1. ENGLISH
LITERATURE:
AN OVERVIEW OF THE FAMOUS WORKS OF
ENGLISH AUTHORS THROUGHOUT THE
HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN

2. To start, a few details about the
class…

3. Assignments this term
 Author presentations-every week, one group
will present with handouts from each member
 Details on pg. 4
 Book report (and possibly drama)-more details
to come
 Details on pg. 7
 Weekly homework-assigned each class

4. Author presentation
 Rubric:
 Typed
 grammar/spelling
These
 Notes required requirements are
 Source given
on pg. 4
 Quality/ preparation
 Presentation skills
*Group 1-see me after class to see examples of handouts

5. Book Report
 Over the course of the semester, each student will read
one English book from the list on pg. 8-10.
 *note: there is an added book (13. „Sense and Sensibility‟ by
Jane Austen)
 Each student will be required to answer questions
about their book (listed on pg. 11-13)
 These questions will be completed as homework and
will be checked three times throughout the semester (so you will
have the whole semester to read the book)
*you will choose your book at the end of class

6.  What‟s important or helpful to know when
reading a story or poem?
Who? What? When? Where? Why?/How?
This is what we‟ll talk about for each period

7. Major Periods
Start taking
•The Middle Ages (Chaucer) notes on
pg.19
•The Renaissance (Shakespeare)
•The Classical Literature + Age of
Enlightenment (Bunyan/ Defoe)
•The 19th Century
•The Twentieth Century
•Focus of Poetry

8. Literature of the Middle Ages
Anglo- Saxon period
(5th - 10th centuries)
Content:
• admiration of heroic warriors who prevail in
battle
• express religious faith and give moral
instruction through literature

9. Style/Genres:
1. oral tradition of literature
2. poetry dominant genre
3. unique verse form
a. alliteration (repetition of same consonant in words or
syllables.)
Then the baleful fiend its fire belched out,
And bring home burned. The blaze stood high
And land folk fighting
b. repetition (the repetition of these consonants gives the
words rhyme)
c. double metaphor (sail-road =sea)

10. Effect:
•Christianity helps literacy to spread
•introduces Roman alphabet to Britain
•oral tradition helps unite diverse peoples and their
myths
•Historical Context:
•life centered around ancestral tribes or clans that
ruled themselves
•at first the people were warriors from invading
outlying areas: Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Danes
•later they were agricultural

11. How the Anglo-Saxons Lived

13. A sampling of key literature:
Beowulf
 First known masterpiece of English literature
 An epic poem (a long poem, typically one
derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the
deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary
figures or the history of a nation.)
 Describes the historical past of the land from
which the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes came
 Talks about the defeat of Grendel, the monster
who was killed by Beowulf, a strong young
Viking, who later becomes king of Norway

14.  Plot
 Travels to help his kinsman Hrothgar, king
of the Danes
 Kills the monster Grendel by tearing off
his arm
 Kills Grendel‟s mother by following her
into a deep lake
 Becomes king of the Geats, rules for 50
years
 Dies killing a dragon to save his people and
make them rich
 Qualities of an Anglo-Saxon hero:
 Bravery, strength, seeking glory, boasting

15. Brainstorm with a partner
Talk about these Questions:
1. Who are heroes/heroines in Vietnam? What
qualities do they possess?
2. Look at the characteristics of an epic listed on
pg. 23. Which of those characteristics are
shared by the stories of Vietnamese heroes?
3. Are courage, strength, and boldness qualities
you look for in a modern hero? If not, what
different qualities do you look for?

16. The Anglo-Norman Period
(11th-13th centuries)
 Content:
 chivalric code of honor/romances
 Style/Genres:
 oral tradition continues
 folk ballads
 popular poetry, funny stories about townspeople (fabliaux)
 bestiaries-stories in which characters were animals
 Effect:
 Expressed the values of knighthood
What is a knight?
(in the Middle Ages) a man who served his sovereign or lord as a
mounted soldier in armor.

17. Historical Context:
 1066-Battle of Hastings-Anglo-Saxon army defeated by
William, Duke of Normandy
 Normans from north-west France
 3 languages used, French (nobility), Latin (clergy) , Anglo-
Saxon (common people)
 Feudal system

19. A Sampling of Key Literature & Authors:
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

20. The Pre-Renaissance (14-15th
centuries)
Content:
 plays that instruct the illiterate masses in morals and
religion
 religious devotion
Style/Genres:
 mystery and miracle plays
 morality plays
Effect:
 church instructs its people through the morality and
miracle plays
 an illiterate population is able to hear and see the literature

21. Mystery, Miracle, and Morality

22. Mystery, Miracle and Morality
plays
 The origin of formal drama in England was the
Christian Church
 Morality: Characters were qualities such as Sin,
Grace, and Repentance to help Christians in
England who could not read understand ideas
from the Bible
 Mystery: acted out Biblical events
 Miracle: acted out specific miraculous events in
Biblical record

23. Historical Context:
 Fight between English, Latin, and French comes to
an end. 1362-English is decided for court
 1399, Henry IV, mother tongue was English comes
to throne
 War of Roses (1455-1485)
A Sampling of Key Literature & Authors:
 L’Morte de Arthur (The Death of King Arthur)
 Geoffrey Chaucer –Canterbury Tales

24. L’Morte de Arthur (the death of
King Arthur)

25. Let’s take a break

26. Geoffrey
Chaucer
& The Canterbury
Tales

27. Time Period
 1066 – Norman Invasion
 Northern France
 Last Successful invasion of England
 Absentee kings
 French – Language of Nobility
 Less writing in English
 1300‟s – return to English literature

28. Facts on Chaucer…
 Birth in London, ?/?/1343
 Author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat
(courtier), diplomat
 Sometimes called the “Father of English
Literature”
 Author of Many works
 “The Book of the Dutch”, “House of Fame”, etc
 Best known for “The Canterbury Tales”

29. Facts on the tales…
 Collection of stories written by Chaucer
 Popularized writing/reading in English
 One frame tale; many short tales within
 Stories within a story
 Talks about a pilgrimage: • a journey to a place
associated with someone or something well known
or respected, often religious

30. Social Order during Chaucer’s
time
 Three Estates
 Those who fight/rule (knights, nobles)
 Those who pray (church leaders)
 Those who labor (commoners; everyone
else)

32. Brainstorm with a Partner
 In
Vietnam, what places do people
make pilgrimages to?
 Why do people travel to these places?

33. From The Canterbury Tales:
General Prologue
Here bygynneth the Book of the Tales of The Canterbury Tales: The Prologue Pg. 28
Caunterbury Modern English Version
Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the 1 When in April the sweet showers fall
roote And pierce the drought of March to the
root, and all
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
The veins are bathed in liquor of such power
Of which vertu engendred is the flour; As brings about the engendering of the flower,
5 Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth 5 When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth Exhales an air in every grove and heath
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun
His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run,
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And the small fowl are making melody
And smale foweles maken melodye, 10 That sleep away the night with open eye
10 That slepen al the nyght with open eye- (So nature pricks them and their heart engages)
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages); Then people long to go on pilgrimages
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages And palmers long to seek the stranger strands
Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
At nyght was come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye

34. Questions:
 What month is it?
 April
 “Then people long to go on ______________”
 pilgrimages
 Where are they traveling?
 Canterbury
 How many are in the group?
 29
 Who does he describe first?
 A knight

35. In a little more
detail…
 In Canterbury, they are going to visit the cathedral
 Specifically, the shrine of Archbishop Thomas A Becket
 Why?
 It is said to be a place of miracles
 Spring is the time to go seek a blessing
 major conflict · The struggles between
characters, manifested in the links between tales, mostly
involve clashes between social classes, differing tastes, and
competing professions. There are also clashes between the
sexes, and there is resistance to the Host's somewhat
tyrannical leadership.

36. Homework for next class
 Read pgs. 14-17 & answer questions A-C,
pg. 17-18
(this is review of what we’ve covered in class today so
it will be easy )
 Read pgs. 32-33 & answer questions on
pg.34
Group 1: prepare to tell us about William
Shakespeare next class

37. Great job!
You made it through day 1 of
class and several centuries of
English literature!