A. PALEOLITHIC TRIBES
 Stone Age
 left no written literature or history
B. CELTS ( Central Europe during the Iron Age)
 Celtic (language)
1)Goidels or Gaels
Ireland
2) Britons/ Brythons or Cymry
invaded Britain
Characteristics/ Contributions to Literature of the CELTS
classes of poets (The Bards)
sang songs in praise
Two passions-- to fight well& talk cleverly
fierceness in battle, art and poetry, great respect for
women, high sense of personal honor
C. BELGAE ( Germanic Race during the first Century B.C.)
Agricultural economy of the islands
Cultivation of valleys
D. ROMANS
In 55 BC Julius Caesar crossed the English
Channel
400 years after, large part of Britain was occupied
& ruled by Romans
Emperor Claudius established Roman rule in
Britain in 43 A.D.
Contributions of the Romans
Established law and order
Erected walls to the country from the barbarous tribes of the north
Built roads, walled towns, stone forts, &other structures such as
temples and baths
*About 410 A.D. the Roman government was forced to withdraw the
Roman troops from Britain. Hence, the early literature shows few
traces of the Roman occupation
D. THE ANGLO-SAXONS 449 A.D. (Angles, the Saxons,& the
Jutes )
From Denmark & from the other parts of Germany
Semi-agricultural, semi-nomadic
Lived in wooden houses - tun (town) ham (house) , or
wic
Passion: War &love for freedom
Eorlz - the ruling class
Ceorlz - herdsmen
Thanes
- tiller of the soil
Witan - assist the king
Formation of Structured Kingdoms
Northum Bria & Mercia
- formed by the Angles
Essex &Wessex
- formed by the Saxons
Kent
- settled by the Jutes
*The country became England from Angle-land (Land of the
Angles)
E. THE SCANDINAVIANS (NORTHMEN or VIKINGS)
They cared nothing for Christianity and learning
because they were Pagans
They destroyed many valuable libraries and literature
didn’t appear until after Alfred the Great became the king
in 871.
King Alfred the Great (871)
the most excellent Anglo-Saxon ruler
Lawmaker and patron of literature
proposed that the students be educated in Old
English and those excelled would go on to learn
Latin.
invited scholars from Europe and Wales to
promote literature and the arts
Contributions to Literature
1. Epic and War poetry
BEOWULF: c. 1000

Written in alliterative verse and uses kennings, as does
Caedmon’s Hymn. An epic poem in the elegiac mode.

Deals with the Danish King, Hrothgar, whose court is
attacked by the monster Grendel and his mother, who kill
Many of the kings men.

Beowulf , a young Great, comes boasting to Hrothgar’s
court, and avenges these deaths by fighting Grendel and
his mother, receiving rich rewards from Hrothgar—his ringbearer—for these deeds.
He then fights a dragon to save his own people, but dies in
slaying it. The poem ends in a lament for Beowulf.
2) Anglo-Saxon Chronicles ( Earliest English History)
series of rough notes jotted down by the monks of
various monasteries
work attributed to Alfred the Great
*Saint Augustine – was sent by Pope Gregory to preach
Christianity in England
3) Christian Literature
Caedmon- the father of English song made Famous by
his work, “Hymn”
Caedmon Hymns – the oldest piece of verse in English
language
Cynewulf - 9th Century poet came form the Kingdom of
Mercia
Venerable Bede (greatest of the Latin writers)Ecclesiastical History of the English people -Tone of
*Anglo- Saxon literature- generally dignified and rather
gloomy
Effects of Christianity
 Scribes began to translate the bible and to compose literature to Latin
and in Anglo-Saxon
 Christianity & literature flourished in Britain specially in the North
 Monasteries became the haven of literature and the Arts
 Monks gathered ancient folktales of the Anglo-Saxons.
England’s oldest literature grew out of confluence of two traditions: pagan and
Christianity.
Pagan represents the poetry which the Anglo-Saxons probably
brought with them in the form of oral sagas.
Christian represents the writings developed under teaching of the
monks.
• Their writings stressed the love of battle, fidelity to one’s lord, and
the implacability of faith
Forms of Literature
1) Epic
2) Lyric Poetry: rude stanzas, elegiac
• Tone is generally dignified and gloomy
• First literary works are preserved in the “Exeter book.”
Norman conquest led by William of Normandy “The
Conqueror”
EFFECTS/INFLUENCES

Love of law and order

William drew up the code of laws and prepared the Domesday Book
w/c includes a gigantic survey of all the real estate & other taxable
property of England

great increase in the growth and importance of towns in England

French or Anglo- Norman which is based on Latin.

Many words were introduced.

English grammar was simplified.

Standard English language
Writers and their Contributions
1) Geoffrey of Monmouth
- History of the Kings of Britain
2) Geoffrey Chaucer
- “ The Father of English Poetry”
- The Canterbury Tales
7) Sir Thomas
- Malory Le Morte D’ Arthur
3) The Pearl Poet
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knights
4) William of Malmesbury
-
8) First version of Piers
Plowman
5) Roger Bacon
6) John Wycliffe
– first complete translation of
- the Bible into the English language
GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1343 – 1400)
The Canterbury Tales (1380s)
24 tales and a framing prologue that sets up the fiction of pilgrims
meeting at a tavern as they begin their pilgrimage to the shrine
of St. Thomas a Becket in Canterbury.
Each agrees to tell a tale. The tales are inked by prologues. The
narrator begins the prologue by describing the fine April day and
each of the pilgrims in his entourage.
Some characters: Knight, Miller, Wife of Bath, Prioress, Nun’s
Priest, Squire, Reeve, Pardoner, Summoner, Cook, Man of Law,
Oxford Scholar, etc.
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT(1375 – 1500)
Written by the unknown “Pearl poet,” who also wrote the
allegorical dream-vision poem, “Pearl.”
Arthurian Romance in Alliterative Verse Involves Sir Gawain’s
quest to confront the Green Knight, who has disrupted Arthur’s
court. The Green Knight may represent fertility. Gawain’s
chastity is tested by his host’s wife, who tries to seduce him.
Gawain fails his test of trust by taking the girdle the woman
offers him; it has protective power. The host turns out to be the
shape-shifting Green Knight, who spares Gawain’s life in a
beheading game. He Gives Gawain a green girdle as a token of
G’s weakness and need for forgiveness.
Literature
1. Histories
2. Romances – pose and verse (Metrical Romances)
3. Tales
4. Dramas
5. Lyric poetry
6. Ballads
RENAISSANCE LITERATURE (1485 – 1660)




“Renaissance” means “Rebirth”--Rebirth of interest in the
Greek and Latin classics.
Emphasis on humanistic education for statesmanship
Focus on the individual and a concern with the fullest
possible cultivation of human potential through proper
education
Focus on individual consciousness and the interior mind
concern with the refinement of the language and the
development of a national, vernacular literature
Reformation- movement that aimed for reformation in the Roman Catholic
church which gave rise to the Protestant domination empowered by
Martin Luther.
1. Sir Thomas More
- “The Man of Renaissance” & Lord Chancellor
- Utopia
2. Sir Philip Sidney
- finest product of Renaissance culture in England
Tudor Literature
Courtly Literature - romantic by nature
Citizen literature – more realistic by nature
Prose
Poetry
Sonnet
Drama
Henry VII
Henry VIII
Humanism
Defender of
the Faith
Anglican Church
Italian Writers
First Printing Press

Outburst of creative energy/ overflowing with vigorous life

Great variety of almost unlimited creative force

Dominated mainly by the spirit of Romance

Full of dramatic action

Period of experimentation

Largely influenced by the literature of Italy

Literary spirit was all-pervasive ( authors were men)
1. Edmund Spenser - The Faerie Queene
2. Sir Walter Raleigh - The Nymph’s Reply To The
3. John Lyly
Shepherd
- used euphemism as a style
4. Sir Philip Sidney - Sonnet Forty One
5. Francis Bacon – Of Studies
6. William Shakespeare - The Immortal Playwright
7 . Christopher Marlowe - The Passionate
Shepherd to His Love
ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND
(1558 – 1603)
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
 The Shepheardes Calender (1579). Written in
Imitation of Vergil’s Ecologues, the Calender has an
ecologue for each month of the year.
Ecologue = a short pastoral poem written as a
dialogue or soliloquy. Conversations among
shepherds and rustic folk.
8 . Ben Jonson
-“1st Poet Laureate”
- To Celia
- Masques, a new type of comedy
9 . John Donne
10. Ronald A. Knox
- “Father of Modern Writers”
- Translator
- Paul’s Speech at Athens
11. Edmund Campion – the Brag
Drama- crowning
glory of the
Renaissance
Essay
Prose
Lyric poetry
The Bible
Translations
King James Bible –protestants
Douay-Reims Version – Roman
Catholics
The Book Of Psalms
The Sonnet
Queen Elizabeth
Great Armada
Era of Discovery & Exploration
Authors were men
Outburst of Creative Energy
1. Francis Bacon
- “Forerunner of the Essay”
2. King James
- “Finest Translator of the Bible”
- Bible
3. John Milton
- “Greatest Puritan Pamphleteer”
- Paradise Lost
- On His Blindness
4. John Bunyan
- The pilgrim’s Progress
5. John Dryden
- “Greatest Satirist of the Period”
- “ Literary Dictator of the Restoration Period”
- Alexander’s Feast & Absalom & Architophel
6. Samuel Pepys
- “Greatest Diarist”
- The London Fire
Metaphysical Poetry
Satirical
Drama
Essay
Ode
Diary
Bible
Leader of the
Republican Commonwealth
Oliver Cromwell
Charles II
Merchant Class
Protestants
Pseudo-Classical
AUGUSTAN AGE
1. Daniel Defoe
- Shaped modern Journalism
- The Apparition of Mrs.Veal
2. Jonathan Swift
- “The Greatest Genius of the Age”
- “The Greatest English Satirist”
- Life with Giants
AGE OF POPE
Alexander Pope
- An Essay on Criticism
- Supreme in Epigrams
- Chief representative of Pseudo - Classicism
- “Dictator of Neo - Classic Poetry
Joseph Addison
- The Spectator
- “Literary Dictator of the Age”
Richard Steele
- Editor of the London Gazette
- Tatler
AGE OF JOHNSON
Samuel Johnson
- “ Chief English Man of Letters”
- Dictionary
James Boswell
- Representative of the modern method
of accurate Biographical Writing
- Life of Johnson
Edward Gibbon
- “Greatest of all Biographers”
- The History of Eighteen Century Literature
Pseudo - Classicism
“Cogito ergo sum”
Reason & Formalism
1. William Wordsworth
- The Tables Turned
- The World is too much with us
2. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Kubla Khan
3. Walter Scott
- Ivanhoe & Ave Maria
4. George Gordon, Lord Byron
- The Eve of Waterloo
4. Percy Bysshe Shelley
- To a Skylark
5. John Keats
- Ode To a Nightingale
6. Charles Lamb
- A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig
Age of Liberty
Imagination
Romanticism &
Exaggerated Romanticism
Feelings/Emotions
Revolt Against Artificiality
The Rediscovery of Old Ballads
Other Significant Person
Jean Jacques Rousseau
- “ Father of Modern society”
1. Thomas Carlyle
-The Storming of the Bastille
2. Alfred Tennyson
- Break, Break, Break
3. Robert Browning
- My Last Duchess
4. Rudyard Kipling
- Recessional
5. Elizabeth Barret Browning
- How Do I Love Thee
6. Christina Rossetti
- Up - Hill
7. Jane Austen
- Sense and Sensibility
Queen Victoria
Industrial Revolution
Oxford Movement
Catholic Revival
Democracy on the March
It marked the occasion when the world paid
homage to ENGLAND as the WEALTHIEST, the
most SECURE, the most LIBERAL, and the most
POWERFUL NATION of the WORLD.
1. John Galsworthy
- Quality
2. Katherine Mansfield
- Taking the Veil
3. Bryan MacMahon
- By the Sea
4. Sheila Kaye-Smith
- Superstition Corner
5. Lytton Strachey
- Queen Victoria’s Marriage
6. Thomas Hardy
- The Man He Killed
7. William Butler Yeats
- Lake Isle of Innisfree
8. T. S. Eliot
- Journey of the Magi
9. John Masefield
- A Consecration
10. Dylan Thomas
- Reminiscences of Childhood
11. Gilbert Keith Chesterton
- The Romance of Orthodox
12. Ronald Duncan
- The Winslow Boy
Atomic Age
The Rise of Labor party
Political and Social Changes
Socialism
World Wars
Era of Change
Surrealism
Loneliness & Isolation
Significant Insights
1. People are unaffected by the issues/problems and yet, they are
concerned.
2. Maturity begins when one has undergone struggles in life.
3. The creativity of the person can be polished through hardships &
sacrifices.
4. Literature serves as a mirror of one’s weaknesses & strengths
5. Failures lead to success & triumphs.
6. Literature must serve as a unifying factor to attain harmony.
Significant Insights
7. Your country dictates who you are.
8. An individual is molded by the events in
becoming real person, true to his convictions
& genuine in her commitments.
9. History teaches lessons that an individual
should learn from them.
10. Man’s growth & success is not solely based
on his past.