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Module 4

The document provides an overview of English and American literature, detailing notable periods, authors, and works. It highlights key texts from various eras, such as Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, and Romeo and Juliet in English literature, and includes significant American authors like Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain. The document emphasizes the evolution of literature through different historical contexts and the impact of cultural influences on literary expression.

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Jennalyn Lucido
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30 views3 pages

Module 4

The document provides an overview of English and American literature, detailing notable periods, authors, and works. It highlights key texts from various eras, such as Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, and Romeo and Juliet in English literature, and includes significant American authors like Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain. The document emphasizes the evolution of literature through different historical contexts and the impact of cultural influences on literary expression.

Uploaded by

Jennalyn Lucido
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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English and American Literature

LESSON PROPER

ENGLISH LITERATURE

English Literature refers to the study of texts from around the world, written in the English language. By
studying a degree in English Literature, you will learn how to analyze a multitude of texts and write clearly
using several different styles. Generally, literature refers to different types of text including novels, non-fiction,
poetry, and plays, among other forms. However, literature is a contested term, as new mediums for
communication provide different types of contemporary literature.

Periods and Notable Authors:


1. Anglo-Saxon Period (1450 – 1850)
(a) Beowulf – It is an Old English epic poem written anonymously around 975 AD. The protagonist Beowulf,
a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, king of the Danes, whose great hall, Heorot, is plagued by
the monster Grendel. Beowulf kills Grendel with his bare hands and Grendel's mother with a giant's sword
that he found in her lair.
(b) The Seafarer - It is an ancient Anglo-Saxon poem in which the elderly seafarer reminisces about his life
spent sailing on the open ocean. He describes the hardships of life on the sea, the beauty of nature, and the
glory of god. The speaker describes the often dreary and lonely life of a seafarer.

2. The Anglo – Norman Period (1066 – 1350)


(a) The name Norman, which is a softened form of Northman, tells its own story. The men who bore the name
came originally from Scandinavia - bands of big, blond, fearless men cruising after plunder and adventure in
their Viking ships, and bringing terror wherever they appeared Chaucer.
(b) Metrical Romances. Love, chivalry, and religion, all pervaded by the spirit of romance - these are the
three great literary ideals which find expression in the metrical romances.

3. The Age of Chaucer (1350 – 1400)


Canterbury Tales - The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written
in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer

4. The Revival of Learning (1440 -1550)


Malory's Morte d'Arthur - Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot,
Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table.

5. The Age of Elizabeth (1550 – 1620)


(a) Edmund Spencer - Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic
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English and American Literature
poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I.
(b) William Shakespeare – Best English playwright of all times; wrote plays like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet
and Macbeth

6. The Puritans Period (1620-1660)


(a) John Donne - John Donne was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a Catholic family,
a remnant of the Catholic Revival, who reluctantly became a cleric in the Church of England

Other notable periods are:


(7) Restoration – John Dryden
(8) Eighteenth Century Literature -Jonathan Swift
(9) the Age of Romanticism, the Victorian Age – William Wordsworth
(10) The Victorian Age – George Eliot

Notable works:
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
Summary
Romeo and Juliet is a tragic play by William Shakespeare about two star-crossed lovers who fall hopelessly
in love despite the bloody feud between their families, the Montagues and the Capulets.
• Romeo meets Juliet at a ball.
• The two fell in love instantly and are married in secret by Friar Laurence.
• When Romeo kills Juliet’s cousin Tybalt, he is banished from Verona.
• To escape an arranged marriage to her suitor, Paris, Juliet fakes her own death with the help of Friar
Laurence. Romeo believes she has truly died and kills himself with poison. Upon finding Romeo
dead, Juliet stabs herself with his dagger.

AMERICAN LITERATURE
American literature is literature predominantly written or produced in English in the United States of America
and its preceding colonies. Before the founding of the United States, the British colonies on the eastern coast
of the present-day United States were heavily influenced by English literature.

Periods and Notable Authors:


1. Colonial Era (1696 – 1700)
Captain John Smith - A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate as Hath
Happened in Virginia.

2. The American Revolutionary Period (1775-83)


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English and American Literature
(a) Political writers were Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson

3. Post – Independence (1800 – 1850)


James Fenimore Cooper was a notable author best known for his novel The Last of the Mohicans written in
1826 showing the plight of the natives of America after the colonization.

4. Early 19th Century


Edgar Allan Poe - In 1832, Edgar Allan Poe began writing short stories – including "The Masque of the Red
Death", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Fall of the House of Usher", and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
– that explore previously hidden levels of human psychology and push the boundaries of fiction toward
mystery and fantasy. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died the following year. Thus
orphaned, Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond. He married Virginia Clemm and lived
together off and on for several years before their marriage. Virginia died of a disease and her eventual death
had a substantial effect on Edgar Allan Poe, who became despondent and turned to alcohol to cope. Her
struggles with illness and death are believed to have affected his poetry and prose, where dying young
women appear as a frequent motif, as in "Annabel Lee", "The Raven", and "Ligeia".

5. Late 19th century Realist fiction


Mark Twain - (the pen name used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835–1910) was among the first major
American writers to be born away from the East Coast – Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of
Huckleberry Fin

Others periods:
6. 20th century – Ernest Hemingway
7. 1920s – William Faulkner
8. Depression Era - John Steinbeck
9. Post -World war (II) fiction – Norman Mailer

Notable work:
Edgar Allan Poe’s "Tell – Tale Heart"
Summary
In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator attempts to prove his own sanity in the wake of having
murdered an old man.
• The unreliable narrator explains that he loved the old man very much, but was disturbed by the old
man's "evil eye," which he alleges drove him to murder.
• After killing the old man, the narrator chops up his body and hides it beneath the floorboards.
• The police arrive after a neighbor report having heard a scream, and the narrator begins to hear the
old man's heart beating beneath the floor. Disturbed, he admits his crime to the police.

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