This document provides an overview of an introductory English literature course. It discusses key topics like the definition of literature and reasons for studying it. It also summarizes the major influences on English literature in chronological order, including the Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans. Each era is briefly characterized with examples of prominent authors and works that reflect the time period. Students will be assigned to give short presentations in groups on one of the defined eras of English literature.

1. LIT244 Week 2
Introduction to English
Literature
DR. RUSSELL RODRIGO

2.  What is literature?
 What is the nature of literature?
 What is the value of literature?
 Why do we study literature? How do we study
literature?

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

4. Why we read Literature?
 Pleasure
 Relaxation
 Knowledge

5. What is world literature?
 World literature is sometimes used to refer to the sum total of the world's national
literatures, but usually it refers to the circulation of works into the wider world
beyond their country of origin.
 Often used in the past primarily for masterpieces of Western European literature,
world literature today is increasingly seen in global context.
 Readers today have access to an unprecedented range of works from around the
world in excellent translations, and since the mid-1990s a lively debate has grown
up concerning both the aesthetic and the political values and limitations of an
emphasis on global processes over national traditions.

6. Literature
1. Histories
2. Romances – prose and verse (Metrical Romances)
3. Tales
4. Dramas
5. Lyric poetry
6. Ballads

7. Overview of English Influences
Pre-History-1066 A.D. C.R.A.V.N.
1. Celts (Brythons and Gaels) up to 55 B.C.
2. Roman Conquer 55 B.C. - 407 A.D.
3. Anglo-Saxon Period 407 A.D. - 787 A.D.
4. Viking Invasions 787 A.D. - 1066 A.D.
5. Noman Conquest begins in 1066 A.D.

8. The Common Sources
 Sir William Jones- a British judge stationed in India in 1780 discovers that Sanskrit
bears a striking resemblance to Latin and Greek.
 Indo-European “the common source” (languages now spoken by 1/3 of the human race include Latin,
French, Spanish, Slavic language, Russian, the Celtic languages, Irish, Scots Gaelic, and the offshoots
of German- Dutch and English.
 Jacob Grimm, one of the famous Brothers Grimm, established that the German vater
(an English father) has the same root as the Sanskrit/Latin pitar/pater. Words such as
me, new, seven, and mother were also found to share common ancestry.
 The takeaway: ENGLISH HAS INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGINS

9. Indo European
Languages
Source:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Indo-
European-languages
1. Albanian
2. Armenian
3. Balto-Slavic (Baltic)
4. Balto-Slavic (Slavic)
5. Celtic.
6. Germanic
7. Hellenic (Greek)
8. Indo-Iranian (Indo-Aryan, Iranian,
and Nuristani)

10. The island we know as England was
invaded by two groups of people:
1. Celts: known as Bythons (now
spelled Britons) and
2. Gaels (who settled on the island
now known as Ireland).
• The Celts were Pagans and their
religion was known as animism
(animus= Latin word for “spirit.”)
• Druids were their priests and when
clans had disputes, they intervened
to settle them.
Celts (Brythons and Gaels) up to 55 B.C.

11. Roman Occupation 55 B.C. - 407 A.D.
 Julius Caesar begins invasion/occupation in
55 B.C.
 Occupation completed by Claudius in 1st
Century A.D.
 Romans leave in 407 A.D. because Visigoths
(German nomadic tribes) attack Rome (this
leaves Britain defenseless)
 St. Augustine (the “other” St. Augustine)
lands in Kent in 597 A.D. and converts King
Aethelbert (King of Kent, the oldest Saxon
settlement) to Christianity; becomes first
Archbishop of Canterbury.
IMPORTANT EVENTS DURING
ROMAN OCCUPATION

12. The Most Important Results of Roman
Occupation
 Established camps that eventually became towns.
 Maintained relative peace.
 Latin heavily influenced the English language.
 Christianity begins to replace Paganism, especially after St. Augustine
converts King Aethelbert in 597 A.D.

13. Important Events in the First Anglo-
Saxon Period
 410-450 Angles and Saxons invade from
Baltic shores of Germany, and Jutes invade
from Jutland peninsula in Denmark, thus driving
out the Celts.
 Nine Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms eventually
become the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy (England
not unified at this time) or “Seven Sovereign
Kingdoms”.
 King Alfred “the Great” managed peace
against the Danes for about a generation, until
William of Normandy defeated them in 1066.
 Netflix TV Show: The Last Kingdom
•Anglo-Saxon Literature - Germanic ethos that
celebrated the warrior and his exploits.
•Most storytelling was spoken or sung.
•Old English Poetry became distinctive...
• Alliteration- repetition of consonant
sounds
• Kenning- a metaphor expressed as a
compound noun - “whale-path” for the
sea.
• Caesura- a break or pause in poetry

15. Beowulf
 The EPIC Beowulf is the story of a Scandinavian (GEAT)
warrior or knight probably in the sixth century, who comes to
help a neighboring tribe, the Danes, who are being attacked
by a monster.
 Anglo-Saxon life: a rough existence full of fighting and
hunting. The epic is indicative of the culture and shows what
traits they valued in their leaders.
 Beowulf is considered the shining star of Old English
literature.

17. Viking Invasion
 The Vikings were sea-faring,
explorers, traders and warriors
(Scandinavians) during the 8th-11th
centuries.
 Expeditions that plundered and
ended in conquest and settlements of
Britain.
 King Alfred “the Great” in 871 was
able to use the language to appeal
the English and his efforts saved the
language.

19. Importance of Vikings Invasion
 Linguistically
 Old English is born- mainly Germanic (although even Germanic languages are
derived from a theoretical Proto-Indo-European language, the grandparent of
classical languages such as Greek, Sanskrit, Latin and German).
 LOTS of dialects of Old English- because there are several separate Kingdoms,
many founded by essentially five or six different cultures: Anlges, Saxons, Frisians,
Jutes, Danes and Swedes.
 *King Alfred “the Great” (ruled approx. 871-899 A.D.) was one of the first Anglo-
Saxon kings to push Vikings back; in fact, he was one of the first kings consolidating
power, unifying Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. (Watch The Last Kingdom)

20. Norman Invasion in 1066 A.D.
 In1066 at the Battle of Hastings, the Normans (powerful Northern Frenchmen) defeat the
English and start a century-long conquest of England.
 William (Duke of Normandy) crowns himself the ruler of England (1066) and
establishes a social system: Feudalism- a hierarchy of rulers under one lord; individuals
gave military and other services to their overlords in return for protection and land.
 Cultural/Political/Literature Influence:
 French becomes official language of politics and power and exerts enormous influence on Old English
 Effcient system of government of Anglo-Saxons, but replaces the English nobility with Normans, and
creates a great class division that oppressed the Anglo-Saxons.

21. History of
English
Literature
1. Old English Literature
2. Medieval English Literature
3. Renaissance English Literature
4. 17th century English Literature
5. 18th century English Literature
6. Romantic English Literature
7. 19th century English Literature
8. 20th century English Literature

22. 1. Old English Literature
 449A.D.---1066
 Formation of England
 Formation of Old English
 Poetic tradition
 The Song of Beowulf---the national epic
 Anglo-Saxon period: from tribal society to feudalism

23. 2. Medieval English Literature
About five centuries
Feudal system, Roman Catholic church
 Literary forms: romance, popular ballad
Representatives: Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland

24. 3. Renaissance English Literature
 Late 15th century---early 17th century
 The rise of bourgeois class (middle class with materialistic & conventional attitude)
 Renaissance: the rebirth of letters (the key: humanism)
 Thomas More: the greatest humanist
 Representatives:
1. William Shakespeare: drama
2. Edmund Spencer: poetry
3. Francis Bacon: essay

25. 4. 17th century English Literature
 English Revolution, Restoration, the “Glorious Revolution”--constitutional monarchy
 The "Puritan Age (or John Milton's Age) and also because the greatest literary figure
John Milton (1608-1674) was a Puritan.
 Literature of the Revolution:
 Poetry: John Milton (Metaphysical poetry)
 Paradise Lost (Genesis)
 Paradise Regained (Lucifer the fallen Angel & the loss of innocence of Adam and Eve
 https://library.csun.edu/SCA/Peek-in-the-Stacks/milton
 Prose: John Bunyan (English writer and Puritan Preacher)
 Christian allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress
 The Sermons

26. 4. 17th century English Literature cont.
 Literature of the Restoration:
comedies (comedy of manners)
John Dryden
 As a poet, Dryden is best known as a satirist and was England's first Poet Laureate
in 1668. In addition to satires, Dryden wrote elegies, prologues, epilogues, odes,
and panegyrics. His most famous poem is Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

27. 5. 18th century English Literature
 The industrial revolution, the rise of bourgeois middle class
 The Enlightenment—the struggle of bourgeoisie against
feudalism
 Neoclassicism: Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele
 Realistic novel: Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding
 Sentimentalism: Laurence Stern, Thomas Gray
 Pre-Romanticism: William Blake, Robert Burns

28. 6. Romantic English Literature
 The French Revolution & the industrial revolution
 Poetry
1. William Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge (The Prelude)
2. Robert Southey (Thalaba the Destroyer )
3. Lord Byron (She Walks in Beauty, Don Juan)
4. Percy Bysshe Shelley (Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark,
Prometheus Unbound)
5. John Keats (Ode to a Nightingale, Sleep and Poetry)

29. 6. Romantic English Literature Cont.
Prose: Charles Lamb
Novel: Walter Scott, Jane Austen

30. 7. 19th century English Literature
 The Victorian period
 The struggle between the working class and the capitalists
 Critical realism: novel (the 40s and early 50s)
Charles Dickens, W. M. Thackeray, Bronte sisters, George Eliot etc.
 Prose & poetry: the mid and late 19th century
 Chartist literature (Committed to improving the lives of working-class people and achieving democratic
political reforms, Chartism was a powerful and influential response to the industrial revolution and the growth of an
entrepreneurial middle class.

31. Literary trends at the end of the 19th century
Naturalism: George Gissing
Neo-romanticism: Robert Louis Stevenson
Aestheticism: Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater

32. 8. 20th century English Literature
 The two world wars
 New ideas and new theories
 Realistic writing: early 20th century
 poetry: Thomas Hardy, war poet
 novel: John Galsworthy, H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennett
 drama: George Bernard Shaw
 Modernism: the 20s and 30s --a movement of experiments in techniques
 poetry: W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot.
 novel: D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Foster, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf
 drama: J.M. Synge

33. English literature since 1945
postmodernism
drama: Samuel Becket, John Osborne, Harold Pinter
novel: William Golding, John Fowles, Kingsley Amis (the
Angry Yong man), Martin Amis etc.
poetry: Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes and
Seamus Heaney

34. Week 2 Assignment: Group Presentations (10 mins)
1. Old English Literature
2. Medieval English Literature
3. Renaissance English Literature
4. 17th century English Literature
5. 18th century English Literature
6. Romantic English Literature
7. 19th century English Literature
8. 20th century English Literature
 Choose ONE of the eras of Literature.
 Give brief description of the ERA
 Identify TWO prominent authors/poets
or contributors to literature. Describe
the authors.
 Give TWO sample literary works and
their brief descriptions.
 Explain how the content reflect the
lives/society of that era.
 Present in 8 minutes.