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Mr. Harris, H English IV Page 1 of 3

Prehistory & Roman Britain • “The most important fact in British history may well be that Britain is an island, and the most important date

the moment—about 6000 B.C.E.—when the North Sea flooded over the lands that joined Britain to the Continent.”

• The earliest documented evidence of humans in Britain dates back to around 200,000 B.C.E. (a species in between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens). They probably first came to the island during a warm phase during the second glaciation of the Great Ice Age. In archaeological time, this is the Paleolithic Era (Old Stone Age).

• Around 8300 B.C.E., a change in climate gave way to the Mesolithic Era (Middle Stone Age). These people built the first dwelling in Britain—a pit eight feet wide and four feet deep, roofed over with boughs or sod.

• About 3800 B.C.E., peoples from the Mediterranean and Spain brought the practices of the Neolithic (New Stone Age) Revolution to Britain. No other event until the Industrial Revolution produced such a change in human life, as people had learned the principles of agriculture and animal domestication. This economy could support a population ten or more times greater than that of the hunting economy.

• Around 2000 B.C.E., people had begun to manufacture weapons and tools in bronze, giving rise to the Early Bronze Age. By 1400 B.C.E., bronze had replaced items made from stone, which were mostly flint.

• Around 3000 B.C.E., a nomadic people from the Rhine Valley invaded. Historians call them the Beaker Folk because of the beaker-shaped pot they used, probably to drink a fermented beverage. They mixed with the Neolithic lifestyle, were skillful potters, wore linen and woolen clothes held together by buttons, and buried their dead singly with a dagger, a bow and arrow, some ornaments, and a beaker, and piled earth over the grave in a mound.

• Between 2000 and 1100 B.C.E. (Late Bronze Age), the Neolithic population of Britain absorbed the Beaker Folk and the Wessex chieftains, creating the Food Vessel culture (named as such from the vases they buried with their dead) north of the Thames and the Urn culture south of it (named for the urns in which they buried their dead after cremating them). The years of these cultures were calm, and society remained pastoral.

• About 1400 B.C.E., the Deverel-Rimbury culture emerged, as the people of England moved from the uplands to the lowlands, which could sustain a longer period of use. They planted crops and established a mixed farming way of life that replaced pastoralism, creating a steady supply of food that in turn supported a population that may have approached a million by the end of the Bronze Age.

The Britons

• In the early seventh century B.C.E., Celtic-speaking people from central Europe invaded Britain (the larger island) with skills in the use of iron. Later invaders built two-wheeled chariots with wheels cased in iron, and the Belgae, who invaded in the first century B.C.E., could fell timber with their iron axes. In addition to bringing iron, these Celtic-speaking people introduced the use of money, founded kingdoms, established the priesthood, and created a new art. All of these are the marks of modern civilization. These people, called Britons (or Brythons or British), spoke a Celtic language known as British. They were farmers and hunters and looked to priests known as Druids to settle their disputes.

Roman Britain • In 55 B.C.E., the Romans, led by Julius Caesar, made hasty invasions. • The true conquest took place nearly 100 years later. • The Romans established towns and built roads, fortifications, and aqueducts, defended Britain against alien

invasions, and established the use of Latin. • Defending the northern frontier proved difficult. Julius Agricola, governor of Britain in 78 C.E., planned to

protect the south by conquering the whole of the British Isles. However, conquering Scotland in that manner would not have been financially feasible.

o The Roman Emperor Hadrian proposed the building of Hadrian’s Wall, built of stone in the east and turf in the west, 73 miles long, 15 feet high, 10 feet wide at the base, 7 feet wide at the top, and designed as a fortified base to launch attacks on the enemy. Although the most impressive barrier of its kind in the Roman Empire, the wall also represented the limitations of Roman power. Legionaries had abandoned it by the end of the fourth century.

• Because of increased pressure to defend Rome against northern European tribes and the expulsion of the Roman army by British landowners, the Romans returned to their homeland. Roman rule ended around 409 C.E.

• Two-thirds of Britons lived neither in Roman towns nor villages, and Latin civilization hardly touched them at all. All Roman rule meant to them was taxation. Once the Romans left, towns began to decay. It was a Celtic Britain that the Anglo-Saxon invaders confronted.

Mr. Harris, H English IV Page 2 of 3

Anglo-Saxon England ca. 499-1066

• The history of English civilization begins with the Anglo-Saxons. They, as far as it can be done, wiped the historical slate clean. The boundaries of shires, the diocesan organization of the church, the names of villages, the institution of the monarchy, and the beginnings of the English language, not to mention the name of “Englaland” itself, can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxons.

o Around 499, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, Germanic peoples from the Danish Peninsula and the lower Elbe, invaded Britain.

o It is very likely that the conquest began when Saxon mercenaries quarreled with the ruler of southeastern Britain, who had invited them to the island to help defend Britain against the Picts and the Scots. They established a kingdom in Kent as a result of the first revolt. Evidence shows this probably happened in other areas of Britain.

o Gradually, the Saxons invited their German people to join, with gradual conquests and battles establishing Anglo-Saxon rule.

o Unlike Roman Britain, which was merely a military occupation, the Anglo-Saxon conquest was deep-rooted, slow, and widespread. This style allowed for a long-lasting culture that would serve as the foundation of modern England.

o They brought with them a Germanic tongue, which became Old English. o The Anglo-Saxons appear to have been deep-sea fishermen and/or farmers who sought soil

richer than the soil of their homeland. o Historians believe that the native British were exterminated in large numbers. Others died from

starvation or disease. Those that remained were largely reduced to conditions of servitude. It is no coincidence that the Anglo-Saxon word for “a Briton” came to denote a slave. Only 14 British words found their way into English.

Christianity

• The Romans had introduced Christianity to the Celts during the fourth century. • In the late sixth century, a soldier and abbot named Columba, along with monks, gained converts and

established monasteries in the north. • In 597 the Roman cleric Saint Augustine (not the early Christian Church father) arrived in southeast

England and converted King Ethelbert of Kent to Christianity and set up a monastery in Canterbury. o The church provided counsel to quarreling rulers in efforts to unify the English people. At this

time, the British Isles were not unified and included separate kingdoms with separate rulers. They fought continuously over the fertile, green land.

Norse and Danish Invasions

• In the ninth century, the Norse of Norway invaded Northumbria (Anglo-Saxon kingdom in northern and central England), Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.

• The Danes of Denmark targeted eastern and southern England. o Alfred, King of Wessex (Kingdom in southern England) from 871-899, left his mark on history.

! In 886, Alfred the Great resisted further Danish encroachment. The Saxons acknowledged Danish rule in the east and north, and the Danes agreed to respect Saxon rule in the south. Because of this accomplishment, he became the only ruler in England’s history to earn the epithet “the Great.”

o However, toward the end of the tenth century, more Danes wanted to widen the Danelaw, the area they occupied. They succeeded and forced the Saxons to select Danish kings.

o In 1042, the line of succession returned to a descendent of Alfred the Great, and Edward the Confessor became king. He ruled until his death in 1066.

Mr. Harris, H English IV Page 3 of 3

Anglo-Saxon Literature

• Anglo Saxon literature began not with books, but with spoken verse and incantations. The reciting of poems often occurred on ceremonial occasions, such as the celebration of military victories.

o Recitations of Old English poetry were accompanied by a harplike instrument, called a hearpe in Old English.

Poetry • Anglo-Saxon poetry falls mainly into two categories—heroic and elegiac.

o Beowulf is the most famous example of heroic poetry. o “The Wanderer” is a famous elegiac poem.

Beowulf • This epic, or long heroic poem, is the story of a great legendary warrior renowned for his courage,

strength, and dignity. • Because it is the first work known to have been composed in the English language, it is considered

the national epic of England. • Like most Anglo-Saxon poets, the author of Beowulf is unknown. • Beowulf was composed around 700. • The action in Beowulf takes place in the sixth century. • Beowulf was first written down in 1000. • Beowulf mixes pagan and Christian beliefs.

Prose • Before the reign of Alfred the Great, all important prose written on the British Isles was composed in

Latin because the monks who transcribed the works regarded the vernacular, the language of the common people, as a “vulgar tongue.”

• Bede (673-735), the greatest of England’s Latin scholars, wrote History of the English Church and People, which gives an account of England from the Roman invasion to his own time.

• The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a group of historical journals (written in Old English) compiled in monasteries.

Roberts, Clayton, David Roberts, and Douglas R. Bisson. A History of England. 4th ed. Vol. 1. Upper Saddle, NJ:

Pearson, 2002. Print. 2 vols.

Mr. Harris, H English IV Page 1 of 3

The Medieval Period 1066-1485

The Norman Conquest and Feudalism

The Normans, or “north men,” were descendents of Vikings who had invaded the coast of France in the ninth century. When Edward the Confessor died in 1066, the Saxon council of elders chose Edward’s brother-in-law, Harold, to be king. However, Edward’s first cousin once removed, William, Duke of Normandy, claimed that Edward had promised the throne to him, and he crossed the English Channel to assert his claim by force. At the Battle of Hastings, near the seaside village in southern England, Harold was killed, and William emerged victorious, becoming William I of England.

• The Normans gradually remade England along feudal lines. o Feudalism had taken root on the European continent at a time when no central

government was strong enough to keep control. It involved the exchange of property for personal service.

o In theory, all the land belonged to the king. ! The king parceled out land among his powerful supporters. He gave them noble

titles and special privileges. Each baron paid certain fees, or taxes, and supplied a specified number of knights—professional soldiers—should the king require them. Knights received smaller parcels of land, called manors. Below them were peasants of varying levels.

• The Norman Conquest and the introduction of feudalism worsened the lot of women in England, especially those born into the upper classes.

o In Anglo-Saxon England men and women lived on terms of rough equality with each other. Great ladies took an active part in public affairs. Cyneruth, the tyrannical Queen of Mercia, had her portrait on a silver penny, and Aelfgifu, who bore Canute two sons, ruled Norway as a regent. At a less royal level, women governed monasteries—not only those exclusively for women, but double monasteries for both men and women.

o The rights of women were also respected: No woman was forced to marry a man she disliked. Widows enjoyed the custody of their children and were not forced to remarry. If a wife, with her children, left her husband, she could take half their goods. A wife could also sale whatever land she brought to a marriage. Nor was there any rule of primogeniture, by which the whole estate must descend to the eldest son. An examination of 39 wills which have survived from Anglo-Saxon England show that no preference was given to sons over daughters; parents provided equally for both.

! Feudal law changed all this. Because an estate must now support knight service, it must descend intact to the eldest son. Woman had no public duties in Norman England.

! As a minor, a woman was in the guardianship of her father, who could arrange her marriage, often at the age of 7 or 8. As a wife, she was in the guardianship of her husband. Any land she possessed became his for the duration of the marriage, and she could neither plead in court nor make a will without his consent. Furthermore, new laws introduced into England included laws permitting wife beating.

! Not until she was a widow did she escape guardianship, but even then she was denied custody of her eldest son unless she could beg or buy the right of wardship over him. She was given for the rest of her life a third of the estate (the widow’s dower), but her lord might force her to remarry—or extort money from her for the right not to remarry. It is true that an unmarried woman or widow could (where there was no male heir) inherit land, do homage for it, defend it in court, sell it, or give it away, but she lost these rights the moment she married or remarried. To defend her great estate, maintain her independence, and escape remarriage, the widowed countess of Aumale paid the king 5000 marks.

Mr. Harris, H English IV Page 2 of 3

The House of Plantagenet (Angevin) • Norman rule ended in 1154 when Henry Plantagenet came to the throne as Henry II. • Henry II had conflict with Rome and wanted to reduce the Pope’s influence.

o In an effort to garner support on his side, Henry II appointed Thomas Becket to the position of Archbishop of Canterbury when the seat became vacant.

o However, Becket appealed to the Pope. o Exasperated, Henry hastily and publicly conveyed his desire to be rid of the contentious

Archbishop, allegedly saying, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” Four ambitious knights took the king at his word and murdered Becket in his own cathedral on December 29, 1170.

o Henry condemned the knights’ actions and tried to atone by making a holy journey, or pilgrimage, to Becket’s tomb and doing many penances to the benefit of the church. However, he did not surrender all power. He kept his most important control over the election of bishops and abbots.

o Thereafter, a pilgrimage to Becket’s shrine at Canterbury became a common means for English Catholics to show religious devotion.

The Magna Carta • The 2nd Plantagenet king, Richard I, raised the national debt by staging military expeditions overseas in

attempts to recapture Jerusalem. His successor, King John, inherited the debts and tried to pay them by raising the barons’ taxes. The barons resisted this and brought England to the brink of civil war. Richard I and John’s father, Henry II, had also exacted great sums in taxes. But John’s suspicious nature, his cruelty, and his arbitrary rule caused deep resistance when he relentlessly raised taxes to vast amounts, mainly to recover his French (Angevin) lands lost due to his own poor decision making and ruthless actions. John agreed to meet the barons and seal the Magna Carta, a document outlining the liberties of the people and the church and placing the king below the law. However, when the Pope condemned Magna Carta and John began to prepare for war, the barons took up arms again, and civil war raged until John fell ill and died on October 18, 1216. War ended when his son, Henry, came to the crown.

The Black Death • In 1348 and 1349, the great plague swept across England. It created a labor shortage, which raised the

value of serfs’ work. This is argued to have contributed to the decline and end of the feudal system. With their work more valued, serfs were able to demand more, and they eventually became a free peasantry.

The Houses of Lancaster and York and the Wars of the Roses • The House of Lancaster replaced the Plantagenets on the throne in 1399. • In the fifteenth century, the House of York contested Lancastrian rule. These conflicts from 1455-1485

are known as the Wars of the Roses.

The House of Tudor • Henry Tudor, a distant cousin and supporter of the Lancastrian kings, defeated the unpopular Yorkist

king, Richard III, and killed him in battle. Henry married Richard’s niece, Elizabeth of York, uniting the two houses and becoming Henry VII, the first king of the House of Tudor.

Middle English • Unlike Old English, Middle English is recognizable as the English we read and speak today. • When William I (also known as William the Conqueror) invaded England, he and the Normans brought

French into the language. Middle English emerged from this infusion of French.

Mr. Harris, H English IV Page 3 of 3

Medieval Literature During this period, the first true dramas emerged, the poet Geoffrey Chaucer (who wrote in Middle English)

created a vivid picture of medieval life, romances portrayed the deeds of knights, and anonymous balladeers sang of love and deeds of outlaws.

Drama • The church sponsored miracle plays and mystery plays that dealt with aspects of the lives of saints and

(initially) retold stories from the Bible, respectively. In time, these plays moved from church sites to secular areas.

• The morality play arose during the turbulent fifteenth century. Morality plays depicted the lives of ordinary people and taught moral lessons.

The Printing Press and Geoffrey Chaucer • 1454 - Johann Gutenberg perfected his movable-type printing press. • 1476 - William Caxton set up the first movable-type press in England.

o One of Caxton’s first projects was to print the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. o With his works, Chaucer helped England settle on its own national identity after centuries of

conquerors and languages. • Geoffrey Chaucer is known as the “father of English poetry.”

o He is known for his keen powers of observation, which he displays in The Canterbury Tales. o In The Canterbury Tales, he brings together pilgrims who each have distinct personalities. o The pilgrims are traveling to the shrine of Thomas Becket. o With this unlikely but entertaining combination of pilgrims, he provides a cross section of

medieval society. o His observation, humor, and lively realism created new themes in medieval literature.

Romances and Ballads • Medieval romances, tales describing the adventures of knights, were popular.

o The most popular romances were told about King Arthur, who was a great British hero from the Anglo-Saxon period who may or may not have actually existed.

o The Britons told these stories, and the Normans became interested in them when they came to England.

o Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur is the authoritative collection of Arthurian legends. • Folk ballads—folk songs that tell stories—also represent medieval literature.

o Experts find most surviving ballads impossible to date. o One concerns Robin Hood, an outlaw who may have existed around the turn of the thirteenth

century. He lived in the woods, stole from the rich, and helped the poor. Roberts, Clayton, David Roberts, and Douglas R. Bisson. A History of England. 4th ed. Vol. 1. Upper Saddle, NJ:

Pearson, 2002. Print. 2 vols.

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Harris, H English IV Page 1 of 3

The English Renaissance (part I) 1485-1625

Historical Background The English Renaissance, one of the most exciting periods in history, was both a worldly and a religious age. The Renaissance became known as a “rebirth” of learning and the arts. It first blossomed in Italy (1350-1550), where commerce and a wealthy middle class supported learning and the arts.

Exploration • The thirst for knowledge, the development of the compass, and advances in astronomy aided explorers

in their voyages around the world by sea.

The Protestant Reformation and the House of Tudor • Along with the Renaissance spirit, a growing sense of nationalism led many Europeans to question the

authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Some felt that church officials were corrupt; others questioned church teachings and hierarchy.

• John Wyclif (ca. 1330-84)

• Desiderius Erasmus (ca. 1466-1536); Sir Thomas More (1478-1535 - imprisoned for opposing Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, executed for opposing the Act of Supremacy of 1534)

• Martin Luther (1483-1546)

• The ending of the Wars of the Roses and the founding of the Tudor dynasty in 1485 opened a new era in English life. Monarchs assured stability by increasing their own power and undercutting the strength of the nobles. At the same time, they dramatically changed England’s religious practices and helped transform the country from a small island into one of the world’s great powers.

• Henry VII arranged for his daughter, Margaret, to marry James IV of Scotland in hopes of destroying the alliance between Scotland and France. While this scheme was ultimately unsuccessful, it did eventually unite the crowns of Scotland and England. Henry VII arranged for his eldest son, Arthur, Prince of Wales, to marry Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain and aunt of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Arthur married Catherine in 1501, but died in 1502 at age 15. Henry

Harris, H English IV Page 2 of 3

VII died in 1509, and his second son became king as Henry VIII (born 28 June 1491). To retain the alliance with Spain, Henry married Catherine of Aragon two months later after receiving permission from the Pope. Henry VII had initiated this effort.

• Henry VIII’s six wives

• William Warham (Archbishop of Canterbury 1503-1532), Thomas Cranmer (first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury 1532-1555, liturgical reform, compiled Book of Common Prayer - convicted of treason and heresy and burned at the stake in 1556 under Mary I)

• Act of Supremacy (1534); Thomas Cromwell (ca. 1485-1540); dissolution of the monasteries; execution

of Sir Thomas More; King Henry remains a Catholic; Act of Six Articles (1539)

• By 1553, England was well on its way to becoming a Protestant nation; Edward VI (born 12 October 1537; reigned 28 January 1547 - 6 July 1553); Lady Jane Grey, “Nine Day Queen”

• Mary I (born 18 Feb 1516; reigned 6 July 1553 - 17 November 1558)

• When Mary I died after a five-year reign, her Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth, came to the throne. Strong and clever, Elizabeth was probably England’s ablest monarch since William the Conqueror. She had received a Renaissance education and had read widely in the Greek and Latin classics. Becoming a great patron of the arts, she gathered around her the best writers of her day.

Queen Years Queen Catherine of Aragon 1509-1533 Anne Boleyn 1533-1536 executed Jane Seymour 1536-1537 Anne of Cleves 1540 (Jan.-July) Kathryn Howard 1540-1542 executed Katherine Parr 1543-1547 widowed

Harris, H English IV Page 3 of 3

• Elizabeth I (born 7 September 1533 at 3PM; reigned 17 November 1558 - 24 March 1603)

• Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I’s first cousin once removed (8 December 1542 - 8 February 1587 - executed for assassination attempts on Elizabeth I)

The House of Stuart • James I of England; son of Mary, Queen of Scots; Elizabeth I’s first cousin twice removed; Elizabeth I

named him as her successor; was also James VI of Scotland (born 19 June 1566; reigned 24 March 1603 - 27 March 1625)

English Renaissance Literature

• took a backseat to during the Renaissance. Lyric poetry gained popularity over the narrative poetry more popular during the Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Periods. Poets perfected the sonnet form, and Elizabethan drama captivated audiences.

Name Period

Harris, English IV

Poetic Meter and Scansion

Meter: The typical rhythmic pattern of a poem. Foot: The unit of rhythm in a line of poetry. Scansion: The division of verse into feet to determine the meter of a poem.

Feet Types

˘ ΄ iamb (the most common foot in English verse) ˘ ˘ ΄ anapest

΄ ˘ trochee ΄ ˘ ˘ dactyl

΄ ΄ spondee ˘ ΄ ˘ amphibrach

˘ ˘ pyrrhic

Lengths of Poetic Lines

monometer: one foot pentameter: five feet

dimeter: two feet hexameter: six feet trimeter: three feet heptameter: seven feet

tetrameter: four feet octameter: eight feet

Thus, by scanning the lines of a poem, one arrives at its meter. The meter of a poem whose dominant foot is the iamb, and whose lines commonly have five feet, is iambic pentameter. A line of two trochees would be trochaic dimeter, six dactyls, dactylic hexameter; and so on. Substitution: Using a foot which is different from the one typically used in a certain line or stanza. A trochee, for example, used in an iambic pentameter line, would be a substitution. Free verse: Poetry written without any tight metrical structure. Free verse has, instead of meter, a looser kind of rhythm which produces its feeling of flow and unity. Blank verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare uses blank verse very often in his plays. Rhyme scheme: The pattern of end-rhymes in a poem or stanza. Half-rhyme, slant-rhyme, or off-rhyme: A rhyme that is close, but not perfect. Quatrain: A group of four lines, linked by their end-rhymes, subject matter, or both. Sestet: A group of six lines, as above. Octave: A group of eight lines, as above. Couplet: A pair of lines, in succession, that rhyme.

Name Period

Harris, English IV

Stanza: A group of lines set off by themselves in a poem. Properly speaking, all stanzas in a poem have the same number of lines; if they don’t, they should be called irregular stanzas, sections, or even verse paragraphs. Sonnet: A fourteen-line, lyric poem with a single theme written in iambic pentameter. The sonnet form was perfected by Italian poet Francesco Petrarch. Sonnets follow definite forms. The form is determined by the type of sonnet. The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet consists of an octave followed by a sestet. The octave is almost always rhymed abbaabba; the sestet’s rhyme scheme is either cdecde, cdccdc, or cdedce. Often the octave states a problem, and the sestet resolves it. The Spenserian sonnet was invented by English poet Edmund Spenser. It consists of three quatrains followed by a couplet. The rhyme scheme is abab/bcbc/cdcd/ee. The English or Shakespearean sonnet has three quatrains followed by a couplet. The typical rhyme scheme is abab/cdcd/efef/gg. Usually the couplet comments epigrammatically on the problem/situation presented in the three quatrains. In a sonnet sequence, sonnets are linked by theme or person addressed. Adapted from: C. Hugh Holman, A Handbook to Literature, Lynn Altenbernd and Leslie L. Lewis, A Handbook for the Study of Poetry. Source: http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/sonnet.html Source: Prentice Hall Literature: The British Tradition – unit 2

The English Renaissance (part II) 1625-1660

Harris, English IV H Page 1 of 1

Charles I and the Civil War • 1625- James I dies. Charles I crowned. • Charles I frequently clashed with Parliament, who refused to fund wars for which Charles wanted

financial support. When they refused, the king extorted taxes from his wealthy subjects and pressed the poor into service as soldiers and sailors. Parliament tried to prevent such abuses of power, so Charles eventually dissolved Parliament and would not call it into session for eleven years.

• Puritans—Calvinists who wished to purify the church of its Catholic traditions—were enraged by Charles’s demands that clergymen “conform,” or observe all of the ceremonies of the Anglican Church.

• Charles’s problems grew worse after he was forced to fight Scottish rebels outraged by his insistence on religious conformity. Desperate for money, he summoned a hostile Parliament, which passed wave upon wave of reforms. Angered when the King tried to outmaneuver it, Parliament condemned him as a tyrant in 1642. Civil War broke out. In 1645, Parliament’s forces, led by Oliver Cromwell, defeated the royalist army, and, in 1647, took Charles prisoner. Radical Puritans, who by then dominated Parliament, tried the king and convicted him of treason. Charles I was beheaded on January 30, 1649.

The English Interregnum • Oliver Cromwell led the new government, called the English Commonwealth. Under a commonwealth,

the supreme power is vested in the people. • Facing discontent at home and abroad, Cromwell dissolved Parliament in 1653 and named himself Lord

Protector. Until his death in 1658, he ruled as a virtual dictator. • Civil War had not led to the free society that many who had fought against the king expected. Their

hopes, coupled with economic hardships, brought unrest. The Commonwealth also fueled discontent by outlawing gambling, horse racing, newspapers, fancy clothes, public dancing, and the theater.

• Puritans showed their lack of interest in fashionable whimsy by deliberately choosing to dress in unfashionable, plain clothes. Men and women alike wore dark colors, plain collars and cuffs, and none of the fancy trimmings that distinguished the trendy folk. Because some Puritan men wore their hair cut short, they were called “Roundheads,” which distinguished them from the Cavaliers, who wore elaborate curls.

The Restoration • After chaotic years of disorder, Parliament offered the crown to the exiled son of Charles I, who became

Charles II in 1660. The monarchy was restored. In sharp contrast to drab Puritan leaders, Charles II and his court copied plush fashions of Paris. An avid patron of the arts, Charles reopened the theaters and invited Italian composers and Dutch painters to live and work in London.

A few important writers of the time: John Milton (1608-1674) John Bunyan (1628-1688) Richard Lovelace (1618-1657) Amelia Lanier (1569-1645)

Harris, H English IV Page 1 of 4

The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century 1660-1798

Restoration Theatre • When Charles II became king, he reopened the theatres. • Unlike Elizabethan theatres, Restoration theatres had a proscenium arch (“frame”) separating the

audience from the stage, real changes of scenery, and female actors. • Restoration theatre is best known for its comedic plays.

Religion and Politics • With the return of the monarchy, the established church also returned. While Charles II was willing to

pardon or ignore many former enemies, church officials were not as tolerant. o In 1673, Parliament forced Charles II to establish the Test Act, which required that all holders of

civil and military offices take the sacrament in an Anglican church and that they deny belief in transubstantiation.

o Protestant dissenters and Roman Catholics were largely excluded from public office. They could not attend university, own land, or vote.

• In 1678, the report of the Popish Plot, in which Catholics would rise and murder their Protestant foes, terrified London. Even though the charge turned out to be a fraud, the House of Commons exploited the fear by trying to force Charles II to exclude his Catholic brother, James, duke of York, from succession to the throne.

o Charles II was able to defeat the Exclusion Bill by dissolving Parliament. o This crisis resulted in a division of the country between two new political parties:

! Tories—who supported the king and were landed gentry and country clergy—

represented conservative values, strongly supported the Crown and the Anglican Church, and felt that the crown and church provided social and political stability.

! Whigs, the king’s opponents, were a more progressive and diverse group consisting of powerful nobles who were jealous of the powers of the Crown, merchants and financers of London, bishops, low-church clergymen, and dissenters. They believed in tolerance and commerce.

The Glorious Revolution, the Act of Union, and The House of Hanover • Religious differences resurfaced when James, Duke of York, the Catholic brother of Charles II, became

king. After coming to the throne in 1685 as James II, he claimed the right to make his own laws, suspended the Test Act, and began to fill the army and government with fellow Catholics. The nation became frightened of a Catholic dynasty when, in 1688, he had a son.

• In 1688, after secret negotiations, the Dutchman William of Orange, husband and first cousin of Mary Stuart, the Protestant daughter of James II, marched from southwestern England to London with a small army.

• Instead of fighting, James II fled to France, hence the names “glorious” and “bloodless.” • William III and Mary II ruled jointly until Mary’s death in 1694. William ruled alone until his death in 1702. • In 1689, William and Mary agreed to respect a Bill of Rights passed by Parliament. The bill guaranteed

that Parliament had the right to approve all taxes and that the monarch was forbidden to suspend the law.

• Thus, England attained a limited, or constitutional, monarchy. • Jacobites and the Act of Settlement of 1701 • 1707- Act of Union joined Scotland to England and Wales, creating Great Britain. • By the time George I became the first Hanover king in 1714, the government was securely in the hands

of the Whigs. o The ministerial government also continued to develop. The first prime minister of the nation was

Robert Walpole, who entered office in 1721 during the reign of George I.

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The Nation Changes!

An Agricultural Revolution • By the late 1600s, new farm tools made it possible for farms to produce much more food. With more

food available, the population surged upward. Because fewer farmhands were needed, many people left the countryside.

• In the growing towns, people became the factory hands who ran the machines of the early Industrial Revolution.

The Industrial Age • British inventions after 1750 made the spinning and weaving of cloth more efficient.

o The steam engine was perfected and adapted to run a power loom. o Factories were built to produce vast quantities of cotton cloth. o Merchants sold the goods all over the world, adding gold to the nation’s capital.

• By the late 1790s, the majority of British people still earned their livings as farmers. Yet, the economic revolution of the 1700s increased Britain’s wealth tremendously.

World Power • In 1763 The Peace of Paris, which ended the Seven Years’ War, established Great Britain as a world

power. It consolidated British rule over Canada and India, and not even the loss of the American colonies could interrupt the rise of the empire. The nation was no longer an isolated island, but a nation with interests and responsibilities around the world.

The Englightenment • The scientific revolution that made industry possible stemmed from a larger development in thought

known as the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers in all fields believed that, through reason and observation of nature, human beings could discover the order underlying all things.

o In 1687, Sir Isaac Newton published one of the touchstone works of the Enlightenment—a monumental study of gravity.

o Skepticism and freethinking flourished during the late seventeenth century. ! If a king could be executed, what authority was safe? ! The skeptic argued that all knowledge derives from our senses, but because our

senses do not report the world accurately, reliable knowledge is impossible to achieve. The safest course is to remember that most beliefs rest on opinion and not to hunger for some ultimate, inaccessible truth.

! The main line of British philosophy—which runs from Bacon and Hobbes through John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume—can be characterized broadly as empiricism, the doctrine that regards all knowledge as derived from experience.

• Eighteenth-century philosophers typically shun metaphysics—the search for essential or ultimate principals of reality, transcending the physical—in favor of more practical concerns. Accepting the limits of human intelligence and power, they settle for the possible.

• By 1750, Britain was rapidly industrializing, and the social theories of the Enlightenment were eclipsed. Mills and factories belched smoke into the country air. Men, women, and children toiled at machines for twelve to fourteen hours a day. Poor people crowded into the towns and cities, unable to find regular work and barely able to survive. By the late 1700s, “progress” seemed to mean misery for millions. Writers and intellectuals began to lose faith in the ability of human reason to solve every problem.

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Literature of the Period Neoclassicism

• Reacting against the difficulty and occasional extravagance of late Renaissance literature, writers and critics called for a new restraint, clarity, regularity, and good sense.

o These writers are called neoclassical because the styles they used and admired were the styles used by the writers of ancient Greece and Rome, such as Homer, Virgil, and Ovid. This literature is often called “Augustan,” as those ancient writers flourished during the reign of Augustus Caesar, the first Roman emperor.

o Donne’s “metaphysics and Milton’s bold storming of heaven,” for instance, seemed overdone to some Restoration readers.

o Perhaps writers and readers yearned for peace and order after the violent extremism of the civil wars.

o Neoclassical writers aimed not only to be classical, but new, using the ancient writers’ styles and methods, but also making their work their own.

o Neoclassical writers wanted to formulate “correctness” and rules of good writing. Even Shakespeare had sometimes been careless; while the writers could not expect to surpass his genius, they might hope to avoid his faults.

• Neoclassicism favors generalities rather than the viewpoint of the individual and displays fondness for satires that poke fun at society’s follies.

o Writers often expressed their thoughts in aphorisms—short, quotable sentences—such as Alexander Pope’s “The proper study of mankind is man.”

The Age of Prose • Until the 1740s, poetry tended to set the standards of literature; however, the growth of new kinds of

prose took away that initiative. • Poets of the time were afraid that the spirit of poetry might be dying, driven out by the spirit of prose,

uninspiring truth, and the end of superstitions that had once peopled the land with poetic fairies and demons. In an age barren of magic, they ask, where has poetry gone?

• The melancholy poet withdrew into himself and yearned to be living in some other time and place.

The Expansion of the reading public • During the eighteenth century, the literate population expanded greatly. The expansion included upper-

class women and the prosperous men and women of the growing middle class. More people also turned to writing. The distinction between “high” and “low” art became an issue as ordinary people began to write about ordinary topics not found in “high” literature.

The Beginnings of the Novel • The novel began to emerge during this period. This form of narrative would explode in popularity in the

nineteenth century and become the favorite reading matter of the growing middle class. • Middle-class writers—e.g., Daniel Defoe, a member of the middle class himself—, did not seek upper-

class readers (though Robinson Crusoe appealed to all classes). Instead he aimed at shopkeepers, apprentices, and servants.

• For the first time in British history, a critical mass of female readers and writers carried weight with publishers. Jane Baker and Mary Davys, along with many others, brought women’s work and daily lives as well as love affairs to fiction.

• Identifying with characters in novels, readers might find themselves, thus adding to the novel’s popularity.

• By the end of the eighteenth century, most of the leading British novelists were women.

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Important Authors of the Period

• John Dryden (1631-1700) o dominated literature during the Restoration o named poet laureate by Charles II o wrote plays, satirical poems, and celebratory poems that hailed the achievements of humanity o His essays about drama and his other prose compositions represent the first modern prose.

• Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

o His poetry, written in the early 1700s, is a shining example of the neoclassical style, exhibiting wit, elegance, and moderation.

o His most famous work, The Rape of the Lock, is a satire on the war between the sexes. o He had enormous influence as a critic.

• Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

o was a scornful critic of England’s rising merchant class, whom he viewed as shameless money-grubbers.

o In his great satires, Gulliver’s Travels and “A Modest Proposal,” he presents human nature as deeply flawed, suggesting that moral progress must begin with a recognition of our intellectual and moral limitations.

• Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) o wrote Moll Flanders (1722) o wrote Robinson Crusoe (1719) o Moll Flanders is considered the first English novel; however, others bestow this distinction on

Robinson Crusoe.

• Joseph Addison (1672-1719) and Richard Steele (1672-1729) o wrote England’s first literary periodicals, The Tatler and The Spectator, which were one-page,

crisply-written reflective essays and news addressed to the middle class.

• Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) o His advice helped nurture the careers of many younger talents. o His most important work, The Dictionary of the English Language, was published in 1755. It was

the first dictionary to be considered a standard and authoritative reference work in English. o The time period of his influence is known as “The Age of Johnson.”

!The Eclipse of the Enlightenment

• By the late 1700s, “progress” that had once been celebrated by Enlightenment thinkers seemed to be causing millions to suffer. As they lost faith in the power of human reason, writers turned away from the standards of neoclassicism. Writing in the language of everyday life, writers such as Thomas Gray charged their poems with fresh, new emotion. The Age of Reason was coming to an end. Emerging voices would make the 1800s a new literary age.

Lipking, Lawrence, and Samuel Holt Monk, eds. “The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century.” The Norton

Anthology of English Literature. 7th edition: The Major Authors. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001. 855-876. Print.

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The Romantic Period 1798 -1832

Historical Background

Politics • The faith in reason had eroded.

The French Revolution • began on July 14, 1789. • The people placed limits on the powers of Louis XVI, established a new government, and approved a

document called the Declaration of the Rights of the Man and the Citizen, which affirmed the principles of “liberty, equality, and fraternity.”

• France became a constitutional monarchy. • Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed in 1793. • The English ruling class felt threatened by these events. • At first, most British authors and intellectuals supported the revolution and the democratic ideas on

which it was based. The Reign of Terror

• The revolutionaries, called the Jacobins, executed about 17,000 royalists, moderates, and even radicals, using the guillotine.

• The new army began to make war across Europe in the name of liberty. • In 1793, France declared war on Britain.

o Britons who supported the French Revolution then turned against it. o Conservative Britons wanted to restrain reformers, who they denounced as Jacobins.

Society • The horrors of industrialism that emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries increased. • Throughout the long wars with France, Britain’s government ignored the problems caused by the

Industrial Revolution. o Overcrowded factory towns sprang up. o Workers faced unpleasant and unsafe working conditions along with long hours and low pay.

• Conflicts of interest created a class struggle between the working class that wanted reform and the ruling class that fiercely resisted it.

o Important Dates ! 1824- law passed permitting Britain’s first labor unions to organize ! 1829- Catholic Emancipation restored economic and religious freedoms to Roman

Catholics. ! 1832- voting rights extended to the small but important middle class (males only).

• This threatened the traditional dominance of landowning aristocrats in Parliament.

! 1833- Parliament passed the first law governing factory safety. ! 1833- Slavery is abolished in most of the British Empire.

Romantic Literature

British romantic writers responded to the climate of their times. Their new interest in the trials and dreams of the common people and their desire for radical change developed out of the democratic idealism that characterized the early part of the French Revolution. Their deep attachment to nature and to a pure, simple past was a response to the misery and ugliness of industrialization. For the romantics, the faith in science and reason, so characteristic of eighteenth century thought and literature, no longer applied in a world of tyranny and factories.

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Inspiration • Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

o The Swiss-born writer/philosopher saw society as a force that deforms and imprisons human nature.

o He argues that “man is born free and everywhere he is in chains,” an idea that influenced both American and French revolutionaries.

• Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) o German author inspired by Rousseau

Characteristics • Romantic literature

o emphasizes attention to emotions. o expresses an ideal of self-fulfillment and growth through experience. o views nature as a wild, free force that can inspire spiritual understanding.

• Unlike reason, the imagination is o a creative force comparable to that of nature. o the fundamental source of truth and morality, enabling people to sympathize with others and to

picture the world.

Poetry • Poetry was the dominant form during the Romantic Period. • Romantic poetry places emphasis on emotions. • William Wordsworth, in collaboration with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published Lyrical Ballads (1798),

the work that inaugurated romanticism. In the preface, Wordsworth defines Romantic poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”

o In the preface, Wordsworth also states that ordinary situations will be dealt with with a “certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way.”

o Wordsworth commented about incorporating human passions “with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.”

• Both Wordsworth and Coleridge, influenced by the French Revolution, started out as more liberal, but became more and more conservative and their literary ideas less radical.

• Romantic poetry compares the beauty of art with the realities of human suffering, as in the poetry of John Keats.

• While Wordsworth and Coleridge initiated romantic literature with their poetry, George Gordon (Lord Byron), Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats are known as the “second generation” romantic poets. All three lived short and tragic, yet dramatic lives imbued with their remarkable creative spirits.

Prose • Romantic prose presents faith in the powers of nature and the imagination. • The gothic novel was prominent during the romantic period, emphasizing horror, suspense, doom,

mystery, passion, and the grotesque and supernatural. o Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein remains one of the most famous gothic novels.

• The novel of manners emerged during this period. Novels of manners recreate a social world, conveying with finely detailed observation the customs, values, and habits of a highly developed and complex society. The conventions of the society dominate the story, and characters are differentiated by the degree to which they measure up to or fall below the uniform standard of behavior.

o Novels of manners satirize British customs. o Jane Austen is the most highly regarded author of novels of manners. Her novels include Sense

and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Emma (1816), and Persuasion (1818). • During the period, writers such as Charles Lamb wrote essays that were more personal and

introspective than ever before. • Writers like Sir Walter Scott brought attention to the historical novel—novels that focus on historical

events and settings with attention to local flavor and regional speech.

The Victorian Period 1832-1901

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World Power • During the Victorian Period, England was at its highest point of development as

a world power. o London replaced Paris as the pivotal city of Western civilization.

• The period is named after Queen Victoria, who reigned from 1837-1901. • The period was a time of scores of developments—e.g., steam power (more

fully exploited for fast railways, iron ships, looms, printing presses, farmers’ combines), the telegraph, the intercontinental cable, photography, anesthetics, universal compulsory education

• The most important development of the age was the shift from a way of life based on the ownership of land to a modern, urban economy based on trade and manufacturing.

• England expanded its influence all over the world. Cotton and other manufactured products were exported in English ships, a merchant fleet whose size was without parallel in other countries.

o England gained particular profits from the development of its own colonies, which, by 1890, comprised more than a quarter of all the territory on the surface of the earth. One in four people was a subject of Queen Victoria. By the end of the century, England was the world’s foremost imperial power.

• Because of its status around the world, there was optimism and pride in being English. Writers celebrated that the English people were “the greatest and most highly civilized people that ever the world saw.”

o However, prosperity came with a price. Other writers exposed not-so-pleasant realities: ! brutal factory conditions ! stinking slums ! “[a] sense of something lost . . . displaced persons in a world made alien by technological

changes that had been exploited too quickly for the adaptive powers of the human psyche”

Reform and Early Victorian England • Two key issues—trade policy and electoral reform—dominated domestic politics during the Early Victorian

Period. • Manufacturing interests, who refused to tolerate their exclusion from the political process any longer, led

working men in agitating for reform. Fearing the kind of revolution it had seen on the continent, Parliament passed a Reform Bill that transformed England’s class structure.

o The First Reform Bill of 1832 extended the vote to all males owning property worth £10 or more in annual rent. This included the lower middle classes but not the working classes.

o The Second Reform Bill of 1867 further extended the vote and redistributed parliamentary

representation, breaking up the monopoly that conservative landholders had so long enjoyed.

o Corn Laws Repealed (1846) - The Corn Laws placed high tariffs (taxes on imports) on wheat and other grain in order to discourage food imports and help English landlords and farmers keep prices high.

! Reform came when Parliament, confronting crop failures in England and a massive potato famine in Ireland (1845-1849), sought to improve dire conditions.

! With the repeal, free trade ensued, and imports could be imported with the payment of only minimal tariff duties.

! Although free trade did not eradicate the slums of Manchester, it worked well for many years and helped relieve the major crisis of the Victorian economy.

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Mid-Victorian England (1848-70): Economic Prosperity, The Growth of the Empire, and Religious Controversy • Utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham and James Mill) - All humans seek to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.

The criterion by which we should judge a morally correct action, therefore, is the extent to which it provides the greatest pleasure to the greatest number.

o Measuring religion by this moral arithmetic, Benthamites concluded that it was an outdated superstition; it did not meet the rationalist test of value.

o Utilitarianism was influential in providing a philosophical basis for political reform, but aroused considerable opposition on the part of those who felt it failed to recognize people’s spiritual needs.

o John Stuart Mill, philosopher and son of James Mill, wrote that his upbringing in Utilitarianism had left him no power to feel.

• Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) explores how a process called “natural selection” explains how different forms of life evolved from previous forms.

o Darwin’s account is quite different from the creation story from the Bible; controversy resulted. Some Victorian thinkers took Darwin’s theory as a direct challenge to biblical truth and traditional religious faith. Others accepted Darwin and religion, striving to reconcile scientific and religious insights.

• Motives for an Empire o Britain’s motives in creating its empire were many. The nation sought wealth, markets for manufactured

goods, sources for raw materials, and world power and influence. o “White Man’s Burden” - Many English people also saw the expansion of the empire as a moral

responsibility—what Victorian writer Rudyard Kipling termed the “White Man’s Burden.” ! Queen Victoria herself stated that the imperial mission was “to protect the poor natives and

advance civilization.” ! Missionary societies flourished, spreading Christianity in India, Asia, and Africa.

Late-Victorian England (1870-1901): Decay of Victorian Values • This period marked the apex of British imperialism, and the costs of the empire (rebellions, massacres, bungled

wars—Indian Mutiny in 1857, Jamaica Rebellion in 1865, massacre of General Gordon in 1885, The Boer War) showed.

• “ The Irish Question” - Home rule for Ireland becomes a topic of heated debate. • Germany threatens England’s naval and military position, and the recovery of the United States after its Civil

War provided new and serious competition in industry and agriculture. • Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto (1847) challenged the middle-class economic and political system. • Walter Pater - Answers to problems cannot be solved, so we should enjoy the fleeting moments of beauty.

The Queen and the Victorian Temper • “Victorian” (adj.): earnest; morally responsible;

characterized by domestic propriety; also, prudish; old-fashioned

• Queen Victoria represented the domestic fidelities her citizens embraced.

• When she died, Henry James wrote, “I mourn the safe and motherly old middle-class queen, who held the nation warm under the fold of her big, hideous Scotch-plaid shawl.”

• She is the first British monarch of whom we have photographs.

o These pictures facilitated her representing her country’s sense of itself during her reign.

• Queen Victoria reigned 63 years.

Break from the romantics • The popular novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-

1873) wrote, “When Byron passed away, we awoke from the morbid, the dreaming, ‘the moonlight and dimness of the mind,’ and by a natural reaction addressed ourselves to the active and daily objects which lay before us.”

• The sense of historical self-consciousness, of strenuous social enterprise, and of growing national achievement led writers as early as the 1850s and 1860s to define their age as Victorian.

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“The Woman Question”

• Married Women’s Property Acts (1870-1908) - Until the passage of these Acts, married women could not own or handle their own property.

• Arguments for women’s rights were based on the libertarian principles that had formed the basis for arguments supporting extended rights for men.

• 1848 - The first women’s college opens in London. o By the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, women could take degrees at twelve universities or

university colleges and could study, although not earn a degree, at Oxford and Cambridge. • The Industrial Revolution brought hundreds of thousands of lower-class women into factory jobs.

o Bad working conditions and underemployment drove thousands of women into prostitution. • The only occupation at which an unmarried, middle-class woman could earn a living and maintain some

claim to gentility was that of a governess, but a governess could expect no security of employment, only minimal wages, and an ambiguous status—somewhere between a servant and a family member—that isolated her within the household.

o The governess novel, of which the most famous examples are Jane Eyre and Vanity Fair, became a popular genre through which to explore women’s roles in society.

Victorian Literature The Novel

• The novel was the dominant form in Victorian literature. o Novels were initially, for the most part, published in serial form (told in contiguous—typically

chronological—installments in sequential issues of a single periodical publication) and were later published in three-volume editions, or “three-deckers.”

• Victorian novelists most frequently depict a set of social relationships in the middle-class society developing around them.

o Most focus on a protagonist whose effort to define his or her place in society is the main concern of the plot.

o The novel constructs a tension between surrounding social conditions and the aspiration of the hero or heroine, whether it be for love, social position, or a life adequate to his or her imagination. This tension makes the novel the natural form to use in portraying women’s struggles for self-realization in the context of the constraints imposed upon them.

• Female writers were, for the first time, not figures on the margins, but major authors. o Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot all helped define

the genre. • For Victorians, the novel was both a principal form of entertainment and a spur to social reform. • Joseph Conrad defined the novel in a way that could speak for the Victorians: “What is a novel if not a

conviction of our fellow-men’s existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history?”

• Famous Victorian novels and novelists o Jane Eyre, Villette (Charlotte Brontë) o Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë) o Bleak House, Great Expectations (Charles Dickens) o Middlemarch (George Elliot) o Mary Barton (Elizabeth Gaskell) o Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy) o Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackeray) o The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)

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Literary Movements

• Realism focuses on ordinary people facing the day-to-day problems of life, an emphasis that reflects the trend toward democracy and the growing middle-class audience for literature.

o Realism grew out of Romanticism as rapid technological and social changes occurred.

• Naturalism is a movement that involved cramming works with gritty details—the sour smells of poverty, the harsh sounds of factory life—often with the aim of promoting social reform.

o Naturalism directly contradicts the Romantic idea that nature mirrors human feelings and instead portrays nature as harsh and indifferent to human suffering.

Poetry

• As the novel emerged as the dominant form of literature, poets sought new ways of telling stories in verse. • Some poets like Matthew Arnold and Alfred, Lord Tennyson held that poets should use the heroic materials

of the past. Others like Elizabeth Barrett Browning felt that poets should represent “their age, not Charlemagne’s.”

• Victorian poets experimented with character and perspective. • Although Victorian poets developed out of and show the strong influence of the romantics, they were not

able to sustain the confidence that the Romantics had in the power of the imagination. • The dramatic monologue became a popular form of poetry. • Also popular was the use of visual detail and sound (beautiful cadences, alliteration, vowel sounds,

roughness).

Christ, Carol T., and George H. Ford, eds. “The Victorian Age.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7th

edition: The Major Authors. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001. 1859-1881. Print.

Murfin, Ross, and Supryia M. Ray. The Bedford Glossory of Critical and Literary Terms. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. Print.

!

Edwardian Age (1901-1914) A brief era named for Edward VII, whose reign began with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 and

ended in 1910, for years before the outbreak of World War I. The Edwardian Age is often seen as a “long sunlit afternoon,” a golden age of innocence, leisure, style, and opulence that bridged the gap between the Victorian Period, when England reached the height of its power and influence, as reflected by the phrase “the sun never sets on the British Empire,” and the Modern Period, which was born in the ensuing chaos, death, and destruction of the Great War. Yet the era was also one in which people began to question the existing social order, including the “upstairs downstairs” system of rigid class distinctions, the stark gap between rich and poor, and the unequal standing of women.

Like Victorian literature, the literature of the Edwardian Age encompassed virtually all forms, genres, and styles, but many writers of the era reacted against what they viewed as the staid attitudes and conventions of Victorianism. Prose was dominant, especially prose fiction in the form of novels and short stories. Major prose fiction writers included J. M. Barrie, Arnold Bennett, Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, John Galsworthy, Thomas Hardy, and H. G. Wells. Barrie and Galsworthy were also playwrights, and notable poets included Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Noyes, and Arthur Symons. Chronological boundaries notwithstanding, the Edwardian Age is relatively unhelpful as a literary category. For one thing, the brevity of the era means that many of the authors associated with it are also associated with the preceding Victorian era or either of two subsequent and overlapping eras, the Georgian Age and the Modern Period. (Hardy, whose career extended from 1865 to 1928, is a case in point). In addition, except for the general reaction against Victorianism, works said to represent the Edwardian Age seen less united by an underlying worldview and aesthetic than the works generally affiliated with many other literary eras or movements. Finally, the term Edwardian is sometimes also used with reference to American realist contemporaries (such as Henry James) as well as Irish writers (such as Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory; J. M. Synge; and W. B. Yeats) associated with the Celtic Revival, a movement intended to revive and promote an indigenous Celtic cultural, literary, and artistic tradition to counter centuries of imperial English domination.

Georgian Age 1910-1936 Georgian in literary criticism is most common with respect to poetry from this era. Georgian poetry,

showcased in Edward Marsh’s five Georgian Poetry anthologies (1911-22) is characterized by quiet, formal, often elegiac and pastoral lyrics. Georgian poets sought to widen the audience for poetry by writing simply and directly; using colloquial language; and featuring the individual, often in a rural setting in keeping with the traditions of the romanticism. Significant Georgian poets included Richard Aldington, Rupert Brooke, W. H. Davies, Walter de la Mare, and John Masefield, although Aldington and Brooke also wrote passionately about the war experience, as did lesser-known Georgians Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, and Siegfried Sassoon. Notably, the term Georgian is not generally used to describe modernist contemporaries, whose poetry was more fragmented, allusive, and unconventional. Thus, although T. S. Eliot, William Butler Yeats, and American expatriate Ezra Pound all lived in Britain and wrote during the Georgian Age, they are rarely called Georgian poets. At the outset, Georgian poets were viewed as “Young Turks” challenging the status quo, reacting against imperialism, nationalistic verse, and the didacticism and conventions of Victorianism. Marsh characterized the shift in the preface to the first Georgian Poetry anthology, covering the years 1911-12, by writing that “English poetry is now once again putting on new strength and beauty.” With the advent of the more radical, experimental modernism, however, particularly the publication of Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922), Georgian poetry was eclipsed and frequently denigrated as conservative, simplistic, and escapist, negative connotations that persist to some extent today. By contrast, when applied to other genres, such as prose and drama, the term Georgian is used neutrally and covers a wide range of works. Many novelists of the earlier Edwardian Age, such as Arnold Bennett, Joseph Conrad, and H. G. Wells, wrote well into the Georgian Age and are sometimes called Georgian novelists. Modernist novelists who wrote during the Georgian Age include James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Dorothy Richardson, and Virginia Woolf. In theatre, George Bernard Shaw further developed the kind of serious, intellectual drama pioneered by the nineteenth-century playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Noël Coward helped revive the lighter genre known as the comedy of manners. John Galsworthy, whose career spanned most of the Edwardian and Georgian Ages, addressed issues of class both in novels (The Forsythe Saga [1906-21]) and plays (The Skin Game [1920]).

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The Modern Period 1914-1945

• Great War (World War I) - 1914-1918; World War II - 1939-1945 • Modernist writers rejected romanticism and realism in order to create work that demonstrated, in their

opinion, a genuine reaction to the turbulent events of the world. o Modernist writers acknowledged the destruction happening right in front of them and wanted

somehow to make sense of it. o They experimented with form, syntax, and structure, and challenged conventional ways of life as

well as conventional ways of writing. They no longer felt the traditional ways were sufficient to reflect the drastically altered state of the world.

• Their efforts to reflect the world resulted in works that are non-liner in plotline and non-traditional in discourse, narration, and overall structure.

o Modernist literature focuses on psychological realism, which explores the inner workings of characters’ minds to tell stories, instead of on the realism popular during the Victorian Period, which focuses on external descriptions.

o Psychological realism includes free indirect discourse and stream of consciousness.

• Famous British modernist writers o Poets: William Butler Yeats, T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (American-born; became a British subject in

1927), Dylan Thomas, Seamus Heaney o Novelists: Joseph Conrad, D.H. (David Herbert) Lawrence, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf o Dramatists: Noel Coward and Samuel Beckett

Psychological Realism

Types of Discourse Direct discourse (DD) • Speaker is directly quoted • Quotation marks • It is clear who the speaker is. • Martine thought, “Fran will throw a tantrum if I borrow her toys.”

Indirect discourse (ID) • Speaker is identified, but not directly quoted • No quotation marks • It is clear who the speaker is. • Martine thought that Fran would throw a tantrum if she borrowed her toys.

Free indirect discourse (FID) • Speaker is not directly quoted or identified • No quotation marks • It is not clear who the speaker is. • Fran would throw a tantrum if she borrowed her toys. • a style of third person narration which combines some of the characteristics of third person with first person.

The combination includes shifts that change without signal. It is often unclear as to whether the thoughts of the narrator or the thoughts of a character are being conveyed, allowing a flexible and sometimes ironic interaction of internal and external perspectives. Even though the speaker or thinker is not named, it is often possible to infer his or her identity by examining the statements and using clues of characterization.

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• The most famous nineteenth-century example of free indirect discourse is French author Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1856). Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) are two famous British modernist examples.

• Modernist novels such as the American William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury sometime deliberately create confusion as to the identity of the thinker, and modernist poets such as T.S. Eliot (in The Waste Land) produce instability by shifting between multiple, unidentified speakers.

“The Uncle Charles Principle” (UCP) and free indirect discourse

“The Uncle Charles Principle” is very similar to free indirect discourse except that the narrator’s words are “contaminated” by the characteristics of a character, instead of the work completely shifting to a character’s thoughts. This technique was named after a character in Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Such characters are so distinctive in the way they act, the words they use, and the terms they use that they are easy to detect. If you know anything about the characters or if there are characters from certain backgrounds or with specific characteristics, it is then easy to identify them when they speak. Here is an example:

“Every morning, therefore, Uncle Charles repaired to his outhouse . . .”

Literary critic Hugh Kenner felt that the word “repaired” was not a word Joyce, as the third person narrator, would use. Instead, it is more likely that it would be used by a 19th century middle-aged Dubliner trying to make himself seem smarter than he is—someone like Uncle Charles from the book. This “contamination” of the supposedly objective narrative voice by the subjectivity of the characters collapses the distance between narrator and narrated, leaving no stable position from which to evaluate the characters. Instead, the world begins to take on the subjective qualities of the characters, and the distinction between subject and object breaks down.

• This technique, like free indirect discourse, breaks down the distance between the narrator and the

characters, which creates a deeper intimacy between the reader, characters, and work as a whole.

• Critics themselves can’t come to a definite agreement about the differences between UCP and FID, so the terms can be used interchangeably.

Example from Joyce’s “The Dead”:

“Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet.”

The narrator uses the word “literally” to flag a figure of speech (“run off her feet”); this error is typical in the speech of the uneducated, such as Lily, which the narrator takes on as his own at this moment and then shifts out of when bourgeois characters arrive.

Stream of Consciousness Stream-of-consciousness denotes a literary technique that seeks to describe an individual's point of view by

giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes. Stream-of-consciousness writing is strongly associated with the modernist movement.

• A few of the most famous works that employ the technique are James Joyce's Ulysses (in particular, Molly Bloom's soliloquy), Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, and American Jack Kerouac's On the Road. The technique has also been parodied, notably by David Lodge in the final chapter of The British Museum Is Falling Down. Stream-of-consciousness writing is characterized by associative leaps that can make the prose difficult to follow. Typically, writers employ very long sentences, which move from one thought to another. Sometimes, writers avoid punctuation altogether in order to prevent artificial breaks in the "stream."

• Stream-of-consciousness not only presents reality from the minds of characters, but it presents how they arrive from thought to thought. It presents thoughts as they occur and can give greater insight into how a character arrives at conclusions and makes decisions. This technique, from both topical and structural standpoints, provides authentic representations of psychological reality.

Murfin, Ross, and Supryia M. Ray. The Bedford Glossory of Critical and Literary Terms. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. Print.

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Postmodernism Period (1945-Present) Less coherent and less well defined than many other literary eras, a period usually said to have begun

in both England and North America after World War II. Both modernist and post modernist and postmodernist works tend to express feelings of anxiety and alienation experienced by individuals living in the twentieth century, put postmodernist works tend to be even darker, suggesting the meaninglessness of the human condition in general through radically experimental works that defy conventions of literary cohesion and even coherence. Postmodernist novels fitting this description are often referred to as antinovels. The postmodern era, with its potential for mass destruction and its shocking history of genocide, has evoked a continuing disillusionment similar to that widely experienced during the Modern Period. Postmodernists frequently stress that humans desperately (and ultimately unsuccessfully) cling to illusions of security to conceal and forget the void over which their lives are perched. Not surprisingly, postmodernists have shared with their modernist precursors the goal of breaking away from traditions (including certain modernist traditions, which, over time, have become institutionalized and conventional to some degree) through experimentation with new literary devices, forms, and styles. While preserving the spirit and even some of the themes of modernist literature (the alienation of humanity, historical discontinuity, etc.), postmodernists have rejected the order that a number of modernists attempted to instill in their work through patters of allusion, symbol, and myth. They have also taken some of the meanings and methods found in modernist works to extremes that most modernists would have deplored. For instance, whereas modernists such as T. S. Eliot perceived that world as fragmented and represented that fragmentation through poetic language, many also viewed art as a potentially integrating, restorative force, a hedge against the cacophony and chaos that postmodernist works often imitate (or even celebrate) but do not attempt to counter or correct. Because postmodernist works frequently combine aspects of diverse genres, they can be difficult to classify—at least according to traditional schemes of classification. Revolting against a certain modernist tendency toward elitist “high art,” postmodernists have also generally made a concerted effort to appeal to popular culture. Cartoons, music, “pop art,” and television have thus become acceptable and even common media for postmodernist artistic expression. Postmodernist literary developments include such genres as the Absurd, the nouveau roman, magic realism, Language poetry, and other forms of avant-garde poetry written in free verse and challenging the ideological assumptions of contemporary society. What postmodernist theatre, fiction and poetry have in common is the view (explicit or implicit) that literary language is its own reality, not a means of representing reality. Post modernist critical schools include deconstruction, whose practitioners explore the undecidability of texts, and cultural criticism, which erases the boundary between “high” and “low” culture. The foremost theorist of postmodernism is French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, best known for his book La condition postmoderne (The Postmodern Condition) (1979).