers to introduce novel writing to the literary world. In prose writing, Richard Steel and Jonathan Swift are also some of the popular names in prose writing as they were renowned for their satirical style of writing.

The Romantic age of the history of English literature experimented with the earlier forms of poetry and brought many interesting genres of prose fiction. The key feature of the poetry of this period was the emphasis laid on individual thought and personal feeling. William Blake, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge were the brilliant poetry geniuses of this era as they curated glorious works rooted in nature, love, romance as well as contemporary thought. The later Romantics were Shelley, Keats and Byron who carried on the legacy in the 20th century. The novels of this era were written as a form of entertainment to the now literate public and were a stern commentary on many prominent events such as the French Revolution. The Gothic novel is an important invention in prose fiction and some of its prominent writers were Horace Walpole, Matthew Lewis, Ann Radcliffe and Mary Shelley. On the other hand, Jane Austen stood by the conservation form of prose fiction through popular romantic novels like Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, to name a few.

After the end of the Victorian age, the modern history of English literature began with the beginning of the 20th century. Rudyard Kipling is considered as one of the greatest writers in this century. He was born in India and then moved to Lahore and was a supporter of colonization. His main works include Kim, Life’s handicap, apart from the significant book ‘the Jungle Book’. Some prominent contributions to the 20th-century literature were EM Foster’s ‘A Passage to India’, H.G Wells, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, First Man on the Moon’ etc.

D.H Lawrance has the greatest contribution to this century. James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, William Golding, John Galsworthy, George Bernard Shaw, Harold Pinter, T.S Elliot are some of the prolific names which were popular for their 20th-century dramas. In poetry literature of the 20th century, William Butler Yeats, T.S Eliot, W.H Auden, Thomas Hardy, G.M Hopkins, Dylan Thomas, are some of the resounding names of poetry landscape in this era of the history of English literature. Some of the prolific war poets include Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon & Wilfred Owen.

2-] English Literature

2-] English Literature

Periods of English Literature

The most important  periods of English Literature are:

1-]Old English (Anglo-Saxon Period): 450–1066

2-]Middle English Period: 1066-1500

3-]Renaissance: 1500-1600

4-]Neoclassical Period: 1600-1785

5-]Romantic Period: 1785-1832

6-]Victorian Age: 1832-1901

7-]Edwardian Period: 1901-1914

8-]Georgian Period: 1910-1936

9-]Modern Period: Early 20th century

10-]Postmodern Period: Mid-20th century

Old English Literature: 5th – 14th Century

Medieval English Literature: 14th to 15th Century

Elizabethan Age or The Golden Age of English Literature: 16th Century to Early 17th Century

Restoration Age (17th-18th Century)

The 18th Century English Literature

The Romantic Period: From 19th Century

20th Century Literature

An Outline History of English Literature

Here is a detailed outline of the History of English Literature from its beginning from the Classical Period to the Post-Modern Age:

 

Major Periods	Highlights
The Classical Period (1200 BCE-455 BCE)	Homeric or Heroic Period (1200-800 BCE) Classical Greek Period (800-200 BCE) Classical Roman Period (200 BCE-455 BCE) Patristic Period (c.70 CE-455 CE)
The Medieval Period (455 CE-1485 CE)	The Old English (Anglo-Saxon) Period (423-1066 CE) The Middle English Period (c.1066-1450 CE)
The Renaissance and Reformation (1485-1660 CE)	Early Tudor Period (1485-1558) Elizabethan Period (1558-1603) Jacobean Period(1603-1625) Caroline Age (1625-1649) Commonwealth Period/ Puritan Interregnum(1649-1660)
The Enlightenment (Neoclassical) Period (1660-1790 CE)	Restoration Period (1660-1700) The Augustan Age (1700-1750) The Age of Johnson (1750-1790)
The Romantic Period (1790-1830 CE)	Romantic poets & Gothic writings
The Victorian Period and the 19th Century (1832-1901 CE)	Sentimental Novels & Intellectual Movements like Aestheticism and the Decadence.
The Modern Period (1914-1945 CE)	Modernist Writers, Realism, etc.
The Postmodern Period (1945 – onward)	Metafiction, Multiculturalism, Magic Poetry, etc.

1=] English Literature

1-]  English  Literature

A Brief History of English Literature

Not to be confused with British literature .English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon invaders in the fifth century, are called Old English. Beowulf is the most famous work in Old English, and has achieved national epic status in England, despite being set in Scandinavia. However, following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the written form of the Anglo-Saxon language became less common. Under the influence of the new aristocracy, French became the standard language of courts, parliament, and polite society. The English spoken after the Normans came is known as Middle English. This form of English lasted until the 1470s, when the Chancery Standard (late Middle English), a London-based form of English, became widespread. The difficulty encountered in reading Old English Literature lies in the fact that the language is very different from that of today. There was no rhyme in Old English poems. Instead they used alliteration. The English language spread throughout the world with the development of the British Empire between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the world population at the time. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries these colonies and the USA started to produce their own significant literary traditions in English. Cumulatively, over the period of 1907 to the present, numerous writers from Great Britain, both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, the US, and former British colonies have received the Nobel Prize for works in the English language, more than in any other language.