Literary Criticism

Second Year
Compiled by
Dr. Mohammed Saleh : Lecturer in English Literature
Mr. Hassan Magdy: Assist Lecturer in English literature
Department of English Language
Second Year Second Semester
Course Code: 08812206 2019

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Classical Literary Criticism

 The story of Western literary criticism begins shortly after 800 BC in

ancient Greece, the era of the great Homeric epics, the Iliad and the
Odyssey.
 The so-called “classical” period, starting around 500 BC, witnessed
the great tragedies of Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, and the
comedies of Aristophanes.
 It was around this time that the foundations of Western philosophy
were laid by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
 The classical period is usually said to end in 323 BC with the
death of Alexander the Great. After this is the “Hellenistic” period,
witnessing the diffusion of Greek culture through much of the
Mediterranean and Middle East, a diffusion vastly accelerated by
Alexander’s conquests

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Literary Periods of British & American
Literature
 450-1066: Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) Period
 1066-1500: Middle English Period
 1500-1660: The Renaissance
1558-1603: Elizabethan Age
1603-1625: Jacobean Age
1625-1649: Caroline Age
1649-1660: Commonwealth Period (or
Puritan Interregnum)

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Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) Period:
(450-1066) (600 years)
 The term Anglo-Saxon is a relatively modern one. It refers to settlers
from the German regions of Angeln and Saxony, who made their
way over to Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire around AD
410.
 At this time, the Jutes and the Frisians from Denmark were also
settling in the British Isles, but the Anglo-Saxon settlers were
effectively their own masters in a new land and they did little to keep
the legacy of the Romans alive. They replaced the Roman stone
buildings with their own wooden ones, and spoke their own
language, which gave rise to the English spoken today.
 Anglo-Saxon rule came to an end in 1066, soon after the death of
Edward the Confessor, who had no heir. He had supposedly willed
the kingdom to William of Normandy, but also seemed to favor
Harold Godwinson as his successor.

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Anglo-Saxon literature:
 Anglo-Saxon literary works include genres such as epic
poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal
works, chronicles, riddles, and others. In all there are about 400
surviving manuscripts from the period, a significant corpus of both
popular interest and specialist research.

 Some of the most important works from this period include the
poem Beowulf, which has achieved national epic status in Britain.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of early English history.
The poem Cædmon's Hymn from the 7th century is one of the oldest
surviving written texts in English.

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 Specific Features of Anglo-Saxon poetry:

1- Simile and Metaphor

Anglo-Saxon poetry is marked by the comparative rarity of
similes. This is a particular feature of Anglo-Saxon verse style, and
is a consequence of both its structure and the rapidity with which
images are deployed

2- Elaboration
It is also a feature of the fast-paced dramatic style of Anglo-Saxon
poetry that it is not prone, to overly elaborate decoration. Where
typically a Celtic poet of the time might use 3 or 4 similes to make a
point.

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Middle English Period: (1066-1500)
 The Middle English Period consists of the literature produced in
the four and a half centuries between the Norman Conquest of 1066
and about 1500, when the standard literary language, derived from
the dialect of the London area, became recognizable as "modern
English.“

 Prior to the second half of the fourteenth century, vernacular

literature consisted primarily of religious writings. The second half of
the fourteenth century produced the first great age of secular
literature. The most widely known of these writings are Geoffrey
Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, the anonymous Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight, and Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur.

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The Renaissance: (1500-1660)

Early Modern (The Renaissance)

From around the fourteenth century and extending midway into the
seventeenth
Historical Background -
George Puttenham (1529–1590) The Arte of English Poesie
Sir Philippe Sidney (1554-1586) An Apology for Poetry

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The Renaissance: (1500-1660)
1558-1603: Elizabethan Age
1603-1625: Jacobean Age
1625-1649: Caroline Age
1649-1660: Commonwealth Period (or Puritan Interregnum)
 Etymologically speaking The word “Renaissance” is a French word
which means “rebirth”.
 The term was used to refer to the rebirth of learning caused by the
discovery of hundreds of Greek and Latin manuscripts which had
been lost during the Middle Ages.
 Such texts made it possible for the artists of the Renaissance period
to create a new vision of themselves.
 Greek and Roman mythologies and philosophies served as the
inspirational material for a new wave of artistic creation.

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 The thinkers of this period, also called “humanists”, believed that the
man should be the subject of study, and not God, as the Church had
taught during the medieval period.
 Based on that, they began to investigate fields such as astronomy,
anatomy, science and many others which had never been given
much attention.
 Tough it took many years for the “Modern” England to arise, even
when it had established itself, many aspects of the medieval culture
still remained side-by-side to the new order.
 While the English Renaissance began with the ascent of the House
of Tudor to the English throne in 1485, the English Literary
Renaissance began with English humanists such as Sir Thomas
More and Sir Thomas Wyatt.
 Nonetheless, two events in special stand out as a signal that
things were indeed changing in the British Isles:
1. The rise of the Tudor Dynasty
2. The Printing Press

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 In addition, the English Literary Renaissance consists of four
subsets: The Elizabethan Age, the Jacobean Age, the Caroline Age,
and the Commonwealth Period (which is also known as the Puritan
Interregnum).
 The Elizabethan Age of English Literature coincides with the reign of
Elizabeth I, 1558 - 1603. During this time, medieval tradition was
blended with Renaissance optimism. Lyric poetry, prose, and drama
were the major styles of literature that flowered during the
Elizabethan Age. Some important writers of the Elizabethan Age
include William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Edmund
Spenser, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Ben Jonson.
 The Jacobean Age of English Literature coincides with the reign of
James I, 1603 - 1625. During this time the literature became
sophisticated and conscious of social abuse and rivalry. The
Jacobean Age produced rich prose and drama as well as the King
James translation of the Bible. Shakespeare and Jonson wrote
during the Jacobean Age, as well as John Donne, Francis Bacon,
and Thomas Middleton.

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 The Caroline Age of English Literature coincides with the reign of
Charles I, 1625 - 1649. The writers of this age wrote with refinement
and elegance. This era produced a circle of poets known as the
"Cavalier Poets" and the dramatists of this age were the last to write
in the Elizabethan tradition.
 The Commonwealth Period, also known as the Puritan Interregnum,
of English Literature includes the literature produced during the time
of Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell. This period produced the political
writings of John Milton, Thomas Hobbes' political treatise Leviathan,
and the prose of Andrew Marvell. In September of 1642, the
Puritans closed theatres on moral and religious grounds. For the
next eighteen years the theatres remained closed, accounting for
the lack of drama produced during this time period.

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