ENGLISH CLASS III LICEO DELLE SCIENZE UMANE

1. ENGLISHCLASS IIILICEO DELLE SCIENZE UMANE

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS • MODULE I: PAST PERFECT – PASSIVE VOICE • MODULE II: REPORTED SPEECH – IF CLAUSES • MODULE III: LITERARY GENRES • MODULE IV: THE MIDDLE AGES IN LITERATURE – BEOWULF – GEOFFREY CHAUCER - • MODULE V: THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE - SHAKESPEARE

3. MODULE I – PAST PERFECT • The Past Perfect expresses the idea that something occurred before another action in the past. It can also show that something happened before a specific time in the past. • Basicform: Affirmativesentences: Subject + HAD + Verb (pastparticipleform) Negative sentences: Subject + HAD NOT + Verb (pastparticipleform) Questions: HAD + Subject + Verb (pastparticipleform)

4. MODULE I – PAST PERFECT Examples: • I hadneverseensuch a beautiful beach before I wentto Kauai. • Mary lookedasifshehadnotsleptfor 48 hours. • Hadsheeaten the dinnerbeforeshewentto the cinema? • WeuseSimplePastifwegivepastevents in the order in whichtheyoccured. However, whenwe look back from a certaintime in the pasttotellwhathadhappenedbefore, weusePastPerfect.

5. MODULE I – PASSIVE VOICE • Passive voice isusedwhen the focus is on the action. Itisnotimportant or notknown, however, who or whatisperforming the action. • Formof Passive: Subject + finite formoftobe + PastParticiple • Whenrewritingactivesentences in passive voice, note the following:the objectof the activesentencebecomes the subjectof the passive sentencethe finite formof the verbischanged (tobe + pastparticiple)the subjectof the activesentencebecomes the objectof the passive sentence (or isdropped)

6. MODULE I – PASSIVE VOICE • PresentThe car/carsis aredesigned. • PresentperfectThe car/carshasbeenhavebeendesigned. • Past The car/carswasweredesigned. • Pastperfect The car/carshadbeendesigned. • Future The car/carswillbewillbedesigned. • Future perfect The car/carswillhavebeendesigned. • Presentprogressive The car/carsisbeing are beingdesigned. • Past progressive The car/carswasbeingwerebeingdesigned.

7. MODULE II – REPORTED SPEECH • 1) If the introductory sentence starts in the present (Susan says), there is no backshift of tenses in Reported speech.

Example: 
Direct speech: Susan: "I work in an office." 
Reported speech: Susan says that she works in an office. • 2) If the introductorysentencestarts in the past (Susan said), thereisoftenbackshiftoftenses in Reportedspeech. (see: Note)

Example: 
Susan: "I work in an office." 
Susan said that she worked in an office. • If the sentence contains an expression of time, you must change it as well.Peter: "I worked in the garden yesterday."
Peter said that he had worked in the garden the day before.

8. MODULE II – REPORTED SPEECH • Backshiftoftenses • fromto • Peter: "I work in the garden." Peter saidthatheworked in the garden. • Peter: "I worked in the garden." Peter saidthathehadworked in the garden. • Peter: "I haveworked in the garden." • Peter: "I hadworked in the garden." • Peter: "I will work in the garden." Peter saidthathewould work in the garden. • Peter: "I can work in the garden." Peter saidthathecould work in the garden. • Peter: "I may work in the garden." Peter saidthathemight work in the garden. • Peter: "I would work in the garden.” Peter saidthathewould work in the garden.

9. MODULE II – REPORTED SPEECH • Shiftingofexpressionsoftime • this (evening) that (evening) • today/thisdaythatday • these (days) those (days) • nowthen • (a week) ago (a week) before • last weekend the weekend before / the previous weekend • herethere • next (week) the following (week) • tomorrow the next/followingday

10. MODULE II – IF CLAUSES • There are threetypesof the if-clauses.type: • I conditionpossibletofulfill • II condition in theorypossibletofulfill • III conditionnotpossibletofulfill (too late) • Form • typeifclausemainclause • I SimplePresent will-future (or Modal + infinitive) • II SimplePast would + infinitive • III PastPerfectwould + have + pastparticiple

11. MODULE III – LITERARY GENRES • “Genre” is the term used to describe the various types of literature. • There are three main literary genres: FICTION, POETRY, DRAMA • FICTIONAL TEXTS: they tell invented stories mainly through narration, description and dialogue • POETIC TEXTS: they make a particular use of language which not only exploits the meaning of words but also their sound and visual aspects; they are often made of stanzas and lines which may or may not rhyme. • DRAMATIC TEXTS: They are meant for performance. They tell invented stories in the form of plays using dialogue, monologue/soliloquy and stage directions.

12. MODULE III – LITERARY GENRES • POETRY: • What a poemis: It’s a self-contained text, whichmakessenseasitstands.itdiffersfrom prose becauseitiswritten in lineswhoselengthisdecidedby the author and notby the printer. • Rhyme and Rhytm: Rhymeis the repetitionof the finalsyllable sound at the end oftwo or more lines or in the samelines. Rhytmis the sound movementcreatedby the sequenceofstressed or unstressedsyllables. • Poeticlanguageis the languagethatuseswordswhich appeal to the senseofhearing, smell, sight, touch, taste. It can alsoemployfiguresofspeechlikepersonification, simile or metaphor.

13. MODULE III – LITERARY GENRES • FICTION: Telling a story meanscreating a fictionalworlswhichcharacters, thatistosayfictional people, are involved in some kindofevent/s or psychologicalrelationships in a particularplace and time, thatis the settingof the story. • NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES: the short story ischaracterisedbybrevity; itusuallygivesonly a glimpseof life and ischarcterisedbyincompleteness. The novelismuchlonger, it can build up a complex world and a varietyofcharacters. • NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE: First-personnarrator, third-personnarrator and non-omniscentnarrator • PLOTS: The most common are based on: adventuresofmainhero, phychological or moralgrowthofonecharacter, the developmentof personal relationships, social or politicalissues, mystery and suspense, realistic or fantasticjourney

14. MODULE III – LITERARY GENRES • DRAMA: The formsofdrama can be comedy, tragedy and farse. • A play tells a story organisedby the playwirght/dramatist in a plot, whichcontains the sameeventsas the story butitmaypresentthem in a differentchronologicalorder. • Featuresof a play: there are features common tomostplays: stage directions, dialogue and soliloquy/monologue.

15. MODULE IV – THE MIDDLE AGES • THE LANGUAGE: Old English • SOCIETY: Christianity, expansion Feudalism: hiararchialstructure Travel: pilgrimages, voyagesofdiscovey, trade Birth of the English nation: plotical, linguistic social, economicmotivations LITERATURE: Epicpoetry, Beowulf, oraltradition, tales, legends, history, alliteration Ballads: popularform, oraltradition, anonymous, memorised, regular form, simplestoriesofeveryday life, borderconflicts, the supernatural, legend

16. MODULE IV – THE MIDDLE AGES • EPIC POETRY: oral and anonymous • BEOWULF: manuscriptof 3200 lines, authorunknown. A typicalepicpoetryasittell the nobleheroicactionsof a mythicalhero (Beowulf), itinvolves the fate of a whole people. The verseistypicaloftraditionalpoetry in the useitmakesofpoeticdevicestoaidmemorysuchasrepetitionoffixedphrases, and itsmetrewbased on a pattern ofstressed and alliteratedwords. • The plot: Beowulf, a ScandinavianHero, whofightsagainst a monster and a dragon bywhomheismortallywounded.

17. MODULE IV – THE MIDDLE AGES • Poetry in the ageofChaucer: By the end of the 14 thcenturyFrench and English hadamalgamated. Therewas a tendencyfromabout 1400 onwardsfor the writtenlanguagetoconformto the dialectused in London, Oxford and Cambridge, becauseof the importanceoftheseplacesascentresofeducation, law, government and trade. Thisdialectisreferredtoas “Middle English”. Poetrywasno-longeranonymous, the narrative-descriptivepoem and the balladwereamong the mostpopularpoeticformsof the period. The Canterbury Talesby Geoffrey Chauceris the mostafmousexampleof a narrative –descriptivepoem in thisperiod.

18. MODULE IV – THE MIDDLE AGES

19. MODULE V– THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE • HISTORY, SOCIETY AND CULTURE. The Renaissance was a cultural, scholarly and socio-political movement which stressed the rediscovery and application of texts and thought from classical antiquity. • HISTORCAL BACKGROUND • 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 until 1557) • Queen Elizabeth I 1558-1603.

20. MODULE V– THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE • Elizabeth succeeded to the throne on her half-sister's death in November 1558. She was very well-educated (fluent in six languages), and had inherited intelligence, determination and shrewdness from both parents. 
Her 45-year reign is generally considered one of the most glorious in English history. During it a secure Church of England was established. Its doctrines were laid down in the 39 Articles of 1563, a compromise between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. 
Elizabeth herself refused to 'make windows into men's souls ... there is only one Jesus Christ and all the rest is a dispute over trifles'; she asked for outward uniformity. 
Overall, Elizabeth's administration consisted of some 600 officials administering the great offices of state, and a similar number dealing with the Crown lands (which funded the administrative costs). Social and economic regulation and law and order remained in the hands of the sheriffs at local level, supported by unpaid justices of the peace.
Elizabeth's reign also saw many brave voyages of discovery, including those of Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh and Humphrey Gilbert, particularly to the Americas. These expeditions prepared England for an age of colonisation and trade expansion, which Elizabeth herself recognised by establishing the East India Company in 1600.The arts flourished during Elizabeth's reign. Country houses such as Longleat and Hardwick Hall were built, miniature painting reached its high point, theatres thrived - the Queen attended the first performance of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Composers such as William Byrd and Thomas Tallis worked in Elizabeth's court and at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace.
The image of Elizabeth's reign is one of triumph and success. The Queen herself was often called 'Gloriana', 'Good Queen Bess' and 'The Virgin Queen'. 
Mary was also a temptation for potential invaders such as Philip II. In a letter of 1586 to Mary, Elizabeth wrote, 'You have planned ... to take my life and ruin my kingdom ... I never proceeded so harshly against you.' Despite Elizabeth's reluctance to take drastic action, on the insistence of Parliament and her advisers, Mary was tried, found guilty and executed in 1587.In 1588, aided by bad weather, the English navy scored a great victory over the Spanish invasion fleet of around 130 ships - the 'Armada'. The Armada was intended to overthrow the Queen and re-establish Roman Catholicism by conquest, as Philip II believed he had a claim to the English throne through his marriage to Mary.
However, the 'Virgin Queen' was presented as a selfless woman who sacrificed personal happiness for the good of the nation, to which she was, in essence, 'married'. 
Late in her reign, she addressed Parliament in the so-called 'Golden Speech' of 1601 when she told MPs: 'There is no jewel, be it of never so high a price, which I set before this jewel; I mean your love.' She seems to have been very popular with the vast majority of her subjects.Overall, Elizabeth's always shrewd and, when necessary, decisive leadership brought successes during a period of great danger both at home and abroad. She died at Richmond Palace on 24 March 1603, having become a legend in her lifetime. The date of her accession was a national holiday for two hundred years.

21. MODULE V– THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE • William Shakespeare (1564-1616), `The Bard ofAvon', English poet and playwrightwrote the famous 154 Sonnets and numeroushighlysuccessfuloftquoteddramaticworksincluding the tragedyof the Prince ofDenmark, Hamlet • It is generally agreed that most of the Shakespearean Sonnets were written in the 1590s, some printed at this time as well. Evoking Petrarch's style and lyrically writing of beauty, mortality, and love with its moral anguish and worshipful adoration of a usually unattainable love, the first 126 sonnets are addressed to a young man, sonnets 127-152 to a dark lady. Ever the dramatist Shakespeare created a profound intrigue to scholars and novices alike as to the identities of these people. • Tragedies. Some probablyinspiredby Shakespeare'sstudyofLives (trans.1597) byGreekhistorian and essayistPlutarch and RaphaelHolinshed'sChronicles (1587). Some are reworkingsofpreviousstories, manybased on English or Roman history. The dates given here are when they are said to have been first performed, followed by approximate printing dates in brackets, listed in chronological order of performance.Titus Andronicus first performed in 1594 (printed in 1594),
Romeo and Juliet 1594-95 (1597), Hamlet 1600-01 (1603), Julius Caesar 1600-1601 Othello 1604-05 (1622), Antony and Cleopatra 1606-07 (1623), King Lear 1606 (1608),Coriolanus 1607-08 (1623), derived from Plutarch Timon of Athens 1607-08 (1623), and Macbeth 1611-1612 (1623).

22. MODULE V– THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE • Histories Shakespeare's series of historical dramas, based on the English Kings from John to Henry VIII were a tremendous undertaking to dramatise the lives and rule of kings and the changing political events of his time. No other playwright had attempted such an ambitious body of work. Some were printed on their own or in the First Folio (1623).King Henry VI Part 1 1592 (printed in 1594); 
King Henry VI Part 2 1592-93 (1594); King Henry VI Part 3 1592-93 (1623); King John 1596-97 (1623); King Henry IV Part 1 1597-98 (1598); King Henry IV Part 2 1597-98 (1600); King Henry V 1598-99 (1600); Richard II 1600-01 (1597); Richard III 1601 (1597); and King Henry VIII 1612-13 (1623) • Comedies, again listed in chronological order of performance. Taming of the Shrew first performed 1593-94 (1623), Comedy of Errors 1594 (1623), Two Gentlemen of Verona 1594-95 (1623), Love's Labour's Lost 1594-95 (1598), Midsummer Night's Dream 1595-96 (1600), Merchant of Venice 1596-1597 (1600), Much Ado About Nothing 1598-1599 (1600), As You Like It 1599-00 (1623), Merry Wives of Windsor 1600-01 (1602), Troilus and Cressida 1602 (1609), Twelfth Night 1602 (1623), All's Well That Ends Well 1602-03 (1623), Measure for Measure 1604 (1623), Pericles, Prince of Tyre 1608-09 (1609), Tempest (1611), Cymbeline 1611-12 (1623), Winter's Tale 1611-12 (1623).