History of English Literature – Tips

a) Invasions
There is the Anglo-Saxon invasion which comes from 3 Germanic
tribes: the Jutes, the Angles and the Saxons. They brought the name of
Britain, its language and its links with Germania. To the Christian Romans,
these Germanic tribes were pagans, they had primitive ways of thinking.
They were barbarians and their life and society reflected heroic ideals.
The Anglo-Saxons had to face the Viking’s invasions in the end of
the 8 and in the beginning of the 9th centuries. They were coming from
th

Norway and Denmark. Alfred the Great (king of Wessex) defeated the
Danes and christianised them.
There were the Danish Invasions in the 10th and 11th centuries. One
of their leaders, Canute, became king of England. He wanted to unify the
Danes and the Saxons. His successor was Edward the Confessor. He chose
Harold of Wessex as successor but the throne was claimed by Canute’s
family and William the Normandy (Edward’s cousin). William defeated
Harold of Wessex and became William the Conqueror and king of England
in 1066.
b) Religion
In the Old English Period, there was the Christianisation in the 7thC.
It is the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon to Christianity. A monk, Augustine,
from Rome, was sent by pope Gregory the Great in 597 to England to
establish Christianity. He became archbishop of Canterbury. He received
the help of Celtic missionaries coming from Wales, Ireland & Scotland. 2
Christian churches try to christianise Britain: the Roman Catholic church
which was interested in authority and organization and the Celtic Church
which was interested in ordinary people. There was a crisis between both
because they disagreed over the date of Easter. But the king of
Northumbria supported the Roman Church so the Celtic Church had to
retreat and the Roma, Church extended.
In the Middle-Ages, John Wycliffe was important because he was a
reformer. He attacked the Church because he thought that the church
should keep its original poverty. Since the Church was corrupt, he wanted
to allow common people to read the Bible in English and not in Latin, in
order to have a direct and individual relation to God through the Bible. He
tried to give a more direct and personal meaning to religious life at a time
when the Clergy and the Church seemed more concerned with their own
riches than with spiritual life: he announced the protestant attitude by his
beliefs and anticipated the Reformation which divided Europe in the 16th C.
During the Renaissance, there was the Reformation. Henry 8 broke
with the pope simply because he wanted a divorce which he did not get.
So, he declared himself the Head of the Church in England. In 1534, the
Act of Supremacy was passed, abolishing the power of the pope in
England. Under Queen Mary (Bloody Mary), there was a return to
Catholicism. There were many persecutions and hangings, so that many
Protestants fled into exile and contacted continental reformers such as
Calvin (a French theologian who was the leader of the protestant
Reformation in France and Switzerland). When they came back under the
reign of Queen Elizabeth I, they were ever more ardent supporters of
Protestantism, with news ideas and their opposition to the Church
hierarchy and the privileges of the Clergy were the causes of the Puritan
revolution in England in the 17th C. Under Queen Elizabeth I, we have a

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 period of religious toleration, but there was an opposition between the
Anglicans and the Puritans. The Anglicans were the Official Church of
England, with the monarch at its head and was represented by the high
Clergy (there was an established order). The Puritans were represented by
the lower Clergy (more democratic and hold stricter views in doctrine and
matters of moral behaviour). This led to an opposition between Church (of
England < Anglicans) and Chapel (Protestant groups < Puritans).
c) Trace the evolution of the prose in the course
In the Old English Period (begins with poetry not with prose!), prose
is the result of Christianisation, and its development does not come from
Germanic origins. Anglo-Saxon prose was written in Latin in England. The
Venerable Bede wrote “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People” in
Latin. In the 9th C, the Danish invasions broke up the new Christian
civilization and destroyed the monasteries. But King Alfred tried to save
this earlier prose work by translating Latin works into English. These
translations contributed to the beginning of English Prose. Old English
secular prose begins under the reign of King Alfred who unified the little
kingdoms to fight against the Danes and developed a national feeling. He
contributed to the development of the prose in England - By translating
works from Latin into old English (vernacular): “Pastoral Rule” by Pope
Gregory; “Ecclesiastical History of the English Race” by Bede; “History of
the World” by Orosiu - By writing a “Book of Blossoms” derived from St
Augustine’s monologues (the past can be useful to build the present) and –
through his historical works in prose and not in poetry. His purpose was to
bring to his contemporaries knowledge of the works of the past. The
English were the 1st to use prose rather than poetry in historical works
(because it was more precise). “The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles” began under
his reign. It was written by monks at different periods and it presented the
English History from the time of Caesar’s invasions to the Germanic
invasions. Then, it went on in the form of annals. Religious Prose (10/11th
c) with Aelfric who wrote homilies and lives of saints and was the 1st
translator of the 1st 7 books of the Old Testament into English; with
Wulfstan who wrote sermons and “Sermon to the English” & with Aldred
who did translations from Latin into the vernacular.
The beginning of the Middle English Period was great for the A.S.
prose (translations from Latin + historical writing). But in the 12th C, Latin
and French prose were used for historical records so it was a drawback for
English prose. But this one was still used by the Clergy to instruct common
people (esp. women) in religious matters. These works ensured the
continuity of English prose until the 15th C. Early religious prose works in
English with “The Katherine Group” which was the name given to 5 Middle
English prose works. 3 of which were based on the lives of a virgin saint
(Katherine, Juliana & Margaret). And with “Ancrene Wisse” which was a
book of devotional advice, a manual of instruction written by a chaplain for
3 young girls. It gave some advice on all sorts of domestic matters. It is
the greatest prose work of the early Middle English Period. Later religious
prose works in English (14th C): the religious prose works were no longer
only didactic but some were written by mystical writers: Richard Rolle of
Hampole, Walter Hilton (“The Scale of perfection”), Julian of Norwich (“16
revelations of divine love”) and John Wycliffe (“Of servants and lords”,
wedded men and wives”). More prose works in English: “The travels of Sir
de Mandeville” by a French writer and “Polychronikon” by John Trevista
who anticipated the prose of the Renaissance (euphuism < Lyly). All the
prose works of the MEP permitted to the English prose to stay alive until

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 the late 15th C despite the predominance of French verse. Prose in the 15th
C, religious prose: “The Book” by Margery Kempe which is her spiritual
autobiography (and the 1st in English); secular prose: the growth of the
reading public which now included the merchant class, was also shown by
the use of prose for works which would earlier have been written in verse.
There is prose romance with “La morte d’Arthur” by Malory; courtesy
books which are treatises and correspondence with “The Paston Letters”
During the Renaissance, with humanism and the reformation
influenced the development of literature at the time, Elyot (humanist)
created an English prose style to deal with serious philosophical and
cultural matters: no more in Latin (>< in MA = vernacular used for the
edification of common people). The Reformation caused the writing and
publication of important prose works, notably translations of the Bible into
English and of the Book of Common People. The development in the field
of prose in effected by translation works under Elizabeth and chronicles
(interest in history) in prose were written (Hall’s and Holinshed’s Chronicle
= source for Shakespeare). Sidney had an influence on prose romance
with “Arcadia”. Prose was going to be used in works of fiction for the 1st
time, for the sake of entertainment. Prose narrative: with the romance:
there were first translations of Italian and French narratives in prose
(novellas) and introduced new themes and materials into English literature
(“The palace of pleasure”). The, the English wrote their own romances in
prose; there were 3 main writers of English romances: Lyly who wanted to
refine English prose by innovating a new kind of prose style extremely
mannered and artificial: euphuism (decoration of style by images,
comparisons, parallels) and his innovations continued the work started by
the early humanists i.e. he helped to refine the English prose style by
writing for ladies, Sidney who was more artistic and less superficial than
Lyly was and his sophistication in style was only the reflection of a
corresponding complexity of feeling (“Arcadia”)& Greene who increased
the love interest, accelerated the narrative and made it more vivid but he
turned to realism or the writing of realistic prose tales which describe the
low life of Elizabethan London (“Conversion of an English Courtesan”).
Translations: the most significant ones were devoted to the text of the
Bible(The Tyndale & Coverdale Bible; The Geneva Bible; the Bishops’
Bible); translations from the classics and from the Italian writers; but the
Elizabethan translations adapted the original works to the tastes of the
time. Treatises or rhetoric: Sidney with “Apology for Poesy”. Pamphlet::
Heywood with “Apology for actors”. Prose under Elizabethan period, if used
no longer for didactic works but for the sake of entertainment, for
translations, treatises and pamphlets. There are 2 main varieties of prose
narrative: the romance with Lyly, Sidney (& Greene) and the realistic prose
tales with Greene.
d) Aspect and technique of the poetry
Old English Period: begins with poetry which were recorded in
manuscripts by clerics and written in old English. The earlier texts were
based on a tradition of oral poetry (brought by Germanic invaders) which
was written down by clerics after the Christianisation in the 7th C. The
verse is alliterative, stressed and with no rhyme. Each line contains 4
stressed syllables, 2 or 3 alliterations, a number of unstressed syllables
and a caesura. That technique is clearly the product of an oral tradition
where poems were recited by gleemen called “scop” when they were
particularly skilled and attached to a court. This poetry dealt with
continental heroes and their deeds in Germania and was for an aristocratic

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 audience. There were heroic poetry, elegiac poetry, riddles or enigmas and
gnomic verses. There was also a religious poetry with Caedmon (7th C) and
Cynewulf (9th C).
Middle English Period: the tradition of religious didactic poetry was
inaugurated by Ceadmon and Cynewulf in the OEP. This kind of poetry was
written for ordinary people and in alliterative verse. In the 13th C, the
alliterative verse was gradually replaced by the French octosyllabic
rhyming couplet but the alliterative verse survived in the background and
led in the 14th C to the Alliterative Revival. There were also the secular
didactic poetry (13th c) and verses romance for aristocraty (originally a
French genre). In the mid-13th C, there were English romances divided into
3 categories. There were also the fabliau, the fable, ballads. There was
Middle English lyrical poetry with secular poetry, religious poetry.
The Renaissance: Lyrical poetry with Wyatt who continued the
Middle English love song tradition and introduced the sonnet from the
Petrarchan sonnet which is a poem of 14 lines (octave + sextet) and it is a
conventionalized form and a sophisticated idealistic content (courtly love).
Surrey uses the blank verse (decasyllabic line with no rhyme). Both Surrey
and Wyatt transformed the pattern of the sonnet : they tended to divide
the 14 lines into 3 quatrains and a final rhyming couplet (form used later
by Shakespeare). But lyrical poetry and the sonnet did not replace the
satirical verse from the Middle Ages (which were in the fabliau, with
Langland, Chaucer and Lydgate in the 15th C.). Under the reign of Elizabeth
: there was still lyrical poetry with the sonnet (theme = courtly love) but
also the song or lyrics (songs also in the MA) and the Pastoral. Lyrical
poetry had almost a social function under the reign of Elizabeth because it
was a means to ask sth from the Queen and a means of expressing
criticism. Narrative poetry which was the main form of poetry in the MA,
continued alongside lyrical poetry with Sackville, Daniel, Drayton. Sidney
wrote 108 sonnets. Spenser used the Pastoral themes in satirical purposes
e) Speaking about the alliteration revival
In the 13th century, the alliterative verse was gradually replaced by
the French octosyllabic rhyming couplet in the Middle English Period. But
the alliterative verse survived in the background and led in the 14th
century to the Alliterative Revival. There were 4 poems probably written by
the same anonymous hand, the Pearl Poet: Pearl, Purity, Patience and Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight.
Pearl is a narrative poem as well as an elegy in the form of a dream
allegory. The poet recalls how he lost a pearl; it is intense in mood, in tone
and emotional effect.
Patience and Purity are both allegorical and narrative poems which
try to encourage moral and religious fervour, at a time where there was
much corruption in Church, Government and Court. However, they lack the
special kind of sensibility which makes Pearl so impressive.
There are also many poems expressing protest against a
government which tolerated too many abuses. This criticism came from
people who did not belong to the classes exercising power, so it is not
surprising that these poems should be written in alliterative verse and not
in the French octosyllabic rhyming line used at the court. Piers Plowman is
the most famous.
Piers Plowman, by Langland, is a narrative poem expressing
religious, moral and social protest against the vices of the society, which is
Christian only in name, in the form of an allegory. The poet simply
demanded a return to the true teaching of the gospels; gives a satirical

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 picture of the actual world; shows a powerful imagination; is convinced
(like Wycliffe) of the need of a reform for the Clergy but he did not want
any innovations in the doctrine so, it is not a revolutionary poem;
describes the growing corruption and materialism among the rich and the
growing suffering among the poor (peasant’s revolt of 1381). It is a work of
a religious idealist who tries to create a large vision of what is wrong in the
society.
f) Arthur in literature
Old English Period: /
Middle English Period: Anglo-Latin works are translated into French
and then into English. “Historia Regum Britanniae” by Monmouth gives a
picture of Anglo-Saxons invasions trough the eyes of retreating Celts and it
is full of characters such as King Arthur and his exploits. Wace translated it
into French and then Layamon translated Wace’s works into English verse.
This is how King Arthur’s legend appeared in English Literature. English
romances are divided into 3 categories and for the matter of Britain, the
romances are based on the Celtic tradition of King Arthur (“Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight”). Secular prose romance in the 15th C: “La Morte
d’Arthur” translated from the French by Malory which is a collection of late
versions of the Legends of King Arthur.
The Renaissance: with Spenser, the medieval and the Renaissance
met because he drew together traditions from medieval English poetry
(Arthurian tales) and from Latin and Greek classics and from the
Renaissance.
g) Translations
Old English Period: some of riddles or enigmas are translations from
a Latin original. Anglo-Latin prose: King Alfred tried to save earlier prose
by translating Latin works into English which contributed to the beginning
of English Prose (Pope Gregory, Bede, Orosius). Religious prose: Aelfric
translated the 1st seven books of the Old Testament into Old English.
Middle English Period: Anglo-Latin works are translated into French
and then into English. “Historia Regum Britanniae” by Monmouth. Wace
translated it into French and then Layamon translated Wace’s works into
English verse. Later religious prose works (14th C): Wycliffe translated the
end of the Bible because he wanted to allow common people to read the
Bible in English to have a direct and individual relation with God through
the Bible. “The Travels of Sir John De Mandeville” was first written in
French and then translated into English and became very popular. John
Trevista translated many medieval Latin works into the Vernacular
(“Polychronikon”). Narrative poetry: in the mid-13th C, the French
romances were translated into English. Chaucer, during his French period,
translated part of the “Roman de la Rose” into English (“Romaunt of the
Rose”). Secular prose romance in the 15th C: “La Morte d’Arthur” which
was translated from the French by Malory.
The Renaissance: Caxton introduced printing in 1476 and imported
translated texts such as Virgil’s Eneydos. More (humanist) wrote “Utopia”
in Latin and was translated into English after his death. The Reformation
caused translations of the Bible into English and of the Book of Common
Prayer. Surrey used the blank verse in his translation of Virgil’sAeneid.
Romances in the Renaissance were first translations of Italian and French
narratives in prose (novellas) and they introduced new themes and
materials into English Literature (“The palace of pleasure”). Translations
from the classics and from the Italian writers; but the Elizabethan
translations adapted the original works to the tastes of the time.

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h) Translations of the Bible
The Tyndale and Coverdale Bible patronized by the King.
The Geneva Bible by Puritans exiled.
The Bishops’ Bible by bishops who translated the Bible into English.
The Roman Church was opposed to a vernacular version.
i) Female writers (few in the syllabus)
Two woman poets of the Elizabethan age: Isabella Whitney and Mary
Sidney (sister of Philip Sidney).
Isabella Whitney is an educated but lower middle-class writer; used
the ballad; her poems are occasional; uses classical and biblical
references, but many of her sources are vernacular and popular, deriving
from earlier English adaptations of classical stories (Chaucer, Gower) as
well as recent translations; wrote Will and Testament (part of the collection
A Sweet Nosgay).
Mary Sidney : highly educated, in upper class circles; involved in a
militant form of Protestantism; most of her poetic production consists of
translations  The Psalms of David and Petrarch’s Triumph of Death
j) Didactic literature
Old English Period: /
Middle English Period: “Historia Regum Britanniae” by Monmouth
gives a picture of Anglo-Saxon invasions through the eyes of the retreating
Celts; religious prose works were didactic (and mystical in the 14th C); John
Trevista with “Polychronikon” which is a history of the world; Ballads are
orally transmitted narrative poems, often dealing with a tragic or violent
subject matter, and involving international folk song, popular class heroes
and historical or semi-historical events; Lydgate had didactic interest; “La
Morte d’Arthur” (prose romance of the 15th C) is a collection of late
versions of the Legends of King Arthur with contemporary downfall of
medieval England in the War of the Roses.
The Renaissance: the reformation caused translations of the Bible
into English and of the Book of Common Prayer; Elizabeth tragedies of
Shakespeare such as Richard 3/2 and Henry 4/5 where he simply followed
the life and career of a king.
k) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
By Langland; belongs to the alliterative revival of the 14th century;
belongs to the English romances, especially in the matter of Britain; this
romance is not didactic but told for entertainment, for the pleasure of an
English aristocracy interested in an idealized and unrealistic view of life
and themselves; combines the Anglo-Saxon tradition (A-S vigour +
alliterative verse), the Celtic tradition (magical folk elements + Arthurian
legend), the French tradition (sophistication and the 5 short rhyming lines
at the end of each stanza); has a succession of scenes and situations full of
colour, movements and vivid details; the poet shows an intense feeling for
the nature and a great sensibility to the movement of the seasons;
universal message at the end is the fallibility of the human condition
(moral failure is not a heroic deed).
Summary : In the story, Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round
Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious knight who is completely
green. The "Green Knight" offers to allow anyone to strike him with his axe
if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts the
challenge, and takes off his head in one blow, only to have the Knight
stand up, pick up his head, and remind Gawain to meet him at the
appointed time.

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l) Define what an allegory is, and give an example
(many to be found in morality plays)
An allegory is a representation of an abstraction through something
concrete. In morality plays, the characters are personification of virtues
(truth) or bad qualities (revenge). Ex: Everyman where life on earth is a
spiritual journey in which the only hope in success lays on the acceptance
of God’s will.
m) What are the typical authors of the Renaissance?
Wyatt and Earl of Surrey, Daniel, Spenser, Drayton, Sidney,
Shakespeare for the lyrical poetry.
Campion, Gascoigne, Shakespeare for the songs (lyrics).
Sackville, Daniel, Drayton for the narrative poetry.
Skelton and Barclay for the satirical poetry.
Heywood for the drama and pamphlet.
Lyly, Sidney, Greene for the romance.
Greene for the realistic prose tale.
Sidney for treatises on rhetoric.
Udall for first comedies (adaptation of Latin works).
Lyly, Greene for first comedies (adaptations of Italian works).
Sackville, Norton, Kyd for first tragedies.
Marlowe. Shakespeare.
n) In what way is Marlowe a figure of the Renaissance
while still belonging to the Middle Ages?
From the Renaissance: he was a man of the Renaissance with a free
and daring mind; he glorifies life on this earth; he tended not to respect
the rule of the 3 unities (Place, Plot, Time); his tragedies are centred
around a central figure who is driven by a passion that finally leads him to
dead; the tragic hero is responsible of wathever happens to him; has a
secular humanist view; his figure of speech is hyperbole; his plays have
the ambition ti achieve infinite knowledge which is typical of the
Renaissance.
From the MA: his plays have characteristic of the medieval morality
play, the conflict between vice and virtue for the possession of man’s soul
(“Doctor Faustus”); death is the end of his play “Tamburlaine the Great” as
in “Everyman”, the medieval morality play.
o) In what way Chaucer are between Middle Ages and
Renaissance?
From the Renaissance: he was influenced by what happened in
France and in Italy (where the Renaissance was already beginning); he is
modernist; he had a good knowledge of his contemporaries, a remarkable
largeness of view, a wide knowledge and experience of life; in his
“Canterbury Tales”, he embodied his great secular vision of his fellow men:
he brought to life the psychological and social world of the time, he gave a
picture which appears to represent our own age, as indeed any other age.
From the MA: his French period : he wrote in the courtly love
tradition of the French Romance (“Romaunt of the Roses”); he wrote “The
Book of the Duchess” in octosyllabic rhyming couplet and it is an elegy in
the dream allegory tradition; his Italian period: “Troilus and Cressida”
based on a legend of obscure origins and bases on “Il filostrato”, a poem
of tragic love set in Ancient Times.
p) In what way Shakespeare is between Middle Ages
and Renaissance?

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 From the MA: he depended on his predecessors (Marlowe and Kyd);
he used the blank verse; he took his subjects out of stories that already
existed but no plagiarism; under Elizabeth, he followed the fashionable
trends of the time: sonnet in poetry but adapted to his own personal
situation; wrote also long narrative poems; for his Elizabethan tragedies,
he was influenced by the concept of the “fall of Princes” (“Mirrors for
Magistrates” by Sackville), by the medieval morality play with the
distinction between good and evil and the presentation of the tragic hero
as a prototype of humanity; under James, his last plays or romances
contained elements of mythology, folklore and magic.
From the Renaissance: he did not respect the rule of the 3 unities;
his characters perceive a better world, they are positive; in his Elizabethan
tragedies, he had a sense of citizenship and of responsibility of the ruler
towards his people; under James, his last plays or romances were optimist,
reflected a new attitude to both life and art. For him, language was not
only expressive but also cognitive to explore the human condition. He
combined the supreme craftsmanship of the man of the theatre, a human
curiosity about the human condition, an ability to conceive and create
characters, and an unrivalled mastery if the English vocabulary.
q) What are Shakespeare’s influences?
For his history plays (Richard 3, 2; Henry 4, 5): Hall’s and
Holinshed’s Chronicle in prose.
For Richard III, he used the Blank Verse (no rhyme) of Marlowe.
For his tragedies of revenge or of blood (Titus Andronicus, Romeo
& Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet): Seneca with the ghost and the revenge
(was popularised by Kyd in England); the concept of the ‘Fall of Princes’
from the Mirror of the Magistrates by Sackeville in the narrative poetry
(16th c) which consisted that the fall of kings is caused by the character of
the hero himself
Wyatt and Surrey: their use of the Sonnet  division of the 14
lines into 3 quatrains and a final rhyming couplet.
Green’s Pandosto: for the Winter’s Tale (Last plays or romances),
which is an euphuistic romance. (Euphuism is the decoration of style by
images, comparisons and parallels).
Lodge’s Rosalynd was influenced by Green’s romances.
Shakespeare transformed it in As you like it.
Kyd: he introduced a play within a play wich goes against the rules
of the 3 unities (time, place, plot). It influenced Shakespeare for Hamlet
and The Tempest)
Marlowe: the tragic hero who is led to self-destruction because of
the corruption of his own virtues.
q) Evolution of drama?
Old English Period: /
Middle English Period: the origins of drama with tropes; miracles or
mystery plays (12th C); the morality play (15th C); the interlude = secular
morality play (15th C) with “The play of the Weather” by Heywood
The Renaissance: the interlude; drama under the reign of Elizabeth
with the first comedies in English [Terence & Plautus] (adaptations from
Latin comedies with Udall and from Italian Comedies with Lyly, Greene) +
CONCLUSION p 27; the first tragedies in English [Seneca] with Sackville &
Norton, Kyd and English chronicle or history plays and Domestic tragedies;
Marlowe wrote tragedies in blank verse and used hyperbole (Tamburlaine
the Great, The Jew of Malta, Doctor Faustus) and history plays such as
Edward II; Shakespeare used the blank verse and metaphor; he wrote the

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sunny comedies, the dark comedies, history plays, tragedies of revenge or
of blood under the reign of Elizabeth. He also wrote his dark satirical
comedies, his tragedies between 1603 & 1609 and his last plays or
romances between 1609 & 1612 under James.