Australia Awards Welcome and Farewell Celebrations. This year 1330 Australia Awards scholars commenced study in first semester at 41 tertiary institutions across. Analyzing Literature A Guide for Students Sharon James McGee Kansas State University-Salina. English literature - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Selected English- language writers: (left to right, top to bottom) Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, T. Eliot, Vladimir Nabokov, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie. This article is focused on English- language literature rather than the literature of England, so that it includes writers from Scotland, Wales, and the whole of Ireland, as well as literature in English from countries of the former British Empire, including the United States. However, until the early 1. United Kingdom and Ireland. It does not include literature written in the other languages of Britain. The English language has developed over the course of more than 1,4. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo- Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo- Saxon settlers in the fifth century, are called Old English. Middle English began in the late 1. Norman conquest of England.
Early Modern English began in the late 1. London and the King James Bible as well as the Great Vowel Shift. Old English literature: c. These works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles and riddles. This is a work of uncertain date, celebrating the Battle of Maldon of 9. Anglo- Saxons failed to prevent a Viking invasion. Oral tradition was very strong in early English culture and most literary works were written to be performed. Beowulf is the most famous work in Old English, and has achieved national epic status in England, despite being set in Scandinavia. The only surviving manuscript is the Nowell Codex, the precise date of which is debated, but most estimates place it close to the year 1. Beowulf is the conventional title. The poem is one of the earliest attested examples of Old English and is, with the runic. Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry. It is also one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language. The poem, The Dream of the Rood, was inscribed upon the Ruthwell Cross. The longest is King Alfred's (8. Under the influence of the new aristocracy, French became the standard language of courts, parliament, and polite society. As the invaders integrated, their language and literature mingled with that of the natives, and the Norman dialects of the ruling classes became Anglo- Norman. From then until the 1. Anglo- Saxon underwent a gradual transition into Middle English. Political power was no longer in English hands, so that the West Saxon literary language had no more influence than any other dialect and Middle English literature was written in the many dialects that corresponded to the region, history, culture, and background of individual writers. It was also the first historiography written in English since the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle. Wycliffe's Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of, or at the instigation of, John Wycliffe. They appeared between about 1. These were William Langland, Geoffrey Chaucer and the so- called Pearl Poet, whose most famous work is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It is one of the better- known Arthurian stories of an established type known as the . Developing from Welsh, Irish and English tradition, Sir Gawain highlights the importance of honour and chivalry. Preserved in the same manuscript with Sir Gawayne were three other poems, now generally accepted as the work of the same author, including an intricate elegiac poem, Pearl. Chaucer is best known today for The Canterbury Tales. This is a collection of stories written in Middle English (mostly in verse although some are in prose), that are presented as part of a story- telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from Southwark to the shrine of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Chaucer is a significant figure in the development of the legitimacy of the vernacular, Middle English, at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were still French and Latin. At this time, literature in England was being written in various languages, including Latin, Norman- French, and English: the multilingual nature of the audience for literature in the 1. John Gower (c. A contemporary of William Langland and a personal friend of Chaucer, Gower is remembered primarily for three major works: the Mirroir de l'Omme, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis, three long poems written in Anglo- Norman, Latin and Middle English respectively, which are united by common moral and political themes. Richard Rolle. Julian's Revelations of Divine Love (about 1. English language. It was popular and influential in the later revival of interest in the Arthurian legends. Mystery plays were presented in the porches of cathedrals or by strolling players on feast days. Miracle and mystery plays, along with morality plays (or . Another form of medieval theatre was the mummers' plays, a form of early street theatre associated with the Morris dance, concentrating on themes such as Saint George and the Dragon and Robin Hood. These were folk tales re- telling old stories, and the actors travelled from town to town performing these for their audiences in return for money and hospitality. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They developed from the 1. The most complete is the York cycle of 4. They were performed in the city of York, from the middle of the 1. The plays were most popular in Europe during the 1. Like John Bunyan's allegory Pilgrim's Progress (1. Everyman examines the question of Christian salvation through the use of allegorical characters. The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 1. It is associated with the pan- European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 1. Like most of northern Europe, England saw little of these developments until more than a century later. Renaissance style and ideas were slow in penetrating England, and the Elizabethan era in the second half of the 1. English Renaissance. He was responsible for many innovations in English poetry, and alongside Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1. Elizabethan period (1. Another major figure, Sir Philip Sidney (1. Poems intended to be set to music as songs, such as those by Thomas Campion (1. Gorboduc is notable especially as the first verse drama in English to employ blank verse, and for the way it developed elements, from the earlier morality plays and Senecan tragedy, in the direction which would be followed by later playwrights. Shakespeare wrote plays in a variety of genres, including histories, tragedies, comedies and the late romances, or tragicomedies. Shakespeare's career continues in the Jacobean period. Other important figures in Elizabethan theatre include Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont. Jacobean period: 1. Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than the comedies of the 1. Jonson's aesthetics hark back to the Middle Ages and his characters embody the theory of humours, which was based on contemporary medical theory. Others who followed Jonson's style include Beaumont and Fletcher, who wrote the popular comedy, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (probably 1. Other revenge tragedies include The Changeling written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into English verse. The translation had a profound influence on English literature and inspired John Keats's famous sonnet . A collection of 1. Besides Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, the major poets of the early 1. Metaphysical poets: John Donne (1. This, one of the most massive translation projects in the history of English up to this time, was started in 1. This represents the culmination of a tradition of Bible translation into English that began with the work of William Tyndale, and it became the standard Bible of the Church of England. Late Renaissance: 1. The Cavalier poets were another important group of 1. King Charles I during the English Civil War (1. The best known of the Cavalier poets are Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Thomas Carew and Sir John Suckling. Most of the Cavalier poets were courtiers, with notable exceptions. For example, Robert Herrick was not a courtier, but his style marks him as a Cavalier poet. Cavalier works make use of allegory and classical allusions, and are influenced by Latin authors Horace, Cicero and Ovid. However, his major epic works, including Paradise Lost (1. Restoration period. Restoration Age: 1. It saw Locke's Two Treatises on Government, the founding of the Royal Society, the experiments and the holy meditations of Robert Boyle, the hysterical attacks on theatres from Jeremy Collier, the pioneering of literary criticism from Dryden, and the first newspapers. The official break in literary culture caused by censorship and radically moralist standards under Cromwell's Puritan regime created a gap in literary tradition, allowing a seemingly fresh start for all forms of literature after the Restoration. During the Interregnum, the royalist forces attached to the court of Charles I went into exile with the twenty- year- old Charles II. The nobility who travelled with Charles II were therefore lodged for over a decade in the midst of the continent's literary scene. John Milton, one of the greatest English poets, wrote at this time of religious flux and political upheaval. Milton best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1. Among other important poems include L'Allegro, 1. Il Penseroso 1. 63. Comus (a masque), 1. Lycidas. Milton's poetry and prose reflect deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self- determination, and the urgent issues and political turbulence of his day.
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