British Literature

1. British Literature • Refers to literature from the United Kingdom • What is the United Kingdom? • England • Scotland • Wales • North Ireland

2. British Literature • Earliest forms of British literature developed after the settlement of the Saxons and other Germanic tribes in England after the withdrawal of the Romans.

3. Understanding the Lay of the Land • It helps to see where the UK is in comparison to the others countries that affected its history through invasions.

4. The Ages of British Literature • The Middle Ages • The Renaissance • The Restoration and 18th Century • The Romantic Age • The Victorian Age • The Modern Age

5. The Middle Ages 449-1485 • Broken into two segments: • The Anglo-Saxon Period 449-1066 • Beowulf • The Medieval Period 1066-1485 • Geoffrey Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales and Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight) • Sir Thomas Malory (Le Morte Darthur)

6. The Renaissance 1485-1660 • The Early Renaissance 1485-1558 • The Elizabethan Age 1558-1603 • William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh • The Jacobean Age 1567-1625 • John Donne, Ben Jonson • The Puritan Age 1600-1660 • John Milton (Paradise Lost), John Bunyon (The Pilgrim’s Progress)

7. The Restoration and 18th Century 1660-1798 • The Restoration 1660-1700 • The Age of Pope 1700-1744 • Alexander Pope • Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels) • The Age of Johnson 1744-1798 • Samuel Johnson, William Blake

8. The Romantic Period 1798-1832 • William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, John Keats • Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice), Mary Shelley (Frankenstein),

9. The Victorian Age 1832-1900 • Lord Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti • Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights), Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre), Thomas Hardy (Tess of the D'Urbervilles), Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes), Rudyard Kipling (Jungle Book, Rikki Tikki Tavi)

10. The Modern Age 1900- • Joseph Conrad (The Heart of Darkness), H.G. Wells (The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man), Saki (The Open Window), E.M. Forster (A Room with a View, A Passage to India), Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway), James Joyce (Ulysses), D.H. Lawrence (The Rocking-Horse Winner, Lady Chatterley’s Lover), George Orwell (1984, Animal Farm), T.H. White (The Once and Future King) • William Butler Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Margaret Atwood, • Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion)

11. Middle Ages 449-1485 Interested in stories with chivalry? knights? dragons? Interested in the stories of King Arthur? William Wallace (Braveheart) What about . . . JRR Tolkien Lord of the Rings/Beowulf • JK Rowling • Harry Potter and the • Deathly Hallows/Canterbury Tales And yes . . . Monty Python and the Holy Grail/Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

12. Middle Ages 449-1485 • The Anglo-Saxon 449-1066 • The Medieval Period 1066-1485

13. The Middle Ages 449-1485 Characteristics of the period • Enormous upheaval and change in England (Roman rule left.) • Reigns of some of the most famous and infamous kings • Time of disastrous wars, both internal and external • Time of foreign invasion • Time of painful reconsolidation and emergence of England as nation

14. Why the “Middle Ages” “The term Middle Ages as a description of the thousand-year period between the 5th and 15th centuries – between the end of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance – is at once an oversimplification and a distortion of a long and complex period of European history. Coined by Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers, the label Middle Ages (or its Latin form, the Medieval period) implies a mere transitional era, a long interruption in the continuity of Western history during which the classical culture of Greece and Rome, waiting to be revived in the Renaissance, lay dormant or dead.

15. Why the “Middle Ages” The formidable challenge to the early Middle Ages was to find a mode of social organization to replace the Roman Empire that had ruled but left, and to weave together the various threads of European culture: the remnants of Latin civilization, Christianity, and the northern, Germanic, “barbarian” tradition. The solution that gradually emerged over a period of several centuries lay in two institutions, the Roman Church and feudalism.” Literature of The Western World Volume I: The Ancient World Through the Renaissance. Ed. Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. New York: University of Illinois, 1984. 1097.

16. Why the “Middle Ages” From our perspective, we can see the Middle Ages in more positive terms, not as an interruption but as a fertile and dynamic period that produced a distinctive and permanently valuable culture of its own. It was more varied than a single, reductive label would imply. There is a certain unity in this long span of history that justifies our considering it as a single period, but within this unity was enormous diversity. Only the very early Middle Ages, from the sixth to the ninth centuries, were characterized by the cultural inertia often attributed to the whole period.

17. Germanic Invasions - 449 • Created the Anglo-Saxon England (“Engla land”) that lasted until 1066 • Divided into separate kingdoms: Kent, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex most important • United themselves in last two centuries to resist invasions from Vikings, or Norsemen (whom they called Danes). Seven kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon Period: Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex, and Kent

18. Anglo-Saxon Period “Anglo-Saxon England was born of warfare, remained forever a military society, and came to its end in battle.” - J. R. Lander • Around 500 BC three groups of Germanic bands invaded British Isles (The Britons/Celts) • The Jutes • The Angles Deep sea fishermen and farmers • The Saxons • -Britons were no match, but didn’t go quietly. They pushed west to Wales. Angles/Saxons from Germany Jutes from Denmark

19. Anglo-Saxon Period This is not a unified England as we know it. It was divided into kingdoms. These groups organized into clans, loyal to a chieftain. -King Arthur was probably a Celtic chieftain • ..\Sir Gawain\King Arthur's Round Table.doc

20. Viking Invasions 8th-12th Centuries • Invaders from Norway and Denmark • Anglo-Saxons unprepared for ferocity of Vikings • Common prayer: “From the furor of the Norsemen, Oh Lord protect us.” Viking Ship, known as the Oseberg Ship, dates 825 AD.

21. Viking Invasions 8th-12th Centuries • King Alfred of Wessex (871-899) forced Vikings to northern England • Danelaw – dividing line between Viking Britain and Anglo-Saxon Britain • Vikings destroyed monasteries and sacred objects • Slaughtered everyone in settlements that couldn’t pay enough to them

22. These tribes created the Anglo-Saxon England that lasted until 1066, when the Normans, led by William (the Conqueror), Duke of Normandy, successfully invaded and conquered the country. This is the event that leads us into the Medieval Period of the Middle Ages.

23. Language The common language is now known as Old English (similar to Dutch and German)

24. Religion • Pagan religion, similar to Norse mythology • Animism (from Latin for “spirit”) Believed spirits controlled every aspect of life Druids – priests who settled arguments, presided over religious rituals, and memorized and recited poems about past • Christianity came to Britain in 314 A.D. and slowly spread across the continent. • Missionaries from the Continent strengthened the spread of Christianity

25. Anglo-Saxon Society • Well-developed society that started with the family unit and branched out to the clan, tribe, and then to the kingdom. • Although these people developed great loyalty to their leader, they had a natural tendency toward a democratic habit of mind. • They held meetings in which people could openly express what they thought and felt showing they leaned toward a democratic mindset.

26. Anglo-Saxon Philosophy • Persons of rank received with grave courtesy • Ruler generous to those who remain loyal • Everyone aware of shortness of life & passing of all things in the world • Impersonal, irresistible fate determined most of their lives (Wyrd or Fate) • Heroic human will & courage allowed individuals to control their own response to fate

27. Heroic Ideal The Anglo-Saxons shared a Heroic Ideal and a set of traditional heroes. 1. Men of outstanding courage 2. Fierce Personal Valor- fearlessness, bravery, spirit 3. Persons of rank- They were received with grave courtesy, whatever their tribe or people 4. The ruler-he was generous to those who were loyal, and in return, the followers remained loyal

28. Characteristics of Epic Hero • Is significant and glorified • Is on a quest • Has superior or superhuman strength, intelligence, and/or courage • Is ethical • Risks death for glory or for the greater good of society • Performs brave deeds • Is a strong and responsible leader • Reflects the ideals of a particular society

29. Anglo-Saxon Literature • Oral tradition – poems and song committed to memory and performed by scops, bards, gleemen, or minstrels • Much later, with coming of Christian Church, written literature began to evolve • Two important traditions in literature/poetry • Heroic Tradition – focuses on bravery and a central hero (Beowulf) • Elegiac Tradition – mourns the passing of earlier, better times (The Seafarer)

30. The Scop • The scop was a professional poet • Poems were sung, usually to the accompaniment of a harp • A scop’s function in society was to be the memory and historian of the tribe. • It was his job to remember important heroes, battles, kings, and the folklore of the tribe • This information was passed down from generation to generation through oral poetry. • Alliteration and a strong beat were important devices aiding in the memorization of these long poem.

31. Anglo-Saxon Literature • Beowulf – one of few pieces that survived. Priests and monks were the only ones who could write; story survival depended upon them. The church was not too eager to preserve literature that was pagan in nature, so historians believe they either ignored it or changed it. This may account for the mixture of Christian and pagan elements in Beowulf.

32. Old English Poetic Devices • Kennings – a metaphorical phrase used to replace a concrete noun. Ready-made descriptive compound words that evoke vivid images • Kennings are formed by prepositional phrases possessive phrases compound words Preposition phrase – Giver of knowledge Possessive phrase – mankind’s enemy Compound word – sea path

33. Old English Poetic Devices • Caesura – a natural pause or break in the middle of the line of poetry and joined by the use of a repeated vowel or consonant sound Also note: Alliteration – repetition of consonant and vowel sounds at the beginning of words Out of the marsh // from the foot of misty Hills and bogs // bearing God’s hatred Grendel came // hoping to kill Anyone he could trap // on this trip to high Herot

34. The Venerable Bede • The Father of English History • The most learned and productive writer of the period • He is associated with the work, A History of the English Church and People • An excellent historical authority of its time

35. (King) Alfred the Great (of Wessex) • He Came two centuries after Bede • He was the most remarkable of the English Kings/ Became author and translator • Anglo-Saxon prose and history owe most to his influence and example • He initiated the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the first historical record to be kept in English (before this they wrote in Latin) • As king, he drove the Vikings to the North by uniting the kingdoms of England together