ENG 211 Lecture 6
ENG 211 Lecture 6
ENG 211 Lecture 6
the rising of bourgeoisie; the new Monarchy; the Reformation and the weakening of the
power of church; Enclosure movement and commercial expansion.
Literature: Renaissance; Humanism; Thomas More; Edmund Spencer; Francis Bacon;
drama
*Renaissance : The Renaissance marks the transition from the medieval to the
modern world; It means rebirth or revival of letters; It is a historical period in which
thinkers and scholars made attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas, to introduce
new ideas that expressed the interest of the rising bourgeoisie, and to recover the
purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church. Two
features are striking of this movement: thirsting curiosity for the classical literature and
the keen interest in the activities of humanity.
*Humanism: key-note of the Renaissance; emphasis on the dignity of human beings
and the importance of the present life; belief in the right to enjoy the beauty of this life
and the ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders.
*Thomas More and his Utopia
Edmund Spencer and his The Faerie Queen; his reputation known as “the poets’ poet”
*Francis Bacon---the first English essayist, famous for his Essays
Drama---the highest glory of the English Renaissance with Christopher
Marlowe, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson
*Christopher Marlowe---the most gifted of the “university wits”, Doctor Faustus, blank
verse first used in his drama.
*Ben Jonson---his praise of Shakespeare; “Volpone” Soul of the Age
“The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!To whom all scenes of Europe homage
owe. He was not of an age, but for all time”!
*Shakespeare---his life, his works, his status /His life---born in 1564 in Stratford-on Avon,
died in 1616
*His works---38 plays, 154 sonnets and 2 long poems History plays: Henry VI Richard
III/ The Taming of the Shrew Years of great romantic comedies:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream/ The Merchant of Venice/ As You Like It/ Twelfth Night
Years of greatest tragedies and dark comedies: Hamlet Othello King Lear Macbeth/
Years of romantic tragicomedies: Cymbeline/The Winter’s Tale/The
Tempest
Sonnet---a poem in 14 lines with rhyme scheme; Rhyme scheme of Shakespearean sonnet:
abab cdcd efef gg
Social background: the clash between the King and Parliament; the Civil War between 1642-
1649; Charles I was executed in 1649; the declining of Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the
compromise with the feudal remnants.
Literature: John Milton; John Bunyan; John Dryden; Metaphysical poets
Milton---a revolutionary poet, political both in his life and his art;
Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes
*Bunyan---The Pilgrim’s Progress, a religious allegory, the spiritual pilgrimage of Christian
*Dryden---the most distinguished literary figure of the Restoration period; use of heroic
couplet in his writing
*heroic couplet---two successive lines of verse, equal in length and with rhyme.
*Metaphysical school of poetry: break away from the convention; simple diction, common
speech words and cadences, actual life imagery, argument with the poet’s beloved, with god, or
with himself; John Donne and Andrew Marvell.
*John Donne---leading figure of the Metaphysical school of poetry, his conceit
*Marvel---“To his Coy Mistress”
Social background: the age of Enlightenment or the age of Reason, a progressive
intellectual movement, to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern
philosophical and artistic idea, to celebrate reason, equality and science, call for a
reference to order, reason and rules.
Literature: the school of Classicism; the rise of modern novel; Sentimentalism; Pre-
Romanticism; Sheridan’s drama
*Classicism---All forms of literature should be modeled after the classical works of the
ancient Greek and Roman writers, controlled by some fixed laws and rules; Artistic ideals
should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy, Addison, Steel and Pope as
representative
* Alexander Pope---the most important representative of Classical poetry, so perfect in
heroic couplet that no one has been able to approach him
*modern novel---the mid-century predominated by a new realistic novel, Defoe, Swift,
Richardson, Fielding, Smollett and Sternes as representatives; description of adventures
Sentimentalism---By the mid of the 18th century, sentimentalism came into being as the result of
a bitter discontent among the enlightened people with social reality. Dissatisfied with reason,
sentimentalists turned to sentiment, to the human heart. They resorted to the countryside for its
material. Sentimentalist poetry marks the midway in the transition from classicism to
romanticism.
*Pre-Romanticism---the latter half of the 18th century; strong protest against the bondage of
classicism, a recognition of the claims of passion and emotion; William Blake and Robert Burns
as representatives
*William Blake--- “The Songs of Innocence” and “The Songs of Experience;” The poems from
“The Songs of Innocence” indicate the conditions which make religion a consolation, a prospect
of illusory happiness; the poems from “The Songs of Experience” reveal the true nature of
religion which brings misery to the poor children.
*Robert Burns---remembered mainly for his songs written in the Scottish dialect
*Sheridan---the only important English dramatist in the 18th century. The Rivals and The School
for Scandal, the true classics in English comedy
Social background: two important revolutions---the French Revolution of 1789-1794 and
the English Industrial Revolution
Literature: The Romantic period is an age of poetry; Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelly
and Keats are the major Romantic poets; Prose writers and novelists
*Romanticism---It designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the
individual as the very center of all life and all experience. It also places the individual at
the center of art, making literature most valuable as an expression of his or her unique
feelings and particular attitudes; Nature is not only the major source of poetic imagery, but
also provides the dominant subject matter; Romantics also tend to be nationalistic.
*lake poets---The poet Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey lived in the lake district. They
traversed the same path in politics and in poetry, first inspired by French Revolution, later
changed into conservative.
Wordsworth---his definition of poetry “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of the powerful
feelings” and poetry originates from “emotion recollected in tranquility”; a nature poet;
working in collaboration with Coleridge in Lyrical Ballads.
*prose writers---Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt, Thomas De Quincey and his “Confessions of an
English Opium Eater”, Charles Lamb and his “Essays of Elia”
*Jane Austen---love and marriage as the major themes of her novels;
Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, etc.
*Walter Scott---a romantic historical novelist, Ivanhoe
*Victorian period (Queen Victoria’s sovereignty)
Social background: the struggle between workers and capitalists; the Victorian morality:
issues of everyday
Literature: Fiction is the highest achievement with Charles Dickens as its representative.
*Critical Realism---Sticking to the faithful representation of the 18th century realist
novel, critical realists carried their duty forward to the criticism of the society and the
defence of the mass. They were all concerned about the fate of the common people. Their
truthful picture of people’s life and bitter and strong criticism of the society had done
much in awakening the public consciousness to the social problem and in the actual
improvement of the society.
*Charles Dickens---Oliver Twist about the dehumanizing workhouse system and the dark,
criminal underworld life; David Copperfield concerned about the debtor’s prison; A Tale
of Two Cities about French Revolution; As a master story-teller, character-portrayal is the
most distinguishing feature of his works.
*Brontë---Charlotte Brontë and her Jane Eyre, the struggle for basic rights and equality;
Emily Brontë and her Wuthering Heights, the passionate love.
*George Eliot and her Mill on the Floss
Poets---Tennyson and Browning; Tennyson is the most representative, if not the greatest,
Victorian poet ; In Memoriam, The Idylls of the King; Browning as the most original poet of
his time, his name is often associated with the term “dramatic monologue”
*Dramatic monologue---In a dramatic moment or crisis, the characters are made to talk
about their lives, and about their minds and hearts. In “listening” to those one-sided
talks, readers can form their own opinions and judgments about the speaker’s personality
and about what has really happened.
*Literary trends at the end of the 19th century---Naturalism; Neo- Romanticism;
Aestheticism; Thomas Hardy
*Naturalism---literature must be true to life, and exactly reproduce real life, including all
the details without any selection. Naturalists usually write about the lives of the poor and
oppressed, or the “Slum life”.
*Aestheticism---theory of art-for-art’s sake, art should serve no religious, moral or social
end, nor any end except itself; Oscar Wilde and Walter Pater.
Social background: the gap between the rich and the poor; the postwar economic
dislocation and spiritual disillusion; the rise of all kinds of philosophical ideas---Karl
Marx’s scientific socialism, Darwin’s theory of Evolution, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche’s
pessimism.
Literature: Modernism rises out of skepticism and disillusion of capitalism, takes the
irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho- analysis as its theoretical base.
*realistic novels in the 20th century---the continuation of the Victorian tradition;
Novelists began to turn their attention to the urgent social problems; In the mid-1950s
and early 1960s, there appeared “the Angry Young Men”, launching a bitter protest
against the outmoded social and political values in their society
*modernism in fiction---The first three decades of this century were golden years of
the modernist novels; The theory of the Freudian and Jungian psycho-analysis played
an important role; D. H. Lawrence traced the psychological activities in his works Sons
and Lovers, Women in Love, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Rainbow
Psychological Novel (Virginia Woolf and James Joyce)
*Interior monologue and Stream of Consciousness as the main narrative techniques
*stream-of-consciousness: The stream-of-consciousness is a narrative technique
intended to present the stream of many impressions—visual, auditory, physical,
associative, and unconscious—that impose on the consciousness of an individual and
form part of his awareness along with the trend of his rational thoughts. / It is the
complex evocation of the fragmentation of inner states of the characters.
Interior Monologue: is often used interchangeably with stream of consciousness. A
narrative technique that exhibits the thoughts passing through the minds of the
protagonists. These ideas may be either loosely related impressions approaching free
association or more rationally structured sequences of thought and emotion.
*drama in the 20th century---Bernard Shaw is considered to be the best- knon English
dramatist since Shakespeare. His plays are inspired by social criticism; John
Galsworthy carried on this tradition of social criticism; The Irish dramatic movement
Modernism in drama---the working-class drama
-Anti-hero: antihero, a protagonist of a drama or narrative who is notably lacking in heroic
qualities * Anti-hero is found in Osborne and the “Angry Young Man”;
*Modernism in poetry---a revolution against the conventional ideas and forms of the
Victorian poetry; The poems of Eliot and Yeats , the rise of “modern poetry”.