english literature and culture

Docente: Dra. Eva Aida Ponce Vega

Arequipa - 2015

UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE SAN AGUSTIN DE AREQUIPA

ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE

FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓNSEGUNDA ESPECIALIDAD EN DIDÁCTICA DEL INGLÉS

COMO LENGUA EXTRANJERA

1. What is Literature?

• Literature refers to the practice and profession of writing. It comes from human interest in telling a story, in arranging words in artistic forms, in describing in words some aspects of human experiences.

2. Why we read Literature?

• Pleasure• Relaxation• Knowledge

English literature Is the literature which is distinctly written in the English language, as

opposed to differing languages. English literature includes literature composed in English by writers not

necessarily from England nor primarily English-speaking nations.

Until the early 19th century, this article deals with literature from Britain

written in English; then America starts to produce major writers and works in literature. In the 20th century America

and Ireland produced many of the most significant works of literature in

English, and after World War II writers from the former British

Empire also began to challenge writers from Britain.

Geographical

Background

• Great Britain is the largest of the British Isles. On Great Britain are located three constituent countries of the United Kingdom: Scotland in the north, England in the south and east and Wales in the west. There are also numerous smaller islands off the coast of Great Britain.

• The British Isles is an archipelago consisting of the two large islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and many smaller surrounding islands.

• By tradition, it also includes the Channel Islands, although they are physically closer to the continental mainland.

• The full list of islands in the British Isles includes over 6,000 islands, of which 51 have an area larger than 20 km².

History Of English Literature

TheAnglo-Saxon

Period(449-1066

BC)

The Anglo-SaxonsWho were they?

• “Anglo-Saxon” is the term applied to the English-speaking inhabitants of Britain from around the middle of the fifth century until the time of the Norman Conquest, when the Anglo-Saxon line of English kings came to an end.

The Anglo-SaxonsWhere did their language come from?

• Bede tells us that the Anglo-Saxons came from Germania.

• The languages spoken by the inhabitants of Germania were a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, which linguists believe developed from a single language spoken some five thousand years ago in an area that has never been identified—perhaps, some say, the Caucasus.

Old English dialectsThe language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons at the time of their migration to Britain was probably more or less uniform. Over time, however, Old English developed into four major dialects:

1. Northumbrian, spoken north of the river Humber

2. Mercian, spoken in the midlands3. Kentish, spoken in Kent (in the far southeastern

part of the island); 4. West Saxon, spoken in the southwest.

Old English literature, or Anglo-Saxon literature, encompasses literature written in Old English in Anglo-Saxon England, in the period after the settlement of the Saxons and other Germanic tribes in England after the withdrawal of the Romans and "ending soon after the Norman Conquest" in 1066.

The Anglo-Saxon influenced English Literature when they brought with them a rich tradition of oral literature steeped in their customs, pagan beliefs and rituals.

 The lyric and epic poetry they wrote told of the hardships of survival and the importance of courage in performing heroic deeds. It dignified the difficulties and dangers faced by the warriors before they succeeded in their heroic feats.

Some significant literary work in this period:1. Ecclesiastical History of the English

People and Caedmon Hymn by Bede2. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle by Alfred the Great3. The Wonderer4. Deor’s Lament5. A Dream of the Rood6. The Battle of Maldon7. Beowulf (Lone Surviving Epic of English

Literature)

The significant literary genres were:

Chronicle

Formulaic Poetry

Epic Poem (Tribal Scop)

Some significant literary work in this period are

came from

ANONYMOUSWRITERS

The Medieval Period

(1066 B.C.-1485 A.D.)

The Medieval Period (1066 B.C.-1485 A.D.)

Celtic fancy, Anglo-Saxon solidity, and Norman vivacity-these were the original ingredients of English life and letters. The third of these was brought into England from northern France by William the Conqueror and his Norman knights and churchmen. Castles and feudalism, joust and duels, cathedral and monasteries, chivalry and adventure were the contributions of these aristocratic newcomers.

Middle English lasts up until the 1470s, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, became widespread and the printing press regularized the language. The prolific Geoffrey Chaucer, whose works were written in Chancery Standard, was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. Among his many works, which include The Book of the Duchess, the House of Fame, the Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer is best known today for The Canterbury Tales.

Some Significant literary Works of this period were:

1. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight2. Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas

Malory3. The Vision of the Piers Plowman by

William Langland4. The Owl and the Nightingale5. Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Significant Literary Genres were:

1. Elegy2. Religious Liturgy3. Narrative Romance4. Lay or Lais5. Arthurian Romance6. Fabliau

GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1343-1400)

Father of English

Literature

Geoffrey ChaucerOutstanding in English Poet before

William Shakespeare whose Canterbury Tales ranks as one of the greatest poetic works in English.

Born in the middle class family. He was said to be fluent in French, Latin and Italian.

His first important poem The Book of Duchess a dream vision of elegy for Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster who died for a plague.

Geoffrey ChaucerLiterary Works

The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde Book of the Duchess.  

Other Major Poems The House of Fame The Parliament of Fowles The Legend of Good

WomenProse Treatises Treatise on the astrolabe

Short Poems The Complaint of

Chaucer to His Purse Truth Gentilesse Merciles Beaute Lak of Stedfastnesse Against Women

Unconstant. 

English Renaissanc

eor

The Elizabethan

Period(1485-1625)

The Elizabethan Period (1485-1625)

The most splendid in the history of English

literature. Literary works were characterized

by immense vitality and richness.

The flowering of poetry and the golden age

of drama. The most noted poet of the period

was William Shakespeare.

The Elizabethan Period (1485-1625)

Queen Elizabeth the most regal monarch

at the age of monarchy was the key figure

in influencing the life of her constituents.

She was a great advocate of peace and

order.

The high age of aristocracy.

The golden age of English literature.

Significant Dates1492 – The discovery of America; an

opening of entirely new world.1534 – The Act of Supremacy; the

sundering of the English Church from Rome

1558 – The accession of Elizabeth I; the beginning of an age of comparative toleration.

Gradual Appearance of several literary features

1. There was an increase in the number of translation. Such as the North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives (1579); Phaers (Virgil 1588); Golding’s Bird (1565) and Chapman’s Homer (1595). These translation opened out new realms of wonder and romance and provided models for the creative writing of Englishmen.

2. A lyrical impulse, strong and sweet, began o pervade English literature. Most of the greater poets contributed to poetry of time.

Gradual Appearance of several literary features

3. The drama assumed a commanding position in the writing of the day. William Shakespeare roll to fame and honor.

4.The technique of poetry–the skill in the management of meter show great advancement.

5. The rise of prose writing. There was a vast travel of body of travel literature. There was even an approach to prose fiction.

Some significant literary works in this period were:

1. Faerie Queene, Shepher’s Calendar by Edmund Spenser

2. Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity by Richard Hooker

3. Book of Martyrs by John Foxe4. Musophilus by Samuel Daniel5. The Nymph’s Replied to the Shepherd by

Sir Walter Raleigh6. William Shakespeare Works

William Shakespeare• Born: Baptised 26 April

1564 (birth date unknown)Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

• Died: 23 April 1616 (aged 52)Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

• Occupation; Playwright, poet, actor

• Signature:

William Shakespeare’s

Works

Significant literary genre

1. Sonnet

2. Elizabethan Lyric

3. Elizabethan Drama

4. Historical Poems

5. Pastoral Romance

The 17th Century

or the Puritan Period

(1625-1700)

The 17th Century

or the Puritan Period(1625-1700)

The 17th Century or the Puritan Period(1625-1700)

Catastrophe struck Britain. The Civil War, the Black Plague and the great fire of London disrupted the otherwise orderly existence of the English people. Literature was permeated by the light hearted cavalier of the solemn Puritans.

The Period of Dissension and Calamity

Significant literary works during this period

1. Areopaitica by John Milton2. Devotions by John Done3. Religio Medici by Thomas Brown4. History of Henry VII by Francis

Bacon5. Works by Ben Johnson6. The garden by Andrew Marvell

Significant literary genre:

1. Restoration Comedy and

Tragedy

2. Metaphysical Poetry

3. False Pindaric or Irregular Ode

4. Light Prose

The 18th Century or the

Period of Classism(1700-1800)

The 18th Century or the Period of Classism (1700-1800)

Dawning of the age of reasonThe London become the the center of of the

bustling city life.Literary mastered have their crafts and have

written with sophistication and finesse.Prose writing become popular.The periodical and novel gained popularity

and public acceptance.The periodical became the origin of what we

call now as clarity and public acceptance.

Significant literary works during this period

1. The London Merchant by George Lillo2. Conscious Lovers by Richard Steels3. The Fair Penitent: The Tragedy of Jane

Shore: The tragedy of Lady Grey by Nicholas Rowe

4. The Distressed Mother by Ambrose Philip5. Cato by Joseph Addison6. The West Indian by Richard Cumberland7. The Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith8. The Rivals: School for Scandals by Richard

Brinsley Sheridan

Significant literary genre:Opera

Ballad Opera

Pantomime

Prose Tragedy

The Romantic

Period(1800-1837)

The Romantic Period (1800-1837)

The Golden age of the lyric poetry belongs to the youth.

A literature of vigor and courage, love and wisdom, despair and hope.

Romantic poets pointed to the wild, unfathomable beauties of nature, the elusive, supernatural vision of mystics and the mysterious atmosphere of religion that had east such celestial light about the middle ages.

The Romantic Period (1800-1837)

• Queen Victoria came to the throne, this romantic fever had somewhat burned itself out.

• Men had turned their attention to the far reaching implications of the industrial revolution which was at last transforming the entire surface and structure of England.

Significant literary works during this period

1. Society: Castle by Thomas W. Robertson2. Widowers’ Houses by George Bernard

Shaw3. Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde4. The Second Mrs. Tanqueray by Arthur

Wind Pinero5. Song of Innocence and of Experience by

William Blake6. Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth

and Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Significant literary works during this period

7. Prometheus Unbound by Percy Bysshe Shelley

8. To Psyche; On a Grecian Ura; To a Nightingale by John Keats

9. Childe Harold; Don Juan by Lord Byron

10. Sense and the Sensibility; Pride and Prejudice; Mansfield Park;Persuasion by Jane Austen

Significant literary genre:• Heroic Couplet

• Historical Novel

The Victorian

Period(1837-1900

The Victorian Period (1837-1900)

Victoria I became a Queen of England in 1817, 3 years after the death of Coleridge and thirteen years before the death of Wordsworth.

She reigned until her own death in 1901.The reign in England of comparable

length is that of Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and like Elizabeth Victoria had not only a political but a literary epoch named for her.

The Victorian Period (1837-1900)

The keynote of the age was the 1851 Great Exhibition to London, a triumphant display intended to illustrate the superiority of England’s scientific, social and technological achievements.

Significant literary works during this period

1. The Pickwick Papers; Oliver Twist: David Copperfield: A Tale of Two Cities: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

2. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

3. Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan4. The Last Chronicle of Barset; Barchester

Towers; The Warden by Anthony Trollope5. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bront

Significant literary works during this period

6. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte7. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte8. Silas Marner; Scenes of Clerical Life; The

Mill on the Floss Middlemach by George Elliot

9. The Lotos Eater; Ulysses; Lockley Hall; Idylle of the Kings; In Memoriam by Alfred Lord

10. The Cry of the Children by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Significant literary works during this period

11.The Bishop Orders His Tome at St. Fraxed’s Church; The Ring and the Book by Robert Browning

12. Culture and Anarchy by Matthw Arnold13. Confession of an English Opium-Eater;

On Knocking in the Gate of Macbeth by Thomas DeQuincy

14. History of England by Thomas Babington Macaulay

Significant literary works during this period

15. Sartor Resartus; The French Revolution; Heroes and Hero-Worship; Past and Present by Thomas Carlyle

16. The Stones of Venice by John Ruskin17. The Development of Christian Doctrine;

The Idea of a University; Grammar Assent by John Henry Newman

18. On Liberty; The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill

Significant literary genre:Novels

Magazine Serial

Dramatic Dialogue

The 20th Century

orThe Modern

Period(1900 up to

Present)

The 20th Century or The Modern Period

(1900 up to 2000)Literature of this periods exemplifies the improved crafts of masters. The novel has flourished and writers have risen not only to popularity but to distinction as well.

The emerging values of the modern times are embodied in the works of authors who defy the conventions of the old world.

The 20th Century or The Modern Period

(1900 up to 2000)Science and technology became the

basis for advancement. While Orthodox beliefs are considered standard criteria for excellence, the emerging needs for radical changes became the order of the day.

Significant literary works of this period

1. Jude, the Obscure; Far From Maddening crowd; The Dynasts; The Return of Native by Thomas Hardy

2. The Tower; The Winding Stair by W.B. Yeats

3. The Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge

4. The Almayer’s Folly; The Nigger of the “Narcissus” by Joseph Conrad

Significant literary works of this period

5. Howard End; A Passage to India by E.M. Foster

6. The Voyage Out; Night and Day; Mrs. Dalloway; To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

7. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

8. Sons and Lovers; The Rainbow; Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence

Significant literary works of this period

9. Modern Comedy; Swan Song; The Man of Property

10. The White Monkey; The Silver Spoon by John Galsworthy

11. The Egoist; Beauchamp’s Career by George Meredith

12. Captain Courageous; Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

Significant literary genre:

Novel

Blank Verse

History of American Literature

O V E R V I E W During its early history, America was a series of British colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day United States. Therefore, its literary tradition begins as linked to the broader tradition of English literature. However, unique American characteristics and the breadth of its production usually now cause it to be considered a separate path and tradition.

Colonial LiteratureSome of the earliest forms of American

literature were pamphlets and writings extolling the benefits of the colonies to both a European and colonist audience. Captain John Smith could be considered the first American author with his works: A True Relation of ... Virginia (1608).

The revolutionary period also contained political writings, including those by colonist Samuel Adams. Two key figures were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin are esteemed works with their wit and influence toward the formation of a budding American identity.

Benjamin Franklin

Thomas Paine

John Smith

Samuel Adams

Early U.S. LiteratureIn the post-war period, The Federalist essays

by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay represented a historical discussion of government organization and republican values. Thomas Jefferson's United States Declaration of Independence, his influence on the Constitution, and the mass of his letters have led to him being considered one of the most talented early American writers.

The first American novel is sometimes considered to be William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy (1789). Much of the early literature of the new nation struggled to find a uniquely American voice. European forms and styles were often transferred to new locales and critics often saw them as inferior

Alexander Hamilton

John Jay

Thomas Jefferson

James Madison

W.H. Brown

Unique American StyleWith the War of 1812 and an increasing desire

to produce uniquely American work, a number of key new literary figures appeared, perhaps most prominently Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and Edgar Allan Poe.

Irving, often considered the first writer to develop a unique American style (although this is debated) wrote humorous works in Salmagundi and the well-known satire A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809).

Anti-transcendental works from Melville (Moby-Dick), Hawthorne (Scarlet Letter), and Poe (The Fall of the House of Usher) all comprise the Dark Romanticism subgenre of literature popular during this time.

Washington Irving

James Fenimore Cooper

Edgar Allan Poe

Hawthorne

American 19th Century PoetryAmerica's two greatest 19th-century poets could hardly have been

more different in temperament and style. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was a working man, a traveler, a self-appointed nurse during the American Civil War (1861-1865), and a poetic innovator. His magnum opus was Leaves of Grass, in which he uses a free-flowing verse and lines of irregular length to depict the all-inclusiveness of American democracy. Taking that motif one step further, the poet equates the vast range of American experience with himself without being egotistical.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), on the other hand, lived the sheltered life of a genteel unmarried woman in small-town Amherst, Massachusetts. Within its formal structure, her poetry is ingenious, witty, exquisitely wrought, and psychologically penetrating. Her work was unconventional for its day, and little of it was published during her lifetime. Many of her poems dwell on death, often with a mischievous twist.

Walt Whitman

Emily Dickinson

RealismMark Twain (the pen name of Samuel Langhorne

Clemens, 1835-1910) was the first major American writer to be born away from the East Coast -- in the border state of Missouri. His regional masterpieces were the memoir Life on the Mississippi and the novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain's style changed the way Americans write their language. His characters speak like real people and sound distinctively American, using local dialects, newly invented words, and regional accents.

Henry James (1843-1916) confronted the Old World-New World dilemma by writing directly about it. Among his more accessible works are the novellas Daisy Miller, about an enchanting American girl in Europe, and The Turn of the Screw, an enigmatic ghost story.

Mark Twain

Henry James

Turn of the CenturyAt the beginning of the 20th century, American novelists

were expanding fiction's social spectrum to encompass both high and low life and sometimes connected to the naturalist school of realism.

More directly political writings discussed social issues and power of corporations. Some like Edward Bellamy in Looking Backward outlined other possible political and social frameworks. Upton Sinclair, most famous for his meat-packing novel The Jungle, advocated socialism. Henry Adams' literate autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams also depicted a stinging description of the education system and modern life.

Experimentation in style and form soon joined the new freedom in subject matter.

Upton Sinclair

Edward Bellamy

Henry Adams

Turn of the CenturyAmerican writers also expressed the disillusionment

following upon the war. The stories and novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) capture the restless, pleasure-hungry, defiant mood of the 1920s. Fitzgerald's characteristic theme, expressed poignantly in The Great Gatsby, is the tendency of youth's golden dreams to dissolve in failure and disappointment. 

Depression era literature was blunt and direct in its social criticism. John Steinbeck (1902-1968). His style was simple and evocative, winning him the favor of the readers but not of the critics. The Grapes of Wrath, considered his masterpiece, is a strong, socially-oriented novel that tells the story of the Joads, a poor family from Oklahoma and their journey to California in search of a better life.

Scott Fritzgerald

John Steinbeck

Post-World War IIThe period in time from the end of World War II up until,

roughly, the late 1960s and early 1970s saw to the publication of some of the most popular works in American history.

The poetry and fiction of the "Beat Generation," largely born of a circle of intellects formed in New York City around Columbia University and established more officially some time later in San Francisco, came of age. The term, Beat, referred, all at the same time, to the countercultural rhythm of the Jazz scene, to a sense of rebellion regarding the conservative stress of post-war society, and to an interest in new forms of spiritual experience through drugs, alcohol, philosophy, and religion, and specifically through Zen Buddhism

Regarding the war novel specifically, there was a literary explosion in America during the post-World War II era. Some of the most well known of the works produced included Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead (1948).

Norman Mailer

ColonialPeriod

TIMELINE1700

s1600s

1800s

Early US

Literature

UniqueAmerica

nStyle

American

Poetry

Realism

Turn of the

Century

Post World-War II

19th century

20th century

1950s-21st

century

Beat Generation (USA)

Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959) and Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature.

Allen Ginsberg

Jack Kerouac

Underground, anti-conformist youth movement in New York

MAGIC REALISM

Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, John Fowles, Angela Carter, John Banville,

John Fowles Angela Carter

Margaret Atwood Jonathan Franzen (USA) Ian McEwan

David Mitchell Toni Morrison (USA) Philip Roth (USA)

The Handmaid's Tale (1985) is perhaps Atwood's best known novel and emblematic of the social criticism

The Corrections, his third novel, was selected for Oprah Winfrey's book club in 2001

British writer Ian McEwan started winning literary awards with his first book, First Love, Last Rites (1976) and never stopped. Atonement (2002) won several awards and is being made into a movie, and Saturday (2005) won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

In his first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), he uses nine narrators to tell the story and 2004's Cloud Atlas is a novel comprised of six interconnected stories

Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987) was named best novel of the past 25 years in a 2006 New York Times Book Review survey. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, and Toni Morrison, whose name has become synonymous with African American literature, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.

The Plot Against America (2005) In Everyman (2006), Roth's 27th novel,what it's like growing old Jewish in America.

ENGLISH & AMERICAN WRITERS TODAY

Zadie Smith John Updike (USA) Kazuo Ishiguro

In his first novel, An Artist of the Floating World (1986), Ishiguro explored the world of post World War II Japanese society.

Guildford, Surrey, England

She wrote her first novel, White Teeth, while still at Cambridge and published it after graduation in 2000.In 2002, Smith published The Autograph Man.On Beauty (2005)In 2009, Smith published Changing My Mind

John Updike's first book of poetry, The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures, was published in 1958, and his first novel, The Poorhouse Fair, was published in 1959. In 1960, Updike published Rabbit Run, the first of the "Rabbit" novels (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered). The book was an instant success and established Updike's reputation as one of the most significant contemporary American novelists.

ENGLISH & AMERICAN WRITERS TODAY