ENGLISH

LITERATURE
 WHAT IS
“ENGLISH LITERATURE”?
An English Literature major will
English Literature refers likely examine texts including
to the study of texts from poetry, drama, and prose fiction,
around the world, written perhaps briefly covering more
in the English language. contested forms of literature in
their chosen path.
 HISTORY
The story of English literature begins with
the Germanic tradition of the Anglo-Saxon
settlers. Beowulf stands at its head. This
epic poem of the 8th century is in
Anglo-Saxon, now more usually described as
Old English. It is incomprehensible to a
reader familiar only with modern English.
 WHO IS THE FOUNDER OF ENGLISH
LITERATURE?
Geoffrey Chaucer is considered the founder of modern English
literature. Although Old English had produced a rich literature
in the early Middle Ages, this writing tradition ended abruptly
after the Norman invasion of 1066.
 TIMELINE
01 450 - 1066
OLD ENGLISH PERIOD

1066 - 1500 0
MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD
2
0 1500 - 1660
THE RENAISSANCE
3
1660 - 1785 0
THE NEOCLASSICAL PERIOD
4
 0 1785 - 1832
TIMELINE
THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
5
1832 - 1901 0
THE VICTORIAN PERIOD
6
0 1901 - 1914
THE EDWARDIAN PERIOD
7
1910 - 1936 0
THE GEORGIAN PERIOD
8
 0 1914
TIMELINE
THE MODERN PERIOD
9
PERIOD 1945 1
THE POSTMODERN
0
She was a very He was an English
English
Writers
important novelist writer, philosopher,
whose works diplomat, and poet,
continue to be sold best known for being
today, and even the author of the
movies are made Canterbury Tales.
about her.
Jane Austen (1775 – 1817) Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400)

01 02 03 04

William Blake (1757-1827) Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

He was master of the
He was a British
narrative genre, to
poet, painter, and
which he imprinted a
printmaker.
certain dose of
Although it
humor and irony,
remained largely
while practicing
unknown during the
sharp social
course of his life.
criticism.
Who is the famous writer in English literature?
William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) English poet and playwright. Famous plays
include Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Merchant of Venice and Hamlet. Shakespeare is
widely considered the seminal writer of the English language. Jonathan Swift (1667 –
1745) Anglo-Irish writer born in Dublin.
 5 FAMOUS POEMS BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
1. Sonnet 18. Shakespeare starts Sonnet 18 with a flattering question to the beloved: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” He goes
on to list some negative aspects of summer to establish that his beloved is better.

2. Sonnet 130. It satirizes the concept of ideal beauty that was a convention of literature and art during the time. It compares the
poet’s mistress to a number of natural beauties; each time making a point that the beauty of his mistress in obviously inadequate for
such comparisons.

3. Venus and Adonis. His poem narrates the story in Greek mythology of Venus, the Goddess of Love, and Adonis, an extremely
handsome young man.

4. The Phoenix and the Turtle. It is an allegorical poem perhaps about the death of ideal love. Some critics see it as a poem about
the relationship between truth and beauty.

5. The Rape of Lucrece. Lucretia was an ancient Roman woman who was raped by the king’s son and committed suicide. It is
extremely rich in poetic images, fancies and metaphors; and is one of Shakespeare’s earliest and most famous poems.
Famous female authors in English literature
Mary Ann better known as
George Eliot
She was an English writer who first gave the
novel its distinctly modern character through Virginia Woolf
her treatment of ordinary people in everyday
life. She published four novels during her
lifetime: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and
Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and
Emma (1815). In these and in Persuasion and
Northanger Abbey (published together
posthumously, 1817), she vividly depicted
English middle-class life during the early 19th
century.
She was an English Victorian She was an English writer whose novels, through their
nonlinear approaches to narrative, exerted a major
novelist who developed the
influence on the genre. While she is best known for
method of psychological analysis her novels, especially Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the
characteristic of modern fiction. Lighthouse (1927), Woolf also wrote pioneering essays
Her major works include Adam on artistic theory, literary history, women’s writing,
Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss and the politics of power.
(1860), Silas Marner (1861),
Middlemarch (1871–72), and Daniel
Deronda (1876).
Jane Austen
 5 English Famous Books
Moby Dick By Herman Hamlet by William In Search of lost of time Ulysses by James
Melville (1851). Shakespeare (1599) by Marcel Proust (1913) Joyce (1904)

The Catcher in the Rye

by J.D. Salinger (1945)
Moby Dick Summary
Moby Dick famously begins with the narratorial invocation “Call me Ishmael.” The narrator, like his biblical
counterpart, is an outcast. Ishmael, who turns to the sea for meaning, relays to the audience the final voyage
of the Pequod, a whaling vessel. Amid a story of tribulation, beauty, and madness, the reader is introduced to
a number of characters, many of whom have names with religious resonance. The ship’s captain is Ahab, who
Ishmael and his friend Queequeg soon learn is losing his mind. Starbuck, Ahab’s first-mate, recognizes this
problem too, and is the only one throughout the novel to voice his disapproval of Ahab’s increasingly obsessive
behavior. This nature of Ahab’s obsession is first revealed to Ishmael and Queequeg after the Pequod’s owners,
Peleg and Bildad, explain to them that Ahab is still recovering from an encounter with a large whale that
resulted in the loss of his leg. That whale’s name is Moby Dick. The Pequod sets sail, and the crew is soon
informed that this journey will be unlike their other whaling missions: this time, despite the reluctance of
Starbuck, Ahab intends to hunt and kill the beastly Moby Dick no matter the cost...
Hamlet Summary
The ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing the new king, Hamlet's
uncle. Hamlet feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life,
also devises plots to kill Hamlet. The play ends with a duel, during which the King, Queen, Hamlet's opponent
and Hamlet himself are all killed.Late at night, guards on the battlements of Denmark's Elsinore castle are
met by Horatio, Prince Hamlet's friend from school. The guards describe a ghost they have seen that
resembles Hamlet's father, the recently-deceased king. At that moment, the Ghost reappears, and the guards
and Horatio decide to tell Hamlet...
In Search of lot of time Summary
Recalling his childhood, Proust holds a tenuous relationship to his past, simultaneously romanticizing it and longing
to remember it better. He always struggled to fall asleep at night as a child, often relying upon his mother's tender
affection to soothe him to sleep. Although the family tried even giving Proust a magical lamp, nothing could help
him sleep better. He spent many summers in Combray with his grandparents and his great-aunt Leonie who also
visited his family often. One summer, Proust's boyhood friend Bergotte introduced him to the author Bloch, who
sparked Proust's dream of himself becoming an author.

At Combray, Proust grew to become interested in the socialite scene. A neighbor, Charles Swann often dropped in,
having been friends with Proust's grandfather. He told many intriguing stories, but ultimately he was compensating
for his own sense of being an outsider among the socially elite
Ulysses Summary
Ulysses is the story of a day in the life of 3 characters Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly and the young Stephen Dedalus.
A day trip, a reverse Odyssey, in which the topically Homeric themes are reversed and subverted through a decidedly
antiheroic group whose tragedy verges on comedy. Parodic account of the epic of the human condition and of Dublin
and its good customs whose structure, overflowingly avant-garde, constantly warns of its dificultyulty and demands
the utmost dedication. Ulises is a high sounding, crude and erudite book where there are those that offer a different,
strange, occasionally annoying and undoubtedly exceptional literature.Stephen already has a biological father,
Simon, but he never takes Simon as his father because he feels that his father Simon Dedalus and his criticisms
have hampered his artistic growth and social status. Stephen cannot reinforce his identity in art and in his real life
too. So he is in constant search of a spiritual father who supports him in all aspects. When Rudy was a few days old,
he died. Leopold Bloom, when he meets Stephen, sees in Stephen his dead son, Rudy. He thinks that if Rudy had lived,
he would have become Stephen. Bloom is haunted by Rudy's memories in most of the novel. In a sense, Bloom is
content and happy after reuniting with his spiritual son Stephen. It is suggested at the end of the novel that both
Molly and Bloom feel that they are perfect for each other and that they can have a happy marital life because of
The Catcher in the Rye Summary
From what is implied to be a sanatorium, Holden, the narrator and protagonist, tells the story of his adventures
before the previous Christmas. The story begins with Holden at Pencey Prep School on his way to the house of his
history teacher, Spencer, so that he can say goodbye. He reveals to the reader that he has been expelled for failing
most of his classes. After he visits Spencer, he encounters his roommate, Ward Stradlater, who asks Holden to
write an essay for English class for him while he goes on a date with a longtime friend of Holden’s. Having agreed,
Holden writes about the baseball glove of his younger brother, Allie, who died of leukemia. When Stradlater returns,
he tells Holden that the essay isn’t good, and Holden gets angry when Stradlater refuses to say whether he had sex
with his date. This causes Holden to storm out and leave Pencey for New York City a few days earlier than planned
for Christmas break. Once he arrives in New York, he cannot go home, as his parents do not yet know that he has
been expelled. Instead, he rents a room at the Edmont Hotel, where he witnesses some sexually charged scenes
through the windows of other rooms. His loneliness then causes him to seek out human interaction, which he does
at the Lavender Room, the hotel’s nightclub
What type of books do English reader prefer?
Physical paperback books
Physical hardback books
e-Books
Audiobooks

Don’t know
Other
What genres do the English prefer?
Non-fiction Fiction
Bibliography
https://www.britannica.com/art/English-literature/The-Old-English-period

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/arts/articles-reports/2020/03/05/world-book-day-britons-reading-habits

https://learnodo-newtonic.com/william-shakespeare-famous-poems

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Virginia-Woolf

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jane-Austen

https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Eliot
THANKS!