BRITISH LITERATURE

Instructor: Nguyen T. Thuy Duong

Email: duongnguyen.gn@gmail.com
HCM City, 26 November 2020
CONTENTS

1. The Elizabethan Period

2. The Seventeenth Century Period
3. The Restoration

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QUIZ ABOUT HISTORY OF
ENGLISH LITERATURE

1. What does Great Britain consist of?

a. Northern Ireland, England and Wales
b. Scotland, Wales and England
c. Southern Ireland, Scotland and England
d. Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland

3
 What is another name for Old English?
a. Middle English
b. Anglo-Saxon, Celtic

4
 Which of the following text was composed during the Old English
Period?
a. The Canterbury Tales
b. Beowulf
c. Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge

5
Which people began their invasion and conquest of southwestern Britain
around 450?
a) the Normans
b) the Geats
c) the Celts
d) the Anglo-Saxons
e) the Danes

6
 Words from which language began to enter English vocabulary around
the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066?
a) French
b) Norwegian
c) Spanish
d) Hungarian
e) Danish

7
 What is often considered the first work of literature in the English
language?

a. The Waste Land

b. Beowulf
c. Romeo and Juliet
d. Star Wars
e. The Canterbury Tales

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Historical Period Century
1. Early settlers about 500 B.C
2. Old English period 450-1066
3. Middle English Literature 1066 – 1485
4. Elizabethan Period 1485 - 1603
5. The seventeenth Period 1603 - 1660
6. The restoration & the 18th 1660 - 1798
Centure Period
6. The Romantic Period 1798 - 1832
7. The Victorian Period 1832 - 1901
8. The twentieth century period From 1901
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 5->11C
Races Characteristics Language
Spoke
Celts Rude/tribes/primitive Celtic
Roman Civilized (law & order; Latin
language/Christianity;
religion)
Angles, Tall, fair-haired, fierce Old English,
Saxons, Jutes Anglo-Saxon

Normans From France French

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ANGLO SAXON LITERATURE
 Written in poetry
 Oral (passed to later generations by word of mouth)
 Written by anonymous authors
 Typical themes: Anglo Saxon ideals (valour, loyalty and honours) &
loneliness of the Anglo Saxons’ wandering life.

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BEOWULF
 Written version: 10c; oral version: 7c
 Introduced by the Anglo Saxon; events &
characteristics are Scandinavian
Plot:
Hero meets monster
Hero kills monster
Hero gets killed (tragic ending)

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OLD ENGLISH LANGUAGE
 Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) is an early form of the English
language that was spoken in parts of what is now England and southern
Scotland between the mid-fifth century and the mid-twelfth century. It is
a West Germanic language and therefore is closely related to Old Frisian
and Old Saxon.
 An interesting study has shown that 62% come from Old English; 31%
come from French; 3% come from Latin and the small residue comes
from various North of Old English

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A GOOD EXAMPLE OF THIS LONG
PROCESS OF SIMPLIFICATION

OLD ENGLISH MIDDLE ENGLISH MODERN ENGLISH

Singular Singular Singular
haefde hadde had

Some of the irregular form of present English such

as the plural en in oxen and children are survivals
from Old English inflections

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OLD ENGLISH
 Germanic origins
The most important force in shaping Old English
was its Germanic heritage in its vocabulary, sentence
structure and grammar which it shared with its sister
languages in. continental Europe.
This Germanic basis for English can be seen in much
of our everyday vocabulary – compare heart (OE
heorte), come (OE cuman) and old (OE eald) with
German Herz, kommen and alt.

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Many grammatical features also date back to this time: irregular
verbs such as drink ~ drank ~ drunk (OE drincan ~ dranc ~
(ge)druncen) parallel German trinken ~ trank ~ getrunken.
Like other West Germanic languages of the period, Old English
was fully inflected with five grammatical cases, which had dual
plural forms for referring to groups of two objects (but only in
the personal pronouns) in addition to the usual singular and
plural forms. It also assigned gender to all nouns, including
those that describe inanimate objects: for example, sēo sunne (the
Sun) was feminine, while se mōna (the Moon) was masculine (cf.
modern German die Sonne vs. der Mond).

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OLD ENGLISH
Latin influence:
 A large percentage of the educated and literate population ( monks, clerics, etc.)
were competent in Latin, which was the lingua franca of Europe at the time. The
Norman Conquest approximately marks the end of Old English and the advent of
Middle English.
Viking influence:
 The second major source of loanwords to Old English were the Scandinavian
words introduced during the Viking invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries. The
influence of Old Norse on the English language has been profound: responsible
for such basic vocabulary items as sky, leg and the modern pronoun they.
Celtic influence & dialects
 The number of Celtic loanwords is of a remarkably lower order than either Latin
or Scandinavian.

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EXAMPLES OF OLD ENGLISH
OLD ENGLISH MODERN ENGLISH
singan sing
stod stood
ondswareede answered
onslepte asleep
seah saw
hydre heard
gelimplice suitable
neata cattle
swefn dream
beloden entrusted

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OLD ENGLISH GRAMMAR
 Old English is not dependent upon S (subject), V (verb), O
(object) or SVO order. The syntax of Old English sentence
can be in any of these shape: SVO order, VSO order, OVS
order. For example, in the sentence “in the town, we ate
some food”, it could appear as “in the town ate we some
food”, or “in the town, ate some food we”.

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ANGLO-SAXON QUOTATION
 “Man appears on Earth for a little while, but we know
nothing of what we went _______this life and what
_______________” (King Alfred’s chief man)
 “English Literature is older than _______” (Edward J.
Gordon)
 “They spoke their poetry as they learned it or invented it, by
_____, not by _______” (Edward J. Gordon)

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ANGLO-SAXON QUOTATION
 “Man appears on Earth for a little while, but we know
nothing of what we went before this life and what follows”
(King Alfred’s chief man)
 “English Literature is older than books” (Edward J. Gordon)
 “They spoke their poetry as they learned it or invented it, by
heart, not by eye” (Edward J. Gordon)

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MIDDLE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE
 Middle English’ – a period of roughly 300 years from around 1150 CE
to around 1450 – is difficult to identify because it is a time of transition
between two eras that each have stronger definition: Old English and
Modern English.
 The difference between Old and Middle English is primarily due to the
changes that took place in grammar. Old English was a language
which contained a great deal of variation in word endings; Modern
English has hardly any. And it is during the Middle English period that
we see the eventual disappearance of most of the earlier inflections, and
the increasing reliance on alternative means of expression, using word
order and prepositional constructions rather than word endings to
express meaning relationships.

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VOCABULARY AND THE FRENCH
INFLUENCE ON MIDDLE ENGLISH

 The French influence on English in the Middle Ages is a consequence

of the dominance of French power in England and of French cultural
pre-eminence in mainland Europe in areas such as law, architecture,
estate management, music and literature. According to the Oxford
English Dictionary, by the end of the Middle English period around 30
per cent of English vocabulary is French in origin.

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THE OPENING OF THE
CANTERBURY TALES
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour…

[When that April with his showers sweet

The drought of March hath pierced to the root
And bathed every vein in such liquor
Of which virtue engendered is the flower...]

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Some French loanwords in Middle English:
authority, baron, chancellor, adultery, lieutenant

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TRANSLATE FROM MIDDLE ENGLISH
TO MODERN ENGLISH

She hath myn herte in holde

Wherever she ride or go
With trewe love a thousand folde
(My life is faren in Londe)

She holds my heart

Wherever she rides or walks
With true love a thousand times

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ELIZABETHAN (/ɪˌLɪZƏˈBIːΘN/) PERIOD
(1485 - 1603)
1485: Henry Tudor became king as Henry VII, ending the War of
Roses
1509: The accession of Henry VIII
1517: The Protestant Reformation began
1534: Henry VIII became Supreme Head of the Anglian Church
1553 – 1558: The religous conflicts between the Roman Catholic and
the Protestant under the reign of Queen Mary I.
1558: Elizabeth I asceneded the throne and maintained social stability.
1588: Spanish Armada defeated by the English fleet
1603: Dealth of Elizabeth I; ascension of James I, the first Stuart King

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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. The Renaissance was led
by humanists, scholars and poets. The invention
of printing contributed to the spread of ideas.
The notable writers of the Renaissance in
England: Admund Spencer, Sir Philip Sidney,
Shakespeare and Sir Francis Bacon.
 Humanism: The cultural and literary movement
that spread through Western Europe in the 14th and
15th centuries.
Elizabethan Period
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DRAMA
 In late 15th century, there were plays with secular
plots and characters in elaborate verse style.
 The invention of short plays called “Interludes”.
 The golden age of English drama with a lot of great
playwrights such as Christopher Marlowe, William
Shakespeare.

Elizabethan Period
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POETRY
 Generally less important than drama.
 Two most important poets were Sir Philip Sidney and
Edmund Spencer.
 Three chief forms of poetry which flourished in the
Elizabethan Age:
1. Lyrics, 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).
2. The sonnet (/ˈsɒnɪt/): a 14 line poem with a certain
pattern of rhyme and rhythm.
3. Narrative poetry: a narrative poem that tells a story.
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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 (a large number of alliteration, similes
and long & complicated sentences). Robert Greene
and Thomas Nashe (1567 - 1601) are among the
first novelists of the time -> Elizabethan novels are
of little value on the whole.
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MAJOR AUTHORS
 Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1593): the first great English
drammatist and most important Elizabethan dramatist. He
gave to the English popular theater the foundation upon
which Shakespeare was to build.
 William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616): playwright and poet,
recognized in much of the world as the greatest of all the
dramatists
 The Earl of Surrey (1514 - 1547)
 Thomas Wyatt (1503 - 1542)
 Admund Spencer (1552 - 1599)
 Sir Philip Sidney (1554 - 1586)
 Thomas More (1478 - 1535)
Elizabethan Period
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THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
PERIOD (1603 - 1660)
1603: Dealth of Elizabeth Tudor and the accession of James Stuart
1620: The search for religious freedom in America and Holland
1625: Dealth of James I and the accession of Charles I
1630: The spilt between the King and Parliament
1642: Outbreak of English Civil War and the closing 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

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LITERATURE
DRAMA
 Public theatres flourished under Charles I until Parliament closed them in
1642.
 The emergence of comedies with inimitable verse and imagination

 The coming of tragicomedies

POETRY
 Epic poetry
 The lyrical poetry:
 Metaphysical poetry:
 Neoclassical poetry or Cavalier poetry

PROSE

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METAPHYSICAL POETRY
(THƠ SIÊU HÌNH)
 Abundant use of far-fetched metaphors and images
called “conceits”
 Daring, colloquial, passionate
 Against accepted rules of poetic rhythm diction
 Deliberately rough meyer with short syllables,
irregular spaced as in every speech

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NEOCLASSICAL POETRY OR
CAVALIER POETRY
(Tân cổ điển)
 Admiration of ancient classics
 Restrained language and feeling to achieve
precision and brevity
 Strong syntactically, i.e. Closely knit grammar
 Use of balanced, parallel and antithetical phrases

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PROSE
 Becane 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

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MAJOR AUTHORS
 Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637): cavalier poet and great playwright with his
comedies such as “Every Man in His Humour”
 John Donne (1572 - 1631): metaphysical poet, Anglican priest and
appointed dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
 Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674): a clergyman in Devonshire, some of his
best known works are: To the Virgins, To Daffodils
 John Miltion (1608 - 1674): well known for his epic poems Paradise
Lost, Paradise Regained and other works :L’Allegro, Lycidas
 Richard Lovelace (1618 - 1658)
 Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626)

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POETRY
 Poetry (the term derives from a variant of the Greek term, poiesis,
"making") is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities
of language—such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre—to
evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible
meaning.

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TYPE OF POETRY
 Narrative poetry:  Lyric poetry: defined as subjective
poems, often brief that express the
- Epic: a long narrative poem that feelings and thoughts of a single
records the adventure of a hero speaker.
whose exploits are important to the
history of a nation
- Ballad: meant to be sung or recited
- romance: adventure is a central
feature

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ELEMENTS OF POETRY
 Voice: conveys the poem’s tone,
implied attitude towards its subject
 Imagery: an image is a concrete
representation of a sense
impression, feeling or idea
 Sound: rhyme(vần), alliteration
(lặp âm đầu), assonance (trùng âm)
 Rhythm (nhịp): regular recurrence
of the accent or stress in a poem or
song.
 Meter (phách) is determined by
the pattern of stronger and weaker
stresses in the syllables composing
the words in the verse line
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FOOT (ÂM TIẾT)
 A foot is the combination of a strong stress and the associated weak stress
or stresses which make up the recurrent metric unit of a line.
 4 standard feet:
1. Iambic/aɪˈæmbɪk/ : a light syllable followed by a stressed syllable
It came upon a midnight clear
2. Anapestic/ˌænəˈpestɪk/ : 2 light syllables followed by a stressed syllable
In the blink of an eye
3. Trochaic/trəʊˈkeɪɪk/ : a stressed followed by a light syllable
Hold your horses
4. Dactylic/dakˈtɪlɪk/ : a stressed syllable followed by 2 light syllables
Easy come, easy go

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STANZA/'STÆNZƏ/ (KHỔ THƠ)
 A grouping of the verse lines in a poem set off by a space in the printed
text

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