ENGLISH LITERATURE (1st SEMESTER)
0. Periodization
450-1066 Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) Period
1066-1500 The Middle English Period
1066-1340 The Early Middle English (or the Anglo-Norman) Period
1340-1400 The Age of Chaucer
1400-1500 The Fifteenth Century
1500-1660 The Renaissance
1558-1603 The Elizabethan Age
1603-1625 The Jacobean Age
OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE (449-1066)
Reading: (D. Daiches, A Critical History of English Literature, vol 1, p. 3-22)
Oxford Anthology of English Literature (relevant introductions)
Also known as the Anglo-Saxon Period: From the invasion of Germanic tribes [about 449] till the Norman Conquest [1066]. Oral literature being written down after conversion [the first church founded in Canterbury in 597]. Pre-Christian literature; heroic epics and sagas; Christian writings; Caedmon; Cynewulf. The Old English language and its influence on writings [stresses, dynamics; verse rhythm as heightened prose rhythm]. Old English prosody [mnemonic parts, fits – cantos, line structure, the device of variation]. The figure of the scop.
POETRY
1. The main characteristics of the heroic epic.
2. The functions of Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry: entertainment; preservation of the tradition and history of Germanic tribes; perpetuation of social and cultural patterns.
3. Beowulf as an oral poem; the use of poetic/mnemonic devices: direct addresses to the audience, digressions, alliterative meter (alliteration, half-lines, caesura, stresses), formulaic diction, kennings, repetitions, parallelisms, interpolations, allusions.
4. Beowulf as a heroic epic (genre analysis);
a) setting / spatio-temporal organisation of the poem: the pagan times of Germanic heroes; the world inhabited by Germanic peoples; the mead-hall as a spatial representation of culture/civilisation vs. wilderness/ Nature; atmosphere of gloom, elegaic mood;
b) characters: the hero, rulers, queens, warriors, scops, villains/traitors, anti-heroes/monsters;
c) events : valiant deeds of Beowulf ; the plot: the two main episodes presenting Beowulf’s fight against the powers of evil (Grendel, Grendel’s mother and the dragon); other themes and motifs;
d) values: fame as a pagan form of eternal life, courage, honour, loyalty, generosity; beliefs: Wyrd (Fate); customs, rituals: funerals/mourning (constituting the compositional frame of the poem), banquets/feasting and boasting.
5. Christian elements in Beowulf: biblical interpolations (eg. the story of Genesis), allusions to the Old Testament (eg. Cain’s seed), moralising comments.
THE DREAM OF THE ROOD
Reading: Preface from Trapp: pp. 114-115; Daiches, A Critical History of English Literature, vol. I, pp. 3-30.
1. The theme of the poem and its treatment:
- the image of Christ's passion
- the explanation of a religious symbol
- the identification of the cross with Christ
2. Reconciliation of the opposites as the basic process operating within the system of religious language, e.g. new life through death, the last shall be the first. Consider also Polish carol "Bóg się rodzi"
3. The function of poetic devices and conventions used in the text: prosopopeia, dream vision, paradox, imagery.
4. The poem as an example of the second phase in the development of Anglo-Saxon religious poetry.
MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE (1066-1500)
From the Norman Conquest till the beginning of the Renaissance; the first part also known as the Anglo-Norman period [1066-1340]. Middle Ages as the period of three cultures and three languages: Anglo-Norman – aristocracy; Latin – clergy; English – lower classes. England as part of the universal culture of the Middle Ages. Allegorical and didactic literature; courtly literature in England and Europe; genres: romance [matters of Rome, France, Britain (the Arthurian cycle), England], fabliau, beast fable, exemplum, saints’ lives, debate, dream visions, religious and secular lyricschronicles, legends, hagiography, fates of the Apostles, spells (charms), bestiaries, allegories, dialogues, romance. Changes in language and versification. The rise of native drama (tropes, liturgical drama, miracle play, morality play, interlude).
Reading: D. Daiches, A Critical History of English Literature, vol 1, p. 31-38, 49-72, 81-127, 139-143, 208-245); Oxford Anthology of English Literature (relevant introductions)
THE PROLOGUE
1. The Canterbury Tales as the most representative literary text of the Middle Ages in England.
a) generic and stylistic variety of Chaucer’s work: courtly romance (The Knight’s Tale), breton lay (The Franklin’s Tale); story of wonder and romance (The Squire’s Tale), parody of romance (Chaucer’s Sir Thopas), pathetic romance (The Man of Law’s Tale), tragedies (The Monk’s Tale), saint’s legend (The Prioress’ Tale), sermon in prose (The Parson’s Tale), preacher’s exemplum (The Pardoner’s Tale), beast fable (The Nun’s Priest’s Tale), fabliau (The Miller’s Tale);
b) The Canterbury Tales as a panorama of English society: Chaucer’s pilgrims/tellers and characters from their tales as representatives of (almost) all classes, professions, and vocations, urban and rural life, laity and clergy, various age groups, the two sexes and four humours.
c) pilgrimage as a framing device.
2. The compositional and thematic functions of the main Prologue and the prologues to subsequent tales (eg. Words between the Host and the Miller after The Knight’s Tale).
a) the introduction and characterisation of the narrators;
b) the presentation and dynamisation of the narrative situation.
3. The dominant mode of characterisation: irony present in the description of the pilgrims’ appearance, characters, interests, attitudes and conduct.
THE KNIGHT’S TALE, THE MILLER’S TALE
1. The main characteristics of the courtly romance and the fabliau; the four ‘matters’ of English romances.
2. A comparative genre analysis of The Knight’s Tale (a romance representing the Matter of Rome the Great) and The Miller’s Tale (a fabliau).
a) the Knight and the Miller as two different narrators fitted to the two different tales; the use of language: sophisticated, elegant vs. coarse, vulgar;
b) different settings: the courtly setting of ancient Greece vs. the urban, low-class setting of the Middle Ages;
c) different characters: dukes, knights, ladies and ancient gods vs. students, clerks, craftsmen, wives;
d) different plots: the story of courtly love and rivalry between two knights of noble breed vs. the story of sexual passion, adultery, crude jokes and revenge;
e) different moral codes, values: chivalry, forgiveness vs. low-class cleverness/cunning, revengefulness.
THE NUN’S PRIEST’S TALE
1. The main characteristics of the beast fable, exemplum, debate, dream vision, saint’s life.
2. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale as a beast fable.
a) setting: apparently rural, peasant (a small widow’s cottage ‘by a little meadow/ Beside a grove, a yard with a hen-roost) vs. ‘courtly’ with a yard ‘that was enclosed about/ By a stockade’;
b) characters: a cock, a hen, a fox acting like humans (a lord, a lady and a traitor) as the main characters; a widow, her daugters and other beasts as secondary characters;
c) plot: the fox’s attack on the cock/ the story of Chanticleer’s fall;
d) functions of the tale: entertaining, moralising (morals: ‘And as for those who blink when they should look,/ God blot them from his everlasting Book!’; ‘his plagues be flung/ On all who chatter that should hold their tongue’; ‘be on your guard/ Against the flatterers of the world, or yard’.
3. The polymorphic character of The Nun’s Priest’s Tale (genres: the beast fable, parody of a courtly romance, exemplum, debate, dream vision, saint’s life).
4. Religious allegory: Chanticleer’s fall representing the fall of Man, Lady Pertelote’s advice representing Eve’s counsel, Sir Russel Fox’s attack representing Satan’s role in Adam’s fall.
5. Medieval concepts and interests as reflected in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale: determinism/predestination, the wheel of Fortune, free will, the nature of dreams, sins of Pride and Lust.
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT
Reading: Oxford Anthology of English Literature, F. Berry, Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knght, Pelican Guide To English Literature, vol. I.
1. Versification.
2. The characteristics of romance.
3. Nature and ritual in Sir Gawain (the pattern of death and rebirth, the rituals of Christmas and New Year).
4. Sir Gawain as a story of initiation.
5. Medieval chivalry and the convention of courtly love.
6. Sir Gawain as an ideal knight and the tradition of the Arthurian romance.
7.The possible interpretations of the story.
MEDIEVAL LYRICS
Reading: Brian Stone, Medieval English Verse, Penguin Books.
1. Themes and motifs in secular and religious lyrics.
1. The development of medieval English drama (tropes, liturgical drama, miracle play, morality play, interlude).
2. Everyman as an allegorical morality play.
a) setting: universal place and time;
b) characters: allegorical types (Everyman), personified abstractions (Death, Knowledge, Good Deeds);
c) plot: the story of Everyman who is unexpectedly summoned by Death and finds out that of all figures who used to befriend him only his Good Deeds want to accompany him; themes and motifs: Dance Macabre, psychomachia, ubi sunt motif, Death as God’s messenger;
d) functions of the play: entertaining, moralising (the moral: Memento Mori, only good deeds count in the end).
RENAISSANCE LITERATURE [1500-1660]
Since around 1500 until The Restoration [1660] with several subperiods. Humanism as a worldview and the Renaissance as a current in literature and the arts; aspects of the Renaissance. The Renaissance worldview: the great chain of being [from four physical elements to angelic beings]; Nature as God’s instrument; social hierarchy as a product of Nature; concepts of humours. Forms of poetry; sonnets and sonnet cycles [principles of construction]. Elizabethan theatre [building, stage, actors, companies, public and private houses, the Globe; audience] and drama [significance of the Senecan pattern in tragedy: ghost, revenge, soliloquy and declamation; ancient models in comedy – Plautus Terence]. Shakespeare’s drama and poetry. Jacobean drama.
Reading: David Daiches, A Critical History of English Literature, vol. I, p. vol. II, p. 246-345
DRAMA
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, DOCTOR FAUSTUS. (complete text, scenes I, III. V, XVIII)
Hollander & Kermode, The Literature of Renaissance England, Introduction to Doctor Faustus, pp. 845-848. David Daiches, A Critical History of English Literature.
1. The Renaissance man and his vision of the world.
2. The ancient and medieval traditions of Renaissance drama (genres, themes, dramatic techniques).
3. The composition of the play: the mixture of the tragic and the farcical.
4. Types of characters and their function.
5 The stages of Faustus' fall.
6. Faustus' final monologue: spatial and temporal dimensions of damnation.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: HENRY IV
1. The main characteristics of the historical play.
2. Henry IV as a historical play: Shakespeare’s use of history and fiction.
a) historical sources: Holinshed’s Chronicles, Daniel’s Ciuile Wars, Stow’s Chronicles etc.; literary sources (plays): Richard II, The Famous Victories, Woodstock, Soliman and Perseda; alterations of the sources: omissions, expansions, readjustments;
b) historical settings: England and Wales in the Tudor times (London palace, Windsor castle, Warkworth castle in Northumberland, The Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap at London, The Archdeacon’s Bangor House in Wales, the rebel’s camp, king’s camp and battlefield at Shrewsbury); literary expansions: an inn yard in Rochester, a highway at Gad’s Hill, a public road near Coventry; literary readjustment: a seemingly clear-cut conflict between the two worlds: the court and the tavern (nobility vs. commonalty; time-saving vs. time-wasting; gravity vs. humour/wit; honour/courage/ambition vs. pragmatism; verse vs. prose); the battlefield as a testing ground;
c) historical characters: most serious characters in the play modelled upon historically real personages; literary expansions: secondary comic figures, eg. Poins, Peto, Bardolph, Mistress Quickly, literary readjustments: all characters (alterations of their age, status, role, psychological motivation, etc.);
d) historical events and the dramatic conflict...
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