I- Survey on English

Literature
Anglo-Saxon Period (449-1066).
Language spoken and used in literature is old English. Developed by the North
Germanic tribes. No writing alphabet. Most of the literature of the Anglo-
Saxons was Oral, and the few surviving writing traces were anonymous.
Famous writers (Cædmon, Ælfric and King Alfred). The corpus of the Anglo
Saxon literature is chronicles poetry lyric, descriptive but chiefly narrative or
epic. L Beowulf. Literature expressed: Strong belief in fate. Juxtaposition of the
church and pagan. Admiration of courage and heroic warriors who come
victors from the battlefield. Anglo-Saxon spirituality related to religious faith,
besides giving moral instruction. Christianity helped literacy spread. The Roman
alphabet. Poetry was the dominant literary genre.

Medieval Period (1066-1485).

Morality plays: were intended to instruct religious morals to the illiterate
masses. Chivalric Romance: chivalric code of honour enacted by the Knights to
express gallantry and courtesy to their fair ladies. Romance: individuals to
express their emotions and feelings. Ballad: were songs bearing the marks of
regional culture. Mystery plays: the Bible stories/Parables in churches to
preach Christian morality. Morality Plays: A kind of drama with personified
abstract qualities are personified in these plays (sin, charity, Christian) and each
is dramatically represented through a character. Morality plays aim to teach
morality lessons.
The dominant figures of speech in medieval poetry were: Stock epithets: any
word or phrase referring to a person or thing to depict a real or attributed
quality. Kenning: A phrase full of connotations used instead the usual name of
a person or thing. The Church dominance as a didactic source.

The Renaissance (1485-1660).

The Worldview in Europe overweighed the human subject and the mundane
life on religion and the afterlife.
Major Themes: Celebrating and enhancing human capacities and creative
faculties Love (unrequited, constant, timeless, courtly, Love subject to change).
The Genres: Sonnets, Drama: Supported by the monarchs, Tragedies, comedies
and histories were written in verse. The Historical Context of the Renaissance in
Britain was marked by the end of the War of the Roses in 1485. After this, there
was a long period of political stability which led to prosperity. Besides
economic changes Economy changes from farm-based to international trade,
the printing press contributed to the standardization of the English language
and promoted literacy by spreading a variety of literature. With Sir Thomas
Wyatt ‘sonnets inspired from Italian Petrarch (1503-1542), Henry Howard’s
unrhymed pentameters (or blank verse) and Earl of Surrey‘s work (1517-1547),
modern lyric poetry begun to become later of great use dramatists. Lyric poetry
unprecedentedly prospered with such writers as Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586),
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), Christopher
Marlowe (1564-1593) and William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Spenser's Faerie
Queen, Sidney's Astrophil and Stella and Shakespeare's sonnets, were the
masterpieces of lyrical poetry during the Elizabethan rule.