9/17/2013
CSS POINT A brief history of English literature Notes
Note: This material is supposed to be original and authentic for the
Subject English Literature. Although This Booklet is a complied work by
The CSS Point. All contents have been collected from different internet
sources. The CSS Point is not responsible for any fact/information
mentioned in this booklet.
Thank You
m
English Literature | The CSS Point
,A brief history of English literature Notes
Literary forms
Literary forms such as the novel or lyric poem, or genres, such as the horror-
story, have a history. In one sense, they appear because they have not been
thought of before, but they also appear, or become popular for other cultural
reasons, such as the absence or emergence of literacy. In studying the history
of literature (or any kind of art), you are challenged to consider
• what constitutes a given
form,
• how it has developed, and
whether it has a future.
The novels of the late Catherine Cookson may have much in common with
those of Charlotte Brontë, but is it worth mimicking in the late 20th century,
what was ground-breaking in the 1840s? While Brontë examines what is
contemporary for her, Miss Cookson invents an imagined past which may be
of interest to the cultural historian in studying the present sources of her
nostalgia, but not to the student of the period in which her novels are set.
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is a long work of prose fiction, but critics do
not necessarily describe it as a novel. Why might this be? Knowing works in
their historical context does not give easy answers, but may shed more or less
light on our darkness in considering such questions.
Page 2
, A brief history of English literature Notes
Old English, Middle English and Chaucer
Old English
English, as we know it, descends from the language spoken by the north
Germanic tribes who settled in England from the 5th century A.D. onwards.
They had no writing (except runes, used as charms) until they learned the
Latin alphabet from Roman missionaries. The earliest written works in Old
English (as their language is now known to scholars) were probably composed
orally at first, and may have been passed on from speaker to speaker before
being written. We know the names of some of the later writers (Cædmon,
Ælfric and King Alfred) but most writing is anonymous. Old English literature
is mostly chronicle and poetry - lyric, descriptive but chiefly narrative or epic.
By the time literacy becomes widespread, Old English is effectively a foreign
and dead language. And its forms do not significantly affect subsequent
developments in English literature. (With the scholarly exception of the 19th
century poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, who finds in Old English verse the model
for his metrical system of "sprung rhythm".)
Middle English and Chaucer
From 1066 onwards, the language is known to scholars as Middle English.
Ideas and themes from French and Celtic literature appear in English writing
at about this time, but the first great name in English literature is that of
Geoffrey Chaucer (?1343-1400). Chaucer introduces the iambic pentameter
line, the rhyming couplet and other rhymes used in Italian poetry (a language
in which rhyming is arguably much easier than in English, thanks to the
Page 3
CSS POINT A brief history of English literature Notes
Note: This material is supposed to be original and authentic for the
Subject English Literature. Although This Booklet is a complied work by
The CSS Point. All contents have been collected from different internet
sources. The CSS Point is not responsible for any fact/information
mentioned in this booklet.
Thank You
m
English Literature | The CSS Point
,A brief history of English literature Notes
Literary forms
Literary forms such as the novel or lyric poem, or genres, such as the horror-
story, have a history. In one sense, they appear because they have not been
thought of before, but they also appear, or become popular for other cultural
reasons, such as the absence or emergence of literacy. In studying the history
of literature (or any kind of art), you are challenged to consider
• what constitutes a given
form,
• how it has developed, and
whether it has a future.
The novels of the late Catherine Cookson may have much in common with
those of Charlotte Brontë, but is it worth mimicking in the late 20th century,
what was ground-breaking in the 1840s? While Brontë examines what is
contemporary for her, Miss Cookson invents an imagined past which may be
of interest to the cultural historian in studying the present sources of her
nostalgia, but not to the student of the period in which her novels are set.
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is a long work of prose fiction, but critics do
not necessarily describe it as a novel. Why might this be? Knowing works in
their historical context does not give easy answers, but may shed more or less
light on our darkness in considering such questions.
Page 2
, A brief history of English literature Notes
Old English, Middle English and Chaucer
Old English
English, as we know it, descends from the language spoken by the north
Germanic tribes who settled in England from the 5th century A.D. onwards.
They had no writing (except runes, used as charms) until they learned the
Latin alphabet from Roman missionaries. The earliest written works in Old
English (as their language is now known to scholars) were probably composed
orally at first, and may have been passed on from speaker to speaker before
being written. We know the names of some of the later writers (Cædmon,
Ælfric and King Alfred) but most writing is anonymous. Old English literature
is mostly chronicle and poetry - lyric, descriptive but chiefly narrative or epic.
By the time literacy becomes widespread, Old English is effectively a foreign
and dead language. And its forms do not significantly affect subsequent
developments in English literature. (With the scholarly exception of the 19th
century poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, who finds in Old English verse the model
for his metrical system of "sprung rhythm".)
Middle English and Chaucer
From 1066 onwards, the language is known to scholars as Middle English.
Ideas and themes from French and Celtic literature appear in English writing
at about this time, but the first great name in English literature is that of
Geoffrey Chaucer (?1343-1400). Chaucer introduces the iambic pentameter
line, the rhyming couplet and other rhymes used in Italian poetry (a language
in which rhyming is arguably much easier than in English, thanks to the
Page 3
