Examination on OLD

English and American

th
Literature 5 -20 th
centuries
1.From Old English Lit-re : Anglo –Saxon Period;
2.Anglo – Norman Period in English Lit-re;
3.”The Father “ of English Poetry;
4.”The Canterbury Tales”;
5.Elizabethan Age in English Lit-re;
6.Thomas More and Christopher Marlowe;
7.”Doctor Faustus”;
8.”The Great Unknown” of English Renaissance;
9. “King Lear”, “Hamlet”;
10.”Sonnet №66”(by heart);
11.English Lit-re During the Bourgeois Revolution;
12.The Enlightenment in English Lit-re;
13.”Robinson Crusoe”;
14.Three Periods of Romanticism in English Lit-re;
15. The Early Romanticism;
16.”My Love is Like a Red Red Rose”(by heart);
17.The Lakists;
18.The Later Romantics;
19.”Child Harold’s Pilgrimage”;
20.Walter Scott;
21.”Ivanhoe”;
22. The age of Critical Realism in English Lit-re;
23.” Dombey and Son”;
24.Oscar Wild and Aesthetism in English Lit-re;
25. “The Picture of Dorian Gray”;
26. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson;
27.”Alice in Wonderland”;
28.Robert Louis Stevenson;
29.”The Black Arrow”;
30.Rudyard Kipling;
31.”If ”(by heart);
32.Herbert George Wells;
33.”The Invisible Man”;
34.John Galsworthy;
35.”The Forsyte Saga”;
36.George Bernard Shaw and English Drama;
37.”Pigmalion”;
38.William Somerset Maugham;
39.”The Moon and Sixpence”;
40.James Joyce;
41.”The Dead”;
42.Virginia Woolf;
43.”To the Lighthouse”;
44.Richard Aldington “Sacrifice Post”;
45.Archibald Cronin;
46. “The Citadel”;
47. Arthur Conan Doyle;
48. “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”;
49.Agatha Christie;
50.”Ten Little Niggers”;
51.William Sidney Porter (his pen - name);
52.Samuel L. Clemens (his pen - name);
53.John Griffit (his pen - name);
54.Theodor Dreiser;
55.Ernest Hemingway.
1.Old English Literature
Anglo-Saxon Period
5th -10th Centuries
The Plan:
1.Introduction
2.Beowulf

Bibliography: O.V. Tumbina “Lectures on English

Literature 5th-20th centuries”, St. Petersburgh.
2003
 1.Introduction
In the 5th century Angles, Saxons and Jutes
came from the continent to invade Britain . The
newcomers were warlike and illiterate. They
mixed with the native population and united into
one nation that was called the English. The
English were the pagans, and they had no written
language.
 Thus all the stories of ancient people had to be
memorised. They had only spoken form of the
Old English language, from which the two related
languages , English and Scottish, were derived.
The main theme of the stories was the
adventures of the brave men . Very often such
tales were composed in verse, but without
rhyme. They were called epics.
The first English epic narrative poem is called
“Beowulf” and belongs to the 7th century . The
author is unknown and the action is not set in
England. It is a typical pagan story with a monster
and a hero.
2.Beowulf
 This epic is about a daring young man, Beowulf
by name, a hero of the Geats (one of the
Scandinavian tribes ), who came to Denmark in
order to help King Hrothgar. The king and his men
suffered a lot from a terrible monster Grendel
who came at night and killed some of Hrothgar’s
men. Beowulf was brave and willing to help. He
attacked Grendel and killed him. But that was
not the end of their sufferings, because Grendel’s
mother came to the King’s castle to take revenge.
 Beowulf killed her and was acclaimed the king.
Being the king he had to defend his people and his
country against another terrible creature , a fire-
breathing animal. Although Beowulf killed it, the
animal hurt him in the fight.
 As a result Beowulf was badly wounded and
died. His funeral is emotionally described in the
manuscript which dates from about the 10th
century. This is a contemporary version made by
Breeden.
It is important to mention that sorrowful
events revealed in “Beowulf” are much more
interesting than the happy ones.
There is no rhyme, but there is rhythm in the
epic.
Rhythm is reached by alliteration (when two or
more words start with the same sound):
haeleth hiofende hlaford
wigend weccam wudu-rec.

Besides alliteration the epic is decorated with

metaphors (discriptive words):
the war-men(the soldiers)
the dear lord (the king).
“Beowulf” is rather long, it contains 3000 lines.
 2.Middle English Literature
Anglo –Norman Period
(11th – 13th Centuries)

The Plan:
1. The Robin Hood Ballads;
2. The Legends about King Arthur.
1.The Robin Hood Ballads
 England’s favourite hero , Robin Hood, lived in
the times of King Henry II and his son Richard the
Lion- heart. In the 12th century only the King of
England could hunt in certain forests of the
country . If anybody killed a deer there, he was
punished by death. The men who guarded those
forests were king’s foresters . The Head Forester
of the Sherwood Forest had a son , Robin by
name. The sheriff of Nottingham hated Robin’s
father and threw him into prison. In the prison his
father died very soon. Robin’s mother also died ,
and Robin remained alone at the age of 19.
 He loved the life of the forest and decided to
become the Head Forester instead of the new
Head Forester who was appointed to his father’s
place. Robin quarrelled with the Forester and,
finally, killed him during that quarrel. Then he had
to hide in the forest , because the Sheriff of
Nottingham was looking for him. A large sum of
money was promised for Robin’s head. The
Sherwood forest , which was called the
Greenwood, was the shelter for many outlaws.
The outlaws wore green clothes to hide better in
the Greenwood. Some of them knew Robin well,
and very soon he became their leader.
 Robin Hood was a noble outlaw. He robbed only
rich people to give their money to the poor.
Robin and his Merry Men were very brave,
courageous and bold. Popular ballads show Robin
as a tireless enemy of the Norman oppression
and the Church . They sang about his readiness
to help the poor and the needy.
The outlaws never took anything from women.
Robin Hood and his Merry Men helped the
common people when they were deceived . The
outlaws were excellent bowmen, and Robin Hood
was the best among them.
 The earliest ballads about Robin Hood were
sung. The singer was a poet who changed the
words in these ballads from time to time. Only in
1489 “A Little Geste of Robin Hood” was printed.
 The Robin Hood Ballads such as “Robin Hood
and Little John ” or “Robin Hood in Nottingham”
and “Robin Hood and the King” are known all
over the world. Nobody knows if Robin really
existed. He was partly a historical, partly
legendary character. We know about him only
from the legends and ballads.
2.The Legends about King Arthur
 The name of King Arthur became important as a
figure from the dark past , who fought against the
Anglo- Saxons in Britain between the 5th – 7th
centuries. His name was mentioned in the 10th
century by Nennius, a historian. By the 12th
century the legends had been mixed with the
romantic ideas and myths.
The first stories about King Arthur were found
in Welsh literature.
In the Middle Ages writers described the
knights and ladies of King Arthur’s court.
 Nobody knows wether King Arthur was a
member of the royal family or a brave warrior,
who struggled in Cornwall. The native Celtic
people had to defend themselves against the
powerful Saxon invaders. Arthur’s strength and
fighting skills made him the leader of the Britons
in their war against the Saxons. The forces of
Darkness were defeated , because Arthur was a
successful warrior. He became the national hero
of England. The tales of Arthur’s deeds were sung
throughout the land, developing into legends.
 Characters , such as the magician Merlin who
could go from place to place by magic and
change himself into any bird or animal, Queen
Guinevere , Sir Ector, Sir Lancelot and others
began to appear in English literature.
The legends of King Arthur began with the birth
of Arthur, the son of King Uther and the beautiful
Princess Igraine. Some scholars suggest that
Arthur was conceived at Tingagel. Tingagel, the
castle which was known from the ancient times,
is situated half on the island and half on the
mainland with a narrow neck between . The
castle was built around 1230- 1236 .
 When Arthur was only 3 days old Merlin , the
magician , took him away and gave the child to a
good knight named Sir Ector. Arthur was brought
up with Sir Ector’s son Kay. When he became a
man , Merlin made Arthur the king with the help
of the magic Sword. Arthur managed to take it
out of the magic stone , where it was written:
“The Man who can take this sword out of the
Stone is the King of Britain”. So Arthur became
King and married the beautiful Princess
Guinevere. Merlin gave Arthur a Big Round Table
and 128 Knights.
 128 knights took their seats at the table , but
there were 150 places at the table. Each knight
had his name written in golden letters on the
back of each seat.
As time went on , more and more noble knights
came, and King Arthur gave them seats. All the
knights had to be brave. A knight was a man who
historically was a leader in the war, a good fighter
and had the word ‘Sir’ before his name : Sir Ector,
Sir Lancelot, Sir Galahad.
 One of the legends about King Arthur and his
Round Table “The Grail” tells a thrilling story how
Sir Galahad was given the “Seat Perilous”(the
place at the Round Table, where no knight could
sit if he had ever done any bad thing to anyone).
If a bad man occupied the “Seat Perilous” , he
would die. Thus it was empty for a long time.
Only Sir Galahad was given that place , and he
managed to see the Grail from which Jesus drank
on the night before he died.
Many kings and evil people , such as Queen
Morgan le Fay, Sir Damas made war against
Arthur , but he routed them all , because Marlin
helped him.
 He helped him to build the beautiful castle
Camelot where King Arthur ruled well, so all that
people loved him very much.
The stories of King Arthur and his knights have
attracted many writers : Sir Thomas Malory
(1410-1471), Edmund Spenser , John Milton and
Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote about King Arthur .
The legends of King Arthur , his knights and
Merlin became famous all over the world for
many centuries.