UNIT 1: ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE:

 The hall: warriors + king gathered together to listen to stories told by the bard(scop)
 Monasteries: trained scribes.

They used the skin on the stomachs of animals. If it was special they used the youngest
animals. VELLUM.

 Anglo-Saxon people used the RUNIC SYSTEM. The original Beowulf is written in runic.

Poetry & prose in the Anglo-Saxon period.

 Prose (in latin): Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum Both of them provide information
 (in old English): The Anglo-Saxon chronicle. of t
 Epic poetry: Beowulf he Anglo-Saxon period.
 The battle of Maldon ¨11111
 Elegiac poetry: The wandered 202020202
 The seafarer
 The wife´s lament
 Deor´s lament: a hero mourning that he is not famous anymore

 Hymm: Caedmon´s hymn (oldest text)
 Allegorical poetry: The Dream of the Rood
 Gnomic poetry: Riddles.

6/2/2024

Formal aspects/characteristics of Anglo-Saxon poetry. (EXAM)

 Highly formalized poetry.

 Alliterative pattern: The repetition of the same sound in words that are close together.
 Kennings: a metaphoric compound that stands for a single noun. Usually, their meaning
can be derived from the words making the compound.
 Variations: Periphrastic forms used to allude to the same efferent. The purposes were
various 1) To regularize the metric pattern and 2) to make it easier for the scop to
memorize the poem – they gave the scop time to think about what came next.
 Authors use a grandiose tone

Christian and pagan elements coexist in the text.

Beowulf tells the king that if he dies against Grendel’s mother is his obligation to return his
treasures to his father. He asks to have in mind the comitatus recalling their bonding. Hrunting is
the sword of Beowulf. The warrior fights for the king and the king offers him protection.
The hero is always looking for glory supernatural is also typical in epic poetry.

Formal aspects
Gold-friend (chieftain)/ ring-giver/sharp-honed (punta afilada)/wonder-blade(sword)

Son of Halfdane(variation) /lord of the Geats

ANALYZING A TEXT

1. Level A: what does the text say?

2. Level B: How do we interpret it?

UNIT 2: MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

 Edward the Confessor died, and he named his brother-in-law Earl to the throne.
 Harold´s brother planned an invasion.
 Normans introduced feudalism.

COMMITATUS: lord-vassal relationship.

In the medieval period, society was seen as being divided into three main groups or ¨states¨

 Clergy: bishops, abbots, monks, nuns.

 Nobility: king, lords, knights.
 Labourers: tradesmen, peasants.

SOCIOLINGUISTIC CONTEXT: THE FORMATION OF A NEW LANGUAGE.

Old English changes: Norman French is introduced (Phantom: Latin root/ Ghost: old English root)

Anglo-Saxon English became the language of the conquered and Norman French was the
conqueror's language. For the next 300 years French and Latin became the dominant languages.

Geoffrey Chaucer is known as the father of English poetry because he was the first to write poetry
in English (midland dialect)

SOCIO LITERARY CONTEXT

Coexistence of three languages: French, Latin, and Middle English.

Education: Monastery, grammar, schools, and universities.

Oral literature from the scop.

Poetry:

 Medieval lyrics.
 Romance.
 Allegories.
 Fabulas.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER: THE CANTERBURY TALES.

He was a very experienced man, being a soldier gave him experience in war, he was also a
diplomat and came from a well-known family. He reflected all that in his books, we find examples
of trade men, people who belong to the nobility. He provides his knowledge in his books.

He made an extremely critical of the clergy which at the time was difficult to believe due to its
importance in society and people's lives.

His poetic works gave an account of key events such as the plague of the black death (1348)
England lost 70% of its population. Also the popularity of the pilgrimage: a spiritual journey to visit
a holy site.

CANTERBURY TALES

A collection of tales that are supposed to be told by pilgrims traveling to Canterbury. It’s a fiction
that Chaucer created and through each pilgrim, he portrays a social class.

He uses the pilgrim motive so he can portray characters of the different classes (pilgrims were very
popular at that time).

He introduces the rhyme.

Sacred vs. profane: He uses pilgrimage as a sacred way but there´s also allusion to this travel just
for entertainment.

PART 1: 29 pilgrims + Chaucer (as a pilgrim) bound to Canterbury and meet at the Tabard Inn (a
red light district in the south of London).

PART 2: Chaucer, as a narrator and pilgrim describes the pilgrims in terms of ¨status apparel He
criticizes each society through the pilgrims.

PART 3: Storytelling context

The Canterbury Tales were not finished. All the poems contain couplets (rhyme)

MEDIEVAL ROMANCES

Chivalry narratives either in verse or prose. Romances were narratives of chivalrous adventures
with fantastic and amorous (courtly love elements)

Sir Gawain & the Green Knight

 Christian
 Anonymous
 Matter of Britain: it is set in the court of King Arthur; the hero here is Gawain (Arthur´s
nephew).

There´s a difference between Beowulf and Gawain, Beowulf we find a very masculine society on
the other a more sophisticated society, and also warriors pay attention to other values and courtly
love. Also, notice the cart in front of the hall. In the medieval ages, we see a difference, people
were not organized in tribes but in more sophisticated courts. Another characteristic is that in
Beowulf, the hero is not afraid, but the medieval knight fears death (which is a human feeling) so
he keeps the belt betraying the lord of the house, something that Beowulf (warrior) would never
do. The importance of the medieval romance is that the text questions if someone could fulfill all
of the standards.

Beowulf is a pagan warrior. He is strong and does not fear death. He is also boastful and proud.
Gawain is a Christian knight. He must adhere to the code of chivalry – a set of idealized qualities,
including religious faith, bravery, honor, courage, loyalty, and gallantry towards women. For
Gawain, honor and courteousness are as important as his deeds.

Gawain displays more human-like traits: he fears death (hence he hides the girdle), he fails to
stand up to the idealized values of chivalry: he shows fear, he struggles between being royal to Sir
Bercilack and corresponding to the advances of Lady Bercilack (courtly love); in the end he does
not succeed entirely-he was not killed but he lied, concealing the green girdle.

BOOK I: Christmas in Camelot

The first part of the text maintains the structure of the old English poems and introduces the
rhyme, typical of Latin and French. It combines the alliterative pattern and the rhyme.

FORMAL ASPECTS

Poem

 Metric (type of poem)

 Estrofa
 What type of verse
 Rhyme
 Rhetorical

Novel

 What sort of narrator

 Focalized? Narrator/characters

Unit 3: REINAISSANCE LITERATURE (1500-1660)

The period when European countries started to explore and conquer the world. Discovery of
America.

 Humanism and reformations.

 Elizabethan literature.
 Jacobean literature.

This period goes between three monarchs: Henry VIII king associated with the reformation. (1491-
1547), and Elizabeth I (1533-1603) importance of theatre., James I (1566-1625).

In this period authors look back to classical Greece and Rome. Recuperation of classical art.
Renaissance means rebirth: the period witnessed a cultural, artistic, political, and economic rebirth
following the Middle Ages.

 Transition period between the Middle Ages & modern-day societies

Major changes:

 Global exploration & new discoveries.

 Scientific advances: Galileo Galilei.
 Humanism.
 The reformation.
 The invention of the printing press.
 Art finds inspiration in classical Greece and Rome.

Humanism promoted the idea that the human individual was the center of the universe, and
people should therefore believe in the perfectibility of humanity- that is, they should embrace
human achievements in education, classical arts, literature, and science. As a result, God was
displaced from the center. Reason started to win the central stage. (Leonardo Davinci)

The protestant reformation was a protest against the church. Martin Luther refused to submit to
the pope and he was excommunicated in 1521.

In Renaissance literature, we can find Poetry, Prose, and Theatre.

Translations of the bible.

SONNET

Derived from the Italian term sonetto (little song) originated in Italy, by the 13 th century. The
sonnet was an established form, consisting of 14 lines with a rigid rhyme scheme and structure.
Exploration of romantic love. Especially the Platonic love. (an impossible love)

Variants

 Petrarchan: an octave rhyming abbaabba + a sestet rhyming cdecde or cdcdcd or any

combination but for a rhyming couplet. In sum: octave + sestet
 Spenserian: three quatrains and a couplet, rhyming abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee. In sum: 3
quatrains (abab, bcbc, cdcd) + couplet (ee)
 Shakespearean: three quatrains and a couplet, rhyming abab, cdcd, efef, gg. In sum: 3
quatrains( abab, cdcd, efef) + couplet(gg)

In the Petrarchan sonnet there’s no couplet at the end but in Spenserian and Shakespearean have
a double couplet at the end. In the Spenserian poem the couplet is used to give a round and in the
Shakespearean poem is used to give an end.

Sonnet sequences: a group of sonnets thematically connected.

 Sir Philip Sydney: Astrophys and stella (1591)

 Edmund Spenser´s: Amoretti (1595)
In Shakespeare’s poem, the sonnets from 1-126 are addressed to a young man, and from 127 on
are addressed to a dark lady.

JACOBEAN POETRY

The Jacobean period (James I) is a convulsed period with tensions between Catholicism and
Protestantism. Gunpowder plot.

Poetry:

 The sonnet is no longer the privileged form.

 Petrarch is no longer the source of inspiration.
 Poets draw inspiration from Latin writers.
 Poetry becomes more varied and even provocative.
 Different subgenres: ode, elegies, satire, love poems.

Cavalier poets

 Knight poets: closely linked to the court- loyalist.

 Preferred topics: sensual love, it's not platonic love anymore.
 Key motif: They use carpe diem, the idea of enjoying life.
 Style: elegant and fluid, at times brimming with irony and cynicism.
 Form: simple, but carefully crafted. Language is clear and direct but reveals a skillful and
witty use of phrase.
 Key authors: Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Thomas Carew, John Suckling and Ben
Johnson.

Metaphysical poets:

Term coined by the critic Samuel Johnson to describe a group of seventeenth-century English
poets whose work was characterized by the use of conceits and extensive argumentation.

Metaphysical here is not used in the strict sense as about philosophy. Instead it points to the fact
that, in their poems, the poets made extensive use of argumentation as if their poems were
treaties arguing against or in favor of a particular point.

 Themes:
 Erotic and love relationship between the poetic voice and a woman
 Relationship between the poetic voice (as a sinner) and god

Main authors: John Donne, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Henry Vaughan
and Thomas Traherne.

Formal aspects:
  Witty stile: extremely clever use of language. The aim is to surprise through language,
using strokes of wit, metaphors, and conceits.
 Sophisticated rhetoric with elaborate arguments: the use of argumentation explains the
predominant syntax, brimming with casual, consecutive, concessive, and adversative
connectors, often accompanied by elaborate similes that illuminate the logic of reasoning.
 Unlike the so-called Cavalier poets, metaphysical poets are more concerned with witty
style than with balance and elegance in rhythm and rhyme. So, less importance is given to
prosodic rules

Conceit: an elaborated metaphor in which two terms, which have nothing to do with each other,
are related by virtue.

*see differences in the book between cavalier poets and metaphysical poets.

POEM: A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNING (John Donne)

Poem that says goodbye. The poet is comparing different types of love. The physical love vs. The
spiritual love- which is beyond the physical.

Hyperbole (tear-floods, sigh tempests)

Simile (like gold to airy thinness beat)

Thou (apostrophe)- implied intimacy.

Conceit: We can imagine what the poet is trying to say, in this case, he uses a compass, one of
them stays still and the other one follows, and they meet at the upper part of the compass.

RENASCENCE DRAMA

The golden age of theatre.

 Religious theatre (medieval period): Secular theatre (Renaissance)

 Themes became more varied: universal themes (love, deceit, justice, filial bonds…)
historical themes aimed at reinforcing national identity, an as all artistic manifestations
during the renaissance, writers loomed back to classical Greek and Latin theatre.
 The nobles as sponsors:
 First professional actors: at this point women were not allowed to perform on
stage. Young boys played the roles of female characters. This changed in the
restoration period.
 First theatre companies: The Queens Men, The Lord Chamberlains Men, The
admiral´s Men, The Earl of Leicester Men.
  First theatres: Public (The theatre, The Curtain, The Globe (Shakespeare), The
Rose, The fortune, The swan) vs. Private theatres: (The Blackfriers Theatre, The
Whitefries, The Cockpit)

Theatres were situated in the suburbs because of the noisy they were and also because the plague
(BLACK DEATH). Putting the theatre in the suburbs prevented the plague to spread in the city.

The structure was usually three flats, round and with a scenery in the middle. There where
galleries from where you could see the play. The center didn’t have a roof, plays where played
during the day because there wasn’t artificial light. It was also really affordable (1 penny).

STRUCTURE OF ELIZABETHEAN THEATRE

 One of the most common form of mass of entertainment.

 People of all classes went to the theatre.
 Beautiful costumes(sometimes) funny language.
 Most people stood in front of the stage.
 Audience often took part in the performance.
 Stage: right in the middle of the audience.
 Actors were only males.
 Female parts were played by adolescent’s boys with women’s costumes.

Theatres didn’t have scenography or decorations so they used to ask people to imagine the place
where the story was happening.

THEATRE ORGANIZATION (CLASSES)

Lower class:

 Paid a penny to stand around the stage

 Groundlings

Middle class:

 Sat in tiers/galleries covered by a roof

 Protected from weather.
 They could pay extra for a cushion

Upper classes:

 They had more options, balcony or even in the stage.

Different from public theatres, Private ones were only for people who could afford them, normally
nobility.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

 Playwright, actor and co-owner of his own company.

 Son to a middle-class glove-maker in Stratford-upon-Avon.
  Attended grammar school, but no university education.
 Around 1590 he left his family and travelled to London to work as an actor and playwright.
 Most popular playwright in England.
 His career bridged the reigns of Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and James I, and he was a favorite
of both monarchs.
 James I granted Shakespeare’s company the greatest possible compliment by bestowing
upon its members the title of “king´s men”
 His plays were not intended for publication, but rather performance. It was after his death
that two actors from his company published his works in the famous First Folio (1621)
 Classification of his plays: COMEDY, HISTORY, TRAGEDY
 Most of his plays were written individually but some of them could have been written
alongside others.

JACOBEAN THEATRE

 The plays in the Jacobean period became even more complex, even more passionate, and
violent than the plays of the Elizabethan age, as they go more deeply into problems of
corruption and human weakness.
 Tragedy of blood: also known as “revenge tragedy” was a genre mainly concerned with
revenge and its consequences. It draws on the Senecan tragedy.
 Urban comedy (satirical component): the period also witnessed the emergence of
comedies that moved away from court settings and characters and focused instead on the
middle classes (the emergent bourgeoisie) in an urban context. Comedies such as Ben
Johnson´s Valpone: or The Fox criticize the corruption, vices, and greedy nature of the
emergent bourgeois.
 Court masks were a form of hybrid theatre/drama, they combined opera, theatre, and
ballet. They were always performed in the context of the court (a form of entertainment
for the upper classes). An opportunity to see and be seen. They were allegorical, featuring
gods and fantastic beings from classical mythology and British history. Very often their
purpose was to reinforce the God-given right to rule of Stuart monarchs. Ben Johnson was
a popular author of masques and Inigo Jones was a well-known designer of the sets for
these performances which were incredibly expensive to produce, really lavish, and
involved the use of rich costumes.

UNIT 4: REVOLUTION & RESTORATION LITERATURE (1649-1688)

Charles I believed in the divine right of kings so he tended to disobey parliament. The members of
parliament weren’t happy with this. He got married to a catholic woman so for many members of
parliament he was too catholic, so there was a movement of Puritanism who were protestants
that accused the catholic church of being too catholic. During this period the country was
dominated by Puritans so theatres were banned because they didn’t fit the strict morality values.
When Oliver Cromwell died he put his son as the earl of the throne (he was passing g on his power
to his son). These generated a revolution and Charles II was “invited” to rule, with him the
restoration period began, theatres were reopened and gambling was permitted.

This was a period of political upheaval that witnessed important developments: The Bank of
England and the Royal Society of London. The political system had two parties: The Whigs and The
Tories.

The Whigs were descendants of parliamentarians and were supported by the wealthy and
commercial classes. They fought for commercial development, a vigorous foreign policy, and
religious toleration.

The Tories were descendants of the royalists, they were supported by the Church of England the
landowners and they defended the divine right of the king.

 Critical writing: John Dryden- Essay on dramatic poetry. He is considered the father of
critical writing.
 Epic poetry: John Milton- Paradise Lost: This can be considered an epic poem; it
reinterprets the bible. It has two different plots, the 1st one leads with the story of Adam
and Eve and the original sin. The 2nd revolves around the figure of Satan, for some critics,
Satan is the real hero. Lucifer was an angel, he was God´s favorite but he decided to reveal
and was also jealous of the power of God. He didn’t like that God was putting power in his
son. Due to this, he was sent to hell. “better to reign in hell than serve in heaven”
 Restoration poetry:

JOHN MILTON (important details)

 Poet and pamphleteer

 He wrote pamphlets in which he defended the liberty of the press as well as his views in
favor of divorce.
 He championed the absolute freedom of the individual and was critical of institutions.
 He was a Puritan who opposed the monarchy and favored Cromwell’s government.
 Most important work: Paradise Lost on epic poem, initially published in 10 books (1667)
and later published in 12 books (1674).
 He was completely blind so there’s no manuscript with his handwriting, he dictated it to
his writer.

Paradise Lost:

 Epic poem: follows all conventions of epic poetry, drawing on classical epic poetry.
 Invocation of the muse at the beginning of the poem.
 Heroic qualities of the characters.
 Grand style: elevated language and grandiose tone.
 Style: elevated, dense and full of allusions: use of many Latinism; profuse in the use of
adjectives (before and after nouns) inversion in the normal order of sentences: full of
similes, metaphors…
 Written in blank verse- unrhymed iambic pentameter.
 The first part is about Adam and Eve while the second part concerns Satan.
 Satan is the hero because Satan reveals to God who is the authority, he is not happy with
God passing power to his son.
 The book was illustrated.
 Milton offered here his own version of the bible, one that is tinged with echoes to the
political events of the period.
 Lucifer reveals against God because he sees God as a tyrant who wields his power
arbitrarily. This echoes the tyranny and arbitrariness of the English monarchy that Milton
himself denounced (he opposed the monarchy and supported Cromwell’s government)
 By reveling to God, Satan Gradually, however, we realize that Satan’s rebellion is nit so
much against tyranny but rather against a figure he wants to dethrone in order to occupy
his place and behave exactly the same way.
 intends to do what he criticizes about God “To do good will never be our task”

SATIRE

Satire starts to flourish in this period and became a main mode of writing in the early eighteen
centuries.

RESTORATION DRAMA

 In 1660, theaters were reopened, in 1642 just after the first English civil war had begun,
London theaters were closed.
 Puritans disapproved of theatre- secular forms of entertainment distracted people from
worshipping God- moral corruption & dissolution.
 King Charles II loved theatre.
 Theaters become more complex and with more decorations so they don’t have to lay that
much in dialogue.
 APHRA BEHN one of the most important playwright’s predecessor of the novel.
 Samuel Pepys Diary (1667) important book of the period, he recollected all the events
that happened in London is also important because he explains the thinking of the time…
 Heroic tragedy: 1) Topics: ideas about honor, love and valor. 2) John Dryden’s The
conquest of Granada and All for Love.
 In Dryden’s heroic plays, we often find a hero with superhuman powers and superhuman
ideas; there is an inner conflict in the minds of several characters between love and honor.
 Comedy of manners: 1) the term is used to refer to comedies that depicted and often
satirized the manners, vices, and follies of contemporary society.
 The social manners depicted in the comedies of manners of the Restoration period are
often those of the fashionable, vain, and superficial aristocracy.
  In the comedy of manners of the restoration period, the plot usually centers on an illicit
love affair or a similarly scandalous matter. Lust greed, gossip, rumors, and materialism
are also subjects that tend to surface in comedy
 The plot is often less important than the play.
 The middle classes did not identify with these plays, which they considered as either too
artificial or morally incorrect.

UNIT 5

THE EIGTHEEN CENTURY: THE RISE OF THE NOVEL.

Most of the genres were inspired in Satire

 The eighteen century is associated with the Enlightenment “Age of reason”, although for some
scholars, it was from the 17th century to the ending of the Napoleonic wars in 1815.
 The enlightenment was a movement which wieved reason as the main source.
 Many thinkers and artist found inspiration in the civilization of ancient Greece and Rome.
 In literature and the arts, the eighteen century witnessed the emergence of Neoclassicism: a
movement that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical equality.
 In fact, the literature produced in Britain during the first part of the eighteen century is known
as the “Augustan literature” a term that alludes to the age of the roman emperor Augustus.

Later in the eighteen century, Neoclassicism began to enter in conflict with the enlightenment
spirit of freedom due to its artificially and constrictive rules of harmony and symmetry. The
emergence of Romanticism in literature and the arts can be seen as a reaction against
Neoclassicism.

The novel was not a prestigious genre so authors pretended to sell it as something real because of
the antecedents of the autobiography which was the closest genre to the novel. Credibility,
verisimilitude, claim to truth, realism.

ORIGINST AND ANTECEDENTS

 Historicist explanation: (The rise of the novel), The novel is a new genre the novel
develops as a consequence of social and economic factors that contribute to the
development of the novel. Comes the Industrial Revolution, the consolidation of the
middle class, and Development of the urban life: coffee and chocolate houses appeared,
woman also had their forms of reunion, the Boudoirs., and an increase in leisure time:
machines did the work so people especially women could have free time, so reading
became important and a leisure time activity, the popularity of periodicals: journalism at
the time was a way of telling stories and included different things such as political affairs,
fashion…, an increase in literacy, circulating libraries, and a taste of realism. The novel
emerges as a middle-class genre.
 IMPORTANT: A vindication of the rights of women. (Wrote by Mary´s Shelly mother)
 Formalist explanation: The key point is that in previous decades’ writers had
experimented with certain forms that led to the novel.

THE NOVEL: antecedents in the English literary tradition

In the English literary tradition, there are examples of prose writing that go back to the Middle
Ages (legends, sermons). In the Renaissance period, we find more sophisticated examples such as
Thomas Nashe´s The Unfortunate Traveler (1594), and in the 17th century, we find texts that have
often been considered as the main antecedents to the English novels such as autobiographies and
travelogues.

- Margaret Cavendish´s A true relation of my birth, breeding, and life (1656)

- Criminal/spiritual autobiographies
- John Bunyan´s the pilgrim progress.: religious allegory in which a character, named
Christian, seeks salvation.

Some antecedents come from the continental tradition:

- The Quixote, Miguel de cervantes.

- The picaresque novel: El lazarillo de tormes: A novel with a picaro rogué or scoundrel as ita
main protagonist. The picaro usually belongs to the low social class and manages to
survive in a corrupt society.

What is a novel?

- A novel is a novel if it is in prose, and if it's of a certain length.

- The truth is that the novel is a genre that resists exact definition, the point about the novel
is that it eludes definitions, but that it undermines them.

In the 16th century, the word news was applied freely to writings that described either true or
fictional events.

THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

Many early novels featured the word “history” in their titles. There are list two possible
explanations.

- Anglicised version of the French term “historie”

- Verisimilitude

It is worth noting that the novel, as a new form of writing, was not considered an important or
famous genre.

When the novel emerges it emerges in opposition to the romance. The romance uses an unreal
place while the novel is inspired by real places. And the romance has a hero while the novel has
not.

Set in a distant, idealized past Set in a more recent, less heroic, setting
Based on the epic Modeled on history and journalism
Set in a remote and exotic location Usually set in the locale of the author, a
national form of literature
Despite the life of the aristocracy and More middle-class and less aristocrazy
designed for an upper-class reader readership
 Long and episodic Shorter and more compact of plot
Value the preservation of virtue and chastity Tend to focus in illegal doings and forbidding
passions
Written in 3rd person Written in first person or in letter form
Mix fact and fiction Tend to deny they are fictional
Follow the rules of bienesance and Reject these rules since they claim to be
vraisemblance writing history or recording life as it is.

THE MOTHERS OF THE NOVEL

 Aphra Behn: Love letters between a nobleman and his sister/ Oronooko, or the royal slave.
 Delarivier Manley: The secret history of queen Zahara and the zarazians/The new Atlanis.
 Eliza Haywood: Love in Excess/The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless
 Sarah Fielding: The Adventures of David Simple/The Governess
 Charlotte Lennox: The Female Quixote, or the Adventures of Arabella.

THE FATHERS OF THE NOVEL

 Daniel Defoe: The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe / Captain
Singleton/ Moll Flanders/ Roxana
 Samuel Richardson: Pamela, or virtue rewarded/Clarissa
 Henry Fielding: Shamela, Joseph Andrews, Jonathan Wild, Tom Jones.
 Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy.

Meta-language pays attention to the form the novel is written but not the story.

GOTHIC LITERATURE

“novels of manners” using clothes and manners characteristic of the time but with a satirical tone.
In Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the author includes zombies in the original novel.

The 18th century is known as the age of reason, but Gothic is going to be against it because they
use imagination, and wild passion and go back to the middle ages. Also, romanticism acts against
reason. They also use imagination and feelings.

The Castle of Otranto(1764), by Horace Walpole, is often credited with being the first gothic novel.
Walpole applied the term “gothic” to his novel subtitled as a gothic story.

 The term gothic in the 18th century referred to” barbarous”, “medieval”, and
“supernatural”.
 Classic Gothic fiction in English Literature: the period from 1764 to 1820.
 First wave: pre-romantic gothic: Horace Walpole´s; The Castle of Oranto. William
BecKford ´s: Vatheke, Ann Radcliffs´s: Mysteries of Udolpho: Mathew G. Lewis; The
Monk
 Second wave: turn to introspection; influence of Romanticism: M.Shelly´s-Frankestein,
J.W.Polidori´s-The Vampire,C.R.Maturins-Melmoth, the wanderer.
CHARACTERISTICS OF GOTHIC FICTION

 Ingredients of gothic fiction: mystery, the supernatural, ghosts, monsters, vampires,

darkness, death, decay, doubles, madness, Sasecrets, and hereditary courses.
 Settings: haunted houses, castles, abbeys, ruins: far-away places(associated with
primitivism)
 Time: Time for the realist novel tends to be linear and one-dimensional; whereas time for
the gothic is often doubled, as the novel delves into the ancient past as a way of
illuminating the present and the future, or as that past lingers fearfully on within the
present is the form of specters.
 Aesthetic of excess: It uses excess (of passion over reason, of the supernatural and of
fantasy over realism, of ornament in style over plain style)
 Ambivalence: Cautionary tale, disturbing narrative; the gothic has been considered both
conservative and subversive, politically and morally ambivalent

This genre permitted the authors ot explore themes that could be banned for example lesbianism,
because they created an imaginary world.

Terror vs Horror

Terror: signals, an sccent, a creepy noise…(signals)

Horror: seing a dead body

Terror and the sublime: ( the sublime and the beautiful), When dangers or pain pres o nearly, they
are incapable of giving any delight and are simple terrible. But at certain distances, and with
certain modifications, they may be, and they are delightful, as we everyday experience.

In criticism, there are:

- Negative interpretation (popular culture)

- Positive interpretations: (from 1980 to 1990), Literature with a veiled(indirect) message: a
warning against certain society and communities/ a vindication of freedom and passion.

Women and the Gothic: women were related to women because they used this to experiment
with questions about being a woman at the time.

ROMANTICISM

Content:
- Focus on ordinary experiences: incidents and situations of common life

Glorification of nature.

- Nature is conceived of as an active, alive, spiritual, and sublime entity.

- The possibility of transcendence or “unity of being” can be achieved through communion
with nature
- Nature exalted and protected from the theatres

Relation to the aesthetic concept of the sublime

Beautiful: balanced and pleasure-giving for ex, typical landscape

Sublime: Beyond the beautiful and associated with breathtaking grandeur and magnificence-
provoking.

Romantic poets wrote about the nature of the individual self and the value of individual
experience

- Highly introspective poetry, at times drawing on the poet's life.

- Heightened examination of human passions and the poet's inner struggles and emotions.
- Poetry as a product of solitude and poets as loners, which reinforces the individually
- The poet as a genius: as a visionary who could see more and express these visionary
experiences in a new language
- Altered state of conscience appreciated