Katelin Rice

Major British
Timeline

Middle/Dark Ages
-1350: Renaissance in Italy
-1385: High middle Ages (Chaucer)
-Druids: Religious casks of stone people, family clan, little agriculture and lack of organization
-43BC: Romans drove Celts to Wales
-50 BC: Celts came to England. They are the true British, important to Arthurian Myth
-476AD: Roman Empire collapses, withdrew and abandoned island
-Germanic tribes (Vikings) entered: Anglos, Saxons, Jutes-- became the English
-Vikings were a warrior class, organized, spoke proto-English, Wiccan religion

597 AD Invasion of Christianity: St. Augustine of Canterbury establishes church, Latin

takes over as primary language, Celts resist and stick to druidism, and Anglo-Saxons
convert easily

The Dream of the Rood

Rood=Cross
Christian poem, Warrior/Anglo-Saxon culture, 7th/8th Century
Kenning Imagery: Triumph Tree=cross, earth house=tomb, whale road=ocean
Dream structure, biblical tradition, escape life
Pagan Elements: Christ as a war like hero, overcome by foes/going down fighting,
decked in gold and silver/Mead Hall reward system, Christ invades Hell and brought
souls back, Heaven-Mead Hall (party/celebration)
Christian story told in a Pagan world
Emphasis on understatement
Small company=utterly alone

600AD: Christianity invasion, big wave of conversion

835 AD: Next major invasion- Danish, Vikings, Eastern half of island

The Wanderer

A lament for those who have passed away, Elegy

Fate: Element of Anglo-Saxon culture, the last survivor, Stoicism
Beowulf Syndrome: Desire to be the greatest warrior
Sad, dreamy landscape, refers to ruins (a world in decline, civilization has
disappeared)
Longs for consolation
Endure the world in which we live: Main Point

1066: Normand Invasion, Battle of Hastings

William the Conqueror, French becomes official language, Norms take over social structure,
everyone has a fixed place

1375- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: The Pearl Poet

Church is a major institution

Manners, sophistication, refined taste, women still had power and status
Courtly Love: Hierarchal relationship when a man/knight serves a woman that he is not
married. Marriage was a business relationship (children, housekeeper, no love)
The knight is inferior to her, despairs and complains, writes poems, songs, etc. Goes on
quests, inverts social order

*Courtly Love critiques: 1) Misogynistic: women should be controlled, they are bad. 2)
Naturalistic: Dont get fooled by them. 3) Religious: Men are worshipping the wrong thing,
women as the golden calf

Men cannot stand alone without nature, Camelot is a symbol of civilization that deceives
us of our limitations. Depends on: agreement, structure, rules, honor. The freedom to
play games
Holidays are markers of civilization
Gawain wants to prove his honor
Extravagant dress when he sets out, fabulous
Token of Fidelity (Loyalty): 5 pointed star
o Flawless in 5 senses
o Friendship, purity, politeness, pity
o Five fingers never fault
o Faith founded in 5 wounds of Christ
o Fortitude found in 5 joys
Gawain is given 2 excuses to protect him and their community
Young beauty, old woman= Beauty Decays?
Games are testing humanity. This is civilization, physical existence

Another game: Given what is won in the castle, given what is brought from hunting- An
obligation
The boar: closer to a monster, nature has become more dangerous- the stakes are higher
The Fox: small prey, frustrating hunt
Obsessed with bodies and physicality
Gawain breaks the rules of the game. Gives back kisses but not the girdle because he is
afraid. Chooses to protect himself instead of honor the rules of the game
The color green: the green man, a force of nature, Christians battle against nature
The Chapel: the shape of a burrow, or a grave- Not Christian
Harsh environment
Gives thanks to everyone before his departure, expectations of courtesy
Servant tries to convince him not to go, undermines Gawains bravery
Grinding of the Axe: The first sound he hears, Danish Style, Viking invader
o 1) Celts- original
o 2) Anglo-Saxons- want to make themselves English
o 3) Normans
Gawain flinches when his head is about to be cut off, Cowardice in a knight, it is
human nature to be afraid
Bertilack is the Green Knight, also Gawains host at the castle
Details of the hunt parallel with the green knight nicking Gawains neck
Gawain fails because he loved his own life too much, afraid of death
Necessary to cleanse the soul:
o Confession
o Penance
o Absolution/Forgiveness
Original Sin: sin is attached for all time, we are all tainted. All we can do is confess and
try to live a good life, must be humbled.
Mythology: Arthur and Le Fay- Agents of God, used to test
Symbol of sin becomes a statement in the end, source of pride, everyone wears it (the
girdle)
Poem is structured around imperfection

Geoffrey Chaucer: 1343-1400

Chaucer was middle-class, served in Parliament, went on diplomatic missions

His job allowed him to see different lives, move among and take part in them

The Canterbury Tales 1386

Go on a religious pilgrimage to thank saints for helping them when they were sick
Opening lines: refer to spring, the return of life
Opening imagery: The ram- highly sexualized creature. Birds- sing all night, sexual
energy

Prologue: a catalogue of all the characters. Each pilgrim is supposed to tell 2 stories,
innkeeper is clever and has an agenda to make more money
Frame narrative: complicates points of views, Chaucer the author vs. Chaucer the narrator

The Wife of Bath: Prologue

Classic icon, shrewish (difficult and domineering), stereotypical wife, bursting with
vitality, smart
5 husbands= 5 senses
Prologue is twice as long as her tale, begins by defending her marriage- intellectual
debate
Pro-creation, she has no children
Willing to take on authorities, uses the bible to support her points
The Pauline Bias: Better to marry than to burn
Only wants to celebrate sex, virginity is unnatural. Sex is a tool, an explicit economic
function. She uses it!
Her husband reads misogynistic texts
Marriage viewed as war, no delight, a financial arrangement
Purgatory: the wife acts as Gods agent, cannot get past this world
She admires her fifth husband when he carries her fourth husbands casket- paradise,
salvation, heaven
Husband reads anti-feminist texts, threatens to read them all night. She tears out three
pages and they fight, spiritual deafness. He then gives over control, she becomes the
perfect wife.

The Wife of Bath: The Tale

Theme: Wish fulfilment- the old woman gets to be young again

Contemporary world: Christianity has taken over, fairies can no longer exist
The Knight rapes a woman and instead of being put to death, the Queen wants to educate
him, gives him one year
The Old Woman: lack of nobility (comes from Christ), Poverty (always wanting more as
a state of mind), age/ugliness- wont be cheated on, honor/wisdom in age
Damnation vs. Salvation
What women want: listen, learn about them
Chaucers world is consumed by faith, there is no separation

The Sixteenth/Early Seventeenth Century

Edmund Spenser 1552-1599
-Sonnets were published in 1595, after his marriage to Elizabeth

-Individuality and Authority

-Sonnets were the chief vehicle for love poetry (pop songs of their time)
-Came from Italy, courtly love relationships
-Cambridge, influenced by Neo Platonism, sensualist (physical beauty)
-Wrote in old English, inspired by Chaucer
-Spenser: movement towards marriage
-Developed his own structure: ABAB BCBC/CDCD EE (ends on a couplet)
The Faerie Queen: 1590

Fairy Queen Gloriana=Elizabeth, Una=Truth

Pastoral Poem
Knights of the Red Cross, Cave of Errour, fights Errour (half snake woman), snake babies
hide inside her, vomits putrid stuff, he beheads her, babies eat her
o Errour=Catholic faith (Protestant knight goes out of way to kill her)
Draws from the book of revelation
Sir Guyon of Temperance. Self-control: pleasures, anger, ambitions, etc. Natural vs.
Artificial (artifice/art)
Iconoclast: someone who desires to destroy icons (Guyon type of person hes trying to
destroy, irony)
Bower of Bliss, Palmer the guide, doorman of outer wall, tempted by beauty, ripeness
(grapes-wine), and two women wrestling in water
Find Acrasia, capture her. Raze bower of bliss. Wild beasts were men she caught, one
man preferred to be a hog

Amoretti
Sonnet 1

Eyes: bright and dangerous

Book becomes a way to woo/court her

Sonnet 34

Lost at sea, wounded suffering, wanderer, cant get back to her

Sonnet 37

Critical, angry, resentful,

No way to see what is naturally hers
Deceptive: men are stupid, frail, have weak hearts. Women are evil

Sonnet 54

Metaphor of the theatre, making ourselves up, always playing a role

A way to describe love

Blazon: Itemizing lovers attributes

Sonnet 65

Relationship is changing
2 bondages make a larger freedom=marriage. (its a cage, but a nice cage)
Spotless (pure) and pleasureful

Sonnet 67

Myth of Diana: skittish animal, afraid, but gives herself over

Willingly steps into the cage

Sonnet 68

Celebratory, physical pleasure

Church poem, there are different types of love

Sonnet 74

Queen, wife, and daughter (the three Elizabeths)

Sonnet 75

Poetry/Writing= immortality
Their love will survive the end of the world
Religious view point

Sonnet 79

Mind (virtuous and calm) is the beauty he is interested in

Critical view of courtly love
Step back the world
Renaissance: Dramatic art

Christopher Marlowe
-Everything against the rules, accused of being atheist and homosexual
- Died in 1593 in a bar fight, govt conspiracy?
Dr. Faustus

Human play, creating who you are

Social mobility: gap between true self and what you are allowed to become/achieve
Authority and Power: Divine rights of kings- the idea that they are agents of God
o Ways to think about this play: 1) is he a fool for going against Gods authority? 2)
Or is he a hero for going against authority?

Early 1590s: Prologue chorus

Faustus is a bad reader, considering his accomplishments. Misreads medicine should
bring back the dead
Good vs. Evil: literal belief in the Bible, thinking you could actually be dragged into hell
Angels: and extension of his inner psyche
Gods authority: legitimate? Or are we just trying to escape it?
Faustus: wants to become as great as God, like Lucifer wanted
Hell: a separation from God. Mental state vs. physical state
Contest of Wills: Scene 4- Wagner and the clown, comic relief
Despair is a form of pride, even God cant save you
Contracts and Laws: we live in a fallen world, need ways to bind ourselves
Faustuss body refuses to give: blood wont run, his soul belongs to God but he wont
recognize it
7 Deadly Sins: If you keep people focused then you have control over them
Chorus 2: Faustus rides a dragon over Mt. Olympus, he is reaping the benefits of his
contract. His high point
Makes fun of the pope at the Vatican, becomes like the clown: not taken seriously
After the knight makes fun of Faustus, he is cruel and puts horns on him
o Cheap control
o Physical/direct
Scene 10: He sells a man a fake horse (turns to hay in water)
o Sold his soul to become a low-life entertainer?
After his 24 years are up, he has left with nothing
Refuses to break the contract, too proud. Doesnt understand how Christ works
o Faith is great, I cannot touch his soul
Physical pleasures dont matter, his body tried to tell him

William Shakespeare
-1590s: Early half of his career
-1598: Manuscript
-1603: Elizabeth dies
-Wrote sonnets because they were a fad in the literacy world
-Sonnets: Dedicated to Henry Wriothesley? Possible patron or young man in sonnets
-Resistance to convention, authentic to sincerity, focus on the mind, structure vs. chaos
-Explicitly religious? Avoids the subjects
-Life is a stage

Sonnets
#3

Thinks about death if he doesnt pro-create

Henry W. was known for being indifferent to marriage, eligible bachelor

#18

Known as a love sonnet, but is not addressed to a woman

Nature is unpredictable
Above/better than nature, fame will be eternal

#20

Soft female face, natural (no cosmetics)

Feminine ideals without the problems of womanhood (fashion, makeup, etc.)
The poet has fallen for the man, but he has added nothing to his purpose
Use woman for their purpose (sex, pro-creation)
But let my love be the only love

#73

Bare trees
Ruined churches, impending death
Being consumed by itself

#130

Goes against conventions of beauty, shows that she is a real person

King Lear

Nature/Truth, Humanity/Authority
Ungratefulness of children, stupidity of father
Edmund
o Child of nature
o Typical villain
o Faked wound to get his brother in trouble
Kent vs. Oswald: Kent accuses Oswald of falseness
Truth of character, being punished for the truth
Edgar goes into disguise, becomes a madman Tom Bedlam
Anger vs. Madness
A disease that is in my flesh: Rot, disgust
The body=nature, cannot be changed, unnatural hags

Nature goes crazy: the storm is coming

Lear becomes drunk on his authority
o But he has no authority over nature
The fool has a license to say whatever he wants
Human nature (our bodies) cannot bare the fury and chaos
Lears madness progresses into kindness, shows concern for those who have less than
him because now he has nothing
Edmund accuses Edgar of wanting to kill his father (violation of authority)
As the natural world becomes more overwhelming, Lear begins to see more clearly
o Closer to the truth through nature?
o Human world vs. Natural world
Lear joins Edgar and removes his clothes
o Becomes the most natural you can be
o Naked, unprotected=natural
o Where all humanity should be
o The only way to begin to see the truth
Shakespeare pulls from a book about Catholic exorcisms (perceived as false), his way of
saying where does the truth lie?
Nature vs. Loyalty
o Loyalty gets violated
o Lear hasnt been a good King
o Loyalty only to themselves and their success
Regan, Cornwall, and Goneril want to execute Glouster but make it look legal
o A perverted version of the truth
Glousters eyes are scooped out
Justice should be served naturally, no moral authority
Final Acts:
o Almost everyone dies!
o No moral authority over humans, justice and natural order
Realizations are the process to healing chaos, but we never quite get there
Glouster sees how the world works more clearly after he is blinded
Madness leads to kindness but they are no longer in control, the storm is bigger than
them
Decorated in flowers: signifies madness
False exorcism: When Glouster falls from the cliff
o Religious ideals can help you if you dont try to control them
Through madness Lear sees the truth
o Human life is corrupt
o There must be something else
Cordelia=Mary: pure, decent woman (compares her tears to holy water)
Edgar is the voice of optimism
Lear accepts a new way of life

o Wants to live in a cage with Cordelia

o Happy life in prison
o Power no longer matters
Edgar believes in justice
Edmund believes things work full circle
o Recognizes what he is
o Tries to correct it by cancelling order to kill Lear and Cordelia, but it is too late
Cordelia shouldnt have died
o Shakespeare violates the restoration of order
o Even through royalty, nothing is right or just
o Case of mistaken hope
Cordelia and the fool help Lear see the truth
Sound and Fury: lots of noise and chaos
o Signifying nothing

-1642: Civil wars begin (Charles is removed from direct power)

-1649: Charles is executed
-Puritans closed the theatre during the war (a place for sin), placed outside the city much like the
red light district

John Donne
-1605: Gun powder conspiracy
-1610-1615: Explores his faith
-1621: Appointed as Dean of St. Pauls, born catholic but converted to Anglican
-1601: Married employers daughter against his wishes and was fired as chief of staff
-First half of career: Jack Donne, informal, chaotic
-Second half of career: Dr. Donne, more professional
-Metaphysical Poet: Use of conceits (an image or something one imagines), against the
romantics
-Cavalier Poet: Smooth, pretty
-Fights against metrical patterns, experiments with syntax, non-traditional stanzas, broad diction
(scientific, tone, colloquial), outrageous imagery

Ben Johnson

-Cavalier Poet
-1590s
-1623: Johnson is responsible for the first folio of Shakespeare
-Friends with Donne and Shakespeare
-Court Masques: elaborate parties for the court, Johnson designed script for the plays then came
to the revel
-Alexander Pope: first professional poet in England
-Johnson was the first poet to publish and make money on his poems

On my First Daughter

She is innocent, escaped the world before she had to experience it

The body we lose, the spirit goes on to serve Mary in Heaven

On my First Son

Poem focuses on what he could have been

Lost the experience of fatherhood
o Fatherhood and masculinity
World of rage, envy
The son is the most beautiful piece of poetry, something he created

To Penhurst

Anti-metaphysical
o Smooth lines, easier to process
Addressed to the aristocracy
Johnson deals with social hierarchy, he wasnt born into it, always a sort of employee
Ancient Pile: Old, ramshackle, better style
Mythological creatures live in the woods
Competition among elite
Food, sustenance offered by its grounds
o Animals want to be eaten, it would be an honor
o Pikes, cannibalistic
Nature is abundant
Social resentment
o Some people want the buildings torn down
o No conflict at penhurst
People are like animals/food: something the lower class can offer to aristocracy
o Servitude
o Daughters were ripe

Servants were treated well, guests could enjoy themselves more

Progress: Kings and Queens went and stayed with other aristocratic families, the their
expense
o A way to save money
Built and Dwell
o There are also problems with Penhurst
Ideal and reality meet: Cautious, complicated social dynamic