VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL AND SCIENCIES AND HUMANITIES

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For Third-Year English Majors

NGUYEN THI KIEU THU

NGUYEN THI NGOC DUNG

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HOCHIMINH CITY PUBLISHING HOUSE

 ÑAÏI HOÏC QUOÁC GIA TP HOÀ CHÍ MINH
TRÖÔØN G ÑAÏI HOÏC KHOA HOÏC XAÕ HOÄI VAØ NHAÂN VAÊN

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Giaùo trình

DAØNH CHO SINH VIEÂN NAÊM THÖÙ BA

CHUYEÂN NGAØNH NGÖÕ VAÊN ANH

NGUYEÃN THÒ KIEÀU THU

NGUYEÃN THÒ NGOÏC DUNG

NHAØ XUAÁT BAÛN ÑAÏI HOÏC QUOÁC GIA TP HOÀ CHÍ MINH – 2003
 LÔØI GIÔÙI THIEÄU

Quyeån giaùo trình naøy ñöôïc bieân soaïn ñeå ñaùp öùng yeâu caàu giaûng daïy vaø hoïc taäp moân
vaên hoïc Anh thuoäc chöông trình naêm thöù ba chuyeân ngöõ cuûa Khoa Ngöõ vaên Anh, Tröôøng
Ñaïi hoïc Khoa hoïc Xaõ hoäi vaø Nhaân vaên, ÑHQG TP HCM döïa treân cô sôû ñeà cöông giaûng
daïy moân hoïc ñaõ ñöôïc Hoäi ñoàng Khoa hoïc cuûa khoa chaáp thuaän trong khuoân khoå taùi caáu
truùc chöông trình giaûng daïy cuûa tröôøng.
Muïc ñích cuûa quyeån giaùo trình naøy chæ laø cung caáp nhöõng kieán thöùc cô baûn veà vaên
hoïc Anh bao goàm boái caûnh lòch söû, vaên hoùa, xaõ hoäi vaø caùc hoaït ñoäng vaên hoïc trong töøng
giai ñoaïn cuûa lòch söû vaên hoïc Anh maø qua ñoù sinh vieân naém ñöôïc nhöõng hieåu bieát caàn phaûi
coù. Nhöõng vaán ñeà neâu ra trong giaùo trình naøy seõ laø neàn taûng vöõng chaéc ñeå töø ñoù sinh vieân
coù theå töï mình ñònh höôùng tìm kieám theâm caùc tö lieäu lieân quan ñeán vaán ñeà maø hoï quan
taâm trong saùch baùo chuyeân ngaønh vaên hoïc Anh do caùc nhaø nghieân cöùu, pheâ bình Anh vaø
quoác teá bieân soaïn, cuõng nhö kho tö lieäu voâ taän treân maïng.
Teân goïi “Vaên hoïc Anh” cuûa giaùo trình naøy ñöôïc hieåu vôùi nghóa roäng, do vaäy trong
giaùo trình naøy ñoäc giaû coù theå tìm thaáy beân caïnh caùc taùc giaû “chính goác” Anh nhö William
Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Graham Greene … coøn coù Robert Burns cuûa Scotland, James
Joyce cuûa Baéc Ireland, Dylan Thomas cuûa Wales. Tuy soá löôïng taùc phaåm ñöôïc giôùi thieäu
trong quyeån saùch naøy laø khieâm toán so vôùi kho taøng ñoà soä cuûa vaên hoïc Anh keå töø giai ñoaïn
tieáng Anh coå ôû theá kyû thöù 5 ñeán giai ñoaïn hieän ñaïi cuûa theá kyû 20, nhöõng taùc phaåm naøy
thoûa maõn ñöôïc caùc tieâu chuaån sau:
1. Taùc giaû laø nhöõng ngöôøi coù vò trí quan troïng nhaát ñònh trong vaên ñaøn Anh
2. Noäi dung taùc phaåm ñaëc saéc nhöng khoâng quaù khoù vôùi trình ñoä sinh vieân chuyeân
ngöõ naêm thöù ba khoa ngöõ vaên Anh veà yù nghóa cuõng nhö ngoân ngöõ.
Ngoaøi ra, giaùo trình naøy ñöôïc xaây döïng treân cô sôû sinh vieân ñaõ qua moät khoùa nhaäp
moân veà lyù thuyeát vaên hoïc, hoaëc ñaõ coù voán kieán thöùc nhaát ñònh veà vaên hoïc Anh nhö thi
phaùp Anh, caùc bieän phaùp tu töø, caùc yeáu toá cuûa vaên xuoâi noùi chung hay cuûa theå loaïi truyeän
ngaén noùi rieâng.
Quyeån giaùo trình naøy goàm hai phaàn :
Phaàn 1: Sô khaûo caùc giai ñoaïn quan troïng trong lòch söû phaùt trieån vaên hoïc Anh.
Trong phaàn naøy, chuùng toâi toång hôïp caùc nguoàn taøi lieäu khaùc nhau ñeå bieân soaïn laïi
döôùi daïng ñeà cöông chi tieát nhöõng thoâng tin, kieán thöùc cô baûn nhaát maø sinh vieân caàn
phaûi bieát.
Phaàn 2: Nhöõng taùc phaåm choïn loïc cuûa vaên hoïc Anh goàm hai maûng:
- Nhöõng taùc phaåm minh hoïa cho caùc giai ñoaïn lòch söû vaên hoïc ñaõ ñeà caäp trong
phaàn 1. Chuû yeáu trong maûng naøy laø thô ca vaø coù theâm trích ñoaïn moät tieåu thuyeát.
- Baûy truyeän ngaén cuûa caùc nhaø vaên Anh theá kyû 20 bao goàm caùc nhaø vaên quen
thuoäc vôùi ñoäc giaû Vieät Nam nhö D. H. Lawrence, Graham Green, ngoaøi ra chuùng
 toâi coøn giôùi thieäu theâm moät soá nhaø vaên thaønh danh trong giai ñoaïn nöûa cuoái theá
kyû 20 nhö Doris Lessing, H.E. Bates, W. W. Jacobs...
Moãi phaân ñoaïn nhoû bao goàm tieåu söû taùc giaû cuøng nguyeân baûn taùc phaåm vaø caùc caâu
hoûi höôùng daãn ñeå daïy vaø hoïc. Caùc caâu hoûi naøy goàm hai loaïi:
 Part A: Ñeå giuùp sinh vieân Vieät Nam tieáp caän ñöôïc moät taùc phaåm vaên hoïc baèng
tieáng nöôùc ngoaøi, chuùng toâi ñaõ soaïn caùc caâu hoûi thuoäc loaïi “ñoïc hieåu” nhaèm giuùp
sinh vieân naém baét ñöôïc nghóa “thoâ” (nghóa ñen) cuûa taùc phaåm ñoù. Vôùi caùc taùc
phaåm thô ca, chuùng toâi soaïn theâm moät phaàn laø caùc caâu hoûi veà hình thöùc, kyõ thuaät
bao goàm caùc gôïi yù tìm ra nhöõng bieän phaùp tu töø ñöôïc taùc giaû duøng, cuõng nhö
nhöõng caâu hoûi nhaèm taäp trung söï chuù yù cuûa sinh vieân ñeán caùch söû duïng caùc bieän
phaùp aâm thanh nhö caùch gieo vaàn (rhyme scheme), laäp aâm (repetition,
alliteration, assonance)… ñeå taïo ñöôïc hieäu öùng cuûa aâm nhaïc trong thô.
 Part B: Ñaây laø nhöõng caâu hoûi giuùp sinh vieân naâng cao möùc ñoä caûm thuï ñöôïc yù
nghóa aån daáu sau nhöõng töø vöïng xuaát hieän treân beà maët vaên baûn, cuõng nhö qua caùc
chi tieát trong taùc phaåm vaø haønh ñoäng nhaân vaät ñeå nghieäm ra nhöõng gì taùc giaû
muoán nhaén göûi qua taùc phaåm cuûa mình. Nhöõng caâu hoûi trong phaàn naøy chuù troïng
ñeán caùch caùc nhaø vaên söû duïng caùc bieän phaùp vaên hoïc nhö theá naøo ñeå naâng cao
hieäu quaû chuyeån ñaït yù töôûng cuûa mình qua ngoân ngöõ.
Beân caïnh ñoù, do moät trong nhöõng muïc ñích cuûa vieäc daïy vaên hoïc laø taïo ra ñöôïc
hieäu öùng toát trong vieäc caûm thuï moät taùc phaåm vaên hoïc, chuùng toâi xin giôùi thieäu
cuøng ñoäc giaû moät soá “thaønh phaåm” cuûa caùc sinh vieân khoùa tröôùc. Ñoù laø moät vaøi
baøi thô dòch sang tieáng Vieät mang tính ngaãu höùng khi töøng nhoùm hoïc taäp thuyeát
trình tröôùc lôùp. Ñoù coù theå laø moät vaøi baøi vieát mang tính töï do khoâng coù chuû ñeà
nhaát ñònh, theå hieän caûm xuùc caù nhaân khi ñoïc moät truyeän ngaén hieän ñaïi. Ñoù cuõng
coù theå laø moät baøi töï luaän mang tính hoïc thuaät veà moät taùc phaåm. Chuùng toâi ñaõ coá
tình ñeå nguyeân “hieän traïng” cuûa caùc baøi vieát maø khoâng hieäu ñính laïi caùc loãi ngöõ
phaùp hoaëc chính taû coát ñeå giöõ laïi tính ñoäc ñaùo cuûa caùc baøi vieát naøy.
Duø chuùng toâi ñaõ coá gaéng raát nhieàu nhöng chaéc chaén seõ vaãn coøn nhöõng sai soùt trong
quyeån giaùo trình naøy veà maët noäi dung cuõng nhö hình thöùc. Raát mong söï ñoùng goùp cuûa caùc
baïn ñoàng nghieäp vaø sinh vieân ñeå chuùng toâi coù theå söûa chöõa trong nhöõng laàn taùi baûn.
Nhöõng ñoùng goùp xin göûi veà ñòa chæ sau:

Nguyeãn Th Kieàu Thu

Khoa ngöõ Vaên Anh Tröôøng Ñaïi hoïc Khoa hoïc Xaõ hoäi vaø Nhaân vaên –
Ñaïi hoïc Quoác gia TP HCM, 12 Ñinh Tieân Hoaøng, Q.1, Tp Hoà Chí Minh
Xin chaân thaønh caùm ôn.

NGUYEÃN THÒ KIEÀU THU

NGUYEÃN THÒ NGOÏC DUNG
 MUÏC LUÏC
Lôøi giôùi thieäu

Part I: A Short History of English Literature ........................................ 9

Old English Period (450-1066) ...................................................................................... 11
The Middle Age (1066-1485) ......................................................................................... 13
The Elizabethan Period (1485-1603) ........................................................................... 16
The Seventeenth Century Period (1603-1660) .......................................................... 20
The Restoration and the 18th Century Period (1660-1798) ...................................... 24
The Romantic Period (1798-1832) ............................................................................... 28
The Victorian Period (1832-1901) ................................................................................ 31
The Twentieth Century Period ...................................................................................... 36

Part II: Selected Works ............................................................................. 45

Sonnet 73 – William Shakespeare................................................................... 47
The Sun Rising – John Donne .........................................................................55
Queen and Huntress – Ben Jonson ...............................................................65
A Red, Red Rose – Robert Burns ....................................................................71
Daffodils – William Wordsworth.......................................................................81
Ode to the West Wind – Percy Bysshe Shelley.............................................91
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens .................................................................... 103
When I Was One-and-Twenty – A. E. Housman ........................................ 117
Fern Hill – Dylan Thomas .............................................................................. 123
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night – Dylan Thomas .............................130

***
Araby – James Joyce ..................................................................................... 133
The Rocking-Horse Winner – D. H. Lawrence .......................................... 143
Mr. Loveday’s Little Outing – Evelyn Waugh ............................................ 163
A Shocking Accident – Graham Greene .................................................... 177
Never – H. E. Bates......................................................................................... 187
Flight – Doris Lessing ..................................................................................... 195
The Monkey’s Paw – W.W. Jacobs ............................................................. 209
Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 224
PART I

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 I
OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE (450-1066)

A. Historical background
449 The Germanic tribes invaded England and brought with them Anglo-
Saxon, the language which is the basis of Modern English
597 St. Augustine brought Roman Christianity to England
871 -1016 The Danish Invasion
1170 Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury was murdered
1066 The Norman Conquest led by William the Conqueror and the
introduction of strict Norman feudal system.

B. Literature
1. Poetry:
- to be chanted with harp accompaniment
- bold and strong, but also mournful and elegiac in spirit
- without rhyme, abundant use of alliteration
- Important works:
 Beowulf: the first surviving epic written in the English language. The single
existing copy of the manuscript dated from the late tenth century, although
some scholars believe it dates from the first part of the eleventh century. It is
found in a large volume that features stories involving mythical creatures and
people. There is no knowledge about the poet as well as the day of the poem’s
composition.
Beowulf is short, with 3182 verses, yet it is the longest as well as the richest
of Old English poems. The first great work of English literature is not set in
Britain; Beowulf opens with the mysterious figure of Scyld, founder of the
Scylding dynasty of Denmark, who would have lived c.400, before England
existed.
Beowulf is about King of the Danes, Hrothgar and about a brave young man,
Beowulf, from Southern Sweden, who goes to help him. The King’s great hall,
called Heorot, is visited at night by a terrible creature, Grendel, which lives in
the lake and comes to kill and eat Hrothgar’s men. One night Beowulf waits
secretly for Grendel and attacks it and in a fierce fight pulls its arm off. It
manages to reach the lake, but dies there. Then its mother comes to the hall
and the attacks begin. Beowulf follows her to the lake and kills her there. In

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 later days Beowulf, now king of his people, has to defend his country against a
fire-breathing dragon. He kills the animal but is badly wounded in the fight and
dies.
 Religious writings reflecting Christian doctrine: The dedicated Christian
literature of Anglo-Saxon England is of various kinds. There are verse
paraphrases of Old Testaments stories, such as Caedmon’s: Genesis and
Exodus, Daniel and Judith. They emphasize faith rewarded. There are lives of
saints, historical lives of contemporaries, sermons, etc.
 Elegies: Short lyrical poems evoking the Anglo-Saxon sense of harshness of
circumstance and the sadness of the human lot. The Wanderer, The Seafarer
and The Ruin are among the most beautiful elegies.
1. Prose:
- mainly religious works written in Latin
- Important works:
 Ecclesiastical History of the English People written by Bede in 731.
 The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius is an Old English translation
which is about Platonic philosophy adaptable to Christian thought, and is of
great influence on English literature.

Further reading
Alexander, M. Old English Literature (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1983: Peterborough,
Ontario: Broadview, revd edn 2001).
Mitchell, B. and F. C. Robinson. A Guide to Old English, 5th edn (Oxford: Blackwell,
1995). A grammar, reader and study guide for students.

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 II

MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE (1066-1485)

A. Historical background
1066 The Norman Conquest led by William the Conqueror
1215 King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta
1338 Hundred Years War with France began
1348-1349 Black Death struck England
1381 Peasants’ Revolt
1415 The victory over French at Agincourt
1453 Defeat in France to end Hundred Years War
1454 Wars of Roses began
1476 William Caxton set up first printing press in London
1492 Columbus sailed to America

B. Literature
Extensive influence of French literature on native English forms and themes
1. Drama
The beginning of native English drama was closely associated with the church
celebrations of traditional religious feasts. Two major types are:
 Miracle or Mystery plays: cycles of religious dramas, performed by town
guilds, craft associations of a religious kind
 Morality plays: these plays personified such abstractions as Health, Death,
Sin, etc. and showed the fate of the single human person, played by
travelling companies.
2. Poetry
Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343-1400): Chaucer was a professional courtier, a kind of
civil servant. He was born into a family of wine-traders. His work took him to Kent
(which he represented in Parliament from 1386), to France, and twice to Italy.
Chaucer’s first book, The Book of the Duchess, is a dream poem on the death of
Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster. The simplicity and directness of the emotion, and the
handling of dialogue, show Chaucer’s capacity to bring language, situation and
emotion together effectively. The House of Fame is another dream poem, this time

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 influenced by the Italian of Dante. Other Chaucer’s works are Troylus and Cryseyde
(1372-7?) is about the love of the two young people, and The Legend of Good Women
(1385). Chaucer’s last work The Canterbury Tales is today his most popular. It’s
opening ‘When that April with his shoures soote’ is the first line of English verse that
is widely known.
The Canterbury Tales was first conceived in 1836 when Chaucer was in
Greenwich, consisting of 24 stories in rhymed couplets, concerning a host of
subjects: religious innocence, married chastity, villainous hypocrisy, female
volubility – all illumed by great humour told by a group of about 30 pilgrims
who set off from the Tabard Inn in Southwark, London, to visit the shrine of St.
Thomas Becket , the Archbishop of Canterbury murdered in his own cathedral
in 1170. They are representatives of most of the classes in medieval England.
Each of them was to tell four stories: two on the way, two on the way back. The
teller of the best story would be given a free dinner by the cheerful host of the
Tabard. In fact the collection is incomplete.
Chaucer’s world in the Canterbury Tales brings together for the first time, a
diversity of characters, social levels, attitudes and ways of life. The tales
themselves make use of a similarly wide range of forms and styles. Literature,
with Chaucer, has taken on a new role: as well as forming a developing
language, it is a mirror of its times – but a mirror which teases as it reveals,
which questions while it narrates, and which opens up a range of issues and
questions, instead of providing simple, easy answers.
PROLOGUE
The Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer is the poem which introduces the
Canterbury Tales. It is written in ten-syllable couplets and is 558 lines long.
Here at the beginning there is a sense of harmony between man and nature.
The stirrings of spring in nature are associated with the impulse among people
to go on pilgrimages
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathes every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
The slepen al the nyght with opn ye
(So pricketh hem nature in his corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages...

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 A modern version of the Prologue
When in April the sweet showers fall
And pierce the drought of March to the root and fall
The veins are bathed in liquor of such power
As brings about the engendering of the flower,
When also Zephyrus with his sweet and breath
Exhales an air in every grove and heath
Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun
His half course in the sign of the Ram has run
And the small fowl are making melody
That sleep away the night with open eyes
(So nature pricks them and their heart engages)
Then people long to go on pilgrimages...
William Langland (c.1330-c.1386): a married cleric in minor orders, Langland
wrote Piers Plowman (or The Vision of Piers the Ploughman) in the form of
dream visions, protesting the plight of the poor, the avarice of the powerful, the
sinfulness of all the people
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1370? by anonymous author): a romance of
knightly adventure and love of the general medieval type introduced by the
French.
3. Prose
Sir Thomas Malory (? - 1471): He was probably the Sir Thomas Malory of
Warwickshire who in the 1440s was charged with crimes of violence and spent
most of the 1450s in jail, escaping twice. In 1468 he was jailed again, on charges
plotting again Edward IV. He wrote the book The Death of Arthur in prison and
finished it in 1469. Malory wrote eight separate tales of King Arthur and his
knights, but when William Caxton printed the book in 1485 he joined them in
one long story. Arthur is a shadowy figure of the past but probably really lived.
The Death of Arthur is, in a way, a climax of a tradition of writing, bringing
together myth and history, with an emphasis on chivalry as a kind of moral code
of honour.

Further reading
Burrow, J. and T. Turville-Petre (eds). A Book of Middle English, 2nd edn (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1996). A textbook anthology, well designed and annotated.
Pearsall, D. (ed). Chauce to Spenser: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999)

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 III

THE ELIZABETHAN PERIOD (1485-1603)

A. Historical background
1485 Henry Tudor became king as Henry VII, ending the War of the
Roses
1509 The accession of Henry VIII
1517 The Protestant Reformation began
1534 Henry VIII became Supreme Head of the Anglican Church
1553-1558 The religious conflicts between the Roman Catholic and the
Protestant under the reign of Queen Mary I
1558 Elizabeth I ascended the throne and maintained social stability.
1588 Spanish Armada defeated by the English fleet
1595 Sir Walter Ralegh’ s first expedition to South America
1603 Death of Elizabeth I; ascension of James I, the first Stuart King

B. Literature
The Renaissance: It was the revival of Greek and Roman studies that emphasized
the value of the classics for their own sake, rather than for their relevance to Christianity.
In literature the Renaissance was led by humanists, scholars and poets. The invention of
printing contributed to the spread of ideas. Among the notable writers of the Renaissance
in England were Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Shakespeare, and Sir Francis
Bacon
Humanism is the term most often used to describe the cultural and literary
movement that spread through Western Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. It was the
greatest cultural achievement of the period. There is no systematic theory of humanism,
but any world-view which claims that the source of value in the world is man, or more
loosely that man supplies the true measure of value, may be described as humanist.
1. Drama
- In late 15th C there were plays with secular plots and characters in elaborate
verse style.
- The invention of short plays called ‘Interludes’
- The fusion of classical form with English content: more mature and artistic
- The coming of professional theatrical groups with plays written by professional
playwrights; the first men were called ‘University Wits’, so named since they

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 were all university men, who, instead of going into the church or teaching,
turned to writing to earn their living
- The golden age of English drama with a lot of great playwrights such as
Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare
2. Poetry:
- Generally less important than drama.
- Two most important poets were Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser.
- Three chief forms of poetry which flourished in the Elizabethan Age were:
(i) Lyric, a short poem that expresses a poet’s personal emotions in a
songlike style. Thomas Campion (1567-1620) wrote many beautiful
lyrics in his ‘Books of Airs’ (1601-1617)
(ii) The sonnet: a 14 line poem with a certain pattern of rhyme and rhythm
(iii) Narrative poetry: a narrative poem that tells a story
3. Prose:
- Translation works: ‘The Translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians
and Romans’ (1579) by Sir Thomas North
- The beginning of English novels: Lyly’s Euphues started a fashion which spread
in books and conversation. The style is filled with tricks and alliteration; the
sentences are long and complicated; and a large number of similes are brought
in. Readers forget the thoughts behind the words, and look for the machine-like
arrangement of the sentences. Robert Greene (1558-1592), Thomas Nashe
(1567-1601) are among the first novelists of the time. However, the Elizabethan
novels are of little value on the whole.

C. Major authors
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593): the first great English dramatist and most important
Elizabethan dramatist. He gave to the English popular theater the foundation upon which
Shakespeare was to build. His best known works were:
 Tamburlaine the Great (1590): the play is based on the life and achievements of
Timur, the bloody 14th century conqueror of Central Asia and India. In this early
play Marlowe already shows the ability to view a tragic hero from more than one
angle, achieving a simultaneous vision of grandeur and impotence.
 Edward II (1594): a study in the operation of power: the weak king loses his throne
to rebel nobles who resent his sexual infatuation with the low Gaveston and
conspire with his wife to depose him.
 The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1604): The play was based on the well-
known story of a man who sold his soul to the devil so as to have power and riches
in his life.

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  The Jew of Malta (1633): the play deals with great human passions such as revenge
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): playwright and poet, recognized in much of the world
as the greatest of all the dramatists. (See next section for more information)
The Earl of Surrey (1514-1547) was the first to use blank verse, unrhymed iambic
pentameter, in his versions of Virgil’s Aeneid II and IV
Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542): best remembered for his individualistic poems that deal
candidly in everyday speech with the trials of romantic love. Some of his remarkable
works: Certayne Psalmes, The Book of Songes and Sonnettes.
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599): like Sidney, displaying the ornate, somewhat florid, highly
figured style characteristic of Elizabethan poetic expressions. The Shepherd’s Calendar, a
poem in twelve books, one for each month of the year was produced in 1579. He is most
remembered for his allegorical romance, The Faerie Queene, which is written in a special
metre called the ‘Spenserian Stanza’ of nine lines; of these the last has six feet, the others
five. The rhyme plan is ababbcbbc. He published the first three books in 1590 and added
three more in 1596. Spenser dedicated his heroic romance to the Queen. It is now the chief
literary monument of her cult.
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) He initiated the sonnet cycle (courtly love poems), which
idealized womanhood in the Platonic manner. It leads to a perception of the good, the true,
the beautiful and consequently of the divine. His major works are:
 Astrophel and Stella (1591): a suite of 108 sonnets of various kinds,moments in the
love of Starlover (Astrophil: Greek) for Star (Stella: Lat.). This is the first English
sonnet sequence in English interspersed with songs.
 The Arcadia: a prose romance interspersed with many poems and songs. It is a
complex and still controversial mixture of pastoral romance, narrative intrigue, and
evocative poetry of love and nature. It is a work which has no equivalent in English
literature. The Old Arcadia was finished by about 1580, and The New Arcadia,
unfinished, was published in 1590.
Thomas More (1478-1535): the most prominent humanist writer in England with his Latin
prose narrative Utopia written in Latin which describes an ideal country. The book was
brought up in 1517, and its English version was published in 1551. His other works are: Of
the Dignity of Man (1486), History of Richard III (unfinished).
John Lyly (c.1554-1606): He was important in the history of prose style and the
development of Elizabethan popular comedy of high literary quality. He established his
literary reputation with Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578), a fashionable book
combining essay and fiction. Its artificial style, called ‘euphuism’ set a new pattern for
sophisticated English prose. His comedies treat idealized love and flatteringly reflect
attitudes of the Elizabethan courtier. Campaspe (1584) and Endymion (1588) are typical of
Lyly’s plays which are supposed to have influence on Shakespeare’s romantic comedies.

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Further reading
Braunmuller, A. R. and M. Hattaway (eds). The Cambridge Companion to English
Renaissance Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
Jones, E. (ed.), New Oxford Book of Sixteenth–Century Verse (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1992).
Lewis, C. S., Poetry and Prose in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama (Oxford: Oxford
Univesity Press, 1994).

19
 IV

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY PERIOD (1603-1660)

A. Historical background
1603 Death of Elizabeth Tudor and the accession of James Stuart
1605: Guy Fawkes - Catholic extremist forming the Gunpowder plot to
blow up Parliament.
1620 The search for religious freedom in America and Holland
1625 Death of James I and the accession of Charles I
1630 The split between the King and Parliament
1642 Outbreak of English Civil War and the closing of all theatres
1649 Civil War ended with Charles I beheaded
The beginning of Cromwellian Protectorate
1660 The end of the Protectorate and the accession of Charles II

B. Literature
1. Drama
- Public theatres flourished under Charles I until Parliament closed them in 1642:
in more sober and careful style than those of Elizabethan period.
- The emergence of comedies with inimitable verse and imagination.
- The coming of tragicomedies: morally dubious situations, surprising reversals of
fortune, and sentimentality combined with hollow rhetoric.
- The Masque became an important theatrical form during the reigns of James I
and Charles I; court entertainment held in private royal halls with lavish
costumes, elaborate stage designs and machinery.
- Major figures in Jacobean drama are Thomas Middleton, John Webster,
Thomas Dekker, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.
2. Poetry
- Epic poetry: especially by John Milton; noble and beautiful, but also difficult
- The lyrical poetry: two trends
 Metaphysical poetry: led by John Donne. The term ‘metaphysical’ was used
by Samuel Johnson with a pejorative meaning. He attacked the poets’lack
of feeling, their learning, and the surprising range of images and
comparisons they used. It is now used to describe the modern impact of their

20
 writing. John Donne and his followers can be seen as experimenters both in
forms and the subject matter they used. They reflect in poetry the
intellectual and spiritual challenges of an age which wanted to expand
human horizons. This literary trend has some typical characteristics as
follows:
 Abundant use of far-fetched metaphors and images called ‘conceits’
 Daring, colloquial, passionate
 Against accepted rules of poetic rhythm and diction
 Deliberately rough meter with short syllables, irregular spaced as in
everyday speech
 Neoclassical poetry or Cavalier poetry: initially led by Ben Jonson and his
followers Robert Herrick (1591-1674), Thomas Carew (1594-1640),
Richard Lovelace (1618-1658), and Sir John Suckling (1609-1642), a
group of monarchists collectively known as the ‘Cavalier poets’. They are
associated with neoclassicism for their style:
 Admiration of ancient classics
 Restrained in language and feeling to achieve precision and brevity
 Intellectually thin but meticulously clear and incisive in expression
 Preference for the closed couplet
 Strong syntactically, i.e. closely knit in grammar
 Use of balanced, parallel and antithetical phrases
3. Prose
- Prose became plainer, less elaborate than the previous period
- King James Bible or The Authorized Version (1611) was the best translation of
the original text in the reign of King James
- Scientific and biographical works :’The Anatomy of Melancholy’ of Robert
Burton (1577-1640)
- Developments in realistic fiction with Thomas Overbury’s A Wife (1614) and
Thomas Fuller’s Holy and Profane State (1642)
- Essays: first introduced by Francis Bacon.

C. Major authors
Ben Jonson (1572-1637): cavalier poet and great playwright with his comedies such as
Every Man in His Humour, which was the first of the so called ‘comedies of humors’.
Volpone, The Alchemist are two supreme satiric comedies of the English stage. Jonson
wrote for the court a series of masques, thus he became closely involving with the life of
the court, a connection which was formalised in 1616, when he was appointed poet
laureate.

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John Donne (1572-1631): metaphysical poet, Anglican priest and appointed dean of St.
Paul’s Cathedral. He produces a lot of works in his life. The major style of his works are
love poems and religious poems. His poetry demands imaginative effort of the reader, and
absorbs him in a tense, complex experience. Donne was a great churchman in the 17 th
century, but in his youth he was well known in a circle of readers for his love poems,
which circulated in manuscript and were not published until years later. In his love poetry,
he broke all traditional rules to create a new sensibility, a new kind of love poem. It is
more intimate and more personal than that of his predecessors.
Robert Herrick (1591-1674): a clergyman in Devonshire, some of his best known works
are: To the Virgins, To Daffodils. Although most of Herrick’s poems were not published
until almost the middle of the 17th century, they seem like poems of the early Renaissance.
Many of his poems represent a sense of life, a freshness, a buoyancy closer to the 16th than
to the 17th century
John Milton (1608-1674): well known for his epic poems Paradise Lost, Paradise
Regained and other works L’Allegro, Lycidas. He was also a typical prose writer. His works
fall into three groups: short poems, prose and epics, concentrated on two major themes,
politics and religion. His concept of life is one of struggle and human beings are
responsible for their actions.
 L’Allegro (the happy man) (1632) describing the joys of life in the country in
spring; outside in the field in the morning, but at home in the evening, enjoying
music and books.
 Il Pensero (the thoughtful man) (1632) the poem is set in autumn; the poet studies
during the day and goes to a great church in the evening to listen to the splendid
music.
 Lycidas (1637) is a sorrowful pastoral elegy on the death by drowning of a fellow
student at Cambridge
 Aropagitica (1664) is probably Milton’s best prose work, expressing his sincere
belief in the importance of freedom of writing and speech
 Paradise Lost (first printed in 1667) was planned in ten books, but written in
twelve. The book is about the Fall of the Angels and the Fall of Man (the story of
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden)
 Paradise Regained (published in 1671) is more severe, less splendid than Paradise
Lost; it is not about the Redemption but about the temptation in the desert. The
Son’s rejection of Satan’s offer of the (pagan) learning of Athens stands out in the
dry landscape.
 Samson’s Agonistes (1671), a tragedy on a Greek model, describes the last day of
Samson, when he is blind and the prisoner of the Philistines at Gaza.

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Richard Lovelace (1618-1658): He fought on the side of the King in the tragic civil war,
and was one of the most handsome and talented of the ‘Cavalier poets’, who wrote and
fought in a time of great public disorder and great private heroism. ‘Lucasta, Going to the
Wars’ is one of the most popular poems of Richard Lovelace.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626): an essayist vigorously and widely active in the late 16 th
centuries. He held a number of governmental positions and in 1618 was made Lord
Chancellor. His ‘Essays’ (first appeared in 1597) was written in short, sharp and effective
sentences. Some of the best-known sayings in English come from Bacon’s book. Other
books by Bacon include A History of Henry VII (1622), The Advancement of Learning
(1605). In one of his last works, The New Atlantis (1626) Bacon sketched out his ideal
scientific society.

Further reading
Corns, T. N. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry, Donne to Marvell
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Danielson, D. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to John Milton (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999).
Parry, G. The Seventeenth Century: The Intellectual and Cultural Context of English
Literature,1603-1700 (Harlow: Longman, 1989).

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 V
THE RESTORATION & THE 18th CENTURY PERIOD
(1660-1798)

A. Historical background
1660 Charles II came to the throne from exile: restoration of the English
monarchy
1665-1666 Great Plague in England
1666 Great Fire in London
1685 James II became king of England
1689 William of Orange and his wife Anne reigned England.
1707 Scotland joined England and the UK was formed
1751 The Enlightenment movement in France
1775 American Revolution
1789 French Revolution

B. Literature
 A period of novelty, change and refoundation rather than of great writing
 Chiefly a literature of wit, concerned with civilization and social relationship
 A literature ‘from the head, not the heart’
 Lyric becoming minor: reason is more important than emotion, form – more
important than content
 The development of the novel

1. Drama
- Plots, language and morals of early plays are trimmed to suit fashions
influenced by the French plays of Pierre Corneille (1616-1684) and Jean
Racine (1639-1699)
- Drama now tries to be purely comic or purely tragic
- Tragic drama is made up mainly of heroic plays in which men are splendidly
brave, and the women wonderfully beautiful
- The coming of a new kind of comedy called ‘Comedy of Manners’
- Some remarkable plays of the period are: Dryden’s The Conquest of Granada
(1670), Wycherley’s The Country’s Wife (1675), Oliver Goldsmith’s She
Stoops to Conquer (1773), Sheridan’s The School for Scandal (1777).

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 2. Poetry
- Satire in poetry could be found in John Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel
(1681), Alexander Pope’s The Dunciad (1728), The Rape of the Lock (1712-
1714)
- The invention of heroic couplet: 2 rhymed pentameters
- Poetry becomes minor in this period
- ‘The churchyard school of poets’ include Edward Young (1683-1765),
Robert Blair (1699-1746). These poets revel at great length in death and
morbidity, creating an atmosphere of ‘delightful gloom’. The trend toward this
kind of melancholy traveled to Europe and became fashionable during the
height of European Romanticism.
- Other poets of the period are: Thomas Gray (1711-1771) and his romantic
poems, William Blake (1757-1827) and his revolt against reason, and Robert
Burns (1759-1796) with his robust and passionate lyrics.
3. Prose
- This is the age of prose with many great writers of literary criticism such as
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), of philosophy- David Hume (1711-1776), of
history- Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)
- Style built upon the principle of neoclassicism: elaborately balanced use of
parallels and antitheses
- Dryden’s prose is important (Essay of Dramatic Poesie, 1668)
- The development of satire in prose: Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, A
Modest Proposal
- Diarists such as John Evelyn (1620-1706), Samuel Pepys (1633-1703)
- The emergence of novel as a new type of literature with Samuel Richardson’s
Pamela, which is in the form of letter-writing
- The development of the novel of terror (Gothic fiction) with Horace Walpole
(1717-1797) and his work The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic story (1764); Mrs
Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) and her The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
- The beginning of newspaper such as The Spectator, The Guardian
- Some important writers are: John Buynan (1628-1688), Richard Steele (1672-
1729), Joseph Addison (1672-1719)

C. Major authors
John Dryden (1631-1700): the dominant figure, writing in all contemporary forms: verse,
play, satire, translation, critical essay…An extraordinarily prolific talent, Dryden influenced
many of the great writers of the 18th century. He was made Poet Laureate in 1668. His
important works are:

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  Absalom and Achitophel (1681): Dryden’s great satire, uses a Bible story as a basis
on which to attack politicians
 Mac Flecknoe (published in 1682) a satire, turning heroic into mock-heroic, a mode
which does not ridicule heroism, but uses heroic style to belittle pretension. It is an
attack on the poet and playwright Thomas Shadwell.
 All for Love (1677-78) is written in blank verse
 The Conquest of Granada (1670): one of Dryden’s best heroic plays
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): the greatest poet of his time, the leader of neoclassical
literature. His famous works are: An Essay on Criticism (1711), The Rape of the Lock
(1712) which concerns the quarrel between two fashionable Roman Catholic families. It
starts when Lord Petre cuts off a lock of hair, which he wishes to ‘possess’, from the head
of Miss Arabella Fermor, the lady to whom he is engaged to. Pope writes the poem in mock-
epic style. An Essay on Man (1733-1734), The Dunciad (1728), A Tale of a Tub, Journal to
Stella
John Locke (1632-1704): essayist, a key figure in British cultural history. Publishing after
1689, he formulated an empirical philosophy which derived knowledge from experience
and a theory of government as a contract between governor and the governed. His Essay
concerning Human Understanding holds that knowledge comes from the reason reflecting
upon sense-impressions, and monitoring the association of ideas. This epistemology and
psychology became part of the common sense of the 18th century
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731): novelist, journalist, creator of modern novel with his story
Robinson Crusoe (1719)
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): Swift- a satirist and poet, born of English parents in Dublin
after his father’s death became Dean of Dublin’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1713. He lives
in Dublin in indignant opposition to the Whig government in London, defending Ireland
and the Anglican Church. He contributes to journals The Tattler and The Spectator. He
writes a number of pamphlets in support of the oppressed Irish . He is a passionate English
churchman, who shows integrity, courage and cunning in defending Catholic Ireland
against English exploitation. Swift defines man not as rational animal but as an animal
capable of reason. Those who have suggested that he is misanthropic have misunderstood
his irony, but he is anti-romantic, hating false hearts and false ideals.
 A Modest Proposal (1729) solves a human problem by an economic calculus which
ignores human love and treats the poor as cattle. Swift attacks the way the English
use the Irish for profit, leaving them poor and hungry.
 Gulliver’s Travels (1726) Captain Gulliver records his voyages to the lands of the
tiny people, of the giants, of experimental scientists and horses. The first two
voyages are often retold for children; the simply-told wonder-tale delights both
readers who guess at Swift’s proposal and readers who don’t.

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Samuel Richardson (1689-1761): a creator of modern novel. His works are for and about
women such as Pamela (1740), Clarissa (1747-1748)
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): poet, essayist, scholar- He is remembered for his
Dictionary of the English Language, for his novel, Rasselas (1759)
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) and his novels The Story of Tom Jones, a foundling (1749),
Amelia (1751)

Further reading
Fairer, D. and C. Gerrard (eds). Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1998).
Rogers, P. (ed.). The Eighteenth Century (London: Methuen, 1978).

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 VI

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD (1798-1832)

A. Historical background
- The Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century: the gap between
the rich and the poor, social change, unrest and turbulence
- The coming of the new middle class
1793-1815 The war between England and France: high taxes and inflation
1820 The long reign of George III ended
1832 The Reform Bill was carried out in Parliament: progress towards
democracy
The ‘Holy Alliance’ consisting of England and other European
countries: the suppression of democratic trends and revolutionary
ideas and the disillusionment in Europe

B. Literature
English Romanticism:
 Extending roughly from 1798 with the publication of the Lyrical Ballads by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, known as the Lake
Poets.
 The embodiment of disillusionment and negative attitudes towards the actual
world.
 The embodiment of the revolt against Classicism both in topic and style
 Main features of English Romanticism:
 Concept of poetry: Poetry is to express the poet’s mind and feeling 
stress on subjective emotion than reason
 Love of nature
 Sympathy of the humble common people
 Imagination to construct a fantastic dreaming world, remote in time and
place
 Return to the past (both in content and form; ballad is popular)
 Sense of melancholy and loneliness
 Love of freedom and a feeling of rebellion against tyrannical authority

28
 1. Poetry
The two generations of the Romantics
 The Conservative Trend (The Lake School)
 William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
 Against social injustice
 Frightened by bloodshed, rejecting social and economic progress
 Turning away from ideas of the Enlightenment
 Towards idealization of patriarchal feudal past and medieval
attitudes
 The Progressive Trend (The Cockney School)
 Lord Byron, Shelley, John Keats
 Criticizing the result of capitalist development
 Longing for a better present and a wonderful future
 Little interest in the past, only mindful of the present
2. Prose:
- Parallel growth, particularly in the form of personal essays and autobiographies:
Charles Lamb (1775-1834), William Hazlitt (1778-1830), Thomas De
Quincey (1785-1859)
- New themes, new approaches to the novel: it becomes the most popular, and
most highly regarded genre of literary expression.

C. Major authors
William Blake (1757-1827) He achieved little fame in his own lifetime but in the
twentieth century he came to be recognized as a poetic genius. Blake makes extensive use
of symbolism in his poetry. The volume Songs of Innocence and Experience, published
separately in 1789 (Songs of Innocence) and 1793 (Songs of Experience), and together in
1794 - abounds in images of children in a world in which people are exploited.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850): a founder of English romanticism. His important work
is The Lyrical Ballads (1798) is considered the landmark of the English romantic
movement, The Prelude (1850) -his autobiography in verse was published posthumously
(See next section for more information about Wordworth).
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): a close friend of Wordsworth. He is a poet,
literary critic, translator and theologian. His well-known works are The Ancient Mariner,
Kubla Khan (1816), Lectures on Shakespeare.
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824): is a romantic figure but his poetry is much
influenced by the classical form of Pope. He satirizes many sides of English life, and hates

29
all false and insincere talk. His reputation in Europe has always been greater than his
reputation in England.
 Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1809-1817) written in the Spenserian stanza, tells the
story of a ‘chide’ (a medieval word for a young nobleman waiting to become a
knight), who goes off to travel far and wide because he is disgusted with life.
 Don Juan (1814-1824) a long poem of astonishing adventure as well as an ongoing
series of love stories. It is a satire which attacks some of Byron’s enemies.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): a great poet, of good family, restless and rich. He
struggles against the causes of human misery and against accepted religion. His important
works are: The Necessity of Atheism, Queen Mab (1813), Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude
(1816), The Revolt of Islam (1818), Ode to the West Wind, Prometheus Unbound (1820),
Adonais (1821) (See next section for more information about Shelley)
John Keats (1795-1821): son of a manager of a London livery stable. At twenty he
qualifies at Guy’s Hospital as an apothecary – surgeon, but decided to be a poet. He died
in Rome in 1821, of tuberculosis. His main works are: Ode to the Nightingale, To Autumn,
Ode to a Grecian Urn. His last major book, The Fall of a Hyperion, is a medieval romance
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): He is both poet and novelist. He writes many poems which
glorify Scotland’s scenery and history including The Lady of the last Minstrel (1805),
Marmion (1808), The Lady of the Lake (1810). At the age of forty three, he begins to write
novels. His themes are historical, dealing with European history. His novels include Rob
Roy (1817), Ivanhoe (1819), Quentin Durward (1823)
Jane Austen (1775-1817): first important woman English novelist. She bridges the gap
between the eighteenth and nineteenth century, but she can not be assigned to any group;
she is unique Her novels show a small corner of English society as it is in her days, her
primary interest is people, not ideas, and her achievement lies in the exact presentation of
human situations, the delineation of characters who are really living creatures, with faults
and virtues mixed as they are in real life. Her prose flies easily and naturally, and her
dialogue is admirably true to life. Her great works are: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride
and Prejudice (1813), Emma (1816).
Charles Lamb (1775-1834): essayist, writer Tales Founded on the Plays of Shakespeare
(1808), Essay of Elia (1823)

Further reading
Butler, M. Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries: English Literature and its Background
1760-1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).
Wu, Duncan (ed.). Romanticism, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998)

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 VII

THE VICTORIAN PERIOD (1832-1901)

A. Historical background
1832 Reform Bill was passed
1833 Parliament abolished slavery in the Empire. Education and Factory
Acts were passed
1833 New Poor Law was passed
1837 William IV died. Queen Victoria came to the throne
1845 Potato Famine in Ireland
1851 Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace in London: a display of Britain
at the height of its wealth, power and influence
1854 Crimean War against Russia
1867 Karl Marx’s Das Kapital
1871 Darwin’s publication of ‘On the Origin of Species’
1875 Public Health Act
The growth of democracy and science became important in British
society
The increasing unemployment
The rising position of the middle class and its values
A movement spread through the country to defend the poor
1901 Queen Victoria died

B. Literature
 The trend to criticize the society and social evils: critical socialism
 The Victorian Age : primarily an age of prose rather than poetry
 Many of greatest authors are women: The Bronte sisters, George Eliot,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: a movement in art and literature which sets
about a revolution against the ugliness of contemporary life. The Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood stress their admiration for the Italian art of the period
before the High Renaissance. A mediaeval simplicity, a closeness to nature in
representational clarity, and a deep moral seriousness of intent distinguish the
Brotherhood. Nature for the Pre-Raphaelite is different from the nature of the
Romantics: there is a mysticism in it. Due to the erotic charge in Dante Gabriel

31
 Rossetti’s The Blessed Damozel (1850), which is new in Victorian verse, it
leads to accusations to obscenity when it is identified as ‘the Fleshly School of
Poetry’. Their influence, however, is stronger in the visual arts than on writing.
The poetry of Algernon Swinburne (1837-1909) brings together many of
the ideas of the Pre-Raphaelites, but more than any of the works of the Pre-
Raphaelites, his writings shock the Victorians, with their emphasis on sadism,
sexual enchantment, and anti-Christian outlook.
 Aestheticism: The Victorian Period witnesses the cult of beauty or Aestheticism. It
is not only or even chiefly a literary movement Its importance lies in a new idea:
that literature is an art, and worth living for. This idea shapes the lives of Yeats
and of Joyce, Pound, Eliot and Virginia Woolf. They quote from Walter Pater’s
Conclusion to The Renaissance (1873) – ‘the desire of beauty, the love of art for
art’s sake’
1. Drama
- The different kinds of drama: melodrama, comedy, burlesque,
- Domestic melodramas are central to the Victorian theater
- A revival of drama: the trend towards a kind of realistic drama began in the
1860s with the plays of Tom Robertson : Society (1865), Caste (1867), Play
(1868), and School (1869)
- Translation of Norwegian playwright, Henrick Ibsen (1828-1906): The Pillars
of Society, A Doll’s House, etc leading to the concept of the ‘play of ideas’
- The new flood of ideas – socialist, Fabian (Shaw’s brand of socialism), and
aesthetic – was leading to a re-evaluation of the role of artistic expression in
helping to formulate public opinion
- Oscar Wilde’s plays: brilliantly witty and epigrammatic comedies, whose
surface polish conceals considerable social concern
2. Poetry
The period of transitions
- The generation sharing romantic ferment: Lord Alfred Tennyson, Robert
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
- The second generation of nostalgia: William Morris (1834-1896), Swinburne
(1837-1909)
- The third generation of skepticism: Thomas Hardy (1840-1929), Gerald
Manley Hopkin (1844-1889)
3. Prose
- The triumph of the novel: the expansion in range and scope

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 - Major themes:
 Love of humanity and nature
 The contrast between the ‘haves’ and the ‘haves not’
 The sympathy of the misery
 The current political and social issues
 Satirizing the upper class’ pride and their hypocrisy and snobbishness,
selfishness and wickedness
- The development of fancy writing in the second half of the 19th century: new
genres of science fiction, the detective story, ghost stories, utopian writing, and
fantasy writing for children: It is the escapist search for other worlds in ways
which are to become increasingly popular in the following century (Lewis
Carroll’s, Alice in Wonderland,1865; and Through the Looking Glass,1872;
Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories (published from 1887-1927); Wilke
Collins’s The Moonstone, 1868)

C. Major authors
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) son of a famous Dublin surgeon, writes a few books of fiction,
essays and plays. He is remembered best as the author of theatrical comedies, and for the
humiliating end to his career when he was sentenced to two years’ hard labour for
homosexual offences. Wilde is a brilliantly provocative critic, but his distinction lies in his
comedies: Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and The
Importance of being Earnest. His most important novel is The Picture of Dorian Gray
(1891). His essays reveal a serious, concerned thinker behind the aesthetic masks. The
Truth of Masks (1885) and The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891) probe behind the
Victorian façade into the details and implications of some of the standard hypocrisies of
the age. He continues a realism of portrayal which the 19th century did not want to applaud
or even acknowledge.
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863): studies and describes the nobility instead
of the poor. He is a gifted parodist and a worldly ironist, sardonic if not heartless. His best-
known book is Vanity Fair (1848), describes the adventure of two girls of different sorts:
Becky Sharp, a fearless social mountaineer and Amelia Sedley, a mild, decent daughter of
a stockbroker. His other books are: The Newcomes (1853-1855), Henry Esmond (1852), and
The Virginians (1857-1859)
Charles Dickens (1812-1870): His sense of humour, keen observation and human
sympathy could be found in his works such as Oliver Twist (1838), David Copperfield
(1850), Bleak House (1853) The Pickwick Papers (1836-1837) (See next section for more
information on Dickens)
Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855): was brought up in poor surroundings. Her finest novel
,Jane Eyre (1847) is very successful although the heroine is neither beautiful nor rich. The

33
dialogue is more realistic and less formal than in many novels of the period. Shirley
(1849), is concerned with the wool industry, with riots, and with the Napoleonic wars.
Emily Brontë (1818-1848): Her work Wuthering Heights (1847) is considered one of the
greatest English novels.
George Eliot (1819-1880): was born Mary Ann Evans, daughter of a steward of a
Warwickshire estate. Her first novel, Adam Bede (1859) influenced by memories of her
childhood, reveals her great skill in characterizing and describing as well as her humour.
Other important works are: The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Maner (1861), Midlemarch
(1871-1872)
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928): His novels mainly set in Wessex, and are mostly pictures of
human beings struggling against fate or chance.
 Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) is the story of patient love on one side and
selfish passion on the other.
 The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
 Tess of d’urbervilles (1891): a deeply pessimistic novel, revealing how an
intelligent and sensitive girl can be driven to her death by a society which is narrow
in morality and in spirit.
 Jude the Obscure (1896) is his last novel, which is Hardy’s most direct attack on
Victorian chains of class consciousness and social convention
Hardy is also a prolific poet, author of some 900 poems with an extensive range of
feelings and attitudes. Some of the poems are gently ironic; some are strongly felt love
poems; some are written in a mordantly comic light verse. Some of his remarkable works
are: During Wind and Rain (1917), The Darkling Thrush (1900), The Oxen.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894): He writes a lot of essays, short stories and novels.
He rises above any attribution of his work to the field of ‘children literature’. Treasure
Island (1883) is an adventure story which is still popular until today. The New Arabian
Nights (1882) is a book of stories which almost make readers believe the impossible.
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924): was born and brought up in Poland and knew little English
when he first visited London in 1878; yet in 1895 he produced his first novel in English,
Almayer’s Folly. In his works he advocates for faithfulness between man and man. Lord
Jim is one of his greatest novels, tells the story of an Englishman who leaves a ship that
seems to be sinking and so loses his honour, but dies an honorable death later. Youth,
Typhoon, Heart of Darkness are shorter stories, but very fine works.
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892): succeeds Worsdworth as Poet Laureate in 1850. He
is mourned as ‘the voice of England’ after his death. His important works are Poems, Chief
Lyrical (1830), Ulysses (1842), The Idylls of the King (1859), In Memoriam (1833-1850), an
elegy for his friend who died at the early age of 20.

34
Robert Browning (1812-1899) and
Browning, intellect is more important
from his studies in London. In 1846
greatest poetesses, against her father’s
influences the works of both.
Elizabeth Browning (1806-1861): To Robert
than the music. His immense knowledge comes
he married Elizabeth Barrett, one of England’s
will. They live in Florence, Italy, a place which

Further Reading
Armstrong, I. Victorian Poetry, Poetics and Politics (London Routledge, 1933).
Innes, C. Modern British Drama, 1880-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992)..
Fletcher, Ian (ed.). British Poetry and Prose, 1870-1905 (Oxford: OUP, 1987).
Richards, B. (ed.). English Verse, 1830-1890 (Harlow: Longman, 1980). An annotated
anthology.
Ricks, C. (ed.). The New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse (Oxford: OUP, 1990). A fresh new
selection.
Wheeler, M. English Fiction of the Victorian Period, 2nd edn (Harlow: Longman, 1994)

35
 VIII

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY PERIOD

A. Historical background
1901 Death of Queen Victoria
1899-1902 The Boer War between British imperialists and Dutch colonialists
1902 Edward VII came to the throne on Aug.9, 1902
1910 George V reigned to 1936
1914-1918 The First World War
1916-1921 The struggle for national independence of Ireland
1923-1933 The Economic Depression: mass unemployment
1926 The General Strike
1936 George VI reigned to 1952
1939-1945 The Second World War
The declining of the British Empire as the world power
B. Literature
 Modernism: (1914-1927) ‘… is one of the key words of the first part of the
century. Among its influences were the psychological works of Sigmund
Freud and the anthropological writings of Sir James Frazer, author of The
Golden Bough (1890-1915). It is a search to explain mankind’s place in the
modern world, where religion, social stability and ethics are called into
question. This resulted in a fashion for experimentation, for the ‘tradition of the
new’ as one critic, Harold Rosenberg memorably put it. The workings of the
unconscious mind become an important subject , and all traditional forms begin
to lose their place: ‘a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in
that order’ might, half- jokingly, sum this up. What went out was narrative,
description, rational exposition: what emerged focused on stream of
consciousness, images in poetry (rather than description and narration), a new
use of universal myth, and a sense of fragmentation both of individuality and of
such concepts as space and time’.
(From The Routledge History of Literature in English, p.331)
 Logopoeia: The Modernist poet and critic Ezra Pound noted the existence of
logopoeia in modern poetry, believing it to be characteristic of much poetry in

36
 the early 20th century. Logopoeia occurs , in particular, when different layers
and levels of vocabulary are mixed in a text.
 Bloomsbury Group: a group of intellectuals, critics and artists: Lytton
Strachey (1880-1932), the biographer; John Maynard Keynes, the economist;
Roger Fry and Clive Bell, art critics; E. M. Forster (1879-1970), Virgina
Woolf and others. Bloomsbury memoirs, letters and diaries show both wit and
intelligence, and an uncommon frankness about sexual behaviour, homosexual,
bisexual, adulterous, or incestuous. Bloomsbury critics introduces Post-
Impressionism and a new formalist criticism.
1. Drama
- Great achievement with unorthodox views of society and art
- Room for social, psychological and religious debates in modern plays
- T.S. Eliot’s three plays in verse show an attempt to copy in English the form of
the plays of ancient Greece and Rome (Murder in the Cathedral, 1935; The
Family Reunion. 1939; The Cocktail Party, 1950)
- Other authors are: Terrence Rattigan (1911-1977), John Osborne (1929-
1994), Harold Pinter (1930-), Joe Orton (1933-1967), Tom Stoppard (1937-),
Alan Ayckbourn (1939-)
2. Poetry:
Different trends
- Georgian Poetry: a series of five volumes published between 1912 and 1922,
is a collection of works of a great many of the most significant poets of the time
including Rupert Brooke (1887-1915), D. H. Lawrence, Siegfried Sassoon
(1886-1967), Robert Graves (1895-) and Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918). But
they cannot be properly classified together.
- Imagism: the attempt to break away with Romantic vagueness and
emotionalism and to replace the ‘soft’, discursive narrative voice of Victorian
verse with a harder, more condensed, Imagistic language. The Imagist poets
published their first anthology Des Imagistes in 1914. Imagist poems tend to be
short, sharp glimpses, which contrast with the lushness of Romantic and
Victorian verse. Ezra Pound’s imagism calls for verbal concentration, direct
treatment of the object and expressive rhythm – as against the long-winded
rhetoric and metrical regularity of the Victorians. Other Imagists were the
American poet Hilda Doolittle and her husband Richard Aldington. D.H.
Lawrence’s poetry can frequently be considered Imagist although he is not
directly associated with the group.
- The Modern Movement: a movement from poetic diction to a new poetic
language:

37
  rejecting romantic, rhetoric and clever obscure language
 in favor of plainness, clarity and modest irony
 Philip Larkin (1922-1985), Tony Harrison (1937-), Benjamin
Zephaniah (1958-), Simon Armitage (1963-)
- Poems about World War I are written by Rupert Brooke (The Soldier, 1915),
Siegfried Sassoon (They and The General), Isaac Rosenberg, Ivor Gurney
(Severn and Somme, 1917)
- Leading British poets of the second half of the 20th century are: Stevie Smith
(1902-1971), W.H. Auden (1907-1973), R. S. Thomas (1913-), C.H. Sisson
(1914-), Peter Porter (1929-), Ted Hughes (1930-1999), Seamus Heaney
(1939-)
3 Prose
- The four main trends
 The Imperialist trend:
 supporting the idea of expansion of imperialism
 Rudyard Kippling (1865-1936), H.G. Wells (1866-1946)
 The Progressive Realistic trend:
 Displaying the contrast between the working class and upper class
 Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) ,Arnold
Bennett (1867-1931), William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)
 The Decadent Trend:
 Pessimism, lonely individualism, sympathy toward human
 The Stream of Consciousness technique: a newly developed mode of
narration, important and influential to the British novel in the 20th century
It reveals the character’s feelings, thoughts, and actions, often following
an associative rather than logical sequences, without commentary by the
author.
The technique is often confused with interior monologue, but the latter
technique works the sensation of the mind into a more formal pattern: a
flow of thoughts inwardly expressed, similar to a soliloquy. The
technique of stream of consciousness, however, attempts to portray the
remote, preconscious state that exists before the mind organizes the
sensations. Consequently the re-creation of a stream of consciousness
frequently lacks the unity, explicit cohesion, and selectivity of direct
thought.

38
 Widely used in narrative fiction, the technique was perhaps brought to
its highest point of development in Ulysses (1922) by the Irish novelist
and poet James Joyce. On a much smaller scale Virginia Woolf adopted
a similar technique. She tended to discard plot and incident, concentrating
on the analysis of individual characters by resurrecting their secret
memories and delving deep into their subconsciousness minds.
 Authors of the group: James Joyce (1882-1941), Virginia Woolf (1882-
1941), D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) ,T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
 The Socialist Realistic Trend:
 Supporting the idea of violent revolution to change social order
 Sean O’Casey, Christopher Cauldwell, Ralph Fox
- Other important authors in the late 20th century include: Joyce Cary
(1888-1957), Rebecca West (1892-1983), Elizabeth Bowen (1899-
1973), William Golding (1911-1993), Angus Wilson (1913-), Arthur
Clarke (1917-), Muriel Spark (1918-), Doris Lessing (1919-), Kingsley
Amis (1922-1993), John Wain (1925-1995), Alan Sillitoe (1928-), John
Le Carre (1931-), Margaret Drabble (1939-)

C. Major authors
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950): playwright. He was born in Ireland but spent most of
his adult life in England. His important aim is to face his audiences with completely new
points of view and ways of looking at themselves and the society they live in. He delights
in saying and showing the opposite of what his audiences expect: Arms and the Man (1898)
presents as a sympathetic figure a soldier who doesn’t want to fight. Some of his plays
show in various ways his theory of the ‘Little Force’, the power that drives people to value
life as a great gift and fight for a better world. Pygmalion (1912) is his most popular play
because it is the basis for the musical play and film ‘My Fair Lady’. He also writes Man
and Superman (1903), Caesar and Cleopatra (1901).
Sean O’Casey (1880-1964) is an Irishman, and his best-known plays set in the time of
great event s in Ireland earlier this century, but the events are always seen from the point
of view of the ordinary people. His work includes The Shadow of a Gunman (1923), Juno
and the Paycock (1924), The Plough and the Stars (1926).
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) was born in St Louis, Missouri, where his grandfather had founded
the university. The family came from New England, to which an English ancestor had
emigrated in the 17th century. After school in Boston, and Harvard University, he studied
philosophy in Marbug, Paris and Oxford. In England, he married an Englishwoman and
stayed on. After the success of The Waste Land and his criticism, he edited The Criterion, a
review, and joined the publisher, Faber. In 1927, the daring modern became a British

39
subject, and proclaimed himself ‘classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo-
Catholic in religion’. In 1984 he was awarded the Nobel Prize and the Order of Merit.
The Waste Land is ‘modern poetry’; his wartime Four Quartets were revered; his
plays ran in the West End. Cats (1981),a musical based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical
Cats (1939) has earned millions, with lyrics rewritten to turn Eliot’s nonsense for
intelligent children into singable whimsy for tired parents.
A. E. Housman (1859-1936): the son of a Worcestershire solicitor who became a clerk in
the Patent Office, yet in 1892 his learning earned him the Chair of Latin at University
College, London. A great textual critic of Latin poetry, he kept his own verse quite
separate. A Shropshire Lad (1896), the most distinct volume of the decade later became
very popular. His second volume, Last poems, appeared in 1922
W.B. Yeats (1867-1939): His poetry stretches across the whole period of the late Victorian
and Early Modern ages. There are three main stages to Yeats’s development as a poet:
- The first stage is when he is associated with the Aesthetic movement of the
1890s and the Celtic twilight – an upsurge in interest in Celtic myth and legend.
It is characterized by a self- conscious Romanticism.
- The second phase is dominated by his commitment to Irish nationalism, which
forces Yeats to search for a consistently simpler, popular, and more accessible
style, and his poetry becomes more public and concerned with the politics of the
modern Irish state.
- In the final phase of his career, Yeats reconciles elements from both his earlier
periods, fusing them into a mature lyricism. The poetry is less public and more
personal.
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) was the most famous of his day, and a sonorous public reader
of poems. He weaves phrases musical with alliteration and assonance into rhythmic lines.
His important poems are: Fern Hill, Under Milk Wood (1994). His prose Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Dog (1940), and his short stories show a gift for comedy.
Ruyard Kippling (1865-1936): was born in India and spent much of his time there. The
poems and short stories for which he is best known deal with India itself, its wild animals,
and the British army and navy. His best-known books are: The Jungle Book (1894) about
the boy Mowgli who is brought up in the jungle by wild animals but has human
personalities, and Kim (1901).
H. G. Wells (1866-1946): His characters are from a lower social level, but are given the
chance of happiness: Kipps (1905), The History of Mr. Polly (1910). Wells also uses
modern scientific advances in his novels, in a new way: The Time Machine (1895) is about
a machine that can travel through time instead of through space; The War of the Worlds
(1898) describes an attack on this world by men from Mars, who can conquer everything
except man’s diseases, The First Man on the Moon (1901).

40
John Galsworthy (1867-1933): the son of a solicitor is known for a series of novels. He is
deeply concerned with issues of class and social awareness. He is best known for his
Forsyte Saga (1906-1934), a series of nine novels which cover late Victorian days to the
early 1920s, and traces the fortunes of an upper-class English family.
William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) wrote his first novel Lisa of Lambeth in 1897.
The novel gives a realistic picture of slum life, and the novel is based on his own life. Of
Human Bondage (1915) shows the hardships and difficulties of his own early life. Cakes
and Ale is a satire on the English social and literary life of the first part of the century. He
is best known for his collection of short stories entitled Ashenden (1928). Maugham is a
sharp observer of people, and is amused by them. He wants to tell good stories rather than
to explore character deeply, and the stories often have a bitter or unexpected ending.
James Joyce (1882-1941): was born and educated in Ireland but spent most of his adult
life in France, Italy, Switzerland. (See next section for more information about Joyce).
D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930): His remarkable works are: Sons and Lovers (1913), Women
in Love (1920), The Rainbow (finished 1915), Women in Love (finished in 1916)
Lawrence is also a prolific poet, especially of nature. He ranges among descriptive
to love poetry, from light to satirical verse to philosophical meditation. (See next section
for more information about Lawrence)
Erza Pound (1885-1972) invented the influential poetic movement which he called
‘Imagism’. Regarded by many as a genius and by a few skeptics as a ‘faker’, Pound
cannot be ignored. Involved in the Imagist movement, he sets forth the doctrines of that
school, demanding of poetry that it be hard and clear, pruned of sentiment, and pruned as
well of every unnecessary word. Much of his life is spent in Italy where he develops a
poetry unique of his own- a poetry demanding vast learning and more explication than any
ordinary reader could provide. Following a trial of treason in 1945, Pound was committed
to a hospital, where he remains until 1958. Freed through the efforts of Robert Frost and
others, Pound lives in seclusion in his beloved Italy.
Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923): Born in New Zealand and educated at Queen’s
College in London. Despite her obvious talent, she spent years in poverty and ill-health
with only a few published stories to her credit. In 1911 she met the critic John Middleton
Murry - who was later to become her husband, and together they planned their literary
lives. Many of her notable short stories set in her native New Zealand. Real success did
not come to her until 1920 when Bliss and Other Stories was published
Virginia Woolf (1892-1941) is the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, critic, rationalist,
scholar and founder of the Dictionary of National Biography. Viginia Woolf’ s novels
ignore external social reality except as it constitutes the phenomena of personal
consciousness. Woolf explores a world of finely registered impressions – an interior,
domestic, feminine world. Her fiction has a mode of sensibility which she thinks
distinctively feminine. Her first novels are relatively traditional in form, but she later

41
rebels against what she calls the ‘materialism’. Her characteristic method appears in her
third novel, Jacob’s Room (1922). She renders the flow of experience through a stream of
consciousness technique, but her work is also characterized by an intensively poetic style.
She utilizes poetic rhythms and imagery to create a lyrical impressionism in order to
capture her characters’ moods with great delicacy and details. Her important works
include:
 Mrs Dalloway (1925): Woolf’s first ‘impressionist’ novel devoted to a day in the
life of Clarissa Dalloway. Her interior monologue is set against those of others,
including that of a shell-shocked survivor of the war.
 To the Lighthouse (1927) Woolf’s subjective apprehension of time is imposed
through the tripartite structure of the novel, in which two long days are separated
by ten short years. There is the plot, sidelined in parentheses but indispensable.
 A Room of One’s Own (1928) traces the history of women’s contribution to English
literature with fine judgement.
 The Waves (1931)
Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966): the greatest English comic novelist of the century. His most
characteristic novels are very satirical, with comically unsympathetic characters who are
often cruelly described, and stories that are amusing and often completely impossible to
believe. Waugh’s world is as mad as well as depraved, but he doesn’t convey a hope that
it may change for the better. His work may be divided into two periods: in the first period,
he writes brilliant satires on the lives of the wealthy upper classes, in the second period he
explores the place of Catholicism in the modern world with deep seriousness while always
retaining a satirical eye for human absurdity. His best known earlier novels are Decline
and Fall (1928), Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and
Scoop (1938)
Graham Greene (1904-1991) was a journalist, a film critic, an Intelligence officer and a
traveler and usually sets his fiction in far-off places. All are written with chameleon skill,
keeping to the rules of the genre and talking on the colouring of the place, though the
place is never a good place. Greene writes sparsely with a firm narrative line.
His first success is his fourth novel, Stamboul Train (1932); his other works are: A
Burnt Out Case (1961), The Potting Shed (1958), The Power and the Glory (1940), The
Heart of the Matter (1948), The Quiet American
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) was born in Ireland but spent his adult life in France. His
famous play Waiting for Godot (1954) is one of the most influential works in English
written this century. It describes the essence of human condition. His other plays are
Endgame (1957), Krapp’s Last Tape (1959), In Happy Days (1961)
Irish Murdoch (1919-1999): born in Dublin and educated in England, she lived in Oxford.
She is the author of valuable essays in moral philosophy and aesthetics, dealing with

42
serious moral questions in a mode touched by fantasy. Her first novel is Under the Net
(1954). Both Under the Net and The Black Prince (1973) show the struggle between the
pressure to tell the truth on one hand and the need for imagination to make life bearable
on the other. The other important novel is The Bell (1958). Iris Murdoch’s verve and charm
win for her a large audience, but the novels are more sophisticated than satisfying.

Further Reading
Bergonzi, B. Heroes’ Twilight: A Study of the Literature of the Great War, 2nd edn (London:
Constable, 1980).
Bergonzi, B. Reading the Thirties: Texts and Contexts (London: MacMillan,1978).
Bradbury., M. The Modern British Novel (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994).
Corcoran, N. English Poetry since 1940 (Harlow: Longman, 1993).
Cunningham,V. British Writers of the Thirties (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
Fussel, P. The Great War and Modern Memory (Oxford: Oxford University press, 1975).

45
 PART II

46
47
 William Shakespeare
(1564 – 1616)

...When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
(Sonnet 18)

48
49
 BIOGRAPHY
William Shakespeare was born to John Shakespeare and mother Mary Arden
some time in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. There is no record of his
birth, but his baptism was recorded by the church, thus his birthday is assumed
to be the 23 of April. His father was a prominent and prosperous alderman in
the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, and was later granted a coat of arms by the
College of Heralds. All that is known of Shakespeare's youth is that he
presumably attended the Stratford Grammar School, and did not proceed to
Oxford or Cambridge. The next record we have of him is his marriage to Anne
Hathaway in 1582. The next year she bore a daughter for him, Susanna, followed by the
twins Judith and Hamnet two years later.
Seven years later Shakespeare was recognized as an actor, poet, and playwright, when a
rival playwright, Robert Greene, referred to him as ‘an upstart crow’ in ‘A Groatsworth of
Wit.’ A few years later he joined up with one of the most successful acting troupes in
London: ‘The Lord Chamberlain's Men’. When, in 1599, the troupe lost the lease of the
theatre where they performed (appropriately called ‘The Theatre’), they were wealthy
enough to build their own theatre across the Thames, south of London, which they called
‘The Globe.’ The new theatre opened in July of 1599, built from the timbers of ‘The
Theatre’, with the motto ‘Totus mundus agit histrionem’ (A whole world of players). When
James I came to the throne (1603) the troupe was designated by the new king as the
‘King's Men’ (or ‘King's Company’). The Letters Patent of the company specifically
charged Shakespeare and eight others ‘freely to use and exercise the art and faculty of
playing Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Interludes, Morals, Pastorals, stage plays ... as
well for recreation of our loving subjects as for our solace and pleasure’.
Shakespeare entertained the King and the people for another ten years until June 19,
1613, when a canon fired from the roof of the theatre for a gala performance of Henry
VIII set fire to the thatch roof and burned the theatre to the ground. The audience ignored
the smoke from the roof at first, being too absorbed in the play, until the flames caught the
walls and the fabric of the curtains. Amazingly there were no casualties, and the next
spring the company had the theatre ‘new builded in a far fairer manner than before’.
Although Shakespeare invested in the rebuilding, he retired from the stage to the Great
House of New Place in Sratford that he had purchased in 1597, and some considerable
land holdings, where he continued to write until his death in 1616 on the day of his 52nd
birthday.

50
The complete works of

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Comedy History Tragedy Poetry

All's Well That Ends Well Henry IV, part 1 Antony and The Sonnets
As You Like It Henry IV, part 2 Cleopatra A Lover's
The Comedy of Errors Henry V Coriolanus Complaint
Cymbeline Henry VI, part 1 Hamlet The Rape of
Love's Labours Lost Henry VI, part 2 Julius Caesar Lucrece
Measure for Measure Henry VI, part 3 King Lear Venus and Adonis
The Merry Wives of Henry VIII Macbeth Funeral Elegy by
Windsor King John Othello W.S.
The Merchant of Venice Richard II Romeo and Juliet
A Midsummer Night's Richard III Timon of Athens
Dream Titus Andronicus
Much Ado About Nothing
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Winter's Tale

51
THE SONNET FORM
A sonnet is a fourteen-line lyrical poem, traditionally written in iambic pentameter.
The sonnet form first became popular during the Italian Renaissance, when the poet
Petrarch published a sequence of love sonnets addressed to an idealized woman named
Laura. The sonnet spread throughout Europe to England. In Elizabethan England, the
sonnet was the form of choice for lyric poets, particularly lyric poets seeking to engage
with traditional themes of love and romance.
Two kinds of sonnets have been most common in English poetry, and they take their
names from the greatest poets to utilize them: the Petrarchan sonnet and the
Shakespearean sonnet.

The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet

It was practiced extensively by the Italian poet Petrarch and the English poet Philip
Sidney. It consists of two parts:
- Octave or Octet :a group of 8 lines, using two rhymes arranged in the pattern of
abbaabba
- Sestet: a group of 6 lines, using either 2 or 3 rhymes arranged in the pattern of
cdcdcd or cdecde
The division between the octet and sestet could be made by means of:
 Rhyme scheme
 A space in printing
 Division in thought:
 When the octet presents a situation, the sestet gives a comment
 When the octet puts forward an idea, the sestet provides an example
 When the octet is a question, the sestet is the answer

The English or Shakespearean Sonnet

It was invented by the English poet Surrey, but was made famous by Shakespeare.
The English sonnet can be divided into 3 quatrains and one ending couplet, following the
pattern of abab cdcd efef gg.
There is a correspondence between the units marked off by the rhymes and the
development of the thought as follows:
 When the quatrains are three examples, the couplet is the conclusion
 When the quatrains are three metaphorical statements of one idea, the couplet is the
application

52
 THE SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE

The collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets appeared in 1609, but it was not known
whether the poet authorized the publication or not. There are 154 sonnets in all and there
are several clear signals of departure from convention. The sequence falls into two
sections, each of which pushes aspects of the convention beyond normal limits.
The first 126 poems are written to a man, ‘a fair youth’.
Sonnets 127-152 celebrates the so-called ‘dark lady’, who is presented in a way that
stands in marked contrast to idealized poetic mistresses, muses, and so on. The ambiguous
relationship the speaker, the young man, and the Dark Lady takes on the nature of an
emotional triangle in which as sonnet 144 suggests the speaker is torn between the love
for the young man and the love for the woman who appears to have seduced him.
Shakespeare’s young man remains as purely aesthetic as he is anonymous. How the
sonnets related to the real world is always problematic, elusive, mystifying. It has been
suggested that in the Sonnets, Shakespeare developed a novel way of representing human
consciousness, of depicting an inner life. ‘They throb with a new metrical energy, they
explore a new emotional range, they wrestle with the implications of a new language, and
they enact new dramas within their exact , fourteen-line structures. Above all, they suggest
that the faults which make and mar human buoyancy lie not in the stars, not in a particular
unattainable star, but in ourselves’. (Andrew Sanders, p. 144)

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 That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou seest the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

NOTES
may’st: (archaic) may
see’s: (archaic) see
doth: (archaic) does
thou: (archaic) you
perceiv’st: (archaic) perceive
thy: (archaic) your

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 QUESTIONS
Part A
1. How do the images in the first stanza appeal to readers’ senses?
2. What season is referred to? What is it compared to?
3. Are there birds singing ‘upon these boughs’ at the moment? Why/why not?
4. What part of the day is mentioned in the second stanza? What metaphor is used here?
5. According to Shakespeare’s speaker what does ‘night’ take away?
6. What is Death’s second self?
7. Explain the phrase ‘seals up in rest’. What is the dual meaning of ‘rest’?
8. What part of a man’s lifetime is referred to in the stanza? What is it compared to?
9. What does ‘his’ refer to?
10. What is the fire lying on?
11. In what ways are the ashes compared to the deathbed of a man?
12. What is the implication of the verb ‘expire’?
13. What is the message the speaker wants to give in the final couplet?
14. What are the repeated words in the poem?
15. Scan the poem for the use of alliteration, assonance.
16. Do the rhymes and organisation of thoughts in the stanzas satisfy the requirements of
structure in a sonnet?
17. What are the metaphors and similes used in the sonnet?

Part B
1. In what ways is the poem a progression in imagery in terms of time?
2. What is the counter movement in each stanza and in the whole poem in terms of
duration?
3. Is the poem utterly pessimistic or is there a lessening movement of optimism in each
stanza?

Sources:
http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/works.html
http://shakespeare.about.com/library/weekly/aa092701a.htm#time
http://charon.sfsu.edu/sh731.html
http://stellar-one.com/poems/shakespeare_william_-sonnet_73.html
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/default.asp#
http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/
http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/

55
 John Donne
(1572 – 1631)

56
57
 BIOGRAPHY
John Donne was born in Bread Street, London in 1572 to a prosperous Roman
Catholic family, a precarious thing at a time when anti-Catholic sentiment was
rife in England. His father, John Donne, was a well-to-do ironmonger and
citizen of London. Donne's father died suddenly in 1576, and left the three
children to be raised by their mother, Elizabeth, the daughter of John
Heywood, epigrammatist, and a relative of Sir Thomas More.
Donne's first teachers were Jesuits. At the age of 11, Donne and his younger
brother Henry were entered at Hart Hall, University of Oxford, where Donne
studied for three years. He spent the next three years at the University of Cambridge, but
took no degree at either university because he would not take the Oath of Supremacy
required at graduation. He was admitted to study law as a member of Thavies Inn (1591)
and Lincoln's Inn (1592), and it seemed natural that Donne should embark upon a legal or
diplomatic career.
In 1593, Donne's brother Henry died of a fever in prison after being arrested for
giving sanctuary to a proscribed Catholic priest. This made Donne begin to question his
faith. His first book of poems, Satires, written during this period of residence in London, is
considered one of Donne's most important literary efforts. Although not immediately
published, the volume had a fairly wide readership through private circulation of the
manuscript. Same was the case with his love poems, Songs and Sonnets, assumed to be
written at about the same time as the Satires.
Having inherited a considerable fortune, young "Jack Donne" spent his money on
womanizing, on books, at the theatre, and on travels. He had also befriended Ben Jonson.
In 1596, Donne joined the naval expedition that Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, led
against Cádiz, Spain, and the following year joined an expedition to the Azores, where he
wrote "The Calm". Upon his return to England in 1598, Donne was appointed private
secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, afterward Lord
Ellesmere.
Donne was beginning a promising career. He sat in Queen Elizabeth's last
Parliament, for Brackley. But in 1601, he secretly married Lady Egerton's niece,
seventeen-year-old Anne More, daughter of Sir George More, Lieutenant of the Tower,
and thereby ruined his own worldly hopes.
During the next few years Donne made a meager living as a lawyer, serving
chiefly as counsel for Thomas Morton, an anti-Roman Catholic pamphleteer, later Bishop
of Durham. Donne may have collaborated with Morton in writing pamphlets that appeared
under Morton's name from 1604 to 1607. Donne's principal literary accomplishments
during this period were Divine Poems (1607) and the prose work Biathanatos

58
(posthumously published 1644). In the latter he argued that suicide is not intrinsically
sinful.
As Donne approached forty, he published two anti-Catholic polemics Pseudo-
Martyr (1610) and Ignatius his Conclave (1611). They were final public testimony of
Donne's renunciation of the Catholic faith.

59
 Busy old fool, unruly Sun,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?

Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late school-boys and sour prentices,

Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,

Call country ants to harvest offices;

Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong

Why shouldst thou think?

I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,

But that I would not lose her sight so long.

If her eyes have not blinded thine,

Look, and to-morrow late tell me,

hether both th' Indias of spice and mine

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 Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.

Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,

And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

She's all states, and all princes I;

Nothing else is;

Princes do but play us ; compared to this,

All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.

Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,

In that the world's contracted thus;

Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be

To warm the world, that's done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;

This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

NOTES
As with others of Donne’s Songs and Sonnets, this poem cannot be dated
accurately. This poem is one of Donne’s most optimistic and also one of his best. The
conceit he uses here is to address the sun directly, reprimanding it for interrupting the
nighttime pursuits of the poet and his lover

dost: (archaic) do
thou: (archaic) you; thy: your
thine: yours
‘prentices: apprentices
offices: (archaic) duties
clime: climatic region, zone
shouldst: (archaic) should
leftst: (archaic) left
saw’st: (archaic) saw
shalt: (archaic) shall
art: (archaic) are

61
QUESTIONS
Part A
1. What is the setting of the poem?
2. In what sense is the sun “busy”, “unruly” and “pedantic”. Does the I-speaker welcome
the visit of the sun? Why/why not?
3. Who is subject to the sun’s activities?
4. According to the speaker why is he more powerful than the sun?
5. Why doesn’t the man want to blink? What does this detail suggest to readers about his
love for the lady?
6. Where is his lady? What is she compared to?
7. In his fantasy what does the man visualize himself and his lover as?
8. Explain the phrase ‘Princes do but play us’.
9. What has made him think that honour and wealth are not real? What does it have to do
with the word ‘alchemy”? What does he mean by saying ‘this’ in the phrase “... as
compared to this”?
10. What are the sun’s duties?
11. Why can the sun perform its duties by shining only the lovers?
12. Why is the bed considered the center of universe?
13. Find examples of ‘conceits” in the poem.
14. What figure of speech is used in the opening lines of the poem? Find examples of other
uses of figurative language.
15. Do the lines have the same number of syllables? What does the general rhythm
suggest?
16. What is the predominant foot used in the poem? Give examples of variations.
17. Does the poem have a fixed rhymed scheme?
18. What musical devices are used in the poem?

Part B
1. Was it a conventional attitude towards a heavenly object in the 17th century when the
sun was addressed to as “a busy old fool”?
2. To what extent is the poem erotic and daring?
3. Does he describe the physical characteristics of his lover? Why/why not?
4. Is it common for lovers of all times and everywhere to consider themselves the center
of universe?
5. What is the dichotomy Donne wants to highlight?
6. What do you think about the speaker and his love?

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