English Writers and their titles

 English Writers and their contributions

Political conditions of Anglo Saxon Period

Political conditions of Anglo Saxon Period (410-1066)

By: Saira M.Juman Solangi, at MBBS Campus Dadu

The political conditions of Anglo Saxon period 

During the dark ages, mostly the fifth and sixth century there were different people ruling in heptarchy of Great Britain. There were many kings and queens during this era who ruled their kingdoms . KING ALFRED THE GREAT is the most famous among those kings. When Romans left Great Britain in the fifth century, the land was left almost defenseless and they needed someone to rule and keep the political scenario well. All the kingdoms needed someone to defend them from invaders. Names of kings like King Canute, king Alfred the great were major rulers. Before seventh century many kings ruled over and established their authorities. There were no prisons at the time so the culprits were either asked to pay fine for their crimes or they were killed . Kings had their councils which used to sit together and have a final decision . Also there was concept of Witan , a group of religious people who helped king in making decisions. Some of the Anglo Saxon kings are mentioned below: 

King Aethelberht (King of Kent) who was married to a Christian woman namely Berths daughter of king of Paris , he was the one to convert to Christianity . He motivated his people to write laws. Gradually smaller kingdoms became powerful and that gave rise to monarchy The first monarch that was established and stable was of king Egbert (827-839) . He ruled over all of Anglo Saxon England and his monarchy was followed by his son Aethelwulf (839-858) he was the father of Alfred the great. After him Kings like Aethelbald (858-860) , Aethelbert (860-866) and Aethelred (866-871) and Alfred the great succeed their father Aethelwulf . 

ALFRED THE GREAT (871-899) He was one of the strongest leaders in many battles. He was youngest son of king Aethelwulf . He retained the throne after his three brothers. He defended England from Danes , strengthened old forts and built new strategic sites. He was well educated and successful in government as well as war, good and wise at administration . He was able to rule for more than two decades. He defeated Viking army in battle of Edington and after that made a treaty with them according to which Danes who were a part of those Vikings , their king Guthrum agreed to withdraw from Wessex and thus in treaty he was given the provision of the land that was later on called as Danelaw. Alfred after this victory reformed his army 

Edward -The Elder ( 899-924) He was son and successor of Alfred the great . He retained the southeast England from Danes and United kingdoms of Wessex and Marcia. Later on he was killed in a battle against Welsh. 

Athelstan (924-939) He was son of Edward the Elder. He fought one of the bloodiest battle ever in 937 called battle of Burunanburh. He was the one who united the Anglo Saxon kingdoms as the kingdom of England. He fought against Celts, Scots, Danes and Vikings all together 

Edmund 939-946) He was half brother of Athelstan , fought along him and then regained Anglo Saxon control over northern England. He was just 25 when he was killed by stabbing and his sons were too young to succeed him . 

Eadred (946-978) He was brother of Edmund and he defeated Norseman as well as the Scandinavian king namely Eric Bloodaxe. He sustained an injury and that wound led him to death. 

Eadwig (955-959) He was the son of Edmund. At the age of 16 he was crowned as king and died at the age of 20.  

Edgar (959-975): He was the youngest son of Edmund and he attacked Chester in which he failed . 

Edward the martyr (975-978): He was successor of his father Edgar and at the early age of 12 he was crowned as king. He was in fued with his brother and that led to dispute between church and novelty. He was murdered by followers of his own brother Aethelred II.  

Aethelred II 978-1016: He was called Aethelred the unready because he was not ready for throne and so he fled away to Normandy in 1013 and Dane’s king Sweyn Forkbeard conquested English but later on died and Aethelred returned to his throne . After king Aethelred II few more kings ruled over Anglo Saxon England before the Norman conquest that includes Edmund II (1016-1016) 

Caunte (1016-1035): He was the son of Sweyn Forkbeard . After the death of Edmund II he ruled over his people . He ruled England, Denmark as well as Norway. During his time it was called as North sea Empire ( England, Denmark and Norway) .He tired to tie England and Denmark alongside by power and wealth. He was known as king of all England. He was major figure in politics and he gave laws too . He even contributed to the development of Churches. Harold I (1035-1040) Harthacanute (1040-1042) Edward -the confessor (1042-1066) 

Harold II (1066) The last Anglo Saxon king who was defeated and killed by William the conqueror in battle of Hastings. He belonged to royalty but he was elected as king by Witan ( highly religious group of people who were also given some power in administration) . He was able to defeat the army of Norway at the Battle of Stamford Bridge and later on he was defeated in Battle of Hastings which marks the end of Anglo Saxon rule over great Britain. 2. The Norman Conquest Kind Harold II, since he was elected as a king by Witan ; there is a word that he bribed Witan to pronounce him as a king after the death of Edward . Whereas William claimed that he was promised the throne by Edward the confessor. When Harold took the oath the there were three other claimants namely Edgar who was too young to claim the throne, Harald Hardrada who was the king of Norway at that time so he was already busy with wars against Danes and the later was William who was furious over the coronation and he was planning on to attack England. He believed that the throne was his. William was silently gathering support and armour to attack England and claim his throne and at that time there battles were fought i.e. The Battle of Fullford, The Battle of Stamford Bridge and then The Battle of Hastings. For The Battle of Fullford Harold used a lot of fortune to pay army and buy weapons. Harald Hardrada and his brother Tostig attacked the Englishman and took over the city of York and after which they rested and restarted another battle that we call as The Battle of Stamford Bridge (1066) they were ready to capture the lands of South but Harold managed to gather a huge army in a week and he came to know about the plan of Hardrada and Tostig so instead he launched a surprise attack on them and that caused them to lose . The Norwegian army fought for hours but they later on surrendered . 

The Battle of Hastings: Just when king Harold thought that he saved his throne , only a few days later another army of Normans attacked them. The attack by William the conqueror was perfectly planned . According to some references it happened probably in October of 1066 that Harold’s army met army of Normans in Hastings which ended with the death of King Harold and this is how William the duke of Normandy conquested England. 

After Norman invasion the influence on Literature. 

 The Norman Conquest changed the English language as well as law and culture . French was then regarded as the language of law and administration . We can see so many French loans in English of this time period. Feudal system was also introduced . The Norman built new towns as well and also introduced the church courts. Mostly the effect of French is observed in English of this time period . Many sounds which were previously represented with one sound were differentiated for example , the /s/ and/ z/ sounds. In poetry romantic tales of love were added. Latin was replaced by English to be used in documents and the literature of that time period became the imitation of literature of French . 

Literature MAIN POINTS

History of English Literature Key Points

• Plato called Archilochus “the prince of Sages”.
• George Eliot’s pen name is Mary Ann Evans.
• Her famous debut novel is Adam Bede.
• A Doll’s House is a three act play in prose by Henrik Ibsen
• A House’s Tale is a novel by Mark Twain.
• His name is Samuel Clemens.
• A Tale of a Tub is a satire by Jonathan Swift. 
• “An Essay on Criticism” (1711) and “Windsor Forest” (1713) are also his works. 
• Arms and the Man is a comedy by George Bernard Shaw.  
• The title was borrowed from Virgil’s Aeneid in Latin (Arms and the man I Sing). Raina is a character in the play. 
• Shaw’s other works are Candida, You Never Can Tell, The Man of Destiny.
• Between the Acts is the final novel by Virginia Woolf published in 1941 shortly after her suicide.
• George Bernard Shaw’s Candida set in the month of October.
• Confidence is a novel by Henry James in 1879.
• Death in Venice (1912) is a novella by German author Thomas Mann.
• Dream of Four to Middling Women is Samuel Beckett’s first novel.
• It is an autobiographical novel. The main character Belacqua is a writer and teacher in the novel.
• Edgar Allan Poe began his own journal “The Penn”. ( Later it was renamed as “The Stylus”)
• Thomas Hardy first employed the term “Wessex” in Far from the Madding Crowd.
• Franklin Evans or The Inebriate is the only novel ever written by Walt Whitman.
• George Bernard Shaw is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize in literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938).
• Shaw wrote 63 plays. His first novel Immaturity was written in 1879 but last one to be printed in 1931
• His last significant play was In Good King Charles Golden Days.
• George Eliot’s real name was Mary Ann Evans.
• Her works- Adam Bede(1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1866), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch(1871-72), Daniel Doronda (1876).
• Jonathan Swift wrote “Drapier’s Letters” in 1724.
• Gustav Flaubert was a French writer and well known for his first published novel, Madame Bovary (1857).
• Happy Days is a play in two acts by Samuel Beckett. Winnie, Willie are the characters in the play.
• Henrik Ibsen is often regarded to as “the father of realism” and one of the founders of Modernism in Theatre.
• Love in Several Masques was Henry Fielding’s first play.
• Chaucer lived during the reigns of : Edward III, Richard II and Henry IV
• William Langland was the closest contemporary of Chaucer.
• The Hundred Year's War was fought between England and France.
• The War of Roses figures in the works of Shakespeare.
• John Wycliffe is called 'the morning star of the Reformation'.
• Twenty Nine pilgrims in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales were going on the pilgrimage from the Tabard Inn. (30, including Owner of Tabard Inn)
• Three pilgrims in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales represent the military profession.
• Eight ecclesiastical characters are portrayed in the Prologue in Canterbury Tales.
• It is believed that the Host at the Inn was a real man. His name was Harry Bailly.
• The pilgrims were going to Shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury.
• Three women characters figure in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.
• “The Parson's Tale” is in prose in Canterbury Tales.
• “Bath” is the name of the town to which she belonged in Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath”.
• "He was as fresh as the month of May" .This line occurs in the Prologue. This is referred to the Squire.
• Treatise on the Astrolabe is Chaucer's prose work.
• The War of Roses was fought between The House of York and The House of Lancaster
• The followers of Wycliffe were called “the Lollards”
• John Wycliffe was the first to render the Bible into English in 1380.
• The Piers the Plowman is a series of visions seen by its author Langland. ‘The Vision of a 'Field Full of Folks' was the first vision that he saw.
• Occleve in The Governail of Princes wrote a famous poem mourning the death of Chaucer.
• Caxton was the first to set up a printing press in England in 1476.
• William Tyndale’s English New Testament is the earliest version of the Bible.
• Tottle's Miscellany is a famous anthology of 'Songs and Sonnets' by Wyatt and Surrey.
• Amoretti contained 88 sonnets of Spenser.
• Thomas Mores' Utopia was first written in Latin in 1516. It was rendered into English in 1551.
• Roister Doister is believed to be the first regular comedy in English by Nicholas Udall.
• Gorboduc is believed to be the first regular tragedy in English by Sackville and Norton in collaboration.
• Chaucer's Physician in the Doctor of Physique was heavily dependent upon Astrology.
• Spenser described Chaucer as "The Well of English undefiled’.
• Chaucer's pilgrims go on their pilgrimage in the month of April.
• Forest of Arden appears in the play As You Like It by William Shakespeare.
• Globe Theatre was built in 1599.
• Astrophel: A Pastorall Elegy upon the Death of the Most Noble and Valorous Knight, Sir Philip Sidney is a poem by the English poet Edmund Spenser.
• Spenser’s Epithalamion is a wedding hymn.
• The first tragedy Gorboduc was later entitled as Ferrex and Porrex.
• Sidney's “Apologie for Poetrie” is a reply to Gosson's “School of Abuse”.
• In his Apologie for Poetrie, Sidney defends the Three Dramatic Unities.
• Christopher Marlowe wrote only tragedies. He first used Blank Verse in his Jew of Malta.
• "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships”. This line occurs in Doctor Faustus by Marlowe.
• Ben Jonson used the phrase 'Marlowe's mighty line' for Marlowe's Blank Verse.
• Ruskin said, "Shakespeare has only heroines and no heroes".
• The phrase 'The Mousetrap' used by Shakespeare in Hamlet. It is the play within the play.
• Spenser dedicates the Preface to The Faerie Queene to Sir Walter Raleigh.
• The Faerie Queene is an allegory. In this Queen Elizabeth is allegorized through the character of Gloriana.
• Charles Lamb called Spenser the 'Poets' Poet'.
• Spenser first used the Spenserian stanza in Faerie Queene.
• In the original scheme or plan of the Faerie Queene as designed by Spenser, it was to be completed in Twelve Books. But he could not complete the whole plan. Only six books exist now.
• Twelve Cantos are there in Book I of the Faerie Queene.
• In the Dedicatory Letter, Spenser Says that the real beginning of the allegory in the Faerie Queene is to be found in Book XII.
• The Faerie Queene is basically a moral allegory. Spenser derived this concept of moral allegory from Aristotle.
• Ben Jonson said 'Spenser writ no language.'
• Spenser divided his ‘Shepheardes Calender’ into twelve Ecologues. They represent twelve months of a year.
• Bacon's Essays are modelled on the Essais of Montaigne.
• Bacon is the author of Novum Organum.
• Spenser dedicated his Shepheards Calendar to Sir Philip Sidney.
• Ten Essays were published in Bacon's First Edition of Essays in 1597.
• 58 essays of Bacon were published in his third and last edition of Essays in 1625.
• "......... a mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better , but it embaseth it". These lines occur in Bacon’s “Of Truth”.
• Hamlet said "Frailty thy name is woman” in Hamlet by Shakespeare.
• "Life is a tale, told by an idiot, Full of sound and fury signifying nothing." These lines occur in Macbeth by Shakespeare.
• "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Are of imagination all compact." These lines occur in A Mid - Summer Night's Dream.
• "Neither a borrower nor a lender be”. This line was told by Polonius in Hamlet.

For MCQS visit: History of English Literature MCQs

 

History of English Literature

 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

ROMANTIC AND VICTORIAN PERIOD:

1.         Romantic Period started in 1798 with the publication of Lyrical Ballads.

2.         Lyrical Ballads is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Coleridge.

3.         The slogan of the French Revolution was “Liberty, Fraternity and Equality”.

4.         Romantic Period ended with the first Reformation Act in 1832.

5.         Major works of Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Prelude (1850), The Excursion, Preface to Lyrical Ballads, We are Seven, Lucy Gray, The Rainbow, The Daffodils, The Solitary Reaper, An Evening Walk (1793) and Descriptive Sketches (1793).

6.         Major works of Coleridge (1772 – 1834): Biographia Literaria (1817), Table Talk, The Rime of Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel

7.         Churchyard Poets wrote the poetry that suffered from the melancholic strain.

8.         The Castle of Indolence was written by James Thomson.

9.         Pamela, Clarissa Harloue, and Sir Charles Grandison are the epistolary novels of Richardson.

10.     An epistolary novel is written in the form of letters.

11.     Robert Burn is known as a Ploughman Poet.

12.     Samuel Johnson wrote ‘Rasselas’ in order to pay for his mother’s funeral.

13.     Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones was a novel dedicated to George Lyttleton.

14.     The Circulatory Libraries were popular during the eighteenth century.

15.     Thomas Love Peacock in his Nightmare Abbey satirized Coleridge and Shelley.

16.     Jane Austen’s subject matter for her novels is human nature.

17.     Blake’s the Book of Horizen is about the origin of evil.

18.     Dr. Johnson’s dictionary came out in 1755.

19.     The first addition of Encyclopedia appeared in 1771.

20.     The year 1776 is associated with American Independence.

21.     The phrase ‘Willing Suspension of Disbelief’ is associated with Coleridge.

22.     The French Revolution took place in 1789.

23.     Coleridge’s ‘This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison’ is addressed to Charles Lamb.

24.     Coleridge divided the imagination into the primary and the secondary ones.

25.     Byron’s Manfred is autobiographical work.

26.     Byron satirizes Britain in his Don Juan.

27.     Shelley’s Queen Mab is about religious persecution and domestic bondage.

28.     Matthew Arnold called Shelley ‘an ineffectual angel beating in the void his luminous wings of vain’.

29.     Cockney School of Poetry is a phrase coined on analogy with the ‘Lake School’.

30.     Adonais is an elegy on Keats’s death written by Shelley.

31.     Hellenism is the characteristic of Keats’s poetry.

32.     Shelley said that Keats was Greek.

33.     Arnold compared Keats with Shakespeare as respect of compressing vast images into precise expressions.

34.     Keats said, ‘My name is writ in water.’

35.     The Novels of Walter Scot deal with scenes of Scotland.

36.     The phrase ‘Waverly Novels’ is associated with Walter Scott.

37.     The post of Poet Laureate went to Robert Southey because of refusal of Walter Scott.

38.     The word ‘Elia’ is associated with Charles Lamb.

39.     The Reform Bill was passed in 1832.

40.     John G, Lockhart is the author of ‘Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott.

41.     Shelley’s The Defence of Poetry of was written in response to The Four Ages of Poetry of Peacock.

42.     Arnold said about Wordsworth as: His Poetry is the reality, his philosophy…….is the illusion.

43.     Shelley was expelled from the University College, Oxford because of his Necessity of Atheism.

44.     Shelley died by drowning himself.

45.     The Oxford Movement which was led by the teachers of Oxford University was essentially a Religious Movement.

46.     Darwin’s the Origin of Species by Natural Selection appeared in 1859.

47.     The Second Reform Bill which extended the Franchise was in 1867.

48.     Cardinal Newman, John Kable and John Henry Newman were associated with the Oxford Movement.

49.     George Eliot’s Romola is a Historical Novel.

50.     Vanity Fair is a novel without a Hero.

51.     Hardy who created ‘Wesses’ is known as ‘Regional Novelist.’

52.     The Mystry of Edwin Drood is Dickens’s unfinished novel.

53.     “For the men may come and men may go.” These lines occur in the Brooke.

54.     Willkie Collins is a Detective Novelist.

55.     The Phrase “Stormy Sisterhood” is associated with three sisters Charlotte Bronte, Emile Bronte and Anne Bronte.

56.     Mary Evans is the real name of George Eliot.

57.     George Eliot was a Moral Novelist.

58.     ‘Order of Merits’ was the reward given to Thomas Hardy.

59.     Hardy believed in the philosophy of immanent will.

60.     Alfred Tennyson’s In Memoriam was written in the memory of Arthur Hallam.

61.     Browning dedicated his Men and Women to his wife.

62.     Walter Peter defined Romanticism as “addition of strangeness to beauty”.

63.     The term Pathetic Fallacy was coined by John Ruskin.

64.     A Grammarian’s Funeral was written by Robert Browning.

65.     The author of Prometheus Bound is Elizabeth Browning.

66.     The novel ‘No Name’ (1862) was written by Wrilkie Collins.

67.     E.M Forster was a critic who introduced the terms: a flat character and a round character.

68.     Jane Austen is called an anit-romantic novelist in the Romantic Age.

69.     Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was written in 1797.

70.     Austen’s Emma was written in 1816.

71.     Lord Byron’s Don Juan was written in 1824.

72.     Lord Byron is called National poet of Greece.

73.     P.B Shelley wrote Edonias, an elegy, on death of his friend John Keats.

74.     The period of twelve years, from 1848-1860, from Victorian Age is called the Age of Pre-Raphaelites.

75.     The last two decades (1880-1901) of the Victorian period are called the Age of Aestheticism.

76.     Charles Darwin’s ‘the Origin of Species’ was published in 1859.

77.     The real name of George Eliot is Mary Ann Evans.

78.     God made the country and man made the town. William Cowper

79.     My love is like a Red Red Rose. Robert Burns

80.     Pity would be no more if we did not make somebody poor…            William Blake

81.     Hell is a city much like London. Shelley.

82.     Man is born free but he is everywhere in chains.         Rousseau

83.     The world is too much with us, late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. Wordsworth.

84.     Language really used by man, should be the language of poetry.                   Wordsworth

85.     O Lady! We receive but what we give, and in our life alone does nature live.           Coleridge

86.     I woke on morning and found myself great.    Lord Byron

87.     For thy sake, tobacco, I would do anything but die. Charles Lamb

88.     A thing of beauty is joy forever.  John Keats

89.     Beauty is truth and truth beauty. John Keats

90.     I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I may say so.                  Coleridge 

91.     It is strange…… but true; for truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.   Byron

92.     If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.     Voltaire

93.     That the happiness was but the occasional episode in the general drama of pain. Thomas Hardy 

 

 

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