Caedmon---he is the first known religious poet of England. He is known as the father of English songs. His life story is vividly described in Bede’s The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. His first poem is The Hymn of Praise. He composed many other poems by using the biblical material.Alfred the Great---king of Wessex kingdom. He is another important figure in prose writing of Anglo-Saxon period. He was a well-known translator. He translated some important Latin works into English, among which, the most important is The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. This book records the main happenings of the Anglo-Saxon period. It is the best monument of the Old English prose. Beowulf---It is the oldest poem in the English language. It is the most important specimen of Anglo-Saxon literature, and also the oldest surviving epic in the English language. It consists of more than 3,000 lines. It had been passed form mouth to mouth for hundreds off years before it was written down in the 10th century or at the end of the 9th century. The main stories in the poem are based on the folk legends of the primitive northern tribes. Writing Features---1) It is not a Christian but a pagan poem, despite the Christian flavor given to it by the monastery scribe who wrote it down. It is the product of an advanced pagan civilization. The whole poem presents to us an all-round picture of the tribal society. The social conditions and customs can be clearly seen in the poem. It helps us a lot when we study the primitive society off Europe. So the poem has a great social significance. 2) The use of strong stresses and the predominance of consonants are notable in the poetical lines. Each line is divided into two halves, and each half is made to have two heavy stresses. 3) The use of alliteration is another notable feature of the poem. Three stressed syllables of each line are arranged in alliteration, which makes the whole line even more emphatic.4) A lot of metaphors and understatements are used in the poem.Romance----The romance was the prevailing literary form in the medieval period. It was a long composition, sometimes in verse and sometimes in prose, which described the life and adventures of a noble hero. Its essential features are the following: 1) It lacks general resemblance to truth or reality. 2) It exaggerates the vices of human nature and idealises the virtues. 3) It contains perilous adventures more or less remote from ordinary life. 4) It lays emphasis on supreme devotion to a fair lady. 5) The central character of the romance is the knight who is commonly described as riding forth to seek adventures, or taking part in tournaments, or fighting for his lord in battle. He is devoted to the church and the king. The romance, as a literary genre, prospered for about 300 years (1200-1500). It was written for the upper class, so it had little to do with the common people. Romance cycles: the matter of Britain, the matter of Rome, the matter of France. The master works of romance is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.The Norman conquest----In October 1066, the Duke of Normandy William the Great led the Norman army to attack England. The two armies met and fought at Hastings. Finally the English army was defeated. William and his men marched speedily into London and William became the king of England. Its consequences---William the Conqueror confiscated almost all the land and gave it to his Norman followers. He replaced the weak Saxon rule with a strong Norman government. So the feudal system was completely established in England. After the Norman conquest, chivalry was introduced into England. The knightly code, the romantic interest in women, tenderness and reverence paid to Virgin Mary were reflected in the literature of that period. English language was made a despised thing as the leading language used by the ruling class and a large number of French words entered the English language. Latin was used by the scholars and clergymen. Three languages existed in England then.William Langland ------his masterpiece is Piers Plowman. Artistic Features of the poem---1) It is written in the form of a dream vision. The author tells the stories under the guise of having dreamed them. 2) The poem is an allegory that relates truth through symbolism. 3) The poet uses indignant satire in his description of social abuses caused by corruption prevailing among the ruling classes, ecclesiastical and secular. 4) The poem is written in alliteration. Social Significance of Piers Plowman----Piers Plowman, the hero of the story, is not a representative of the poor peasants. He is one of the well-to-do peasants. He has no intention of upsetting the feudal order of society, and he accepts the existing social relations. This is the limitation of the poem. In spite of that, Piers Plowman remains a classic in popular literature. It praises the poor peasants, and condemns and exposes the sins of the oppressors. It was very popular in the 14th and 15th centuries. It played an important part in arousing the revolutionary sentiment on the eve of the uprising of 1381 headed by Wat Tyler and John Ball. It gives us a realistic social picture of medieval England. Geoffrey Chaucer-------He is acclaimed not only as the father of English poetry but also as the father of English fiction. His literary career can be divided in to three periods. 1) The first period, about 30 years, including his youth and early manhood, is the period of French influence. In this period, he translated The Romaunt of the Rose, the most popular poem of Middle Ages, from French into English. 2) The second period, about 15 years, covers Chaucer’s active life as a diplomat and man of affairs. In this period, Italian influence seemed to be stronger than the French. The major works were adaptations from Italian writers in this period. His masterwork is Troilus and Criseyde. 3) The third period, covering his last 15 years, is generally known as the English period. His masterpiece is The Canterbury Tales. In this great work, the author gives his reader a picture of English society in Middle Ages. Features of Chaucer’s writing-----Chaucer’s language is vivid and exact. His style is flexible. His prose is easy and informal. He uses mild satire when he deals with people’s foibles and weaknesses. He uses rhyming couplet, which he introduced from France, in writing his major poems. He is the first great writer to use the dialect of London in writing. The social significance of Canterbury Tales----- In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer draws a true-to-life picture of English feudal society of his day. Taking the stand of the rising bourgeoisie, he affirms man’s right to pursue happiness and opposes the dogma of asceticism preached by the church. As one of the forerunners of humanism, he praises man’s energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life. His tales expose and satirise the social evils of his day. They criticize the degeneration of the noble, the heartlessness of the judge, and the corruption of the church.Popular Ballads----popular ballads are originally dance songs. They are little stories in verse form, which can be sung or recited by the common people. The origin of the English and Scottish ballads is obscure. Usually they are anonymous, and are handed down orally for many generations. They are simple and crude in story and highly condensed and dramatic in presentation. In the 15th century, there were several kinds of ballads: historical, legendary, fantastical, lyrical and humorous. Popular ballads were found all over Europe in that period, but a particularly fertile soil was the border area between England and Scotland, for once many bloody battles were fought between the English and Scots there, such as Robin Hood.Morality play----It is an allegory in dramatic form. It is a dramatization of the battle between the forces of good and evil in the human soul. A well-known example is Everyman.Renaissance -------The original meaning of the word “renaissance” was the “rebirth’ of classical Greek and Latin literature. The term is commonly applied to the historical period which followed the Middle Ages. Renaissance period was thought to be in contrast with the Middle Ages, whichwas considered and inhibited by dogmatic theology. Renaissance was extolled as learned, civilized, broad-minded, progressive, enlightened and free-thinking. Italy is customarily taken as the starting place of Renaissance. Later, the movement spread northward to other European countries—to France, to Germany, to the Low Countries, and lastly to England. English Renaissance started in the late 15th century or the early 16th century. In Renaissance period, great achievements were made by painters, writers, sculptors, architects, scientists, philosophers and astronomers. The famous writers in this period are: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio in Italy; Erasmus in the Netherlands; Montaigne, Rabelais and the poets of the Pleiad in France; Lope de Vega and Cervantes in Spain; Sir Thomas More, Thomas Wyatt, Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney, Shakespeare and Francis Bacon in England.Sir Philip Sidney------He is known for three principal works. 1) Arcadia----It is a long prose-verse pastoral romance, written for the entertainment of Sidney’s sister. In this romance, the poet praises the delights of rural life and the love of the young people, and expresses his aspiration for a peaceful and happy life. 2) Astrophel and Stella-----This work is a collection of songs and sonnets. It consists of 108 sonnets and 11 songs. 3) An Apology for Poetry---It is one of the earliest English critical literary essays. It was written to answer a pamphlet called The School of Abuse, an attack on poetry and drama.University wits: a name given to a group of writers who flourished in London in the last 20 years or so of the 16th century. All of members of this group were oxford or Cambridge university graduates, the most notable of them were: Marlowe, Nash, Greene, Lyly, Lodge and Peele. They were famous for writing comedies and tragedies.Edmund Spenser: He is often referred to as “the poets’poet”because of his influence on later poets is considerable. He is generally acknowledged to be the greatest non-dramatic poet of the Elizabethan age. Major work: The Shepherd’s Calendar pastoral poem in twelve books, one for each month a year. The Shepherd in the poem represent the poet and his friends. It is Spenser’s first important poem, which consists of 12 eclogues and is written in different metres. All 12 eclogues, with the exception of the first and the last, are in dialogue form. The theme of love is the dominant one. And the more significant eclogues are those on the theme of religion. The poem demonstrates Spenser’s skilful mastery of a variety of meters and his innovative efforts also showed that the traditional form of pastoral could be adapted to a variety of subjects, moral or heroic. The Faerie Queen is a long poem planned in 12 books, of which he finished only 6. The work was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. The plan of the whole poem is a stranger in distress appears, claiming help against a dragon or giant. A knight is assigned to each guest, and the 12 books were to describe the 12 adventures of 12 knights who stand for 12 different virtues, as Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice and Courtesy. The dominating thoughts of the poem are nationalism, humanism and Puritanism. For The Faerie Queen, Spenser originated a nine-line verse stanza. The verse has 8 iambic pentameter lines followed by a 9th line of 6 iambic feet, with the rhyme scheme abab bcbc c. This verse, the “Spenserian Stanze” is justly famous and has often been used since. (characteristics of Spenser’s poetry:1.a perfect melody. 2. a rare sense of beauty.3.a splendid imagination.4.a lofty moral purity and seriousness.5.a dedicated idealism. In addition to above, Spenser uses strange forms of speech and obsolete words in order to increase his rustic effect.) William Shakespeare The second period: he wrote four histories: RichardⅡ, Henry Ⅳ,par tⅠ＆Ⅱ,and Henryⅴ;6 comedies: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night and The Merry Wives ofWindsor, and two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. It is a period of “great Comedies” and mature historical plays. The general spirit of this period is optimism. Meantime, there is sorrow, there is pathos and there is sin; the innocent may suffer, the guilty may go unpunished for a time, and even find good fortune; but virtue, nevertheless, shall have its reward and triumph in the end, and the wrong shall disappear before the force of good. In the historical plays of this period, different phases of English life are shown before us: kings and princes, statesmen and courtiers, the rich citizen life and the life of the tavern, and the adventures of rogues and cheats, as a whole, this period is Shakespeare’s sweet and joyful time, in which he succeeds in portraying a magnificent panorama of the manifold pursuits of people in real life.(great tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth great comedies: As you like it, Twelfth night, A mid-summer night’s dream, Merchant of Venice ) Features of Shakespeare’s Dramatic Works--- 1) Shakespeare is a realist. He is one of the founders of realism in English literature. His plays are mirrors of his age, reflecting the major contradictions of that time. He described the decaying of the feudal society and the rising of the bourgeois spirit. 2) In his plays, Shakespeare also clearly reflected the contradictions between the rich and the poor. He showed his sympathy to the poor people and disclosed the greed and cruelty of the upper class. 3) The story of Shakespeare’s plays often took place in other countries or in the past instead of in England or in his own age. 4) Shakespeare’s main characters are depicted in typical situations. They are typical characters. Their fundamental traits are revealed their conflicts with their surroundings, in their relations with they fellowmen. 5) Shakespeare’s dramatic form fits the content of his plays very well. His plays are not controlled by the rules of the classical unities of time, place and action. A plays covers several days or years. 6) In order to reproduce the manifold images of life, Shakespeare used peculiar combination in his drama: combination of majestic and funny, of poetic and prosaic, of tragic and comic. 7) Shakespeare was a great master of English language. The language of each of his characters fits his position in society and reveals the peculiarities of his character. He commanded a vocabulary larger than any other English writer. 8) Shakespeare is also a great poet. He was skilled in many poetic forms. He could write songs, lyrics, sonnets, couplets, quatrains, and blank verse. Influence------ 1) He is a universal poet. His genius includes all the world of nature and of man. He has been given the highest praise by various scholars and critics all over the world. 2) Shakespeare’s plays have been so widely read and so carefully studied that all English writers of any importance cannot escape form Shakespeare’s influence, either directly or indirectly, either in thought, content, or in poetic form or language. Moreover, he has been known all the world and his works have been translated into many different languages and consequently exerted great influences upon many writers in many countries. 3) As a great artist, Shakespeare was more than the supreme representative of a great era. Ben Jonson’s famous observation that “he was not of an age, but for all time” has stood the test of more than three centuries.Restoration comedy: the kind of drama which prevailed between the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660 and early 18th century. It was chiefly concerned with presenting a society of elegance and stylishness. Its characters were gallants, ladies and gentlemen of fashion and rank, fops, rakes, social climbers and country bumpkins. Witty, urbane and sometimes licentious, it dealt with the intricacies of sexual and marital intrigue and also with adultery and cuckoldry. Wycherley’s The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer; and Congreve’s The Double Dealer and The Way of the World are example.Francis Bacon------ When Bacon published in 1597 his first collection of short Essays, he became the first English “essayist”. His “scientific” style introduced to England a form of writing that was easy to understand, precise in language and diversified in topics. Bacon wrote prose in an age of poetry, when men around him were composing songs, sonnets and plays in verse, his pioneering efforts made essay writing a popular form in England.Bacon’s works-----1) the philosophical works: The Advancement of Learning (In this work, it deals with the accomplishments of science up to his time.) The New Instrument (Bacon describes the method by which knowledge could be universalized,) 2) the literary works of Bacon are his essays. They are noted for their style and striking observations of life. They are the first true English prose classics. 3) the professional works: Essays (among these essays the famous pieces are Of Study, Of Travel, and Of Wisdom) Generally speaking, Bacon’s literary style has three prominent qualities: directness, terseness and forcefulness.。