History of English Literature

Dr. Ghazal Shaikh

Recap
• Anglo Saxon Age- Beowulf, Anglo-Saxon chronicles, oral tradition
• Age of Chaucer- Canterbury Tales
• Barren Age- War of Roses, not much written in this age
• Renaissance- drama thrived in this age, from interludes to
Shakespearean comedies, religious miracles plays to Shakespeare and
Marlowe’s tragedies
• Renaissance prose and poetry also progressed in the works of Bacon
and Sidney
• Restoration Age- Milton, Dryden, Pope and Jonson
Today
• Romantic Age- Introduction
• Historical and Political Background of the Age
• Influence of socio-political events on Art
• Features of Literature
Discussion
• What are the different ways in which the ages are named?
• Which kind of name do you prefer in this class and why?
Romantic Age (1798-1832).
• Also called The Age of Wordsworth
• Age of the Revolution in the history of politics.
• American Revolution 1776 &
• French Revolution 1789
• Other influential events:
• The European War- The close of the eighteenth century saw England and
France engaged in open warfare (1793)
Influence of the political events
• As the Revolution proceeded to unexpected developments, there came in
turn disappointment, disillusion, dejection, and despair.
• "At the beginning of every revolution men hope, for they think of all that
mankind may gain in a new world; in its next phase they fear, for they think of
what mankind may lose."
• It revived for a moment only to be destroyed for ever by the rise of Napoleon.
• The age of unrest and disillusion succeeded. Thus we may expect to find an
enormous difference in tone between the poetry of the earlier and that of the
later revolutionary period.
• The conclusion of the long war brought inevitable misery; low wages,
unemployment, and heavy taxation
Influence of socio-political events on Art
• The intimate association of English poetry with the various stages of
the French Revolution.
• liberty, brotherhood, and the rights of man.
• humanitarian and dreams of progress and perfection.
• Wordsworth afterwards wrote
“But Europe at that time was thrilled with joy ; France standing on the
top of golden hours, And human nature seeming born again”
Literary norms of the age
• The long-accepted rules of art, in fact prescribed rules were treated
with open contempt.
• The reaction against Pope and the Augustan school became
aggressive.
• The principle of spontaneity was everywhere.