History of British
Literature
A Brief Outline of British Literature
 I. The early and Medieval literature
1. Beowulf
2. Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury
Tales
 II. The English Renaissance (1485-1603)
1. Edmund Spencer’s Faerie Queen
2. Francis Bacon’s Essays
3. William Shakespeare’s dramas
III. The
century (1603-1660)
1. The English Revolution
2. John Milton’s Paradise
Lost
3. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s
Progress
th
17
 IV. The Restoration and the 18th Century
(1660-1798)
1. enlightenment
2. neo-classicism:
a. John Dryden’s dramas
b. Alexander Pope’s The Rape of
the Lock
c. Richard Steele and Joseph Addison’s
essays
d. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary
3. rise of the novel writing:
a. Daniel DeFoe’s Robinson Crusoe
b. Janathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
 V. The Age of Romanticism (1798-1830)
1. Pre-Romanticism :
a. William Blake
b. Robert Burns
c. William Wordsworth
2. Romanticism
a. P. B. Shelley
b. G. G. Byron
c. J. Keats
3. Jane Austen’s novels
 VI. The Victorian Age (1832-1901)
1. industrial revolution
2. realism
a. Charles Dickens
b. Thomas Hardy
c. Bronte sisters
d. George Eliot
3. aestheticism
a. Oscar Wilde
 VII. The 20th century (1901-)
1. two world wars
2. modernism
3. psychological fiction and stream of
consciousness
a. D. H. Lawrence
b. James Joyce
c. Virginia Woolf
4. poetry
Early and Medieval English Literature
1.The early inhabitants in England (today) were Britons, a tribe of Celts,
which was primitive people, living in tribal society. [Britain: the land
of Britons.]
2.The Roman Conquest
In 55 B.C., Julius Caesar invaded Britain. “ I see, I go, I conquer.”
1) Roman mode of life came across to Britain:
theaters; baths conquerors
native Britons  slaves
2) London became an important trading center.
3) Christianity was introduced to Britain.
4) Roman Empire began to decline at the beginning of 5C.
In 410 A. D. all the Roman troops went back to the continent and never
returned. The Roman occupation ended.
3. The English Conquest
swarms of pirates invaded Britain simultaneously:
In the 7th century, seven kingdoms  a united kingdom:
“England”, “the land of Angles”, with Angles the most
numerous and a language “ Anglo-Saxon”= “Old English”.
The tribal society  feudalism, “kingship”
4. Religion
Anglo-Saxons were heathen people.
Anglo-Saxons believed in old mythology of Northern
Europe.
In the 7th century, Anglo-Saxons were Christianized.
Three tribes:
Angles
in the east;
Jutes in the
southeast;
Saxons
in the south
5. “Beowulf”
 for hundreds of years, it passed from mouth to mouth,
written down in the 10th century.
 3,000 lines long poem of Old English.
 700 – 750 AD, sung by minstrels to the chiefs and
warriors in feasting hall
plot: nephew of King of Geats in Denmark  hearing King of Danes in
great trouble  Grendel, a monster carries away King of Danes’
warriors from a hall  Beowulf sails for Denmark with 14
companions  after a feasting welcome, Beowulf and 14 men lie
down in the hall waiting for the monster  Beowulf grapples the
monster single-handed, hand to hand combat, the monster retreats
mortally wounded  the monster’s mother the she-monster comes to
avenge the death, Beowulf following the bloody trail to a lake 
Beowulf plunges into water, finds her, follows her into a hall under
the waves  by chance finding a big sword left by giants of old time
 Beowulf cuts off her head and the monster’s too. After a
celebration, Beowulf sails home to Geats land and becomes king and
reigns over his people for 50 years.
A fire dragon comes out of its den and belches forth its fire to burn the
people old Beowulf bids farewell and goes to seak the dragon with
11 companions.  single-handed fighting, the sword failing to bite,
Beowulf is enveloped in flames.  at last the dragon is killed. But the
hero is hopelessly wounded.  the poem ends with the funeral of the
hero.
Prototype: folk legends of
primitive Northern tribes
living in impenetrable
forests, they had to fight
against beasts. They were
brave but superstitious.
6. The Norman Conquest establishment of
feudalism in England.
 In 1066, Duke William came and got crowned as
king of England.
 High hand rule:
 Normans= master=speak French=writing in Latin
and French
 Saxons=servant=Old English= no written
literature.
 In the Anglo-Norman period, the prominent kind
of literature, Romances, were at first all in French.
 At the end of the 14th century, English became
Dominant once more.
7. The Romances
 a long composition, sometimes in verse, or in
prose, about a knight, a man of noble birth,
skilled in weapons, riding forth to seek
adventures, taking part in tournaments, fighting
for his lord in battles, devoted to the church and
king.==== chivalry.
e.g.
“Adventures of King Arthur and his Knights of the
Roundtable”
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”
 Romances were composed for the noble, of the
noble and by the poets patronized by the noble.
8．English Ballads
 literature of English people (peasants), not
written but oral.
 a story told in song, usu. In 4-line stanzas, with
the 2nd and the 4th lines rhymed.
 Subjects: young lovers’ struggle against feudalminded families; conflict between love and
wealth; cruelty of jealousy; criticism of the civil
war (1337~1377 between England and France.);
matters of class struggle.
Eg.
 Robin Hood Ballads: most important.
9 Chaucer(1340-1400) and
The Canterbury Tales(1387-1400)
founder of English poetry.
founder of English realism.
the first great poet writing in the English
language.
1. Life experiences
2. Career experiences
3. Masterpiece
Life experiences
 son of a wine merchant who had connections
with the Court
 to France at 19 on Hundred Years War (13371453)
 to Italy on diplomatic missions twice
 to be appointed as controller of customs at
London
 to be M.P for Kent in 1386
 to die in 1400, buried in Westminster Abbey,
thus founding the “Poets’ Corner
Career experiences
 In France. connection with the court, love of
French poets. The Romaunt of the Rose 《玫瑰传
奇》translated from French.
 In Italy. studying the poems of Dante, Petrarch,
Boccaccio, all writers of the Renaissance period.
An ardent admirer of Latin authors prevailing in
the Middle Ages
 In England. creating in his native language.
The Canterbury Tales purely in English.
The Canterbury Tales
1.



outline:
On a spring evening, at the Tabard Inn (泰巴旅店), at the South
end of London Bridge, Chaucer meets 29 pilgrims ready for
Canterbury and he joins them.
Suggested by the host of the inn, each is to tell 2 stories going and
2 returning. The best teller will be treated with a fine supper at the
end. The host will be the judge.
As a gigantic plan, 124 stories should be told but only 24 were
written. But these tales cover practically all the major types of
medieval literature: a. country romance; b. folk tale; c. beast
fable(神话); d. story of travel and adventure; e. saint’s life; f.
allegorical tale（寓言）; g. sermon; h. alchemical account（炼丹
术）; i. others.
2. features:
 All tales but two are written in verse (poetry);
 Connected in two ways: the host’s criticizing; intimate connection
between the tales and the Prologue.
 in order to get a better understanding of each tale, readers have to read
back the corresponding portion of the Prologue.
3. the Prologue:
 a framework for the tales;
 The 30 palmers represent all classes of the English feudal society except
the royalty and the poorest peasant. There are knight, squire（治安官）,
prioress（女尼）, proprietor（经营者）, tradesman, drunken cook,
humble plowman, doctor, lawyer, monks, nuns, priests, summoner,
sailor, miller, carpenter, yeoman（自耕农）, an Oxford scholar, and in
the center of the group, the wife of Bath, who is the owner of a large
cloth factory.
 A miniature of the English society of Chaucer’s time.
 Of all the tales, those of the knight and the wife of Bath are among the
Chaucer’s Contribution to English literature
 introduced ( from France) the rhymed stanza of
various types esp. the rhymed couplet of 5
accents in iambic meter ( heroic couplet) instead
of the old alliterative verse.
 established English as the literary language of the
country.
 made the dialect of London the standard for the
modern English speech.
Reference websites
http://www.librarius.com/cantales.htm
http://www.siue.edu/CHAUCER/