Timeline of British Literature

Old English - Renaissance Literature

680- 1660

Old English Literature: c. 680- 1066

658-680 Caedmon’s “Hymn”—earliest poem in Englishrecorded in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (completed in 731). The first vernacular poem in

English. Alliterative verse. Uses compound words or kennings.Nu sculon herigean heofonrices Weard(Now we shall praise Heaven-Kingdon’s Guardian,)

Meotodes Meahte and his modgethanc

(The Measurer’s Might and his mindthoughts,)

Weorc Wuldor-Faeder swa he wundra gewhaes

(The work of the Glory-Father when he of wonders had,)

Ece Drihten or onstealde.(eternal Lord, established the beginning.)

He aerest sceop eorthan bearnum(He first created for the sons of earth)Heofon to hrofe halig Scyppend(Heaven as a roof, the holy Maker,Tha middangeard moncynnes Weard(Then middle-earth mankind’s Guardian, Ece Drihten aefter teode(The eternal Lord, afterwards made,)Firum foldan Frea Aelmihtig(The earth for men, the Master almighty.)

Old English Elegies

“The Wanderer” (c. 975) —an elegy or lament for the loss of one’s lord and companions; loneliness, exile, and

utter desolation. Heavy with the thought of mortality and

the end of all being. Speaker is in exile from his kin,

his lord is dead; his companions lost in war.

Other elegies: The Seafarer,The Husband’s Lament, the

Wife’s Lament

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 killMany of the kings men.

Beowulf , a young Geat, comes boasting to Hrothgar’s court, and avenges these deaths by fightingGrendel and his mother, receiving rich rewards fromHrothgar—his ring-bearer—for these deeds.

He then fights a dragon to save his own people, but dies inslaying it. The poem ends in a lament for Beowulf.

Middle English Literature (1350-1485)

William Langland (c. 1330-1387)The Vision of William Concerning Piers the

Plowman (1362, A text) An allegorical dream visionpoem divided into three parts, each with a differentvision. The poem is written in unrhymed, alliterativeverse with four stressed beats to each line and alliterationbetween the initial consonants in the first and second parts of the line. It is both a social satire, a satire upon theCatholic church, and a call to live a pious and humblelife. The dreamer, William, beholds a “field full of folk” allbefore him as he begins his first vision. He encountersLady Meed, who tries to seduce him, and Holy Church, who also vies for his attention.

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 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 linked by prologues. The narrator begins the prologue by describing the fine April day and each of the pilgrims in hisentourage. 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 wrotethe 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 mayrepresent fertility. Gawain’s chastity is tested by his host’swife, who tries to seduce him. Gawain fails his test of trustby taking the girdle the woman offers him; it has protectivepower. 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 andneed for forgiveness.

Medieval Lyrics: Both Secular and Religious

13th – 15th Centuries. Lyric poems, some of which were set to music. Themes: love, the beauty of the beloved, the seasons, the pain of unrequited love, Religious themes, Biblical and liturgical themes, devotion to the virgin Mary, other devotional themes.

Cuckoo Song: “Sumer is ycomen in, Loude sing cuckou!” (Ezra Pound parodies)Western Wind: “Western wind, when will thou blow? The small rain down can rain. Christ, that my love were in my arms, And I in my bed again.”

Mystery Plays or Cycle Drama: Late 14th–15th Centuries

Cycles of religious plays based on Biblical stories.A cycle started with a creation play and ended with aSecond Coming and Judgment play. They were actedby the crafts guilds of towns once a year. Each play moved through the streets on a wagon from one stopping place to the next. Four complete cycles have survived from the guilds of four towns: Wakefield, Coventry, York, and Chester.

The Chester Noah’s Flood play has a shrewish Noah’swife, who boozes it up with her girlfriends and cuffs Noah on the ear. Wakefield Second Shepherd’s Play: Mak, Gil, sheep

Sir Thomas Malory (1405-1471)

Le Morte Darthur (1485)

Prose Arthurian Romance

Contains much of the Arthurian material used by laterEnglish writers.

Inspired Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s The Idylls of the King

Inspired Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in KingArthur’s Court

Some call it a precursor to the novel

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 fullestpossible cultivation of human potential through propereducation; focus on individual consciousness and theInterior mind

Concern with the refinement of the language and the development of a national, vernacular literature

Tudor England (1500-1557)

Henry VII (acceded to throne in 1485)

Henry VIII (acceded to throne in 1509)

Edward VI (acceded to the throne in 1547)

Mary I (acceded to the throne in 1553 and ruled until1557)

Queen Elizabeth I 1558-1603. Elizabethan literature isfull of references to Cynthia, Diana, Gloriana that symbolizeor allegorize the queen.

Thomas More (1478-1553)

Utopia (1516) A satiric prose fictional traveler’s report

back from a supposedly ideal commonwealth where there

is no private property, pre-marital sex is punished by

forbidding the offenders from ever marrying, and courtship

takes place in the nude! More was satirizing his own society by suggesting that this non-Christian commonwealth had attained a greater degree of peace and order than had his own England. The fictional traveler, Ralph Hythloday, reports about his visit to a fictional “Thomas More,” who is the narrator of the piece.

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)

Lyric poet who introduced the sonnet form into English

Translated some of Petrarch’s sonnets into English (“Whoso list to hunt, / I know where is an hind …”)

Unlike Petrarch, who idealizes love as transforming,Wyatt stresses the anguish and disillusionment of love.The speaker in some of the poems is bitter, cynical, Angry, longing and pained. “They flee from me”

In “Mine Own John Poins,” a Verse Epistle, he says heWill flee the corruption of the royal court and retreat home

Roger Ascham (1515-1568) Educator

Toxophilus (1545) A treatise on the art of shootinga bow. He advocates skill, balance, and concentration—which he calls “Comeliness”—in all things, not just inlearning to shoot a bow.

The Schoolmaster (1570) A treatise on educationand the proper teaching of Latin, etc. He attacks thevanity of Englishmen who travel to Italy and come backall corrupted in manners and dress.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547)

Like Wyatt, Surrey was a courtier in the court of HenryVIII.Unlike Wyatt, he was beheaded.

Wrote sonnets in imitation of Petrarch and developed theEnglish sonnet form that Shakespeare later used, with14 lines, divided into 3 quatrains and a couplet.

Wrote a verse translation of Vergil’s Aeneid in which he devised a new verse form in English– Blank Verse.

Shakespeare and Marlowe wrote plays in blank verse.Blank Verse = unrhymed iambic pentameter poetry.

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 dialogueor soliloquy. Conversations among shepherds and rustic folk.

Characters: Cuddy, Piers, Colin Clout (the poet figure), Hobbinol, Gloriana (represents Queen Elizabeth), etc.

Spenser uses 13 different verse forms and clearly wants toprove he is “our new poet.”

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene (1590; 1596) A LONG narrative poem,an allegorical epic in six books.

Each book contains twelve cantos, each of which containsAt least 40 stanza.

Each stanza is composed of nine lines. 1-8 are iambicpentameter, and 9 is iambic hexameter (alexandrine);each stanza is rhymed ababbcbcc. This form is called aSpenserian stanza.

Spenser planned to write 12 books of the Faerie Queene, one for each of the "twelve private moral virtues" from Aristotle (although there are no such virtues in Aristotle), which Arthur represents. In each book, a different herorepresents one of these moral virtues.

Arthur is "magnificence," the sum of all the virtues.

Gloriana in the Faerie Queene represents Queen Elizabeth.

The Faerie Queene

Throughout the whole poem, Arthur appears, disappears, and reappears, looking for Gloriana, with whom he has fallen in love. He longs to marry her. Spenser completed only six books of his intended project (thank God for small favors).

Book I is devoted to the virtue of Holiness; Redcrosse Knight is the hero

Book II –Temperance -Sir Guyon is hero

Book III – Chastity - Britomart, the virgin, female warrior is hero. (Another allegorical figure for Elizabeth.)

Book IV – Friendship - Cambel and Triamond are heros

Book V – Justice – Artegal is hero Book VI – Courtesy - Calidore

Edmund Spenser

Amoretti (1595) A sonnet sequence of 89 sonnets that tell the story of a love relationship in which the couple move toward marriage (unlike all othersonnet sequences of the period).

Some Other English Sonnet Sequences:

Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella (1591)Samuel Daniel, Delia (1592)Michael Drayton, Idea's Mirror (1594)Shakespeare, Sonnets (1609; written earlier)Michael Drayton, Idea (1619)

Phillip Sidney (1554-1586)

The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (1578-83). A prose pastoral romance dealing with shepherds and courtly people disguised as shepherds. The plot involves mistaken identities, disguises, amazon women, crossdressed men, wild coincidences, melodramatic incidents, and tangled love intrigues. Some characters: Pyrocles, Philoclea (with whom he’s in love), Musidorus, the Amazon Zelmane.

The Defense of Poesy (1579; published 1595). An important prose defense of poetry in which Sidney argues for the dignity, moral importance, and social effectiveness of poetry, which teaches and delights so that one will aspire toward virtue and shun vice.

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593). Poet & Playwright.

Dr. Faustus (1604) Play about a man of learning whoStrikes a bargain with Lucifer so that he can have forbiddenknowledge and the power that brings. He rejects hisformer legitimate studies for Black magic. His fall is caused by his pride and ambition.

Characters: Faustus, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mephastophilis, the Pope, Wagner, Valdes, Cornelius, the Seven DeadlySins, and more.

Marlowe writes his plays in Blank Verse. Critics admired“Marlowe’s Mighty Line.”

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

See handout on Shakespeare’s dramatic canon.Check out the web site that has synopses of all the plays.

Sonnets

Venus and Adonis. Long narrative poem about thelove affair between these two characters. It ishighly erotic and sensuous in its verse.

Seventeenth Century

Jacobean Era—1603-1625-- the rule of KingJames I

Caroline Era—1625-1640—the rule of Charles I, whowas deposed in 1640 and executed in 1649

1649-1653: England is a Commonwealth under the ruleof Parliament

1653-1658: England is a Protectorate under the ruleof Oliver Cromwell, the Protector (Right!)1660: Charles II is recalled and monarchy restored

1642: The Civil Wars Begin

John Donne (1572-1631) & the Metaphysical Poets

Metaphysical poetry is characterized by:

--energetic, rough, or uneven movement, unlike the studied elegance, sweetness, and smoothness of 16th century verse

--elaborate, strained, or far-fetched “conceits”;

--a tendency toward logical argumentation or the structureof an argument in a poem

--an interest in philosophical questions and speculation

--dazzling displays of wit

Metaphysical Conceits:

Examples from Donne:

A woman’s naked body as an explorer’s map—”Oh, myAmerica!”

Two lover’s bodies as a compass with two legs and a fulcrum point holding the two parts together

The action of God’s grace as a battering ram, a metalworker melting and hammering a dented vessel, a rapist

A flea’s body that has just bitten both lovers as a sacred altar or a marriage bed

How to Recognize a Donne Poem:

--dramatic, in medias res, opening--a dramatic situation in which there is a speakerand one spoken to, who is always silent--fairly rough, irregular rhythm--a conversational tone--highly imaginative and unlikely drawing oflikenesses between things--images drawn from all sorts of sources that seem moreworldly than the lovely images of 16th century poetry

Donne’s Works:

--Songs and Sonnets (not printed in his life time; begun in1595 and probably written over the next 20 years)

“The Flea”“The Good Morrow”“Song”“The Sun Rising” (an aubade or dawn poem)“The Canonization”

Sermons. As an Anglican preacher, Donne preachedVolumes of sermons, including his last, Deaths Duell

--Holy Sonnets. Nineteen religious sonnets as part of his Divine Poems.

Other Metaphysical Poets:

George Herbert (1593-1633) The Temple (1633) “The Altar” “Redemption” “Easter Wings” “Affliction I” “Church Monuments” “The Windows” “The Collar” “Death” “Love”

Henry Vaughan (1621-1695) Silex Scintillans

“Regeneration,” “The Retreat,” “The World” “They Are All Gone into the World of Light,” “Cock-Crowing”

Other Metaphysical Poets:

Richard Crashaw (1613-1649) Steps to the Temple (1646) “To the Infant Martyrs” “The Weeper” calls Mary Magdalene’s tears “portable and compendious oceans” and a breakfast for cherubs

Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) Poems (published after hisdeath) “Damon the Mower” “The Mower’s Song” “The Mower Against Gardens” “The Mower’s Song” “To His Coy Mistress” “Upon Appleton House”

The Cavalier Poets, or Sons of Ben or Tribe of Ben

Ben Jonson (1572-1637) Poet, Playwright, Prose Writer

Plays: Every Man In His Humour (1598) Every Man Out of His Humour (1599) Volpone The Alchemist and Epicoene (1609) Bartholomew Fair (1614) ETC.

Poetry: Epigrams: “On my First Son” “On my FirstDaughter,” “To my Book,” “On Something that Walks Somewhere” The Forest: “To Penshurst” “Song: To Celia”

Sons of Ben OR Cavalier Poets:

Robert Herrick (1591-1674) Hesperides (1648) “Upon the Loss of His Mistress,” “The Vine,” “Delight in Disorder,” “Upon Julia’s Clothes,” “Upon the Nipple on Julia’s Breast,” “To the Virgins to Make Much of Their Time”—acarpe diem poem, one that urges the reader to seizethe day because time sweeps all into death.

Sir John Suckling (1609-1642) Song (“Why So Paleand Wan, fond lover?/Prithee, why so pale?” FragmentaAurea (1646)

Richard Lovelace (1618-1657) Lucasta (1649) “To Lucasta, Going to War”