LITERARY PERIODS

Anglo Norman 1100 - 1350 Norman Conquest by William I. Normans brought their language and culture. Bilingualism French and English struggled to integrate. King John loss of French lands compelled French aristocracy to develop a fully English identity. Layman wrote Brut the first epic in English. French influences mistrells, poets and singers - The figure of the usual hero changed. The new theme Love comes from Provence, in the southeast of France. Trobaudors courtly Love human love ennobling spiritual - The lady became the object of veneration. The cult to the Virgin Mary and Christian patterns of warship rule, sin ,guilt, repentance and grace turned into the Courtly Love framework. Romance - medieval fiction dealing with love and chivalry. French. Sophisticated world. Medieval Romance -focused on the supernatural. Classical Epics - will and actions of God. Secular Medieval romance - magic, spells, trickery. Divine miracles less frequent Christian origin. Medieval Romance divides in four categories. The Matiere de Bretagne stories based on Celtic pagan subject matter.

Code of Honour Knighthood: Loyalty, Honesty, Truth, Courage

The Church. The Feudal System. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote wholly in Middle English. Everyday colloquial

speech The Summoners Tales The Book of The Duchess The Canterbury Tales 1385 Canterbury Cathedral. The Tabarn Inn at southwark. New mixture of society. Stereotypical characters. April images and Christian pilgrimage are pagan elements of ritual spiritual renewal. Readers interpretative freedom based on how the characters see them and how others see them. Simple framework presents literary, historical, religious, social, moral concerns and transcendent themes.

 ELIZABETHAN AGE 1558 1603 JACOBEAN AGE 1603 1625

CAROLINE AGE 1625 1649

COMMONWEALTH 1649 1660

The new knowledge of the world of antiquity. Recovery of writings and works of art of the classical period.
Emergence of humanist thinking. Italy became the centre of Greek study and of the classical culture, perfection, was nourished. The discovery of the new world Spain and Portugal gave the practical energy that sent Columbus to America and Vasco da Gamma around Africa. Germany contributed with the invention of the printing press. Martin Luther Reformation 1517 moral reaction against, later Religious liberty and freedom of thought. Renaissance writings explore the geography of the human soul involving experimentation of form and genre and variety of linguistic and literary innovations. Man and the use he makes of his powers, capabilities and free will was the subject matter of The Renaissance. Renaissance Literature Dramatists: Shakespeare, Marlowe, Johnson Poets: Donne, Spenser, Milton Prose: Bacon, Nashe The Authorised Version of the Bible 1611

Elizabeth Is reign lasted 45 years and give the nation a great sense of internal stability and a considerable sense of national and religious triumph. Growth in the wealth and political importance of the nation. Great age of drama: foundation of the first public theatre 1576. Theatres stage forum of debate, spectacle and entertainment- growth of Modern English as national language. Important writers: William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe , Edmund Spenser, Ben Jonson . William Shakespeare dramatist, poet and actor. Still remembered by his long classical poem Venus and Adonis1593. Sonnets 1590 use the Elizabethan form. Themes love outlasting time, beauty and poetry, art outlasting all. Ambiguity.

JACOBEAN AGE 1603 - 1625

Coincides with the reign of James I 1603 during this time the literature became sophisticated, sombre, and conscious of social abuse and rivalry. Production of rich drama and prose as well as the King James Is translation of the Bible. Ben Jonson dramatist 1st play Every Man is in His Humor 1598 appointed Lord Laureate.

During the reign of Charles I. "Cavalier Poets, their lyrics are light, witty, elegant and refined concerned with love and erotic themes. Robert Herricks Delight in Disorder Metaphysical Poets works only recognized after their death . Samuel Jonson attacked their lack of sensibility and their great range of images and comparisons. They examined the relationship between the individual, his God, and the universe. Direct address to God, to the sun, to death, to love, to the reader. Conceits a fairly elaborate figurative device which often incorporates metaphor, simile, hyperbole or oxymoron, which is intended to surprise and delight by its wit and ingenuity, for intellectual pleasure rather than sensuous. John Donne and George Herbert sensuality and pleasure and a surprising interest in new discoveries.

COMMONWEALTH 1649 1660

Puritans extreme protestants against Elizabeth I reign and reformation of the church of England. They got involved in politics and in Parliamentarian movements challenging, Charles Is authority. Civil war 1642 1649. Oliver Cromwell, became Lord Protector of the realm. Puritans were calling for purity of warship and personal piety. Excluded Christian decorations and emphasized preaching. Decline of plays and drama. Banned theatrical performances. Their literature consisted of poetry (the unworthiness of the humankind before God, the uselessness of possessions and the vulnerability of vanity), while the prose focused on theological issues.

 After Shakespeare the greatest of English poets. He was strongly influenced

by Spenser. Among his works the magnificent Ode On the Morning of Christs Nativity1629 dealing with the signs and patterns filling the world at the saviours birth.

At Horton, a little village west of London, he got in contact with nature and turned over the Greek and Latin classics. The spirit of his art is Romantic, his expressions are classic.
are in essence autobiographical narratives.

LAllegro ( the joyous man) and Il penseroso( the meditative man) which

Two poems in Masque form Arcades and Comus

In 1637 Lycidas is an Elegy addressed to Edward King, Miltons college

mate. (both described as shepherds driving their flocks and piping, when he calls the sea nimphs and the gods of the wind).
In London, he wrote same pamphlets dealing with social issues and divorce.

On the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.

Paradise Lost1665 an epic, which was published by an obscure printer in

1667. Mankind would not exist outside paradise, if Satan had not engineered the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve.
In 1671 Samson Agonistes a tragedy and Paradise Regained in which

Samsom and Christ are superhuman who lack the element of human identification.

RESTORATION 1660 1700

In 1660 Charles II was brought to the throne. In science - absorption in the details of investigation . In politics interest in actual conditions. There was a predisposition toward conservatism and moderation( men learned to fear individual enthusiasm and set up ideals of conduct in accordance with reason and common sense ). Rules of etiquette and social conventions were established and the problem of life became that of self expression. Literature concerned with politics ( effort of men to organise the state). Lighter literature concerned with the life in London and with details of dress and manners which are important there. Tacit agreement of writers, in both prose and poetry, upon rules and principles - Heroic Couplet Drama natural literary expression during the Elizabethan age, became limited. Novel revival of Medieval Fiction. Prose elegant and incisive Essays and Novels. Poetry the brilliant topical Satire and Didactic Poetry. French literature during 17th C. Restoration Drama for upper class. Shakespeare plays adapted versions. Restoration Tragedy is Heroic Tragedy All for Love by John Dryden. Thomas Otway major tragedian of the Restoration The Orphan 1680 Venice Preservd1682. Restoration Comedy The Comedy of Manners Daniel Defoe the real English Novel pamphlet founder of The Review. Perfect illusion of reality. A Journal of The Plague Year 1722.

From Popes death in 1744 to the publication of Wordsworth and Coleridges Lyrical Ballads 1798.

The poetry of Tomas Gray, William Blake, William Cowper and Robert Burns show extreme feelings and the sublime.
The Romantic temperament prefers feelings, intuition and the heart, while the classical temperament trusts reason, intellect and the head. For Romantics the child is holy, pure and its proximity to God will only be corrupted by civilisation, while for Classic writers it is important because he/she will develop into an adult. Romantic literature is more critical of society and its injustices, questioning and exploring. William Blake : A poet and a mystic who achieved little fame during his life time, but during the 20th c he has come to be recognised as a poetic genius. He was a writer of a possessed mind, he considered that the earth was full of spiritual presences. He was an engraver and illustrated many of his poems, so that could be read visually as well as verbally . His tendency was to see the world in terms of opposites without contraries is no progression. He made extensive use of symbolism Innocence is symbolized by children, flowers, lamb or particular seasons, while The Tiger is the natural and creative energy of human life. Blakes famous works Songs of Innocence 1789 and Songs of Experience 1793 which depicts images of children in a world in which people are exploited The Chimney Sweeper.

 Robert Burns : He was born in a two roomed clay cottage in Ayrshire, west
Scotland 1759. At first Robert did a grown mans work in ploughing and reaping. He described it as The cheerless gloom of a hermit and unceasing toil of a galley slave. He had had a few books of poetry to read and has heard, as every Scottish hears, the floating ballad verse of the countryside. Then he begun spontaneously to rhyme. At the age of 26, he wrote the largest portion of his famous poems, in which he revealed with wonderful completeness the rural Scotland of his day, illuminated with a blended light of humour and tenderness the common experiences of his peasant world. As poet he recorded and celebrated the aspects of farm life, religious experience, traditional culture, becoming finally the national poet of Scotland. He wished to be called a Scotch Bard, to extol his native land in poetry and song. He is often called a PRE-ROMANTIC poet for his sensitivity to nature, his high valuation of feeling and emotion, his spontaneity, his fierce stance for freedom and against authority, his individualism and his antiquarian interest in old songs and legends. He was the spokesperson for every Scot, especially the poor and disenfranchised.