British Writers and Works I.

Old English Literature & The Late Medieval Ages

<Beowulf>:the national epic of the Anglo-Saxons Epic: long narrative poems that record the adventures or heroic deeds of a hero enacted in vast landscapes. The style of epic is grand and elevated. e.g. Homers Iliad and Odyssey Artistic features: 1. Using alliteration Definition of alliteration: a rhetorical device, meaning some words in a sentence begin with the same consonant sound Some examples on P5 2. Using metaphor and understatement Definition of understatement: expressing something in a controlled way Understatement is a typical way for Englishmen to express their ideas Geoffery Chaucer 1340(?)~1400 (John Dryden) The father of English poetry. writing style: wisdom, humor, humanity. <The Canterbury Tales> first time to use heroic couplet() by middle English <Troilus and Criseyde> <The House of Fame> Medieval Ages popular Literary form: Romance() Famous threeKing Arthur Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Beowulf

II The Renaissance Period

A period of drama and poetry. The Elizabethan drama is the real mainstream of the English Renaissance. Renaissance: the activity, spirit, or time of the great revival of art, literature, and learning in Europe beginning in the 14th century and extending to the 17th century, marking the transition from the medieval to the modern world. Three historical events of the Renaissance rebirth or revival: 1. new discoveries in geography and astrology 2. the religious reformation and economic expansion 3. rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek culture The most famous dramatists: Christopher Marlowe William Shakespeare Ben Johnson. Edmund Spenser 1552~1599

1.

 The poets poet. The first to be buried in the Poets corner of Westerminster Abbey <The Faerie Queene>(for Queen Elizabeth) The theme is not Arms and the man, but something more romantic Fierce wars and faithfull loves. Artistic features: 1. Using Spenserian Stanza Definition of Spenserian Stanza:a stanza of nine lines ababbcbcc. Eight lines in iambic pentameter, and last line in iambic hexameter. <The Shepherds Calendar> The theme is to lament over the loss of Rosalind. <Amoretti> 2. Thomas More 1478~1535 One of the greatest English humanists <Utopia> 3. Francis Bacon 1561~1626 Philosopher, scientist, lay the foundation for modern science. The first English essayist. Writing style:brevity, compactness&powerfulness, well-arranging and enriching by Biblical allusions, metaphors and philosophy to mans reason. <The Advancement of Learning> <Essays>(famous quotas: <Of studies>) The theme of Of Studies: uses and benefits of study and different ways adopted by different people to pursue studies. 4. Ben Jonson <Comedy of Humours> <Volpone, or the fox> 5. Christopher Marlowe 1564~1595 University Wits, the pioneer of English drama Blank verse: written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. <The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus> <Tamburlaine> <The Jew of Malta> 6. William Shakespeare 1564~1616 Historical plays: Henry VI ; Henry IV : Richard III ; Henry V Richard IIHenry VIII Four Comedies: <As You Like It> ; <Twelfth Night> ; <A Midsummer NightS Dream> ; <Merchant Of Venice>

Four Tragedies: <Hamlet> ; <Othello> ; <King Lear> ; <Macbeth> Shakespeare Sonnet :154 <The Sonnets> Three quatrain and one couplet, ababcdcdefefgg A sonnet is a lyric consisting of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter restricted to a definition rhyme scheme.

III The 17th Century

1. John Milton 1608~1674 ; Epics: <Paradise Lost> <Paradise Regained> Dramatic poem: < Samson Agonistes> <Areopagitica> <The Defence of the English People> <On His Blindness> This sonnet is written in iambic pentameter rhymed in abba abba cde cde, typical of Italian sonnet. Its theme is that people use their talent for God, and they serve him best sho can endure the suffering best. 2. John Bunyan 1628~1688 Puritan poet() Religionary Allegory:<The Pilgrims Progress> 3. John Donne the Metaphysical poet(). Metaphysical Poetry()the diction is simple, the imagery is from the actual, ( )the form is frequently an argument with the poets beloved, with god, or with himself.love, religious, thought Artistic features: 1. conceits or imagery 2. syllogism Meditations The Flea Songs And Sonnets Holy Sonnets Valediction:<Forbidding Mourning>

IV The 18th Century

A revival of interest in the old classical works, order, logic, restrained emotion( ) and accuracy The Age of Enlightenment/Reason: the movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centries, a progressive intellectual movement, reason(rationality), equality&science(the 18th century)

 In the mid-century, the newly literary form, modern English novel rised(realistic novel ) Gothic novel()mystery, horror, castles(from middle part to the end of century) 1. Alexander Pope 1688~1744 18 / heroic couplets One of the first to introduce rationalism to England. <An Essay on Criticism> Artistic features: 1.Using heroic couplets <The Rape of the Lock> <Moral Essays> <Essay on Man> <The Dunciad> 2. Samuel Johnson 1709~1784 Dictionary =<A Dictionary of English Language> 3. Jonathan Swift 1667~1745 a master satirist <Gullivers Travels>(fictional work) Four parts: Lilliput Brobdingnag Flying Island Houyhnhnm <A Modest Proposal> <The Battle of Books> <A Tale of a Tub> <The Drappers Letters> 4. Daniel Defoe 1660~1731 He is the first writer study of the lower-class people,hislanguage is smooth, easy, colloquial and mostly vernacular, and he is the founder of realistic novel. <Robinson Crusoe> It praise the fortitude of the human labor and the Puritan. Robinson grew from a naive and artless youth into a shrewd and hardened man,tempered by numerous trials in his eventful life. It is an adventure story, Robinson, narrates how he goes to sea, gets shipwrecked and marooned on a lonely island, struggles to live for 24years there and finally gets relieved and returns to England. <Moll Flanders> <Colonel Jacque> <Captain singleton>

5. Henry Fielding 1707~1754 He is called Father of English novel. He was the first to write a Comic epic in prose(), and the first to give the modern novel its structure and style. novels: <The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling> <The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews> <The Life of Mr Jonathan Wild, the Great> <Amelia> plays: <The Historical Register for 1736> <Don Quixote in England> 6. Oliver Goldsmith 1730~1774 poems: <The Traveller> <The Deserted Village> novel: <The Vicar of Wakefield> 7. Richard Brinsley Sheridan 1751~1816 <The Rivals> <The School for Scandal> 8. William Blake 1757~1827 <Songs of Innocence> A happy and innocent world from childrens eye. <Songs of Experience> A word of misery, poverty, disease, war and repression with a melancholy tone from men eyes. Include: <The Chimney Sweeper> <London> <The Tyger> Lamb is a symbol of peace and purity Tyger is a symbol of dread and oiolence <The Marriage of Heaven and Hell> 9. Robert Burns 1759~1796 The greatest Scottish poet in the late 18th century. Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect <John Anderson, My Jo> <A Red, Red Rose> <Auld Long Syne>

<A Mans a Man for AThat> <My Hearts in the Highlands> <Bruce At Bannockburn> <The Tree Of Liberty>

V The Romantic Period

The romantic period began in 1798 the publication of Wordsworth and Coleridges <Lyrical Ballads>, and end in 1832 with Sir Walter Scotts death. Romanticism:It emphasize the specialqualitie of each individuals mind.( ) In it, emotion over reason, spontaneous emotion, a change from the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit, poetry should be free from all rules, imagination, nature, commonplace. Two major novelists of the Romantic period are Jane Austen (realistic) and Walter Scott (romantic). The Lake Poetswho lived in the lake district.
William Wordsworth; Samuel Taylor Coleridge; Robert Southey

1. William Wordsworth 1770~1850 The Lake Poets <Lyrical Ballads>(with Samuel Taylor Coleridge) <I Wondered Lonely As A Cloud> Theme:1.Nature embodies human beings in their diverse circumstance. It is nature that give him strength and knowledge fullof peace 2.It is bliss to recolled the beauty of nature in poet mind while he is in solitude. Comment:The poet is very cheerful with recalling the beautiful sights. In the poem on the beauty of nature, the reader is presented a vivid picture of lively and lovely daffodils( ) and poets philosophical ideas and mystical thoughts. Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey The Solitary Reaper <The Prelude> 2. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772~1834 The Lake Poets <The Rime of the Ancient Mariner> <Christabel> <Kubla Khan> Artistic features: mysticism, demonism with strong imagination, a strange territory

 <Frost at Night> <Dejection, an Ode> <Lyrical Ballads>(with William Wordsworth) 3. George Gordon Byron 1788~1824 Byronic heroes Byronic hero is a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin, against tyrannical rules or moral principles. <Don Juan> <Childe Harolds Pilgrimage> <Cain> <When We Two Parted> <She Walks In Beauty> 4. Persy Bysshe Shelley 1792~1822 Poetic Drama <Prometheus Unbound> Theme: the drama celebraies mans victory over tyranny and oppression <Queen Mab> <Revolt of Islam> <The Cenci> <A Defence of Poetry> <The Necessity of Atheism> Lyrics: <Ode to the West Wind> Theme: The author express his eagerness to enjoy the boundless freedom from the reality. Compare the west wind to destroyer of the old who drives the last signs of life from the trees, and preserver of the new who scatter the seads shich sill come to life in the spring. This is a poem about
renewal, about the wind blowing life back into dead things, implying not just an arc of life (which would end at death) but a cycle, which only starts again when something dies. Comment: Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" is written in iambic pentameter. It contains five sonnet length stanzas, each with a closing couplet. The rhyming scheme form is aba bcb cdc ded ee. The tone is poignant. Many will agree that this poem is an invocation for an unseen force to take control and revive life.

Artistic features: Using rerza rima( aba bcb cdc ded efe ) <To a Skylark> 5. John Keats 1795~1821

() Four great odes: <Ode on a Grecian Urn> <Ode to a Nightingale> <Ode to Psyche> <Ode On Melancholy> <To Autumn> Theme: The theme of John Keats' poem, "To Autumn", is that change is both natural and beautiful. The poem praises the glories of the fall season by using almost every type of imagery to both charm and appeal to the reader. Comment: The speaker in the poem acknowledges that time passes by, but also asserts that this change usually yields something new and better than what came before. Each of the poem's three stanzas represents the evolving of two different types of change. One type of change shown in the poem is the change of periods in a day. 6. Jane Austen 1775~1817 She compared her works to a fine engraving upon a literary piece of ivory only inches squire. <Sense and Sensibility> <Pride and Prejudic> (chapter I) Elizabeth Bennet & Darcyin the end false pride is humbled and prejudice dissolved Collins & Charlotte Lucas see the reality of marriage as a necessary step if a woman is to avoid the wretchedness of aging spinsterhood Lydia & Wickhamshown the dangers of feckless relationships unsupported by money. Mr.&Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine de Burghcomic characters <Mansfield Park> <Emma> <Northanger Abbey> <Persuasion> 7. Walter Scott 1771~1832 ()Father of history novels <Rob Roy> <Ivanhoe>

VI The Victorian Period

Common sense and moral propreity, again became the predominant

preoccupation. Critical realists were all concerned about the fate of the common people and everyday events. 1. Charles Dickens 1812~1870 critical realist writer <The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club> <Oliver Twist> <The Old Curiosity Shop> <A Christmas Carol> <Dombey and Son> <David Copperfield> <Bleak House> <Hard Times> <A Tale of Two Cities>(London & Paris) <Great Expectations> <Our Mutual Friend> 2. William Makepeace Thackeray 1811~1863 <Vanity Fair> or a Novel without a Hero (the name is an excerpt from <The Pilgrims Progress>by John Bunyan) <The Book Of Snobs> 3. Charlotte Bronte 1816~1855 <Jane Eyre> Jane Eyre, a plain little orphan, was sent to Lowood, a charity school. There she suffer a lot and 8 years later she left school and became a boverness at Thornfield Hall. There she falls in love with the master,Mr. Rochester. It is noted for its sharp criticism of the existing society, e.g. charity institution such as Lowood School It is a successful introduction to the first governess heoine in the English novel, whom represents those middle-class working women struggling for recognition of their basic rights and equality as a human being. <Shirley> <Professor> 4. Emily Bronte 1818~1854 < Wuthering Heights> A story about two familie and an intruding stranger. TheEarnshaw FamilyMr. Earnshaw, his wife, the son Hindley, the daughter Catherine, Heathcliff The Linton FamilyMr.Linton, his wife, son Edgar, daughter Isabella < Old Stoic>

5. George Eliot 1819~1880 <The Mill on the Floss> < Adam Bede> < Silas Marner> < Middlemarch>

6. Alfred Tennyson 1809~1892 Poet Laureate < In Memoriam> To memorialize his friend < Break, Break, Break> < Idylls of the King> 7. Robert Browning 1812~1889 < My Last Dutchess> < Home Thoughts From Abroad> Elizabeth Barrett Browing: <Sonnet from the Portuguese> 8. Robert Louis Stevenson <Treasure Island> 9. Thomas Hardy 1840~1928 Wessex novels; novels of character and environment Novels < Tess Of The DUrbervilles> Theme:experience is as to intensity, and not as to duration < Jude The Obscure> < Under The Greenwood Tree> < Far From The Madding Crowd> < The Mayor Of Casterbridge> < The Return of the Native> Poems Wessex Poems And Other Verses Poems Of The Past And Present The Dynasts

VII 1900~1950 The 20th Century

Playwrights

 Oscar Wilde George Bernard Shaw 1. Oscar Wilde 1856~1900 The Aesthetic Movement: Art for Arts Sake 4 Comedies: <The Importance Of Being Earnest> <Lady Windermeres Fan> <A Woman Of No Importance> <An Ideal Husband> Novel: <The Picture Of Dorian Gray> Fairy Stories: <The Happy Prince And Other Tales> 2. George Bernard Shaw 1856~1950 (critical realistic dramatist Plays Plays Unpleasant <Mrs WarrenS Profession> <Widowers Houses> Plays Pleasant <Arms And Man> <The Man Of Destiny> Plays <Man And Superman> <Pygmalion> <The Apple Cart> <Saint Joan>

Novelists (Realists)
1. Joseph Concrad <Lord Jim> <Heart Of Darkness> 1.Why the books title is Heart of Darkness? The story happened in Congo, the heart of Africa, and the color of peoples skin in there is black. Most important point about the title is to the evil in humans heart. 2.What is the symbolism of black and white Black / dark- death, evil, ignorance, mystery, savagery, uncivilized Middle Ages, when science and knowledge was suppressed, as the Dark Ages. According to Christianity, in the beginning of time all

was dark and God created light. According to Heart of Darkness, before the Romans came, England was dark. In the same way, Africa was considered to be in the dark stage. White / lightlife, goodness, enlightenment, civilized, religion. Yet, in Concrad, the usual pattern is reverse and darkness means truth(The truth within, therefore dark and obscure.), whiteness means falsehood. This contrast tells a political truth about colonialism in the Congo. The contrast also suggests a psychological truth about Marlow and the Europeans mind. White also suggests any number of unpleasant moral truths. The trade in ivory is white and dirty.Kurtz the white man is totally corrupt 3.Comment The book implies that civilizations are created by the laws and codes that encourage men to achieve higher standards. The law acts as a buffer to prevent men from reverting back to their darker tendencies. Civilization, however, must be learned. London itself, in the book a symbol of enlightenment, was once "one of the darker places of the earth" before the Romans forced civilization upon the Britons.But civilized society does not get rid of primeval savage tendencies which lurk in the background. This savagery is seen in Kurtz. Marlow meets Kurtz and he finds a man that has totally thrown off the restraint of civilization and has deevolved into a primitive state. 4.Character Kurtz represents what every man will become if left to his own intrinsic desires without a protective, civilized environment. Marlow represents the civilized soul that has not been drawn back into savagery by a dark, alienating jungle. 5.Narrative Structure In Heart of Darkness, we have an outside narrator telling us a story he has heard from Marlow. The story Marlow tells centers around Kurtz.However, most of what Marlow knows about Kurtz, he has learned from others.They have good reason for not being truthful to Marlow. Therefore Marlow has to piece together much of Kurtzs story. 2. William Somerset Maugham <Of Human Bondage> 3. Edward Morgan Foster (E.M.Foster) <A Passage To India> <Hawards End>

Modernists
3 Novelists James Joyce David Herbert Lawrence Virgirnia Woolf 1. David Herbert Lawrence 1885~1930 <Sons And Lovers>(autobiographical) Mrs. Morel , daughter of a middle-class family, is "a woman of character and refinement", a strong-willed, intelligent and ambitious woman who is fascinated by a warm, vigorous and sensuous coal miner, Walter Morel, and married beneath her own class.Then, she was desponded at her husband and put her love to her sons. She hopes that they
will become outstanding

Paul Moreldepends heavily on his mothers love and help to make sense of the world around him. He struggle to free from his mothers influence, but he failed. After his mother has died and he is left alone, in despair. Theme: Lawrence was one of the first novelists to introduce themes of psychology into his works. He believed that the healthy way of the individuals psychological development lay in the primacy of the life implulse, or in another term, the sexual impulse.huaman sexuality was, to Lawrence, a symbol of life force.by presenting the psychological experience of indivudual human life and of human relationships, Lawrence has opened up a wide new territory to the novel Oedipus Complex is a thematic feature of D. H. Lawrences Sons and Lovers <The Rainbow> <Women In Love> <Lady Chatterleys Lover> 2. James Joyce 1882~1941 stream-of-consciousness <Ulysses>(S_O_C) <A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man> <Finnegans Wake> <Dubliners> 3. Virginia Woolf 1882~1941 stream-of-consciousness

 Novels <Mrs Dalloway> <To The Lighthouse> <The Waves> <The Lighthouse> <Jacobs Room> <Orlando> <Between The Acts>

2 Poets
W. B. Yeats (William Butler Yeats ) T.S. Eliot ( Thomas Sterns Eliot ) 1.William Butler Yeats 1865~1939 The Irish nationalist movement The Irish Literary Revival The Irish Literary Theater, or the Abbey Theater collections <The Wind Among The Reeds> <Responsibilities> <The Tower> <The Winding Stair> Poems <Easter 1916> 1916 <The Second Coming> / <Sailing To Byzantium> 2. Thomas Sterns Eliot Poems <The Waste Land> <Four Quartets> <The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock> Plays <Murder In The Cathedral>