ENGLISH
LITERATURE
UNIT 1: An
introduction to English
Literature
Ms. Trần Thị Diệu Long
An overview of the main periods
No
Main periods
1 Old English Periods
2 Middle Age Period
Century
5th – 11th
11th- 15th
3
4
5
6
Elizabethan Age
Puritan Age
Enlightenment
Romanticism
16th
17th
18th
Late 18th
7
8
Realism
Realism
19th
20th
Typical works or authors
Beowulf (anonymous)
The Canterbury Tales by G.
Chaucer
William Shakespeare
John Milton
De Foe and J. Swift
Robert Burns and W.
Wordsworth
Charles Dickens
H.G. Well, S. Maugham, G.B.
Shaw
English Literature in the Old English
period
Historical background
1. From 43 – 410 AD, Romans occupied England. Latin was used.
2. From 450, the Angles and Saxons conquered Britain and settled
there.
3. In 1066, the Normans conquered Britain.
4. English literature had its beginning with the first long poem in
English Beowulf during this Old English Period lasting from the 5th
century to the time before the Norman Conquest (1066).
Image adapted from Alexander, M. (2013). A history of English literature.
Beowulf
Beowulf is the oldest surviving long narrative poem in
Old English, making it a crucial text for understanding the
development of the English language and early English
literature.
Beowulf has significantly influenced later writers,
particularly J.R.R. Tolkien, who drew inspiration from the
poem's themes and characters for his own works in The
Lord of the Rings.
- A young warrior named Beowulf who helped Hrothgar,
the King of Danes, to kill a monster called Grendel.
- Beowulf killed the monster and its mother.
- Then he became king.
- At last, when he killed a fiery dragon, another enemy,
he was wounded and died.
Middle English period
1. Lasted from the 11th century to the 15th century.
2. Began with the Norman Conquest in 1066 (the 11th century)
made by a foreign king of Norman origin named William The
Conqueror.
3. The Saxon English existed in parallel with the Latin of the
clergy and the French of the Normans.
4. The most distinguished poet of this period is Geoffrey Chaucer
(1340-1400), the father of English poetry with the Canterbury
Tales. His work helped the English language become the
language of the nation.
Canterbury Tales
• The Canterbury Tales is a
collection of 24
stories written in Middle
English by Geoffrey Chaucer
between 1387 and 1400.
• The stories of the Pilgrims on
their way from an inn to
Canterbury, a holy place, and
back. Their stories show a clear
picture of England in the 14th
century.
Pilgrims leaving Canterbury, 1455-1462, unknown author
The Elizabethan age (the 16th century)
1. England became the first-rate European power
under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (15331603), Queen of England and Ireland (15581603). At that time, her country was called Merry
England (the development of the economy→ the
development of culture and other social aspects).
2. This was also the time of the Renaissance
and the Reformation in literature and the age of
great playwrights.
3. The climax of this period is William
Shakespeare, the greatest playwright of the age.
Queen Elizabeth I, Queen of England
and Ireland (1558-1603)
William Shakespeare
Shakespeare was born in 1564 in
Stratford-Upon-Avon and died in
1616. He wrote 37 plays including
comedies, histories and tragedies.
Some of his famous plays are:
- Hamlet, Othello, King Lear…
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the
Merchant of Venice…
The famous saying commonly quoted
from his play Hamlet is “To be or not
to be; that is the question.”
The Puritan age (the 17th century)
1. Began in 1626 (the 17th
John Milton (second from left) meeting Galileo
(right), oil painting by Solomon Alexander Hart,
1847.
century).
2. It was the age of religious
and political controversy
3. The main figure of this age is
John Milton (1608-1674), a
blind poet. His great poems
are Paradise Lost and
Paradise Regained.
The Enlightenment age (the 18th
century)
1. Marked by the scientific and technological
revolution in England and France.
2. Rationalism prevailed and influenced writers.
3. Writers mocked at Puritanism through satires
and saved people from somber religion of
Puritanism in the 17th century.
4. Prose fiction or the novel is one prominent
feature of this period.
5. Two typical figures of this age are:
- Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) with Robinson
Crusoe.
- Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) with Gulliver’s
Travels.
Romanticism (the late 18th century)
1. In 1789, William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
published with Coleridge a book of lyrical poetry The
Lyrical Ballads, which became the manifesto of the
new movement.
2. The principles of Romanticism are that:
- poetry should take ordinary life as its subject.
- it should be written in the language of ordinary men
and women.
- nature is the most suitable subject for poetry.
3. This is the period of great poets. A lot of poets
appeared in literary circles. We can’t help mentioning:
- Robert Burns (1759-1796): the greatest writer of
song lyrics written in the Scottish dialect.
- William Wordsworth (1770-1850): a nature poet.
Prose in Romanticism
•
•
•
Jane Austin, painting by James
Andrews, 1870
New themes, new approaches to the novel: it
becomes the most popular, and most highly
regarded genre of literary expression.
Major authors: Charles Lamb (1775-1834),
Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859), Jane Austen
(1775-1817)
Jane Austen: first important woman English
novelist. Her novels show a small corner of
English society as it is in her days. 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).
The Victorian Age (The 19th century)
1. Primarily an age of prose rather than poetry.
2. The trend to criticize society and social evils:
critical socialism.
3. Many of the greatest authors are women: The
Bronte sisters, George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett
Browning.
4. Aestheticism: Literature is an art, and worth
living for. This idea shapes the lives of Yeats and
of Joyce, Pound, Eliot and Virginia Woolf.
5. Aestheticism and Modernism: While Aestheticism
emphasized beauty and artistic autonomy,
modernism took these ideals and applied them
to the complexities of the modern world, often
questioning traditional forms and exploring the
psychological and social realities of the era.
The Twentieth Century
The English literature in the 20th century
lays more emphasis on:
- realism and philosophy of life.
- social reflection and showing life as it is.
- changes in life and thoughts that are
brought about by the two world wars.
Some typical figures:
- H.G Wells (1866-1946) with The Time
Machine.
- Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) with Of
Human Bondage.
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950): a
playwright with Man and Superman.
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 associative rather than logical consequences, without
commentary by the author.
Thank You