ENGLISH LITERATURE FOR YEAR 6
JSG Maimonides
7 PERIODS:
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Old English Period (or Anglo-Saxon Period) 700 -1066
Middle English Period 1066-1500
Renaissance Period 1500-1650
Classical Period 1650-1790
Romantic Period 1790-1830
Victorian Period 1830-1914
Modern Period 1914-now
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The Old English Period (700-1066)
Historical background
Romans left Britain 5th century, Britain was prosperous
Suffered from invasions from Northern tribes (Picts)
Turned to Germanic tribes for help (Angles, Saxons, Jutes of Germanic origin)
Picts were defeated; Angles, Saxons, Jutes settled permanently in Britain
Together these tribes are called the Anglo-Saxons
Conversion to Christianity (St Augustine sent from Rome by the Pope in 597)
Christian poetry
Oral literature, alliteration, no end-rhyme
Literature
Beowulf :
 C8
 Men only
 epic poem (about war/death/glory) = a long poem about the adventures of a great hero
( cf. the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer)
 to be recited from memory
 no rhyme but alliteration (different versions because of oral tradition)
 two half lines in each line
Beowulf is a story about a terrible monster (Grendel) in Denmark. The monster is so horrible
that nobody dares to fight it. Then a brave hero ( Beowulf) from Sweden hears about the
monster, travels to Denmark and fights the monster and the monster’s mother and kills them.
Beowulf then returns to Denmark and later he becomes King.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (in prose) (C9 – C12)
 started in C9 by King Alfred
 a log written by monks, kept for hundreds of years
 a history book in which important events were written down
 about conversion to Christianity by foreign missionaries in C7 & C8
 about battles against the Danes (Vikings) in C9 and C10
Cf: http://heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-text.html (Beowulf in OE and MoE)
www.tha-engliscan-gesithas.org.uk/readings/readings.html (the ‘scop’)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13cES7MMd8 (Beowulf opening lines)
www.britannia.com/history/docs/asintro2.html (The AS Chron. in MoE)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0740IaLscZQ&feature=related (Angles, Saxons and
Jutes)
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The Middle English Period (1066-1500)
Historical background
1066 The Norman Conquest: William the Conqueror was victorious in Battle of Hastings
(Bayeux Tapestry)
Norman (French) influence, French became official language
End of Anglo-Saxon culture and literature
Writers used Latin or French
By C14 integration: One people One language: Middle English
Medieval society was dominated by the Church
Earthly life = a journey to heaven
Literature
Poetry: Alliteration replaced by end-rhyme, fixed syllable patterns
Courtly love, women got prominent, were honoured, idealized, respected, written about.
Romances: a story (in poetry or prose) about the adventures and love affairs of knights
 Sir Gawain & the Green Knight (poetry) (check youtube for lots of videos)
 The Morte d’Arthur (prose)
( id.)
Ballad: a song, transmitted orally, which tells a story
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400): The Canterbury Tales about a group of about 30 people
on a pilgrimage from London to Canterbury. A frame story ( just like the Decameron or
the Arabian Nights)
Drama: first performed by priests in church based on Bible stories. Later developments:
other stories, other people, also outside church,
In C15 morality plays developed. In a morality all characters are personified abstractions
(e.g. Hope, Despair, Good Deeds) In the play they are persons who talk, think etc.
Everyman is a morality play. (cf. Dutch Elckerlyc)
Cf: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtGoBZ4D4_E&annotation (Bayeux Tapestry)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0MtENfOMU (GP Cant. Tales in ME)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNEWatD0viw (Bill Bailey’s ME Pubbe Gagge)
www.librarius.com (Canterbury Tales ME and MoE text & explanation)
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The Renaissance Period (1500-1650)
Historical background
Rebirth or revival of the ideas of the ancient Greeks and Romans
In Italy from C14 in Britain from C16
Elisabeth I – Elisabethan period (1575-1625),
maritime power, the defeat of the Spanish Armada
God, religion and eternal life became less prominent
No more memento mori
Now: people, the earth, earthly life, individualism
Humanism, Knowledge
Reformation (Luther)
Thomas More, executed by Henry VIII for refusing to acknowledge him
as head of the RC Church
Christopher Columbus
Copernicus (in 1543 he published his hypothesis about the solar system)
Puritans: Oliver Cromwell, the Republic (1651-1660)
1660: Restoration of the Monarchy
Literature
Drama was important: comedies (happy end) and tragedies (end in misery)
Plays were performed in real theatres
Globe theatre in London was built
Theatres: no roof, no lights, no heating
All actors were men or boys
Courtly Love Tradition
New: the sonnet (brought from Italy by Sir Thomas Wyatt)
Christopher Marlowe wrote Dr Faustus: a tragedy about a man who sells his soul to the devil
for knowledge and power for 24 years. At the end the devil returns and takes him to hell.
Blank verse, iambic pentameter.
William Shakespeare born in Stratford-on-Avon (1564 – 1616). Moved to London and
worked as an actor. Later became a playwright. Wrote 35 plays. Wrote his plays in blank
verse (= poetry without rhyme but with a certain rhythm).
He wrote:
 Comedies (Twefth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It)
 Tragedies (Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo & Juliet, Julius Ceasar)
 History Plays (Richard III, Henry IV) about English history
 Sonnets (Shakespearean sonnet, different form)
Edmund Spenser wrote sonnets and The Fairy Queen (a long poem)
John Milton wrote epic poem Paradise Lost inspired by Vergil’s Latin poem The Aeneid (cf.
Vondel’s play Lucifer). He was a Puritan (a very strict Protestant)
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John Bunyan, another Puritan, wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress (prose) which allegorizes the
doctrine of Christian salvation by telling how Christian, warned by Evangelist, flees the City
of Destruction and makes his way to the Celestial City. En route he meets such characters as
Faithful, Hopeful, and the Giant Despair.
John Donne, (The Flea) another courtier, born a Roman Catholic, later became an Anglican
preacher.
Cf: www.paradiselost.org/2-ORG-wbanner.html (Paradise lost study guide)
www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathCulture/4-14.html (Dr Faustus explained)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyZaiVvmx-s (Pilgrim’s Progress)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv5uN-dzizI (Globe Theatre)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob2kqEq20G4 (The Flea by John Donne)
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The Classical Period (1650-1790)
Historical background
1660 Restoration of the monarchy: King Charles II
Theatres were re-opened
1665 The Great Plague of London
Court Culture
Writers imitated Greek and Roman playwrights and philosophers
Rationalism: intellect & respect for rules
Town Culture (merchants) – Rise of the Middle Class (could read and write)
The Rise of the Novel
C18 Industrial Revolution
1789 French Revolution (= end of Classical Period)
Literature
John Dryden & Alexander Pope wrote intellectual and satirical poetry (around 1700).
Jonathan Swift (1700) wrote Gulliver’s Travels, a satire in prose. Check it out on youtube.
Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe (the first novel in the English language)
Samuel Richardson wrote Pamela (1740) a novel in letters which became famous all over
Europe.
Dr Samuel Johnson wrote the first Dictionary of the English Language (40,000 words)
Cf. www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_dryden.html (Dryden quotes)
www.britainexpress.com/History/Cromwell
Cf. on youtube: enV2riHwgp4 (Alexander Pope quotations)
hOSYiT2iG08 (Blackadder’s Dr. Johnson)
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The Romantic Movement (1789-1830)
Historical background
French Revolution: Liberté, Égalité. Fraternité.
Urge for freedom
Industrial Revolution: factory workers, bad conditions
working class people got some rights e.g.
Restriction of Child Labour (to 11 hours a day!!)
large reading public
Literature
Romanic characteristics:
 Imagination
 Interest in nature
 Interest in the supernatural
 Interest in the Middle Ages
 Interest in the Poor, the Children and the Countryside
 Interest in the individual
Strict rules for poetry were considered less important (unlike Classical Period).
Romantic poets: William Blake (The chimney Sweeper & The Garden of Love), William
Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley (Ozymandias),
John Keats (La Belle Dame Sans Merci)
Prose:
Jane Austen (Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, Emma)
Sir Walter Scott (Ivanhoe, a historical novel)
Mary Shelley (Frankenstein)
Cf.
www.blakearchive.org
www.wordsworth.org.uk
http://englishhistory.net/byron/contents/html
http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~djb/shelley/home.html
www.john-keats.com
www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk
Cf. youtube ncxR5JKLVA8 (Ozymandias)
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The Victorian Age (1830-1914)
Historical Background
Queen Victoria (1837-1901)
Agricultural England became an industrial nation / factories
Overpopulated cities
Social contrast: wealth v. poverty
Charles Darwin: On the Origin of Species( 1859) – Theory of Evolution
Great Age of the English Novel
Rationalism v. emotionalism
Free education for children > a mass literate population
Liberalism -> more democracy
Literature
Prose:
Charles Dickens, from a poor background himself, wrote about the poor. Oliver Twist, The
Pickwick Papers, A Christmas Carol. (flat characters) His novels made him rich and famous.
The Brontë Sisters grew up on the Yorkshire moors. Wrote passionate love stories.
Charlotte Brontë wrote Jane Eyre
Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights
Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland
Thomas Hardy wrote Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Bram Stoker wrote Dracula
Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness
Lewis Carroll and Edmund Lear wrote nonsense poetry
Poetry: Alfred Lord Tennyson (The Charge of the Light Brigade), Robert Browning
Drama:
Oscar Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest, a witty comedy about English High
Society. Also wrote a novel: The picture of Dorian Grey and poetry: The ballad of Reading
Gaol, where he spent two years in prison after having been convicted for homosexual
activities. His motto: art for art’s sake, only beauty in important.
George Bernard Shaw: Pygmalion (My Fair Lady)
Cf. www.victorianweb.org (on many authors)
www.bbc.co.uk/drama/bleakhouse/animation.shtml (good intro into Dickens)
www.wuthering-heights.co.uk (on the novel)
www.bbc.co.uk/tess/ (info, trailer, etc. of Tess of the D’Urbervilles)
Cf: youtube:
 xpYVXdpm6zg (Oliver Twist trailer)
 Jkffy377vq0 (Charge of the Light Brigade)
 zDEdd5Moffc (Pygmalion animation)
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The Modern Period (1914-now)
Historical background
Main topics: global war, radical artistic experiment and new nations (former colonies)
Britain became an urban & suburban nation
Loss of belief in absolute values & increasing knowledge
Urbanization / psychology (Freud)
Technology: the automobile, airplane, telephone, cinema
Science: from Einstein to quantum mechanics
The Russian Revolution (1917)
The Easter Rising (1916)
Development of the mass media
Compulsory elementary education (from 1918)
The fight for women’s suffrage (1928)
Britain lost an Empire
Commercialism
Communism & Marxism
First and Second World War
Interbellum: the 30s in GB were the red decade (socialism & communism)
depression, rise of fascism in Europe, the Spanish Civil War
After 1945: The Cold War
From 1969: The Irish Troubles
Pollution, the environment
Rise of the (lower) middle classes
Development of mass media
Individualism
End of the century: pluralism
Poetry:
Of greater intellectual complexity
Prose:
Beginning of C20: High modernism (complex writing)
1930-1950 social realism and moralism
end of century: postmodernism and postcolonialism
Drama:
Conventional up to 1950-60
Then: modernist experiment, theatre of the absurd, no more censorship (kitchen sink drama)
Late C19, early C20: Modernism = innovation, nothing to be taken for granted, art reflects the
complexity of life, the unconscious is important. Modernism questions all the certainties of
C19. There are experiments also in painting: Picasso, Kandinsky. In music: Stravinsky etc.
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The First World War
Literature
The War Poets: Edward Thomas, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon actually fought in
France and in their poems describe the horrors and the suffering. Thomas and Owen were
killed in action, Sassoon was badly wounded.
Other poets:
William Butler Yeats (Irish): from Victorian style poetry to realism after 1914 wrote
Leda and the Swan
Thomas Stearns Eliot: born in America, became a naturalized Englishman, lived in Britain,
intellectual poetry, The Waste Land, cynical and sceptical poem, reflecting his
disillusionment after WWI. In his kaleidoscopic poem The Waste Land there is a walk
through London.
Robert Graves: Goodbye to All That, a story about life in the trenches
Cf.
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www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/ (Everything about The Great War)
www.robertgraves.org (The Robert Graves Society)
The (20s,) 1930s (and 40s) Depression
After WWI America becomes dominant in world economy. From 1920 economic collapse.
1929 Wall St Crash, unemployment and depression.
In the 20s the American Way of Life invaded Europe: films, songs, dancing, drinks, language,
vitality.
In the 30s crisis & unemployment. In this decade: rejection of Victorian values such as the
bourgeois and philistine way of life. ( hypocrisy and puritanical narrow-mindedness) A
philistine is a person who refuses to see the beauty of art and culture.
A new method in writing was e.g. interior monologue or stream-of-consciousness technique.
Prose:
Virginia Woolf: A Room of One’s Own also wrote experimental novels
James Joyce: Dubliners & Ulysses (experimental) Ulysses was banned at first in GB and
USA. In Ulysses the protagonist Leopold Bloom walks the streets of Dublin.
D.H. Lawrence: poetry and novels
Robert Graves: Goodbye to All That & I, Claudius
George Orwell: 1984 (written in 1948)
Cf. http://web.ukonline.co.uk/rananim.lawrence/ (Fansite on Lawrence)
And on youtube: Z4rBDUJTnNU (trailer for 1984 film)
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Poetry:
T.S. Eliot: The Waste Land
W.H. Auden: Musée des Beaux Arts
Dylan Thomas (Welsh): delight in nature, countryside, energetic, exuberant.
Cf. on youtube: PyWiE1vNSxU ( Dylan Thomas reading his poetry)
Cf. www.artchive.com/artchive/B/bruegel/icarus.jpg.html (Bruegel’s Landscape
with the Fall of Icarus)
From 1940
Decline of the Empire
Welfare state
Liberalisation of sexuality
Immigration : Caribbean writers (V.S. Naipaul)
During WW II full employment, effective rationing
After WW II
expansion of secondary and university education
scholarships for working-class children
emerging self-consciousness of the working class
emergence of a distinctive youth culture
1948 Marshall Aid
50s and 60s: rebellion against establishment
Economic growth stopped by the Oil Crisis of 1973
From 1970: Irish terrorist campaign
1980: Thatcher: privatisation, trade union’s power broken, unemployment, anti-immigration
laws, market economics
Modern Times (after WW II)
Poetry - diversity: also West Indian poetry and more woman poetry
John Betjeman: (poet laureate) Slough
Philip Larkin: Myxomatosis
Ted Hughes: The Horses
Seamus Heaney (Irish poet)
On youtube: -935cbXTt_g (Betjeman’s Slough)
9NO-XOCbacI (Hughes’ Thought-Fox)
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Drama
John Osborne: kitchen sink drama = naturalistic drama expressing the social dissatisfaction
of lower-class and lower middle-class writers (Look Back in Anger 1956) an angry young
man
Theatre of the Absurd:
Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot was THE sensation of 1955 Beckett was of Irish origine
but lived in France and wrote in French.
Harold Pinter: The Birthday Party about inability to communicate
Only in 1968 end of censorship
Today film is the new theatre
Cf. zYZ7aoKFrcE (Osborne’s Look Back in Anger)
BMzl-Kgz_DI (Beckett’s Waiting for Godot)
Prose
The novel and the short story were predominant.
Also fantasy writers such as
Tolkien (Lord of the Rings)
More novelists are
Henry James – A Room With a View
E.M. Forster – A Passage to India
H.G. Wells – The Time Machine
Graham Greene – The Quiet American
William Golding – Lord of the Flies
Kingsley Amis – Lucky Jim (another angry young man)
Martin Amis
Ian McEwan
George Orwell – 1984
After 1960
Irish Troubles
Abolition of Capital Punishment
Legalisation of abortion and homosexuality
Permissive Society
Youth culture
Commonwealth writers: Nadine Gordimer, Doris Lessing, V.S. Naipaul
1982 Falkland War
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