A Short History of English Literature

A Short History of English Literature

Foreign Language Teaching and Research Department Heilongjiang University

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A Short History of English Literature

Chapter One
I. Objectives

EARLY AND MEDIEVAL ENGLISH LITERATURE

Students will be able to : 1. get to know the objectives and feature of this lesson 2. get to know the basic knowledge of this class 3. get to know some relevant information

II. Learning Difficulties

III.

Teaching Material

This" Short History of English Literature" is a book for beginners who know little about English literature but who want to gel some rudimentary knowledge about its history. The question which I have been considering during compilation and revision is how to make my book useful and easily accessible to Chinese students. Such a purpose determines the way in which the book is made. I have tried to gather together, within the scope of such a short work, those materials which I deem necessary for beginners and rewrite them in simple English for easier understanding. In doing so, I have followed the examples of popularizers of literary history like John Macy and Lafcadio Hearn and our forerunners hi this field, the late Professors Fan Cunzhong and Chen Jia of Nanjng University. This textbook was originally compiled for the students of English in the provincial universities and normal colleges in our country. Efforts have been made to apply the basic views of Marxism, mainly those of historical materialism, in tracing the historical development of English literature. Each literary period is introduced first by a brief comment on its social political and ideological conditions, and by a summary of the prevailing literary trends and schools of the time, but emphasis is laid on the description of the lives and careers of the great and ma pr writers, especially on the analysis of their representative works, whereas the less important authors and those writers whose works arc out of the reach of our students for the time being are merely mentioned in passing or even omitted altogether. So the book is far from all-embracing. I call it" short history" because it is short of many things which appear in those profound works on English literature written by learned scholars. Before entering upon the study of English literature, it is necessary to know something about the English people. The English people are of a mixed blood. The early inhabitants in the island now we call England were Britons, a tribe of Celts. From the Britons the island got its name of Britain, the land of Britons. The Britons were a primitive people. They were divided into dozens of small tribes, each of which lived in a clustering of huts. The oldest Celtic laws that have come down to our day show the gens still in full vitality ." (Engels) The Britons lived in the tribal society.
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A Short History of English Literature

The Roman Conquest In 55 B.C., Britain was invaded by Julius Caesar, the Roman conqueror, who had then just occupied Gaul . But as soon as the Romans landed on shore of the island, the Britons fought like lions under the leadership of their chieftain. And with the comings and goings of many Roman generals within the time of a century, Britain was not completely subjugated to the Roman Empire until 78 A.D. With the Roman Conquest the Roman mode of life came across to Britain also Roman theatres and baths quickly rose in the towns. All these refinements of civilization, however, were for the enjoyment of the Roman conquerors while the native Britons were trodden down as slaves. The Roman occupation lasted for about 400 years, during which the Romans, for military purposes, built a network of highways, later called the Roman roads, which remained useful for a long time to come. Along these roads grew up scores of towns, and London, one of them, became an important trading centre. It was also during the Roman rule that Christianity was introduced to Britain. But at the beginning of the fifth century, the Roman Empire was in the process of declining. And in 410 A.Dall the Roman troops went back to the continent and never returned. Thus ended the Roman occupation in Britain . The English Conquest At the same time Britain was invaded by swarms of pirates. They were three tribes from Northern Europe; the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. These three tribes landed on the British coast, drove the Britons west and north, and settled down themselves. The Jutes occupied Kent, in the southeastern corner of the island. The Saxons took the southern part and established some small kingdoms as Wessex, Essex and Sussex. The Angles spread over the east midland and built the kingdom of the East Anglia. Gradually seven such kingdoms arose in Britain. And by the 7th century these small kingdoms were combined into a united kingdom called England, or, the land of Angles. The three tribes had mixed into a whole people called English, the Angles being the most numerous of the three. And the three dialects spoken by them naturally grew into a single language called Anglo Saxon, or Old English, which is quite different from the English that we know today. Anglo - Saxon Religious Belief and Its Influence The Anglo - Saxons were heathen people. They believed in old mythology of Northern Europe. That is why the Northern mythology has left its mark upon the English language. For example, the days of the week in English are named after the Northern gods. Odin, the All Father, gave his name to Wednesday, Thor gave his name to Thursday, and Frigga, the beautiful goddess to whom prayers were made by lovers, gave her name to Friday. Tuesday preserves the memory of Tiu another Northern god. Beowulf English literature began with the Anglo - Saxon settlement in England. Of Old English literature, five relics are still preserved. All of them are poems, or, songs by the Anglo Saxon minstrels who sang of the heroic deeds of old time to the chiefs and warriors in the feasting-hall .Four are short fragments of long poems. But there is one long poem of over 3,000 lines. It is "Beowulf ", the national epic of the English people The Story of "Beowulf": Beowulf is the nephew of Hygelac, King of the Geats, a people in Jutland ,
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A Short History of English Literature

Denmark. News reaches him that Hrothgar , king of the Danes, is in great trouble. Hrothgar has built a great hall. But a terrible monster, Grendel, visits the hall from night to night and carries the warriors away. So the hall is deserted. On hearing the news, Beowulf sails for Denmark with fourteen companions and offers to fight the monster. After a feast of welcome, Beowulf and his companions lie down in the hall for the night. Then Grendel appears, seizes and devours one of Beowulfs men. He next attacks Beowulf, who grapples with him single -handed, because weapons do not avail against him. After a terrible hand -to-hand combat, Grendel retreats mortally wounded, leaving one of his arms with Beowulf. Great rejoicing follows and next night the hall is once more full of joys and songs. The Danish Invasion About 787, the English began to be troubled by bands of Danish Vikings. At first, the Danes came only on plundering the country. Gradually, however, they came to make permanent settlements. King Alfred the Great (849-901) succeeded in driving the Danes off with force. Laying down his sword. King Alfred set himself to the task of encouraging education and literature. He translated some works from Latin himself. More important as a literary work is the Anglo-Saxon "Chronicle", written under his encouragement and supervision, which begins with Caesar's conquest and is a monument of Old English prose. After his death, the Danes occupied the country in 1013, and held it for 30 years. Then England was once more governed by another foreign ruler. The Norman Conquest The Frenchspeaking Normans under Duke William came in 1066. After defeating the English at Hastings , William was crowned as King of England .Revolts were cruelly suppressed and the conquest was completed with sword and fire. It was called the Norman Conquest. The Influence of Norman Conquest on English Language After the Norman Conquest, the general relation of Normans and Saxons was that of master and servant .One of the most striking manifestations of the supremacy of the conquerors was to be seen in the language. The Norman lords spoke French, while their English subjects retained their old tongue. For a long time the scholar wrote in Latin and the courtier in French. There was almost no written literature in English for a time. The Romance The most prevailing kind of literature in feudal England was the romance. It was a long composition, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose, describing the life and adventures of a noble hero .The central character of romances was the knight, a man of noble birth skilled in the use of weapons He was commonly described as riding forth to seek adventures, taking part in tournaments , or fighting for his lord in battle. He was devoted to the church and the king. The code of manners and morals of a knight is known as chivalry. One who wanted to be a knight should serve an apprenticeship as a squire until he was admitted to the knighthood with solemn ceremony and the swearing of oaths It has its origin in Celtic legends, its beginning in Geoffrey of Monmouths History
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A Short History of English Literature

of the Kings of Britain(in Latin prose) and Layamons Brut(in alliterative English verse),its culmination in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (metrical romance), and its summing up in Thomas Malory's " Mort D'Arthur "(in English prose). Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The Ballads The most important department of English folk literature is the ballad. A ballad is a story told in song, usually in 4-line stanzas , with the second and fourth lines rhymed . When it was chanted by ballad singers, the audience pined in a refrain which usually followed each stanza . The ballads are in various English and Scottish dialects. No one knows who composed them. The Robin Hood Ballads Robin Hood, a legendary popular hero, is depicted in the ballads as a valiant outlaw famous in archery , living under the greenwood tree with his merry men, taking from the rich and giving to the poor, waging war against bishops and archbishops , and constantly hunted by the sheriffs , whom he constantly outwits . Chaucer Chaucer, Geoffrey (1343-1400), one of the greatest English poets, whose masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, was one of the most important influences on the development of English literature. His life is known primarily through records pertaining to his career as a courtier and civil servant under the English kings Edward III and Richard II.

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A Short History of English Literature

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A Short History of English Literature

Chaucer is an English poet best loved after Shakespeare for his wisdom, humor, and humanity. He greatly increased the prestige of English as a literary language and extended the range of its poetic vocabulary and meters. He was the first English poet to use the seven-line stanza in iambic pentameter known as rhyme royal and the couplet later called heroic. Troilus and Criseyde" "The Canterbury Tales" (1387-1400) "The Canterbury Tales" is Chaucer's masterpiece and one of the monumental works in English literature. Outline of the Story: The whole poem is a collection of stories strung together with a simple plan. On a spring evening, the poet, moved by the passion for wandering, drops himself at the Tabard Inn in Southwark at the south end of London Bridge. Here he meets nine and twenty other pilgrims ready for a journey of 60 miles on horseback to Canterbury. Notes: 1. In the modern English-translation by Theodore Morrison, Chaucer's original metrical form, the heroic couplet, is used.
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A Short History of English Literature

2. 3. 4.

Zephyrs: the west wind Ran; sign of the zodiac (Aries); The sun is in the Ram from March 12 to April 11 palmers: pilgrims, who, originally, brought back palm leaves from the Holy Land

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A Short History of English Literature

Chapter Two
I. Objectives

THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE I

Students will be able to : 1. get to know the objectives and feature of this lesson 2. get to know the basic knowledge of this class 3. get to know some relevant information

II. Learning Difficulties

III.

Teaching Material
Renaissance Giants -Shakespeare

Life We know very little about Shakespeare. The scanty facts of Shakespeare's life come down to us from three sources: church and legal records, folk traditions, and the comments of his contemporaries. The church and legal records contain a series of dates and facts concerning his birth, marriage, business transactions and his death. These give us a rough outline of his life, which is far from being complete. In contrast to her famous husband William Shakespeare, very little is known about Anne Hathaway. She was born in 1556 and married William Shakespeare in 1582 She died in1623 and is buried in the chancel next to her husband in Holy Trinity Church,Stratford. Anne Hathaway's Cottage was the pre-marital home Comments Shakespeare is one of the founder of realism in world literature. He is against religious persecution and racial discrimination, against social inequality and the corrupting influence of gold and money. His literature is a combination of beauty, kindness and truth, and reflects nature and reality. He can write skillfully in different poetic forms, like the sonnet , the blank verse, and the rhymed couplet . He has an amazing wealth of vocabulary and idiom. In his romantic comedies, Shakespeare takes an optimistic attitude toward love and youth. Merits: 1) The realistic attitude in literary creation :Shakespeare makes comment on dramatic performance . Its purpose, he maintains , is to hold , as it were , the mirror top to nature ; to show virtue her own feature ,scorn her own image ,and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure 2) The complexities and implications of the real life : give a world of full blood people . No two figures are identified .
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A Short History of English Literature

3) The expert in poetic forms : Shakespeare was skilled in many poetic forms : the song , the sonnet ,the couplet ,and the dramatic blank verse . He was especially at home with the blank verse . 4) Shakespeare is a great master of the English language . He commanded a vocabulary larger than any other English writer .He used about 16,000 words . Shakespeare and the Authorized version of the English Bible are the two great treasuries of the English language . 5) Shakespeare has been universally acknowledged to be the summit of English Renaissance ,and one of the greatest writers the world over.

HAMLET Act Scene (excerpt) HAMLET. To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether' his nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them. To die: to sleep;

Something about Hamlet Hamlet is without question the most famous play in the English language. Probably written in 1601 or 1602, the tragedy is a milestone in Shakespeares dramatic development; the playwright achieved artistic maturity in this work through his brilliant depiction of the heros struggle with two opposing forces: moral integrity and the need to avenge his father's murder. Shakespeare's focus on this conflict was a revolutionary departure from contemporary revenge tragedies, which tended to graphically dramatize violent acts on stage, in that it emphasized the hero's dilemma rather than the depiction of bloody deeds. The dramatist's genius is also evident in his transformation of the play's literary sourcesespecially the contemporaneous In the words of Ernest Johnson, the dilemma of Hamlet the Prince and Man is to disentangle himself from the temptation to wreak justice for the wrong reasons and in evil passion, and to do what he must do at last for the pure sake of justice. From that dilemma of wrong feelings and right actions, he ultimately emerges, solving the problem by attaining a proper state of mind."

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A Short History of English Literature

Chapter Three
I. Objectives

THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE II

Students will be able to : 1. get to know the objectives and feature of this lesson 2. get to know the basic knowledge of this class 3. get to know some relevant information

II. Learning Difficulties

III.

Teaching Material

General Introduction Renaissance as a period in western civilization may be explained in different ways. But generally speaking, it refers to the period between the 14th and mid 17th century. Old England in Transition The New Monarchy The century and a half following the death of Chaucer (1400-1550) was full of great changes. Barely after the end of the Hundred Years' War with France (1337-1453) England was again blown into the whirlwind of civil war. The Wars of the Roses (145585) between the House of Lancaster and the House of York struggling for the Crown continued for 30 years. The Reformation The international regime of the Roman Catholic Church had long been burdensome to the King of England in establishing an absolute monarchy. A conflict was inevitable. Hence the far-reaching movement of the Reformation. In England, it was started by Henry VIII (1509-47). He declared the break with Rome, carried out a wholesale suppression of the monasteries and confiscated the properly of the Church, thus enriching the new bourgeois nobility. The English Bible Apart from its religious influence, the Authorized Version has had a great influence on English language and literature. The translators of the Authorized Version held fast to pure, old English speech. About 93 per cent of the 6,000 words used in it are the main words of native English. So, with the widespread influence of the English Bible, the standard modem English has been fixed and confirmed. A great number of Bible coinages and phrases have passed into daily English speech as household words, and are often used with no knowledge of their origin. For instance, "helpmate", "peacemaker", "tender mercy", "loving kindness", "long suffering", "clear as crystal", "arose as one man", "a thorn in the flesh", "root of all evil", "to cast pearls before swine", "a labour of love", "the shadow of death", "eye for eye, tooth for tooth", and many more. Thus the simple and dignified language of the Authorized Version has coloured the style of the English prose for the last 300 years and more, and the English Bible has woven its phrases and expressions into the texture of the English language, English literature and English life.
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A Short History of English Literature

THE OLD TESTAMENT Genesis 4. [The First Murder] 4. And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground and offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. The Commercial Expansion The progress in industry at home stimulated the commercial expansion abroad. Queen Elizabeth encouraged exploration and travel, which were compatible with the interests of the English merchants. Numerous English ships under the command of such sea-dogs as DrakeSir Francis, 1540?-1596, , ) and Hawkins, who were both traders and pirates, ploughed the seas and visited America and other distant' countries, bringing back with them great fortunes that enriched and strengthened the Crown. They were those who established the first English colonies. The Renaissance and Humanism The rise of the bourgeoisie soon showed its influence in the sphere of cultural life. The result is an intellectual movement known as the Renaissance, or, the rebirth of letters. It sprang first m Italy in the 14lh century and gradually spread all over Europe. Two features are striking of this movement. The one is a thirsting curiosity for the classical literature. Old manuscripts were dug out. There arose a current for the study of Greek and Latin authors. While people learned to admire the Greek and Latin works as models of literary form, they caught something in spirit very different from the medieval Catholic dogma . So the love of classics was but an expression of the general dissatisfaction at the Catholic and feudal ideas. Another feature of the Renaissance is the keen interest in the activities of humanity. People ceased to look upon themselves as living only for God and a future world. Thinkers, artists and poets arose, who gave expression, sometimes in an old guise, though, to the new feeling of admiration for human beauty and human achievement, a feeling in sharp contrast with theology. Hence arose the thought of Humanism. Humanism is the key-note of the Renaissance. Thomas More (1478-1535) Utopia

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A Short History of English Literature

The Flourishing of Literature With the dawning of the new age, "the sphere of human interest was widened as it has never been widened before by the revelation of a new heaven and a new earth." ( J.R.Green) From the first half of the 16th century, the English Renaissance began to develop into a flowering of literature and then England became" a nest of singing birds'. " Don Quixote" was translated into English as early as 1612, during the lifetime of its author Cervantes ( 1547-1616) .

Edmund Spenser The "Poet's poet" of the period was Edmund Spenser (1552-99). Spenser was born in a minor noble family, his father being a merchant in London. He was first educated at the Merchant Tailors' School.
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A Short History of English Literature

Then Spenser studied at Cambridge, where he read the classics and Italian poets and wrote poems. The Faerie Queene Spenser's Position in English Literature English poetry had languished for about a century and a half since the death of Chaucer in 1400, when the publication of "The Shepherd's Calendar" marked the budding of the Renaissance flower in the northern island of England. In the meantime, the language had undergone sufficient changes as to be called Modern English, to distinguish it from the Middle English of Chaucers day. Spenser is the first master to make that language the natural music of his poetic effusions .

Francis Bacon If the imaginative powers of literary creation of English Renaissance found their expression in the poetry of Spenser and the drama of Shakespeare, the intellectual energy of this age showed itself in the achievement of Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the founder of English materialist philosophy. Bacon was the founder of modern science in England. Bacon is also famous for his "Essays", Ten of them were published in 1597, as notes of his observations. The collection was reissued and enlarged in 1612 and again in 1625, when it included 58 essays. These essays cover a wide variety of subjects, such as love, truth, friendship, parents and children, beauty, studies ,riches , youth and age, garden, death, and many others.

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A Short History of English Literature

Chapter Four
I. Objectives

The English Literature Definition

Students will be able to : 1. get to know the objectives and feature of this lesson 2. get to know the basic knowledge of this class 3. get to know some relevant information

II. Learning Difficulties

III.

Teaching Material
Iambic pentameter is the most common English meter, in which each foot contains an unaccented syllable and an accented syllable. Rhyme royal is a poetic pattern with seven iambic pentameters rhyming ababbcc, which pronounce a final short e, and often end in an 11th, unstressed syllable. Heroic couplet is the pentameter couplet with the important difference that when the final e disappeared from speech the couplet became one of strict pentameters. Blank verse is a succession of unrhymed iambic pentameters primarily an English form and has been used in the loftiest epic and dramatic verse from Shakespeare and Milton to the present. Sonnet is a poem of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme. There are two prominent types: the Elizabethan, or Shakespearean sonnet. Shakespearean sonnet consisting of three quatrains and a couplet (rhyming abab cdcd efef gg) Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, composed of an octave and a sestet (rhyming abbaabba cdecde). Rhyme, or time, the most prominent of the literary artifices used in versification. With the decline of the classical quantitative meters and the substitution of accentual meters, rhyme began to develop, especially in the sacred Latin poetry of the early Christian church. end rhyme: rhyme at the end of a line assonance: repetition of related vowel sounds alliteration: repetition of consonants, particularly at the beginning of words Alliteration and assonance are said to rhyme only today when the sound of the final accented syllable of one word (paced usually at the end of a line of verse) agrees with the final accented syllable of another word so placed. Poetic license means such liberties a poet adopts as approximate rhymes, or eye-rhymes (words which are spelled alike but not pronounced alike) Epiphany is an appearance or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something, which is adapted by James Joyce to describe the sudden revelation of whatness of a thing, the moment in which the soul of the commonest object seems to us radiant.
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A Short History of English Literature

Psychological penetration is a writing device that involves such psychological elements as id, ego, and superego in the depiction of characters inner thinking or mental activities. Sentimentalism is one of the important trends in English literature of the middle and later decades of the 18th century. It justly criticized the cruelty of the capitalist relations and the gross social injustices brought about by the bourgeois revolutions. It embraces a pessimistic outlook and blames reason and the Industrial Revolution, marked by a sincere sympathy for the poverty-stricken, expropriated peasants. Romanticism is a profound shift in sensibility marked a violent reaction to the Enlightenment. It was inspired by the revolutions in America and France and popular wars of independence in Poland, Spain, Greece, and elsewhere and expressed an extreme assertion of the self and the value of individual experience, together with the sense of the infinite and transcendental. It championed progressive causes, though when these were frustrated it often produced a bitter, gloomy, and despairing outlook. Symbolism works under the surface to tie the story's external action to the theme. It was often produced through allegory, giving the literal event and its allegorical counterpart a one-to-one correspondence. Realism was a loosely used term meaning truth to the observed facts of life (especially when they are gloomy). Realism in literature is an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity. Pessimism denotes an attitude of hopelessness towards life, a vague general opinion that pain and evil predominate in human affairs. Naturalism is primarily a French movement in prose fiction and the drama during the final third of the 19th-century.It can be included in the concept realism when realism is in kits broader sense. Modernism is often used to identify what are considered to be distinctive features in the concepts, sensibility, form, and style of literature and art since World War I. Modernist literature is a literature of discontinuity, both historically, being based upon a sharp rejection of the procedures and values of the immediate past, to which it adopts an adversary stance; and aesthetically. Neo-classicism imitated the characteristics of Roman writers, including Horace, Virgil. Cicero, etc, in the days of Augustus. They tried to make English literature conform to rules and principles established by the great Roman and Greek classical writers. In writing plays, they used rhyme and couplet instead of blank verse, observed the trinity--the unity of time, place and action.

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A Short History of English Literature

Chapter Five

THE PERIOD OF THE ENGLISH BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION

I. Objectives
Students will be able to : 1. get to know the objectives and feature of this lesson 2. get to know the basic knowledge of this class 3. get to know some relevant information

II. Learning Difficulties

III.

Teaching Material

During the Tudor dynasty (1485-1603) the English bourgeoisie lived in harmony with the Crown. Until about 1590, the bourgeoisie had many interests in common with those of the monarchy in the struggles against Spain, against the Roman Catholic Church, against noble houses ruining the country with their civil wars. Hence the collaboration between the monarchy and the bourgeoisie. But when all its internal and external foes had been crushed, the bourgeoisie ceased to depend upon the protection of the monarchy. At the same time the Crown strove to consolidate its position before it was too late. There had already been some conflict between the Queen and Parliament at the end of Elizabeth's reign. There were more and more quarrels of James I and Charles I with their Parliaments. Milton, one of the greatest poets of England, defended the English Commonwealth with his pen. His pamphlets, together with those of Gerard Winstanley and John Lilburne (1614-57), leader of the Levellers, played an active part in pushing on the revolutionary cause. Even after the Restoration in 1660, Milton and Bunyan, the poor tinker -writer, continued to defend in their works the ideals of the Revolution," the good old cause", and expose the reactionary forces. Feature: Inheritance from traditional writings 1) Influence from France, Switzerland and Italy; 2) The blank verse inherited from Shakespeare; 3) Influenced and inspired by Greek and Roman epics by Homer and Virgil; 4) The Bible as source material and the themes of tragedy and redemption in the Old Testament mini-epic Contribution: 1) His richly textured and passionate verse; 2) Milton 's use of blank verse and his treatment of the Sublime.
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A Short History of English Literature

" Paradise Lost" 1." Paradise Lost" is Milton's masterpiece. Before its composition, he had had the subject before his mind for a quarter of a century, and made some drafts about the characters and plot. It is a long epic in 12 books, written in blank verse. The stories were taken from the Old Testament: the creation; the rebellion in Heaven of Satan and his fellowangels; their defeat and expulsion from Heaven; the creation of the earth and of Adam and Eve; the fallen angels in hell plotting against God; Satan's temptation of Eve; and the departure of Adam and Eve from Eden. 2. Story: 3. Theme and Characterization The poem, as we are told at the outset, was " to justify the ways of God to man", i.e., to advocate submission to the Almighty. But after reading it one gets the impression that the main idea of the poem is a revolt against God's authority. In the poem God is no better than a selfish despot , sealed upon a throne with a chorus of angels about him eternally singing his praises. His long speeches are never pleasing. He is cruel and unjust in his struggle against Satan. His Archangel is a bore . His angels are silly. While the rebel Satan who rose against God and , though defeated, still sought for revenge, is by far the most striking character in the poem. Adam and Eve embody Milton's belief in the powers of man. Their craving for knowledge, as Milton stresses, adds a particular significance to their characters. This longing for knowledge opens before mankind a wide road to an intelligent and active life.

John Bunyan John Bunyan (1628-1688) was an English preacher and writer. While imprisoned for preaching the Gospel without receiving permission from the Established Church, he wrote The Pilgrim's Progress. The Pilgrim's Progress In Bunyan's own time it was a cause for amazement that an uneducated tinker could have written such a book as The Pilgrim's Progress, and he felt obliged to defend himself from the charge of plagiarism. At the end of his Holy War we find these lines referring to the more famous book:
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A Short History of English Literature

"It came from my own heart, so to my head, And thence into my fingers trickled; Then to my pen, from whence immediately On paper I did dribble it daintily. Matter and manner too was all mine own, Nor was it unto any mortal known, Till I had done it. Nor, did any then, By books, by wits, by tongues, or hand or pen Add five words to it, or write half a line Thereof; the whole and every whit is mine." 1. The Pilgrims Progress is a religious allegory. It tells of the spiritual pilgrimage of Christian, who flies from the City of Destruction, meets with the perils and temptations of the Slough of Despond , Vanity Fair,and Doubting Castle, faces and overcomes the demon Appollyon , and finally comes to the Delectable Mountains and the Celestial City . 2. Though an allegory, its characters impress the reader like real persons. The places that Bunyan paints in words are English scenes, and the conversations which enliven his narratives vividly repeal the language of his time. Bunyan describes, in the people's homely yet powerful language, the spiritual sufferances of the poor people at a time of great changes, and their aspiration for "the land that floweth with milk and honey", where " they have no want of corn and wine."" There," he writes, you shall not see again such things as sorrow, sickness, affliction, and death. In reality, the Celestial City in The Pilgrims Progress is the vision of an ideal happy society dreamed by a poor tinker in the 17th century, through a veil of religious mist 3. One of the most remarkable passages is that in which Vanity Fair and the persecution of Christian and his friend Faithful are described. Christian and Faithful come to Vanity Fair. As they refuse to buy anything but Truth, they are beaten and put in a cage, and then taken out and led in chains up and down the fair, and at length brought before a court. Judge Hate-good summons three witnesses:Envy, Superstition and Pickthank (i.e. tale-bearer), who testify against him. The case is given to the jury, composed of Mr.Badman, Mr.No-good, Mr.Malice , etc. Each gives a verdict against Faithful, who is presently condemned. Here Bunyan intends to satirize the state trials in the reactionary reigns of Charles II and James II. which were merely forms preliminary to hanging, drawing and quartering:

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Chapter Six
I. Objectives

The Division of European Literature

Students will be able to : 1. get to know the objectives and feature of this lesson 2. get to know the basic knowledge of this class 3. get to know some relevant information

II. Learning Difficulties

III.

Teaching Material

( the Classic Age 1200 B.C476 A.D) (the Ancient Greek Civilization) (the Ancient Roman Civilization)(Paganism) (the Middle Ages 4761453) (the Church Culture) (the original sin) (inhibited)(cultural backwater) (the Renaissance 1516C) (Humanism)(Scholasticism) (reaction) 1. (Michelangelo Buonarroti14751564) (Popepontiff)(The Sistine chapel) (Genesis) (The Last Judgment) (David) 2. (Leonardo da Vinci14521519) (Mona Lisa) (The last Supper) (versatile) 3. (Raphael14831520) (The Triumph of Religion Disputa) (the School of Athens) 52 (Raphaels Bible) 4. (Titian14901576) (venus of Urbino) 5. (Montaigne 15331592) (Essays)(Skepticism) (motto)(What do I know?) 6. (Miguel de cervantes15471717) (Don Quixote)
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A Short History of English Literature

7. (william Shakespeare15641616) (Hamlet) (King Lear) (Mac-Bath) (Othello) (Romeo and Juliet) 14 (Sonnets) 154 (Neo-classicism1718C) (reaction) (rationalism) (Baruch Spinoza l6321677) (empiricism)(John Locke, 16321704) (Romanticism 1819 ) 1. (Feelings are more important than reason.) 2. (Return to nature) 3. (Cultivate ego and individuality) 4. (Pursue liberty and equality)

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A Short History of English Literature

Chapter Seven THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

I. Objectives
Students will be able to : 1. get to know the objectives and feature of this lesson 2. get to know the basic knowledge of this class 3. get to know some relevant information

II. Learning Difficulties

The Enlightenment and Classicism

III.

Teaching Material

After the tempestuous events of the 17lh century, England entered a period of comparatively peaceful development. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 ended in a compromise between the aristocracy and bourgeoisie. England became a constitutional monarchy and power passed from the King to the Parliament and the cabinet ministers. 18th century England witnessed unprecedented technical innovations which equipped industry with steam, the new moving force, and new tools, and rapid growth of industry and commerce, which influenced the way of social life as a whole. This is called the Industrial Revolution. The 18th century marked the beginning of an intellectual movement in Europe, known as the Enlightenment, which was on the whole, an expression of struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. The enlighteners fought against class inequality stagnation , prejudices and other survivals of feudalism. They attempted to place all branches of science at the service of mankind by connecting them with the actual needs and requirements of people. English enlighteners differed in some way from those of France. While the philosophers and writers of France " cleared the minds of men for the coming revolution," the English enlighteners set no revolutionary aims before them. England had gone through its bourgeois revolution in the 17th century. So English enlighteners of the 18th century strove to bring it to an end by clearing away the feudal ideas with the bourgeois ideology. The representatives of the Enlightenment in English literature were Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, the essayists, and Alexander Pope, the poet. In their works, these writers criticized different aspects of contemporary England, discussed social problems, and even touched upon morality and private life. They intended to reform social life according to a more reasonable principle, though this principle could never go beyond the limit of bourgeois interests. The literature of the Enlightenment in England mainly appealed to the middle class readers.

Classicism
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A Short History of English Literature

Addison, Steele and Pope belonged to the school of classicism. The classicists modelled themselves on Greek and Latin authors, and tried to control literary creation by some fixed laws and rules drawn from Greek and Latin works. Rimed couplet instead of blank verse, the three unities of time, place and action, regularity in construction, and the presentation of types rather than individuals-these were some of the standards the classicists required of drama. Poetry, following the ancient divisions, should be lyric , epic, didactic , satiric or dramatic, and each class should be guided by some peculiar principles. Prose should be precise, direct and flexible. The English classicists followed these standards in their writings. But the basic difference between Dryden and the 18th century enlighteners lies in the fact that the former wrote to please the declining aristocracy during the Restoration period while the latter wrote for the rising bourgeoisie to tidy up the capitalist social order. Thus, owing to the need of the English middle class, classicism achieved a rapid growth and prevailed for the better part of the 18th century. After Pope, English classicism found still another exponent in Samuel Johnson.

Alexander Pope English essayist, critic, satirist, and one of the greatest poets of Enlightenment. Pope wrote his first verses at the age of 12. His breakthrough work, AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM (1711), appeared when he was twenty-three. It included the famous line "a little learning is a dangerous thing." Pope's physical defects made him an easy target for heartless mockery, but he was also considered a leading literary critic and the epitome of English Neoclassicism. "Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be." (from An Essay on Criticism)

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