It comprises the greatest American and English writers of all time together with their most notable works

1. ENGLISH – AMERICAN
COUNTRIES AND THEIR
LITERATURE

2. WHAT IS LITERATURE???
• Is any single body of written works. More restrictively,
literature is writing that is considered to be an art form, or
any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual
value, often due to deploying language in ways that differ
from ordinary usage.

3. FAMOUS AMERICAN WRITERS
1. Willa Cather (1873-1947)
2. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)
3. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
4. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
5. William Faulkner (1897-1962)
6. F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
7. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
8. Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
9. Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949)
10. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) and others……

4. AMERICAN LITERATURE
• It begins orally.
• There was no written literature among the more than 500 different Indian
languages and tribal cultures that existed in North America before the first
Europeans arrived.
• Indian oral tradition and its relation to American literature as a whole is one of the
richest and least explored topics in American studies.
• The hundreds of Indian words in everyday American English include "canoe,"
"tobacco," "potato," "moccasin," "moose," "persimmon," "raccoon," "tomahawk,"
and "totem.”

5. • Tribes maintained their own religions -- worshipping gods, animals, plants, or
sacred persons. Systems of government ranged from democracies to councils of
elders to theocracies. These tribal variations enter into the oral literature as well.

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

7. COLONIAL LITERATURE
Some of the earliest forms of American literature were
pamphlets and writings extolling the benefits of the
colonies to both a European and colonist audience.
Captain John Smith could be considered the first American
author with his works: A True Relation of ... Virginia (1608).
The revolutionary period also contained political writings,
including those by colonist Samuel Adams. Two key figures
were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine.
Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac and The Autobiography
of Benjamin Franklin are esteemed works with their wit and
influence toward the formation of a budding American
identity.

8. EARLY U.S. LITERATURE
In the post-war period, The Federalist essays
by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John
Jay represented a historical discussion of government
organization and republican values. Thomas
Jefferson's United States Declaration of
Independence, his influence on the Constitution, and
the mass of his letters have led to him being
considered one of the most talented early American
writers.
The first American novel is sometimes considered to
be William Hill Brown's The Power of
Sympathy (1789). Much of the early literature of the
new nation struggled to find a uniquely American
voice. European forms and styles were often
transferred to new locales and critics often saw them
as inferior
Alexander Hamilton
John Jay
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
W.H. Brown

9. AMERICAN 19TH
CENTURY POETRY
America's two greatest 19th-century poets could hardly have been more
different in temperament and style. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was a
working man, a traveler, a self-appointed nurse during the American
Civil War (1861-1865), and a poetic innovator. His magnum opus
was Leaves of Grass, in which he uses a free-flowing verse and lines of
irregular length to depict the all-inclusiveness of American democracy.
Taking that motif one step further, the poet equates the vast range of
American experience with himself without being egotistical.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), on the other hand, lived the sheltered life of
a genteel unmarried woman in small-town Amherst, Massachusetts.
Within its formal structure, her poetry is ingenious, witty, exquisitely
wrought, and psychologically penetrating. Her work was unconventional
for its day, and little of it was published during her lifetime. Many of her
poems dwell on death, often with a mischievous twist.
Walt Whitman
Emily Dickinson

10. REALISM
Mark Twain (the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-
1910) was the first major American writer to be born away from
the East Coast -- in the border state of Missouri. His regional
masterpieces were the memoir Life on the Mississippi and the
novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain's style changed the
way Americans write their language. His characters speak like
people and sound distinctively American, using local dialects,
newly invented words, and regional accents.
Henry James (1843-1916) confronted the Old World-New World
dilemma by writing directly about it. Among his more accessible
works are the novellas Daisy Miller, about an enchanting
American girl in Europe, and The Turn of the Screw, an enigmatic
ghost story.
Mark Twain
Henry James

11. ENGLISH
LITERATURE

12. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
• Born: Baptised 26 April
1564 (birth date
unknown)
Straford-upon-Avon,
Warwickshire, England
• Died: 23 April 1616 (aged
52)
Stratford-upon-Avon,
Warwickshire, England
• Occupation; poet, actor
• Signature:

13. William Shakespeare’s
Literary Works

14. • Tragedies
• Antony and Cleopatra
• Coriolanus
• Hamlet
• Julius Caesar
• King Lear
• Macbeth
• Othello
• Romeo and Juliet
• Timon of Athens
• Titus Andronicus
• Histories
• King Henry IV Part 1
• King Henry IV Part 2
• King Henry V
• King Henry VI Part 1
• King Henry VI Part 2
• King Henry VI Part 3
• King Henry VIII
• King John
• Richard II
• Richard III

15. • Comedies
• All's Well That Ends Well
• As You Like It
• Comedy of Errors
• Cymbeline
• Love's Labour's Lost
• Measure for Measure
• Merchant of Venice
• Merry Wives of Windsor
• Midsummer Night's Dream
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre
• Taming of the Shrew
• Tempest
• Troilus and Cressida
• Twelfth Night
• Two Gentlemen of Verona
• Winter's Tale
• Poetry
• A Lover's Complaint
• Sonnets 1-30
• Sonnets 121-154
• Sonnets 31-60
• Sonnets 61-90
• Sonnets 91-120
• The Passionate Pilgrim
• The Phoenix and the Turtle
• The Rape of Lucrece
• Venus and Adonis

16. THE PLAYS
•Shakespeare’s plays include comedies, histories—and
tragedies such as Romeo and Juliet.
•Some of his other famous plays include Julius Caesar,
Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and A Midsummer Night’s
Dream.
•In addition, Shakespeare wrote love poems called
sonnets.

17. GEOFFREY
CHAUCER
(1343-1400)

18. GEOFFREY CHAUCER
Outstanding in English Poet before William
Shakespeare whose Canterbury Tales ranks as
one of the greatest poetic works in English.
Born in the middle class family. He was said to
be fluent in French, Latin and Italian.
His first important poem The Book of Duchess
a dream vision of elegy for Blanche, Duchess of
Lancaster who died for a plague.

19. Geoffrey Chaucer
Literary Works

20. The Canterbury Tales,
Troilus and Criseyde
Book of the Duchess.
Other Major Poems
The House of Fame
The Parliament of Fowles
The Legend of Good Women
Prose
Treatises
Treatise on the astrolabe
Short Poems
The Complaint of Chaucer to
His Purse
Truth
Gentilesse
Merciles Beaute
Lak of Stedfastnesse
Against Women Unconstant.

21. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
• a novel by Jane Austen
• first published in 1813
• Pride and Prejudice retains the fascination of
modern readers, consistently appearing near the
top of lists of "most-loved books" among
both literary scholars and the general public. It
has become one of the most popular novels
in English literature, with over 20 million copies
sold, and paved the way for many archetypes
that abound in modern literature. Continuing
interest in the book has resulted in a number of
dramatic adaptations and an abundance of
novels and stories imitating Austen's memorable
characters or themes.

22. CHARACTERS
• Elizabeth Bennet
• Fitzwilliam Darcy
• Jane Bennet
• Charles Bingley
• Mr. Bennet
• Mrs. Bennet
• Mary Bennet
• Catherine Bennet
• Lydia Bennet

23. CHARACTERS
• George Wickham
• Mr. Collins
• Charlotte Lucas
• Sir William Lucas
• Maria Lucas

24. SETTING
In the story the readers are taken to different
towns and places but the story is set in England at
large.
Following are the places discussed in the novel.
• Longbourn: The Bennet family estate near the town of Meryton. It will be inherited
by Mr. Collins when Mr. Bennet dies.
• Netherfield: Bingley's estate near Longbourn and near the town of Meryton.
• Meryton: Town near Longbourn where Mrs.Phillips lives and the soldiers are
boarded.

25. • Lady Catherine de Bourgh - A rich, bossy noblewoman who is Darcy's wealthy
aunt and Collins' patroness. She greatly illustrates class snobbery as she is a
lady who expects everyone to appreciate and follow her advice on every topic.
• Miss De Bourgh- Miss De Bourgh is Darcy's cousin and Lady Catherine's daughter.
• Georgiana Darcy - Darcy’s sister. She is immensely pretty and just as shy. She is
wary because she was almost conned into eloping with Mr. Wickham, which would
have been a grave mistake. She has great skills at playing the pianoforte.
• Colonel Fitzwilliam: Col. Fitzwilliam is Darcy's cousin and also co-guardian of Miss
Darcy, Darcy's little sister.

26. The Merchant of Venice

27. A LITTLE HISTORY LESSON…
•Venice in the late-1500’s
• The richest city in Europe
• Home to many tradesmen,
foreigners, and different religious
views
• Jewish people were targeted –
negatively

28. IMPORTANT CHARACTERS
• Antonio: a merchant of Venice
• Bassanio: Antonio’s friend; Portia’s
suitor

29. • Shylock: a Jew
• Jessica: Shylock’s daughter

30. • Portia: an heiress “looking for” a husband
• Nerissa: Portia’s friend and lady-in-waiting

31. RRomeo and Juliet

32. SONNET 116

33. STRUCTURE
The sonnet is consists of 14 lines, and is split into 3 stanzas with 4 lines each and a 2
line couplet. The poem follows a regular pattern and a conventional structure that a
lot of older poetry writers followed, the poem ends with a turn and the mood of the
poem is changed with it.

34. • son·net
• ˈsänət/
• noun
• a poem of fourteen lines using any of a number of formal rhyme schemes, in English
typically having ten syllables per line.

35. SONNET 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved

36. SUMMARY/CONTENT
The sonnet is trying to define the meaning of love. It describes
how true love can never be broken and that it never dies.
Shakespeare also claims that love does not alter through time so
love is eternal and doesn’t fade or disappear, even in old age. He
also states at the end of the sonnet that if anyone were to prove
him wrong he will take back all the words written in the sonnet
as if they never existed, this proves that he is confident that love
is ever lasting.

37. LANGUAGE
The poem used repeated words “love is not love” and “remover to remove, this shows
that the paired words are like love couples. Shakespeare also uses natural metaphors
“looks on tempests and is never shaken.” this shows love as an essential part of life as
are many things in nature. The first two lines show the Christian views on marriage
and how they stress the idea of idea of love “the marriage of two minds” should be
without barriers or obstacles, this could be interpreted as if love is true it should be
without fault. There are ideas of love enduring throughout the sonnet “love alters not”

38. IMAGERY
From the beginning of the sonnet there is the idea of marriage present. However the
marriage that Shakespeare describes is not a contract of marriage it is one of “true
minds” suggesting a deep understanding of two equals. In the time of Shakespeare
though women in a marriage weren’t equal to men, they were practically controlled
by the men of the relationship so this sonnet doesn’t conform to the views of
marriage in the time.
The poems central metaphor is the one of love being presented as a star; specifically
the north star as it never changes its position in the sky. The north star would guide
sailors when they’re in open waters so this could therefore connote that love guides
us through life.