INTRODUCTION
 The aim of this course is to introduce students to the main literary
periods, movements and authors of the English –speaking cultures,
as well as the historical context of literary development. This
overview is a necessary part of the academic education of the
students.
 This overview shall be dealing primarily with literature from
Britain, as the one having the longest history.
 The course will also make an outline of American literature and
literature of other English-speaking countries.
 The title of the course refers to the literature written in English,
which includes authors not necessarily from England: e.g. Joseph
Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, E.A. Poe, T.S. Eliot
and Henry James were Americans, James Joyce was Irish, Vladimir
Nabokov was Russian, V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad, Salman
Rushdie is Indian, Kazuo Ishiguro is Japanese, etc.
 Literature is inseparable from the language, since the
development of English is reflected on literature; on
the other hand, literature helped spread the English
language throughout the globe.
 The use of literary sources in teaching EFL is of
immense worth – it provides context for the use of
language – context is what most learners need
 The introductory class shall briefly outline the
historical development of English, as the medium of
literature.
 Old English is often erroneously used to refer to any form of English
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other than Modern English. The term Old English does not refer to
varieties of Early Modern English such as are found in Shakespeare or
the King James Bible, nor does it refer to Middle English, the language
of Chaucer and his contemporaries. The following timeline helps place
the history of the English language in context. The dates used are
approximate dates. It is inaccurate to state that everyone stopped
speaking Old English in 1099, and woke up on New Year's Day of 1100
speaking Middle English. Language change is gradual, and cannot be as
easily demarcated as are historical or political events.
450–1100 Old English (Anglo-Saxon) – The language of Beowulf.
1100–1500 Middle English – The language of Chaucer.
1500–1650 Early Modern English (or Renaissance English) – The
language of Shakespeare.
1650–present Modern English (or Present-Day English) – The
language as spoken today.
 The Celtic Britons cca. 400 BC –almost no trace in English except place names,
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often Romanized (the river Avon, London (Londinium-lond, Old Irish ‘wild’)
Roman invasion in 55 BC – place names (chester, street). Province of Brittania
Withdrawal of Roman legions in 410 AD
Anglo-Saxon invasion in 449 AD – Germanic tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes
from present-day Denmark and north Germany and Belgium. They spoke
Anglo-Saxon, a proto-Germanic dialect called Proto English. It had lots of
inflections for tenses, grammatical gender and 7 cases. from various parts of
what is now northwest Germany and the Netherlands. Initially, Old English
was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon, eventually came
to dominate.
The Celtic tribes were driven to Cornwall, Wales and Scotland, ‘the Celtic
Fringe’. Celtic languages had almost no influence on Anglo-Saxon. The Celts
were either conquered or went into hiding into mountainous regions of Britain.
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The English language arrived into Britain on the point of a sword. The Anglo-Saxons were
warriors, well-known for their taste for terror and violence. They had no interest for
either Celtic languages or their culture. To this day, the gap between the English, on the
one hand and the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish on the other, remains huge.
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The Anglo-Saxons set up 7 kingdoms in Britain. Although the Celts at first called them
Saxons, about 150 years after the first raids, the term Anglii and Anglia crept into usage.
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Old English did not sound or look like the Standard English of today. Any native English
speaker of today would find Old English unintelligible without studying it as a separate
language. Nevertheless, about half of the most commonly used words in Modern English
have Old English roots. The words be, strong and water, for example, derive from Old
English
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Next influence on the language was the introduction of Christianity in 6th century (Latin
vocabulary)
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The raids of the Norsemen (Vikings) in the 8th century. They spoke Old Norse. AngloSaxon lost grammatical gender and marked case (with the exception of the pronouns).
English words of Old Norse origin include anger, bag, both, hit, law, leg, same, skill, sky,
take, and many others, possibly even including the pronoun they.
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This blend of Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse language is called Old English. The most
famous work is Beowulf
Hwæt! Wē Gār-Dena in geārdagum,
þēodcyninga,
þrym gefrūnon,
hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scēfing sceaþena þrēatum,
monegum mǣgþum,
meodosetla oftēah,
egsode eorlas.
Syððan ǣrest wearð
fēasceaft funden, hē þæs frōfre gebād,
wēox under wolcnum,
weorðmyndum þāh,
oðþæt him ǣghwylc
þāra
ymbsittendra
ofer hronrāde
hȳran scolde,
gomban gyldan. Þæt wæs gōd cyning
Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the
athelings won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he
throve,
till before him the folk, both far and near,
who house by the whale-path, heard his
mandate,
gave him gifts: a good king he!
 The Norman Conquest in 1066. The invaders from France spoke the
Norman language.
 This continued for some 300 years. The kings and high nobility spoke
Norman French, and the people Old English. A tendency for Normanderived words to have more formal connotations has continued to the
present day; most modern English speakers would consider a "cordial
reception" (from French) to be more formal than a "hearty welcome"
(Germanic). Another example is the very unusual construction of the
words for animals being separate from the words for their meat: e.g.,
beef and pork (from the Norman bœuf and porc) being the products of
'cows' and 'pigs', animals with Germanic names.
 In the course of time, the two languages began to mix, making Middle
English.
 In 13th century the works in Middle English began to appear, the most
famous being The Canterbury Tales, by Chaucer.
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the
roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
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Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
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Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open yë
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
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Glossary:
soote: sweet
swich licour: such liquid
Zephirus: the west wind
(Zephyrus)
eek: also (Dutch ook; German
auch)
holt: wood (German Holz)
the Ram: Aries, the first sign of
the Zodiac
yronne: run (German gerannt)
priketh hem Nature: Nature
pricks them
hir corages: their hearts
 The Great Vowel Shift 15th century a major change in the pronunciation
of the English language that took place in the south of England
between 1450 and 1750
 The values of the long vowels form the main difference between the
pronunciation of Middle English and Modern English, and the Great
Vowel Shift is one of the historical events marking the separation of
Middle and Modern English. Originally, these vowels had "continental"
values much like those remaining in Italian and liturgical Latin.
However, during the Great Vowel Shift, the long vowels became
diphthongs, e.g. moon, stone, time
 The surprising speed and the exact cause of the shift are continuing
mysteries in linguistics and cultural history, but some theories attach
the cause to the mass migration to the southeast part of England after
the Black Death, where the difference in accents led to certain groups
modifying their speech to allow for a standard pronunciation of vowel
sounds. The different dialects and the rise of a middle class in London
led to changes in pronunciation, which continued to spread out from
that city.
 The sudden social mobility after the Black Death may have caused the shift,
with people from lower levels in society moving to higher levels (the pandemic
also having hit the aristocracy). Another explanation highlights the language of
the ruling class: the medieval aristocracy had spoken French but by the early
fifteenth century they were using English. This may have caused a change to
the "prestige accent" of English, either by making pronunciation more French
in style or by changing it in some other way, perhaps by hypercorrection to
something thought to be "more English" (England being at war with France for
much of this period). Another influence may have been the great political and
social upheavals of the fifteenth century, which were largely contemporaneous
with the Great Vowel Shift.
 Because English spelling was becoming standardized in the 15th and 16th
centuries, the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for many of the peculiarities of
English spelling. Spellings that made sense according to Middle English
pronunciation were retained in Modern English because of the adoption and
use of the printing press, which was introduced to England in the 1470s by
William Caxton.
Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning how the Heavens and Earth
Rose out of chaos: or if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle Flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount, whyle it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
 1650 – PRESENT DAY
 n 1755, Samuel Johnson published the first significant
English dictionary, his Dictionary of the English Language.
 The main difference between Early Modern English and
Late Modern English is vocabulary. Late Modern English
has many more words, arising from two principal factors:
firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology created a
need for new words; secondly, the British Empire at its
height covered one quarter of the Earth's surface, and the
English language adopted foreign words from many
countries.
The evening arrived: the boys took their places; the master in his cook's uniform stationed
himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was
served out, and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared, the
boys whispered each other and winked at Oliver, while his next neighbours nudged him.
Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger and reckless with misery. He rose from the
table, and advancing, basin and spoon in hand, to the master, said, somewhat alarmed at
his own temerity—
"Please, sir, I want some more."
The master was a fat, healthy man, but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied
astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the
copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder, and the boys with fear.
"What!" said the master at length, in a faint voice.
"Please, sir," replied Oliver, "I want some more."
The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle, pinioned him in his arms, and
shrieked aloud for the beadle.