ENGLISH LITERATURE:

SIGNIFICANT WORKS
AND WRITERS
B Y: R O U S H I E L L F R A N C E S . L O N D O N
ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE (5 T H CENTURY-1066)

• Old English literature survived in four manuscripts:

Caedmon’s hymn, Vercelli Book, Exeter Book, and
Novell’s Codex.
• Poems are handed down from generation to
generation through oral tradition

• BEOWULF is the national epic of England and the most notable

example of the earliest English poetry, which blends Christianity
and paganism.
• DREAM OF THE ROOD is one of the earliest Christian poems
preserved in the 10th century Vercelli book. The poem makes use of
dream vision to narrate the death and resurrection of Christ from the
perspective of the Cross or Rood itself.
 MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD
Religious dramas also became
popular since they were
performed as whole cycles of
short plays in religious festivals.
Mystery plays- represent a scene from
the Old or New Testament. They are
also known as pageants or as Corpus
Christi plays.

Morality plays- dramatized the typical content

Miracle plays- focused on real or fictitious
accounts of the life, miracles, or martyrdoms
of saints. The genre evolved from liturgical
dramas of the 10th- 11th centuries, which were
intended to enhance church calendar festivals.
of a homily or a sermon and personified such as
abstractions as health, death, or the seven deadly
sins offered practical instruction in morality.

Everyman- is regarded as the best morality

plays. It talks about Everyman facing Death. He
summons the help of all his friends but only
Good Deeds is able to help him.
 MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?-1400) was
one of the world’s greatest
storytellers who is best remembered
for his frame narrative THE
CANTERBURRY TALES.

Sir Thomas Mallory wrote Le Morte

d’Arthur, a collection of stories about King
Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table
culled from the Arthurian legends.
 THE 16 TH CENTURY (RENAISSANCE)
The Golden Age of English Literature reigned
from 1485 to 1660. William Caxton established
movable printing in England and published
Mallory’s Le’ Morte d’ Arthur.
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) is
considered as the Father of the English
Tragedy best remembered for his plays
Tamburlaine and Doctor Faustus.
**His Dr. Faustus powerfully exemplifies the
sum total of the intellectual aspirations of the
Renaissance. In the play, Dr. Faustus sells his
soul to the devil in exchange of power and
knowledge.
Humanism- was the predominant philosophical
thought in 16th century England.
**Humanism encouraged the study of Greek and
Roman classical literature. It reformed education by
making literary expression of paramount importance
for the cultured person.
William Shakespeare is the greatest genius of the Elizabethan Age
(1564-1616). He wrote more than 35 plays as well as 154 sonnets
and 2 narrative poems- Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.
His sonnets, also known as the Elizabethan sonnet, are composed
of the three quatrains and one heroic couplet with the rhyme
scheme- abab-cdcd-efef-gg
 THE 17 TH CENTURY
Francis Bacon was a famous English essayist, lawyer,
philosopher and statesman who had a major influence on
the philosophy and statesman who had a major influence
on the philosophy of science. He is hailed as the Father
of Inductive Reasoning and the Father of the English
Essay.

John Bunyan (1628-1688) was an English Christian

writer and preacher notable for his Christian allegory
The Pilgrim’s Progress.
**Pilgrim’s Progress shows Christian tormented by
spiritual anguish.
THE 18 TH CENTURY (RESTORATION)

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) is one of the

great prose writers of all time.
**A Modest Proposal is a bitter pamphlet that Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
ironically suggests that the Irish babies be
published an exposition of the rules
specially fattened for profitable sale as meat,
since the English were eating the Irish people of the classical school in the form of
anyhow- by heavy taxation. a poem An Essay on Criticism.
**Gulliver’s Travels is a satire on human
folly and stupidity.
THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND: ROMANTICISM

William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge

presented and illustrated a liberating aesthetic.
**The most important tenets of Romanticism were belief
in the importance of the individual, imagination, and
intuition.
**The Romanticists believed that all humans deserve the
treatment to which human beings are by nature entitled.
 ENGLISH LITERATURE OF THE VICTORIAN AGE

Major Victorian Poets- shifted from the

extremely personal expression (or Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) wrote the
subjectivism) of the Romantic writers to an most exquisite love poems of her time in Sonnets
objective surveying of the problems of from the Portuguese. These lyrics were written
human life. secretly while Robert Browning was courting her.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-92) reflects his age Robert Browning (1812-89) is best
especially in his idealism and his devotion to remembered for his dramatic monologues.
rather formal virtue. He wrote seriously with a My Last Duchees, Fra Lippo Lippi, and
high moral purpose. Andrea del Sarto are excellent exmples.