Sikorska, L.

: An Outline History of English Literature

(second edition revised and enlarged).
Wydawnictwo Poznaskie, 2002.
Free ebooks
History of English Literature: Anton Pokrivk (2013/2014) Bartosz Dudek Kompendium 0.9
Reading (you must read it):
Pre-Romanticism:
William Blake (1757-1827) - The Lamb, The Tyger
Romantic Imagery:
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) - I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, Lines Written in Early Spring,
A Slumber did my Spirit Seal, Composed upon Westminster Bridge (is not here)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Romantic Individualism:
Lord Byron(1788-1824) Childe Harolds Pilgrimage
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) - Ode to the West Wind
John Keats (1795-1821) - Ode on a Grecian Urn
Romantic Prose:
Jane Austen (1731-1805) Pride and Prejudice
Emily Bront(1818-1830) Wuthering Heights
Victorian Period:
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) Great Expectations
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) The Picture of Dorian Gray

Pre-Romanticism(early 18th century in England):

clear shift in sensibility & feeling
especially in relation to natural order & Nature

The Lamb (1789) Presents a description of a lamb and child who shows affection towards it. The poem reveals the symbolism of
Christian teaching. Both the child and the lamb are called by Gods name because they represent two crucial attributes of God: the
incarnation and the passion.
The Tyger (1794) - there is a contrast between Blakes usual images of God in the symbol of the lamb and tiger representing the force of
nature. But the meaning of the poem is much more complex. Blakes usual spelling of the word heightens the symbolic load of the images
created. Fire, usually symbolizing power and destruction, in Blakes philosophical system also signifies the creative power of God. The
creation of the lamb was a simple act while the creation of tiger was a process beyond human comprehension. The poem resolves in a
dialectical synthesis that both destructive and harmonious forces are needed in nature so that together they can form a fearful
symmetry.

The "Graveyard Poets" - were a number of pre-Romantic English poets of the 18th century characterized by their gloomy meditations on
mortality, 'skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms elicited by the presence of the graveyard. Thomas Parnell, Edward Young.

William Blake - in the twentieth century considered a genius, poet and engraver, rebellion against the rationalism of the 18th century,
lyrical visionary style, symbolism

Romanticism(18th century) First Generation of Romantic Poets:

Passionate sense of mystery, curiosity , truth, sensation, divine knowledge
individualism, emotionalism, emphases on nature organic character of nature, symbolism

Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in
1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature. The immediate effect on
critics was modest, but it became and remains a landmark, changing the course of English literature and poetry. One of the is The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner.

The Rime of Ancient Mariner (1798) is a tale of a voyage beyond the limits of the inhabited, with a strong sense of global geography. It
is an allegorical tale of death, nightmare and hallucination, representing a man condemned to re-tell the story of his guilty forever and
ever. The story is quite simple: on the voyage to the south seas he kills an albatross, and the ship sinks but the Mariner is saved. The poem
shows affinities with the medieval dream-poem technique; here the Mariner as the agent of action blurs the distinction between cause and
effect. He kills the albatross without reason or justification, and this act ultimately determines his fate. The Mariner is something of a
mystery, representing a Life-in-Death image. According to human standards, his deed is not really a crime, but symbolically he violates the
divine order of nature and therefore has to be punished. He breaks the bond with nature and, as consequence, is isolated both from his
fellow men and from God. Being physically alive, he is spiritually dead.

Romantic Individualism Second Generation of Romantic Poets:

Childe Harolds Pilgrimage (1824) Childe Harold is the figure of disillusioned young man who already despise the pleasure of the world.
The underlying sentiments of the poem are never deep, running from cynicism to sentimentality. But there is a power and fluency in these
verses that set Byron apart from his contemporaries. Here, for the first time we meet a character who would come to be known as the
Byronic Hero. An exile wanderer, Childe Harold, just like Byron himself, is a proud and moody man, and defiant, with an insatiable taste
for revenge and characteristic scorn for mankind that bring misery to his heart despite his boundless capacity for deep, strong affection.

Ode to the West Wind (1819) [how physical becomes immaterial its own essence of being] demonstrate how something physical
becomes material, its own essence of being. It waves secular images of divinity, power and freedom to show nature an myth as one. This
poem fuses Shellys revolutionary ideas with the indescribable forces of the cosmos within the framework of special imagery of horizontal
movement.
Ode on a Grecian Urn (1819) [questions of art and beauty pastoral scene on a Grecian urn in which two lowers are about to kiss one
another] it is strongly anchored in the questions of beauty and art. The poet depicts a pastoral scene of a Grecian urn In which two lovers
are about to kiss each other, but never will do so, because they are only paintings on a cultural artifact. The images are more clearly
perceived than words. An image never changes. Art is, one the whole, eternal and immortal, but feelings are not. The only truth is art.
Because art is beautiful, beauty is truth.

Ancient classification: Drama, Epic, Lyric

Modern classification: Poetry, Prose, Drama

Romantic Prose The Novel:

Jane Austen apply the techniques of the novel to the acute observation of society, human character and motivation in microcosm. Satiric
purpose, her novels as unique representations of universal patterns of behavior and as documentation of and aspect of the provincial
society of her time.

Pride and Prejudice (1813) Its sparkling life and freshness of scenery with its gallery of interesting human portrayal (like the five Bennet
girls) makes this work one of her liveliest. Elizabeth is witty and high-spirited, Jane is beautiful and kind-hearted, Wickham gallant, Darcy
proud, and Mrs. Bennet incurably foolish. Having no fortune of their own, the Bennets confront the task to marrying off their daughters
seriously. Elizabeth and Darcy stand on either extremes, each having to modify their nature in order to achieve happiness. Both
characters develop as the novel progresses. Darcy, who at first is wooden figure, becomes a well rounded character who learns a lot not
only about others but primarily about himself. Elizabeth is first deceived by the disreputable Mr. Wickham, while Lady Catherine de
Borough is a monstrous caricature of Darcy. Catherine de Borough has pride without intelligence, and her behavior is understanding of
ordinary human life is portrayed in her novel with affectionate wit and sympathy. Austen understands that in society one has compromise
between ones own wishes and public duties and interests, and only through such compromise can one achieve happiness.

Wuthering Heights (1845) - This story is narrated by Lockwood, a gentleman visiting the Yorkshire moors where the novel is set, and of
Mrs Dean, housekeeper to the Earnshaw family, who had been witness of the interlocked destinies of the original owners of the Heights. In
a series of flashbacks and time shifts, Bront draws a powerful picture of the enigmatic Heathcliff, who is brought to Heights from the
streets of Liverpool by Mr Earnshaw. Heathcliff is treated as Earnshaw's own children, Catherine and Hindley. After his death Heathcliff is
bullied by Hindley, who loves Catherine, but she marries Edgar Linton. Heathcliff 's destructive force is unleashed, and his first victim is
Catherine, who dies giving birth to a girl, another Catherine. Isabella Linton, Edgar's sister, whom he had married, flees to the south. Their
son Linton and Catherine are married, but always sickly Linton dies. Hareton, Hindley's son, and the young widow became close.
Increasingly isolated and alienated from daily life, Heathcliff experiences visions, and he longs for the death that will reunite him with
Catherine.

Victorian Period The Victorian Novel:

The dominant trend of the Victiorian novel was realism
Works concerned with representing the world as it is rather than as it ought to be
Concerned with description rather than invention

Great Expectations (1861) The novel is the story of Philip Pirrip, known as Pip, who helps a runway prisoner and is then rewarded by an
unknown contributor who finances his education to young Estella, he thinks it is Miss Havisham who finances his upbringing. Young Pip is
love wityh Estella, an upper class woman, who does not reciprocate his love. The book is a searching study of a society in the grip of cash
nexus (?). Pip believes that money can make him a gentleman, Miss Havisham wants revenge through it, and Estella wants a secure life.
None of them, however, understands that it is not having but giving and sharing that begins true happiness. At the beginning of the novel,
we witnesses a dysfunctional family; Pips sister is unhappily married to Joe Gargery. They have no children of their own and Pip seems to
be always in the way. Later, Pip and Joe become friends again. The accumulation of descriptive detail gives the story much of is technical
mastery both in the character presentation and the development of the action. It is a story of redemption as Pip has to reformulate his
stance in the world when his fortune dwindles. Young Pip believes that achievement and status can be conferred upon him, but as the
matures he learn that what he is, is what he makes of himself and not what money can help him become.

The Picture of Dorian Gray(1890) It is the work that most expressively presents Wildes views on art and literature. While arts itself has
no purpose, that artist as aerator uses art to express whatever he wishes. An artist is the creator of beautiful things. Dorian Gray, a young
man whose beauty and desirability is captured in a portrait painted by an artist, expresses his artistic prerogative by wishing the portrait to
age while he himself remains young. The portrait the reflects his ensuing corruption and degeneration, yet he remains young. Doran
embodies the hedonistic ideas of his friend, Lord Henry Wotton. He book contains hints of homosexual relationships between Dorian and
his friend, the painter Basil Hallawardm yet nothing is expressly voiced. When Dorian stabs the portrait, he kills himself; roles reverse and
the portrait once again represents the young man, while Dorians corpse turns old and disgusting. Dorian perceives reality as an idea, just
as women are seen by him as ideas and not as real beings. Sybil Vane, the actress who commits suicide for Dorian, ceases to be interesting
once she stops being a perfect incarnation of Shakespearian heroines on stage and becomes a real loving person. Dorian sees love as a
Greek tragedy, which never really touches him as he remains simply an observer. Dorian is a flower of evil to use Baudelaries expression.
He wants to substitute his life for art, thus gaining immorality through it.