PART ONE: English Literature

1. PART ONE: English Literature An Introduction to Old and Medieval English Literature

2. Introduction to some necessary concepts • Celts: member of one of the races that now include the Irish, Welsh, Cornish and highland Scots. • Anglo-Saxons: one of the race of people who settled in England (from NW Europe ) before the Norman Conquest; their language ( also called Old English ) • The Normans: those who conquered England in 11th century (Scandinavian and Frankish descendant

3. The Outline of Time • Old English: 450-1066 (AD5th -11th century ) • Medieval English: 1100-1500(AD11th-15th century ) • The Renaissance Period:(14th-17th) • The Neoclassical Period :(17th -18th ) • The Romantic Period: (early 18th-late 18th ) • The Victorian Period: (19th - 20th ) • The Modern Period : (20th - )

4. Old English • Time :450-1066 ,the Germanic tribes from the Northern Europe brought with them not only the Anglo-Saxon language-the basis of Modern English, but also specific poetic tradition –bold ,strong, mournful and elegiac in spirit. Generally divided into two main groups: the religious group( based on biblical themes such as Genesis A , Genesis B and Exodus )and the secular one. There is also the national epic poem such as Beowulf.

5. Beowulf • A typical example of Old English poetry, is regarded today as the national epic of the Anglo-Saxons.

6. The Norman Conquest • Time: 1066-1500 With the Norman Conquest starts the medieval period in English literature • Features: • 1.Politically, a feudalist system was established in English • 2.Religiously, the Rome-backed Catholic Church had a much stronger influence over the country • 3.Great changes in languages, that is ,three languages –French, the official language used by the king and the Norman lords; Latin the principal language in churches and Old English by common people co-existed in England.

7. Famous Writers in the Period • Geoffrey Chaucer, • William Langland • John GOWER

8. Romance • Romance which uses narrative verse or prose to sing knightly adventures or other heroic deeds is a popular literary form in the medieval period. There is often a liberal use of the impossible ,sometimes even the supernatural things in romance of the plot .The structure is loose and episodic. The hero is usually a knight, developing the characteristic medieval themes of the quest, the test, the meeting with the evil giant and the encounter with the beautiful beloved. Romance reflects a chivalric age.

9. Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) • Personal experience: • 1.    The father of the English poetry, the founder of modern English, Chaucer was born of a wine merchant family, with rising fortunes and some standing at the court. • 2.       1357 served as a court page (boy servant ), and in 1359 in an English arm fighting in France and was taken prisoner. • 3.       Probably in 1361 to 1367 studied at the Inner Temple where he received training for a career at the court.

10. 4.  He might be likely to get married to Philippa, a maid of honor to the queen and sister of Gaunt, or sister of the future wife of John Gaunt, son of the king, the Duke of Lancaster, who became his patron (protector ). • 5. 1367 he entered the service of the King Edward III. Several times he was sent to European continent on diplomatic missions, two of which took him to Italy, negotiating treaties and performing other business for the king.

11. Chaucer’s Education • 6. We know nothing about his formal education. There is no evidence that he went to any university, but plenty evidence showed that he knew university men: for example, among the Canterbury pilgrims the learned, bookish, half-starved clerk, and his fellow Jankins, fifth husband of the Wife of Bath, ect.

12. 7.In 1374, he was made controller of customs and subsidy (money ) of wools, skins and hides which he kept for twelve years. • 8. In 1385, he became one of the justice of the peace for Kent. • 9.  In 1386, he was elected Member of Parliament for Kent. • 10.   He was the first poet buried in Westminster Abby, for his great contribution to the making of English literature.

13. Conclusion • In his life, he served in a great variety of occupations, a courtier, an officer-holder, soldier, ambassador, legislator and burgher (citizen ) of London. • He had broad and intimate acquaintance with persons high and low in all walks of life, and knew well the whole life of his time, which left great impression upon his works and particularly upon the ) picture of the English society of his time to be found in his masterpiece. The Canterbury Tales.

14. His literary career • Literary historian often divided his literary life into three periods, corresponding to the predominating literary influences ___French, Italian and English. • The first period • The French___ the period stretching from (1360-1372), during which he fell under t

15. he influence of French poetry of the Middle Ages. Works in this period consist of ones translated from the French such as the Romans of the Rose The romance of Rose), which was a love allegory, enjoying wide spread popularity in 13th and 14th century, not only in France but throughout Europe. The poem cast in the form of a dream-vision. In this poem, Chaucer first introduced the coat-syllabic couple into English verse. Example:

16. Of Study took he most care and heed • No one word spoke he more than was need. • Besides this, he also wrote the Book of the Duchess (1369-1370)

17. The second period • The second period extending from 1372-1385, under the influence of early Renaissance of Italy especially under the influence of Dante, the author of Divine Comedy, Petrach, an Italian poet who created a kind of sonnet, and Bocaccio, the writer of Decarmeron. The works of this period are: • 1. The house of Fame (1370) Unfinished. • 2.Troilus and Criseyde (1385—1386) (特洛伊勒斯与克利西达) • 3. The Legend of Good Women (1385—1386)

18. Of the three The legend of Good Women is again a love vision. • Troilus and Criseyde is taken from Baccaccio’s Filostrato , but Chaucer here partly adopted and partly translated from Bacaccio’s poem, and in turn it inspired Henrryson’ Testament of Criseyde in 15th century. Shakespeare’s Troilus and Criseyde in the early 17th century, and John Dyden’s adoption of Shakespeare’s with the same title during the Renaissance.

19. The third period • The third period is the period of extending from 1385 to 1400, during which the poet made a great progress and distinguished himself for profound delineation of character and truthful description of human relations, which showed his maturity in versification. The work of this period is his master piece.

20. General Introduction to the Canterbury Tales • The Canterbury Tales is Chaucer’s masterpiece and one of the monumental works in English literature.

21. Social significance of the work • 1. give us a true to life picture of his time. • 2.taking from the stand of rising bourgeoisie, he affirms men and opposes the dogma of asceticism (not allowed to enjoy happiness)苦行僧主义preached by the Church. • 3.       As a forerunner of humanism, he praises man’s energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life. • 4.       His tales expose and satirize the evils of his time, attack degeneration堕落 of the noble, the heartless of the judge, the corruption of the Church and so on.

22. Chaucer’s writing style • 1. exact language • 2. His poetry is full of vigor and swiftness. • 3.He enriched the poetic forms for the English poetry. • 4.He is the first person who made the London vernacular (dialect) the language of his work, thus make it the foundation for modern speech and establish English as the literary language of the country. • 5.His language style is remarkably lexical. His prose is easy and informal. His works are full of genial satires.

23. Chaucer’s contribution • 1.He introduced into England the rhymed stanzas of various forms to English poetry instead of the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse. • Heroic couplet • The rhyme royal • c.  The octave (八行一节的诗), eight-line iambic pentameter stanza, rhyming ababbcbc, in which Monks Tale is written. • 2. He did much in making the dialect of London the language of the court, the learned and the well-to do.

24. Alliteration • The repetition of the beginning accented syllables near to each other with the same consonantal sound, as in many idiomatic phrases: “safe and sound”; “thick and thin”; “right as rain”. Alliteration is thus the opposite of rhyme, by which the similar sounds occur at the ends of the syllables.

25. Foot • The metrical unit; in English, an accented syllable with accompanying light syllable or syllables.