English literature temas 1-2 PDF

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UNIT 1: INTRODUCTIONWhat is literature? What is English literature?Line breaks: lit¦era¦ture / Pronunciation: /’lɪt(ə)rətʃə/Definition of literature in English:1 Written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit: a great work of literature1 Books and writings published...

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UNIT 1: INTRODUCTION What is literature? What is English literature? Line breaks: lit¦era¦ture /

Pronunciation: /’lɪt(ə)rətʃə/

Definition of literature in English: 1 Written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit: a great work of literature 1.1 Books and writings published on a particular subject: the literature on environmental epidemiology 1.2 Leaflets and other printed matter used to advertise products or give advice: advertising and promotional literature Origin Late Middle English (in the sense 'knowledge of books'): via French from Latin litteratura, from littera (see letter).

Other controversies: Traditionally, “English literature”= works by writers from the British Isles (a term not popular in the Republic of Ireland). The problem: “English” can refer either to the people of England or to the language, which is spoken in many other nations à “English literature” = ambiguous. n Today, “English literature” is often defined simply as literature written in the English language v. “British literature” usually refers to works by authors from the United Kingdom (i.e., England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), and sometimes from the Republic of Ireland (problem!). Ed. David Scott Kastan says in the preface that the choice of an adjective for the title was “vexing,” and explains why “British” was chosen instead of “English”: • “‘English’ would either limit the field too narrowly (that is, by restricting the focus to the writers of England) or not enough (that is, by opening it up to all writers writing in English)” • “`British’ accurately if sometimes uneasily accommodates the Welsh and Scottish entries. The Irish entries less comfortably fit under the rubric.” • “`British literature’ is admittedly a compromise” • Irish writers are included in the encyclopedia as writers “participating in and substantially contributing to a common linguistic and cultural history with writers who with greater terminological precision are labeled ‘British.’ ”

Other Controversies: The Canon “literary canon” = a body of books, narratives and other texts considered to be the most important and influential of a particular time period or place. Who does the “considering”? Read an excerpt from the Preface to Harold Bloom's 1994 The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, in which this author defends the concept of the Western canon by discussing twenty-six

writers whom he sees as central to the canon. The passage excerpted provides his main justification for the authors and texts he has selected.

Unit 2: The Anglo-Saxon or Old-English Period in English Literature (450-1066)

Celtic Invasions: 800 - 600 BC, two groups of Celts moved into the British Isles: the Britons and the Gaels. The Roman Conquest: • 55 BC and 56 BC, incursions by Julius Caesar • Conquest: 43 AD, Roman emperor Claudius • 410 AD: last Roman legions left for Rome to defend the city against the Visigoths. Lasting presence of Roman culture and institutions: Stonehenge, Hadrian’s wall, Exeter, Roman baths at Bath, Durrington walls. 410 - 450 AD: Angles and Saxons move from Baltic shores of Germany The Jutes invade from Denmark 476 AD: The end of the Western Roman Empire -

collapse of Europe’s political unity Germanic tribes form their own kingdoms E.g., the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy

Anglo-Saxon Society highly organized tribal units (kingdoms):

• each tribe ruled by a king chosen by a council of elders (witan) • thanes: the upper class, earls, or freewarriors (in a comitatus bond with their leader) • thralls: slaves who did the farming and domestic work • freemen: small group who earned possessions and special favors ·the leader should own protection, rewards (families supported, well taken warriors after battles) to the warriors. Warriors owned loyalty to their leader. ·anglo-saxon period = dark period Rome’s greatest legacy: Christianity– its official religion since the 4th century. St. Augustine lands in Kent in 597AD , converts King Aethelbert (king of Kent, the oldest Saxon settlement) to Christianity and becomes first Archbishop of Canterbury. The Viking invaders: 8th-11th centuries Sea-faring Scandinavians: explorers, traders, and warriors.The Anglo-Saxon and Jute heritage was not much different from the Vikings’. However, when the Viking raids began around 787, the Anglo-Saxons were different culturally. The Viking invaders sought lands, and occassionally also sacked and plundered monasteries, destroyed manuscripts, and stole sacred religious objects.

King Alfred “the Great” (849-899).Two reasons for the epithet: 886 truce with the Vikings England was formally divided: Danish rule in the east and the north, Saxon rule in the south and Alfred became a national hero. Alfred encouraged a rebirth of learning and education.

An evolving society:The waves of invaders and raiders during the 800s and 900s made central control very difficult. A system based on local power and loyalty emergedFeudalism: a political and social system that tied together Kings, Lords and Peasants in a relationship based upon loyalty and land. What is feudalism? "a social system that existed in Europe during the Middle Ages(*) in which people worked and fought for nobles who gave them protection and the use of land in return" (Merriam-Webster). NOTE TO STUDENTS: For many scholars, from the mid 5th century to the end of the 15th century, thus covering both the Anglo-Saxon and the Middle English period (remember what was said about periodization in the introductory unit) .

Anglo-Saxon Literature: poetry -

Anglo-Saxon literature began not with books, but with spoken verse and incantations. Two main categories: epic poetry (recounting the achievements of warriors); eg., Beowulf, «The Battle of Maldon», some elements of «The Dream of the Rood» (a dream poem) OR elegiac poetry (lamenting the dead and the loss of the past); eg., «The Wife’s Lament,» «The Seafarer» and «The Wanderer».

Anglo-Saxon Literature: prose -

Before Alfred the Great , all important prose was written in Latin. The greatest of England’s Latin scholars was Venerable Bede (673-735) Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (History of the English Church and People) an account of England from the Roman invasion to Bede’s own time.

Anglo-Saxon prose cont. -

During King Alfred’s time, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was assembled -> written in Old English. One copy was still being expanded in the mid-12th c.

Anglo-Saxon literature:

From the Exeter Book (dated to 960-990 AD). The Exeter Book is a 10th-century anthology of poetry in Old English.

• Unknown author • Written no later than 990 AD (perhaps much earlier). Elegy or riddle? Elegy: “any poem that laments/grieves the loss or passing of beloved persons, places, or things” Eg. also from the Exeter Book: “The Wanderer,” “The Seafarer” This elegiac poem, emotionally charged, was written by a female who had lost her husband; therefore, she was feeling a deep sorrow and longing. He was in exile, and she was forced to live isolated in a forest grove inside a cave. Consequently, she cannot bear living in these circumstances, so she spent her days weeping and dealing with her heartache, getting used to live without her lord and her friends. In the composition, the wife laments about the misfortunes and hardships she had been suffering during her life: her husband go away, the kinsmen aimed to separate the couple, she realised that her most fitting man was unfortunate, and she had to overcome the hatred of her beloved. In this lament, the protagonist tries to address her cruel situation figuratively, describing with sorrow how her life has been cursed since the moment she came to this world. In explaining her adverse circumstances, we realize that the leader of her people (most likely her husband) has abandoned them, leaving her with a simultaneous feeling of grief and resentment for his betrayal. Not only that, but when she makes the decision to try and go after him, she’s stopped by the pressure of his “kinsmen”, who seem not to want them to reunite. She explains how she hates the place in which her husband has forced her to live, having to leave her previous friends and loved ones. We are also shown that her dear partner has developed a deep feeling of hatred towards her (which is probably why he left), filling her with even more sadness. Furthermore, she’s been isolated (and supposedly locked in a cave, if we are to take her words literally) by the previously mentioned kinsmen, to the point where the only thing she can do is weep and wish for an unfulfillable reality. Finally, she wishes a sorrowful fate for her husband, one in which he looks back to the days where she lived happily with her wife and regrets the terrible things he’s done to her, all while trying to hide his own pain, just as she has done until now.

Fragment of 325 lines of an epic Saxon poem from a lost manuscript. -

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Unknown author The manuscript, from the collection of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, was destroyed in a fire in 1731, but a transcript had been previously made - although the front and back pages were already missing. The poem tells the story of the historical battle between Vikings and Saxons near Maldon, Essex in 991, and it was composed around 995. The death of Byrhtnoth, an ealdorman of Essex, was recorded in three versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. E.g., the Peterborough manuscript : A.D. 991. Here Ipswich was raided; and very soon afterwards was Ealdorman Byrthnoth slain at Maldon. And in that year it was resolved that tribute should be given, for the first time, to the Danish men for the great terror they occasioned by the sea The Winchester manuscript is more detailed: A.D. 993 [date error] This year came Anlaf [Olaf Tryggvason (968-1000 AD), future king of Norway]with three and ninety ships to Folkestone, which he plundered without, and went from there to Sandwich. Thence to Ipswich, which he laid waste; and so to Maldon. And Ealdorman Byrhtnoth came against him with his army, and fought with him; and there they slew the ealdorman, and gained the field of battle; whereupon peace was made with him, and the king received him afterwards…

“The Dream of the Rood”

The earliest evidence of the text of The Dream of the Rood is found on the Ruthwell Cross (5th-12th c., probably, 8th) inscribed with passages from "The Dream of the Rood." It is based on the change from Anglo-Saxon beliefs to Christian beliefs. Source: The most complete te loxt Vercelli Book, a manuscript of Old English prose and poetry (10th century). Autorship: Unknown. Credited by many critics to Cynewulf (c. 770-840), author of the epic poem Elene, and by others to Caedmon (fl. 658-680). Three parts: 1. the vision of the Dreamer 2. the monologue of the Rood describing the Crucifixion, 3. the Dreamer's conversion • Two speakers: The Dreamer AND The Rood • Three protagonists: The Dreamer, The Rood AND Jesus.

Literary Features Poem told orally by the scop (ie. Anglo-Saxon poet) including: superlatives, caesura, repetition, alliteration and kennings--a type of literary trope in the form of a compound (usually two words, often hyphenated) that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun); e.g., “voice-bearer” Genre: Dream poetry, with elements of the epic (so, mixed genre) Negotiation between Christianity and Anglo-Saxon values, e.g., comitatus — Germanic code of loyalty, a relationship based on reciprocity between a warlord and his warriors or thanes, who swore loyalty to their king who must be generous in return (give treasure / land): Kings / Lords / leaders -> praised for generosity and hospitality. Warriors -> praised for courage and loyalty

Epic poetry: Traditionally, an epic poem is a long, serious, poetic narrative about a significant event, often the heroic journey of a single person, or group of persons. Before the development of writing, epic poems were memorized and played an important part in maintaining a record of the great deeds and history of a culture. It typically features: -

an epic hero who embodies the values of a culture or ethnic group, superhuman deeds intervention by supernatural beings fabulous adventures, highly stylized language

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a blending of lyrical and dramatic traditions. Examples of epics: Odyssey, The Song of My Cid, and Beowulf

Beowulf A single manuscript survives: the Nowell Codex. Composed by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet • Dated between the 8th and the early 11th century TO KEEP IN MIND ABOUT BEOWULF : Greatest epic poem, oral tradition, kennings.

Three contrasts to take into account: 1. The text is composed in England (8th-11th c.) BUT it is set in Scandinavia (5th-7th c.) 2. The characters are Nordic pagans BUT the speaker is Christian Anglo-Saxon 3. Comitatus is clearly represented BUT it is coming to an end. Key names: Beowulf, a Geat Hrothgar, King of Danes Heorot, Meadhall of Hrothgar and the Danes Beowulf faces 3 main enemies: 1. Grendel 2. Grendel’s mother 3. Dragon...