Ms. Fatima Salman

University of Nizwa

College of Arts and Sciences

Department of Foreign Languages

ENGL160:

British Civilization and Literature 1

Compiled by:

Ms. Fatima Salman

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INTRODUCTION:

Basic questions about Literature

What is literature, anyway? Why study literature?

How do you study literature?

Is there literature that's worth studying and literature that isn't? How do we make the distinction?

How does one critically think about and read literature?

What is literature?

Literature is literally “acquaintance with letters” (Latin littera meaning “an individual written character/letter”). The term has come to identify a collection of texts. As a proper noun it refers to a whole body of literary work

We are concerned more with imaginative or creative writing. The kind of writing that is not real.

A text is a creation of the poet/author/dramatist available to an audience and meant to create an impact – intellectual and emotional

Words are the literary artist’s tools. Literature is verbal art.

Why study literature?

We study literature because it enriches us; for wisdom, for entertainment, for an understanding of diverse human experiences.

We study literature because it is profound, beautiful and moving.

We study literature because it is an excellent way to sharpen your close reading skills, enable critical thinking, and refine our general sense of art appreciation.

How do we study literature?

There are many critical ways to approach a text including the formalist, biographical, historical, textual, psychological, mythological, sociological, deconstructionist, feminist, or reader-response, semiotic etc.

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Formalist critics focus on the formal elements of a text. They examine the relationship between form and meaning, emphasizing how a work is arranged. This kind of close reading pays special attention to diction, figures of speech, plot, characterization, narrative technique, rhyme schemes, metre etc. Formalists look at how these elements work together to give shape to a work while contributing to its meaning. Information that goes beyond the text - biography, history, politics, economics, and so on - are regarded as extrinsic.

Theories of literature

Imitative theory

Aristotle (384-322BC Poetics), mimesis, recreation, representation; art refines nature, learn about nature

Expressive Theory

Artist expresses his/her feelings

Affective theory

Work of art arouses emotion in / affects the reader

Critically thinking about and reading literature

ANALYZE: What does the passage mean, literally? INTERPRET: What does it mean figuratively? How do you read it and what

suggests that this is a valid interpretation?

QUESTION: What problems are suggested by the reading? What philosophical question(s) does the reading inspire?

SYNTHESIZE: How does this reading compare or contrast in content/form with what you've read before?

EVALUATE: The writing. What criteria do you use to establish this judgment? What defines a first rate poem, play, story etc?

Old English Literature/ background:

English literature is divided into three stages:

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1- Old English literure from the 8th century -1100 or 10662- Middle English literature from 1100 or 1066- 1500

3- Modern English literatue 1500- now

“England” as a word is derived from a name of a tribe. The major powers that dominated the area were the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. The three tribes invaded Britain, and the original inhabitants “Celtics” ran away to Wales.

By the year 450 A.D., Britain was filled with the Germanic people, and the Angles and the Saxons became very powerful, while the Jutes became weak.

Old English was a form of a Germanic language, it took the form of a synthetic language, i.e. it can express more than one function at the same time, for example, “a” at the end of a word means the possessive of the plural.

Religion:

The people were pagan; they influenced the Christians in the use of the word “Lord” for God.

Between 450-597 A.D., the Anglo-Saxons converted gradually to Christianity. The image of God in their minds was that He is meek, mild, and humble; however, this belief changed later as people started to see God as a very powerful being.

Christianity is based on the idea of the original sins of Adam and Eve, the concept of Salvation, Jesus crucifixion.

They believe that Jesus Christ begged God to allow him to come to earth and to be killed for Adam’s sins so as to make everyone responsible for his own sins rather than for Adam’s sins.

Society:

The Anglo-Saxon tribal man was expected to be strong and brave. The Comitatus, a body of companions; a retinue of warriors attached to a king

or chieftain consisted of the close, closer, and the closest followers of the leader or the chieftain man.

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The Comitatus contained the lord (i.e. the leader or the king) and his retainers. The retainers were expected to protect their king, and to avenge him if he was killed. They had to fight with him until they die. They were expected to be strong, brave, skillful and faithful. The greatest agony for an Anglo-Saxon man was not belonging to a tribe or a Comitatus.

On the other hand, the lord must be strong, brave, and skillful in fighting. He was called “ring-giver” or “protector of the people” because he was generous and brave.

The relationship between the lord and his followers must be mutual. They had to fight with him while he had to be generous with them

The stronger the Comitatus was the richer the king or the lord would be.

The Comitatus would meet at the Hall where they would plan for wars, drink and talk.

The hall indicated the power and the pride of the society which emphasized the values of heroism.

The Wanderer 

An abridged version  

Translated from the Anglo-Saxon 

The Seafarer

Oft I alone must 8Utter my sadness,Each day before dawn.Living there’s none,No man, to whom I’d clearly speak My innermost mind.I know amongMen the custom 12Truly is noble,

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That a man his Thoughts fast bind,Hiding his mind-hoard,Whatever he thinks.For weary spirit may notWithstand fate’s ways,Nor does a sad heart 16Offer men aid.Thus oft the glory-boundBind fast theirDrear thoughtsIn their own breast.So I, wandering,Bereft of my homeland,Far from my kinsmen, 20Oft in wretchedness,My innermost feelingsAm forced to fetter,Over these long yearsSince my lord I buriedDeep in the dark earth,And from there, dully,Went winter-freighted 24Over the icy waves,Seeking, hall-bereft,Some giver of treasure;Where I, far or near,Might find oneIn mead-hall, whoKnew my own clan,Or might console me, 28I, the friendless one,Win with his welcome.He who suffers itKnows how sorrowMakes cruel companionTo one who goes lightOf all loving friends.Wandering wreathes him 32Not the winding gold,A frozen spirit, now,

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Not the fruits of earth.Halls of the warriorsHe recalls, gold-giving:How in youth his lord,Ever treasure’s friend, Won him to wining. 36Dead now all joyfulness!

Thus he suffers it,Who the true counselOf his own dear lordHas long time forgone:Then sleep and sorrow,Working together,Often will bind 40The lonely sufferer.He thinks there in mind,That he his own lordClasps there and kisses,And to his kneesPresses hand and head,As when once beforeIn times gone by, 44He held the throne.Then he awakens,A friendless man,Seas before himThe barren waves,Sea-birds bathingPreening their feathers,In rime and snow fall, 48And hail there mingling.Then are they heavierWounds of heartSore for its lord. Sorrow succeedsWhen mind surveysMemories of kinsmen:He greets them gladly, 52Scans them eagerly,A man’s companions,

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Swimming ever away,Seafaring spirits,Bringing him littleOf their human speech.The care is renewedOf he who must send 56Time after timeHis weary heartOut over wave’s ply.

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Truly I know notWhy my spiritFails to darkenSeeing the whole Earthly life of men 60All the world over,How swiftly theyFlee the stage,The proud nobles.So this middle-earthDay by dayDecays and falls:So no man can call 64Himself wise, ere he’s agedA deal of years in this world. The wise must be patient,Not too impulsive,Not too hasty of word,Nor too weak a warrior,Nor too recklessly wild,Nor too fearful, too hopeful, 68Nor too greedy for gifts,Nor too ready to boast,Before he knows clearly. A man shall abideBefore he speaks oaths,Until proud-heartedHe sees clearlyWhere the intent 72Of his heart will tend.The wise man must see,How all will be ghastly,When all the weal of thisWorld lies wasted,As now here and thereOver this middle-earth,Wind-beaten 76The walls standRime be-frosted,Buildings storm-swept.The halls are broken,

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Warrior lords lieBereft of delight.Fallen the throng,Proud by the wall. 80Some war wasted,Ferried on their way,Him the bird tookBeyond the deep seas,Him the grey wolfGarnered for death,Him all drearyMan hid in an 84Earthly grave.So He who made menShattered the city,Till empty of sound,Its citizens silentThe old work of giantsStood empty.One who in wisdom 88Pondered this estate,And of this dark lifeConsidered deeplyKnowing in spirit,Oft thought from afarOf countless conflicts,Speaking these words:Where is the horse now? Where is the rider? 92Where is the gold-giver?Where is the seat at the gathering?Where now are the feasts in the halls?Alas for the gleaming cup!Alas the mailed warrior!Alas for the prince’s pride!How that age has passed,Dark under night-helm, 96As though it never were!Now there stands at lastWhere were the dear host,A wall wondrous highWound with serpents.

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The warriors were takenBy the spear’s glory,Weapons ripe for kill, 100Fame of the fated;These cliffs of stoneStorms batter,Falling frostEarth fetters,Promise of winter;Then comes darkness,Night-shadows deepen, 104From the north descendsFierce hail,Malicious to men.All is sorrowfulIn this earthly realm,The wheel of fate altersWorld under heavens.Here be gold fleeting, 108Here be friend fleeting,Here be man fleeting,Here be kin fleeting,All this Earth’s estate,Idle, is wasted!

The WandererCommentsDate and form

The poem may predate the manuscript by hundreds of years. Some scholars believe that the poem was composed around the time the Anglo-Saxons were making the conversion to Christianity, sometime around 597, though others would date it as much as several centuries later.

The meter of the poem is of four-stress lines, divided between the second and third stresses by a caesura. Like most Old English poetry, it is written in alliterative metre.

Contents

The Wanderer conveys the meditations of a solitary exile on his past glories as a warrior in his lord's band of retainers, his present hardships and the values of forbearance and faith in

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the heavenly Lord. The warrior is identified as eardstapa (line 6a), usually translated as "wanderer", who roams the cold seas and walks "paths of exile" (wræclastas). He remembers the days when he served his lord, feasted together with comrades, and received precious gifts from the lord. Yet fate (wyrd) turned against him when he lost his lord, kinsmen and comrades in battle and was driven into exile.

However, the speaker reflects upon life while spending years in exile, and to some extent has gone beyond his personal sorrow. In this respect, the poem is a "wisdom poem." The degeneration of “earthly glory” is presented as inevitable in the poem, contrasting with the theme of salvation through faith in God.

The wanderer vividly describes his loneliness and yearning for the bright days past, and concludes with an admonition to put faith in God, "in whom all stability dwells". It has been argued by some scholars that this admonition is a later addition, as it lies at the end of a poem that some would say is otherwise entirely secular in its concerns; but inasmuch as many of the words in the poem have both secular and spiritual or religious meanings, the foundation of this argument is not on firm ground.

The psychological or spiritual progress of the wanderer has been described as an "act of courage of one sitting alone in meditation", who through embracing the values of Christianity seeks "a meaning beyond the temporary and transitory meaning of earthly values".[1]

Themes and meaning

The Wanderer is possibly the most debated Old English poem in terms of its meaning, origin, and even the translation of various ambiguous words.

Three notable elements of the poem are the use of the "beasts of battle" motif,[2] the ubi sunt formula, and the siþ-motif.

The "beasts of battle" motif is here modified to include not only the standard eagle, raven and wolf, but also a "sad-faced man". It has been suggested that this is the poem's protagonist. The ubi sunt or "where is" formula is here in the form "hwær cwom", the Old English phrase "where has gone". The use of this emphasises the sense of loss that pervades the poem.

The preoccupation with the siþ-motif in Anglo-Saxon literature is matched in many post-Conquest texts where journeying is central to the text. A necessarily brief survey of the corpus might include Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and William Golding's Rites of Passage. Not only do we find physical

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journeying within The Wanderer and those later texts, but a sense in which the journey is responsible for a visible transformation in the mind of the character making the journey

The Middle AgesThe Middle Ages is like no other period in The Norton Anthology of English

Literature in terms of the time span it covers. Caedmon's Hymn, the earliest English

poem to survive as a text (NAEL 8, 1.25-27), belongs to the latter part of the seventh

century. The morality play, Everyman, is dated "after 1485" and probably belongs to

the early-sixteenth century. In addition, for the Middle Ages, there is no one central

movement or event such as the English Reformation, the Civil War, or the

Restoration around which to organize a historical approach to the period.

When did "English Literature" begin? Any answer to that question must be

problematic, for the very concept of English literature is a construction of literary

history, a concept that changed over time. There are no "English" characters in

Beowulf, and English scholars and authors had no knowledge of the poem before it

was discovered and edited in the nineteenth century. Although written in the

language called "Anglo-Saxon," the poem was claimed by Danish and German

scholars as their earliest national epic before it came to be thought of as an "Old

English" poem. One of the results of the Norman Conquest was that the structure

and vocabulary of the English language changed to such an extent that Chaucer,

even if he had come across a manuscript of Old English poetry, would have

experienced far more difficulty construing the language than with medieval Latin,

French, or Italian. If a King Arthur had actually lived, he would have spoken a Celtic

language possibly still intelligible to native speakers of Middle Welsh but not to

Middle English speakers.

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The literary culture of the Middle Ages was far more international than national and

was divided more by lines of class and audience than by language. Latin was the

language of the Church and of learning. After the eleventh century, French became

the dominant language of secular European literary culture. Edward, the Prince of

Wales, who took the king of France prisoner at the battle of Poitiers in 1356, had

culturally more in common with his royal captive than with the common people of

England. And the legendary King Arthur was an international figure. Stories about

him and his knights originated in Celtic poems and tales and were adapted and

greatly expanded in Latin chronicles and French romances even before Arthur

became an English hero.

Chaucer was certainly familiar with poetry that had its roots in the Old English

period. He read popular romances in Middle English, most of which derive from

more sophisticated French and Italian sources. But when he began writing in the

1360s and 1370s, he turned directly to French and Italian models as well as to

classical poets (especially Ovid). English poets in the fifteenth and sixteenth

centuries looked upon Chaucer and his contemporary John Gower as founders of

English literature, as those who made English a language fit for cultivated readers.

In the Renaissance, Chaucer was referred to as the "English Homer." Spenser

called him the "well of English undefiled."

Nevertheless, Chaucer and his contemporaries Gower, William Langland, and the

Gawain poet — all writing in the latter third of the fourteenth century — are heirs to

classical and medieval cultures that had been evolving for many centuries. Cultures

is put in the plural deliberately, for there is a tendency, even on the part of

medievalists, to think of the Middle Ages as a single culture epitomized by the Great

Gothic cathedrals in which architecture, art, music, and liturgy seem to join in

magnificent expressions of a unified faith — an approach one recent scholar has

referred to as "cathedralism." Such a view overlooks the diversity of medieval

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cultures and the social, political, religious, economic, and technological changes that

took place over this vastly long period.

The texts included here from "The Middle Ages" attempt to convey that diversity.

They date from the sixth to the late- fifteenth century. Eight were originally in Old

French, six in Latin, five in English, two in Old Saxon, two in Old Icelandic, and one

each in Catalan, Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic.

"The Linguistic and Literary Contexts of Beowulf" demonstrates the kinship of the

Anglo-Saxon poem with the versification and literature of other early branches of the

Germanic language group. An Anglo-Saxon poet who was writing an epic based on

the book of Genesis was able to insert into his work the episodes of the fall of the

angels and the fall of man that he adapted with relatively minor changes from an Old

Saxon poem thought to have been lost until a fragment from it was found late in the

nineteenth century in the Vatican Library. Germanic mythology and legend

preserved in Old Icelandic literature centuries later than Beowulf provide us with

better insights into stories known to the poet than anything in ancient Greek and

Roman epic poetry.

"Estates and Orders" samples ideas about medieval society and some of its

members and institutions. Particular attention is given to religious orders and to the

ascetic ideals that were supposed to rule the lives of men and women living in

religious communities (such as Chaucer's Prioress, Monk, and Friar, who honor

those rules more in the breach than in the observance) and anchorites (such as

Julian of Norwich) living apart. The Rule of Saint Benedict, written for a sixth-century

religious community, can serve the modern reader as a guidebook to the ideals and

daily practices of monastic life. The mutual influence of those ideals and new

aristocratic ideals of chivalry is evident in the selection from the Ancrene Riwle (Rule

for Anchoresses, NAEL 8, [1.157–159]) and The Book of the Order of Chivalry.

Though medieval social theory has little to say about women, women were

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sometimes treated satirically as if they constituted their own estate and profession in

rebellion against the divinely ordained rule of men. An outstanding instance is the

"Old Woman" from the Romance of the Rose, whom Chaucer reinvented as the

Wife of Bath. The tenth-century English Benedictine monk Aelfric gives one of the

earliest formulations of the theory of three estates — clergy, nobles, and

commoners — working harmoniously together. But the deep- seated resentment

between the upper and lower estates flared up dramatically in the Uprising of 1381

and is revealed by the slogans of the rebels, which are cited here in selections from

the chronicles of Henry Knighton and Thomas Walsingham, and by the attack of the

poet John Gower on the rebels in his Vox Clamantis. In the late-medieval genre of

estates satire, all three estates are portrayed as selfishly corrupting and disrupting a

mythical social order believed to have prevailed in a past happier age.

The selections under "Arthur and Gawain" trace how French writers in the twelfth

and thirteenth centuries transformed the Legendary Histories of Britain (NAEL 8 ,

1.117–128) into the narrative genre that we now call "romance." The works of

Chrétien de Troyes focus on the adventures of individual knights of the Round Table

and how those adventures impinge upon the cult of chivalry. Such adventures often

take the form of a quest to achieve honor or what Sir Thomas Malory often refers to

as "worship." But in romance the adventurous quest is often entangled, for better or

for worse, with personal fulfillment of love for a lady — achieving her love, protecting

her honor, and, in rare cases such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, resisting a

lady's advances. In the thirteenth century, clerics turned the sagas of Arthur and his

knights — especially Sir Lancelot — into immensely long prose romances that

disparaged worldly chivalry and the love of women and advocated spiritual chivalry

and sexual purity. These were the "French books" that Malory, as his editor and

printer William Caxton tells us, "abridged into English," and gave them the definitive

form from which Arthurian literature has survived in poetry, prose, art, and film into

modern times.

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"The First Crusade," launched in 1096, was the first in a series of holy wars that

profoundly affected the ideology and culture of Christian Europe. Preached by Pope

Urban II, the aim of the crusade was to unite warring Christian factions in the

common goal of liberating the Holy Land from its Moslem rulers. The chronicle of

Robert the Monk is one of several versions of Urban's address. The Hebrew

chronicle of Eliezer bar Nathan gives a moving account of attacks made by some of

the crusaders on Jewish communities in the Rhineland — the beginnings of the

persecution of European Jews in the later Middle Ages. In the biography of her

father, the Byzantine emperor Alexius I, the princess Anna Comnena provides us

with still another perspective of the leaders of the First Crusade whom she met on

their passage through Constantinople en route to the Holy Land. The taking of

Jerusalem by the crusaders came to be celebrated by European writers of history

and epic poetry as one of the greatest heroic achievements of all times. The

accounts by the Arab historian Ibn Al-Athir and by William of Tyre tell us what

happened after the crusaders breached the walls of Jerusalem from complementary

but very different points of view.

The Canterbury Tales

 GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1342 - 1400) 

General Prologue: Introduction

 Whan that Aprill with his shoures sote°The droghte° of Marche hath perced to the rote,°And bathed every veyne° in swich licour,°Of which vertu° engendred is the flour;Whan Zephirus° eek with his swete breethInspired° hath in every holt° and heeth°The tendre croppes,° and the yonge

  sweet showersdryness / root

vein / such moistureBy power of which

the west windBreathed into / wood / heath

sproutsRam y-ronne1

birdseye(s)

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sonneHath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne;1

And smale fowles° maken melodye,That slepen al the night with open yë°—So priketh hem Nature in hir corages2—Than longen° folk to goon° on pilgrimages,And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,3

To ferne halwes,° couthe° in sondry londes;And specially, from every shires endeOf Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,The holy blisful martir4 for to seke,°That hem hath holpen,° whan that they were seke.°

     Bifel° that, in that seson on a day,In Southwerk at the Tabard° as I lay°Redy to wenden° on my pilgrimageTo Caunterbury with ful devout corage,°At night was come into that hostelrye°Wel nyne and twenty in a companye,Of sondry folk, by aventure° y-falle°In felaweshipe, and pilgrims were they alle,That toward Caunterbury wolden° ryde.The chambres° and the stables weren wyde,°And wel we weren esed° atte beste.°And shortly, whan the sonne was to° reste,So hadde I spoken with hem everichon°That I was of hir felawshipe anon,And made forward° erly for to ryse,To take oure wey, ther as I yow devyse.°

     But natheles,° whyl I have tyme and space,Er that I ferther in this tale pace,°

Nature corages2

Then long / goAnd strondes3

far-off shires /known

seekhelped / sick

It befell(an inn) / lodged

departheart

inn

chance / fallen

wished tobedrooms / spacious

made comfortable / in the best (ways)

ateach and every one

agreement(will) tell

neverthelesspass on

seemed to mewhat / status

clothingwill

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Me thinketh it acordaunt to resoun5

To telle yow al the condicioun6

Of ech of hem, so as it semed me,°And whiche° they weren, and of what degree,°And eek in what array° that they were inne;And at a knight than wol° I first biginne.

Fragment I, lines 1–42

Summary Whan that Aprill with his shoures sooteThe droghte of March hath perced to the roote . . .

The narrator opens the General Prologue with a description of the return of spring. He describes the April rains, the burgeoning flowers and leaves, and the chirping birds. Around this time of year, the narrator says, people begin to feel the desire to go on a pilgrimage. Many devout English pilgrims set off to visit shrines in distant holy lands, but even more choose to travel to Canterbury to visit the relics of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, where they thank the martyr for having helped them when they were in need. The narrator tells us that as he prepared to go on such a pilgrimage, staying at a tavern in

1. Has run his half-course in the Ram; i.e., has passed through half the zodiacal sign of Aries (the Ram), a course completed on April 11.  A rhetorically decorative way of indicating the time of year.

2. Nature so spurs them in their hearts. 3. And pilgrims to seek foreign shores. 4. Thomas Becket, archbishop of

Canterbury, murdered in 1170 and canonized shortly thereafter.  The place of his martyrdom was the greatest shrine in England and much visited by pilgrims.

5. It seems to me reasonable (proper). 6. Character, estate, condition.

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Southwark called the Tabard Inn, a great company of twenty-nine travelers entered. The travelers were a diverse group who, like the narrator, were on their way to Canterbury. They happily agreed to let him join them. That night, the group slept at the Tabard, and woke up early the next morning to set off on their journey. Before continuing the tale, the narrator declares his intent to list and describe each of the members of the group. 

AnalysisThe invocation of spring with which the General Prologue begins is lengthy and formal compared to the language of the rest of the Prologue. The first lines situate the story in a particular time and place, but the speaker does this in cosmic and cyclical terms, celebrating the vitality and richness of spring. This approach gives the opening lines a dreamy, timeless, unfocused quality, and it is therefore surprising when the narrator reveals that he's going to describe a pilgrimage that he himself took rather than telling a love story. A pilgrimage is a religious journey undertaken for penance and grace. As pilgrimages went, Canterbury was not a very difficult destination for an English person to reach. It was, therefore, very popular in fourteenth-century England, as the narrator mentions. Pilgrims traveled to visit the remains of Saint Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered in 1170 by knights of King Henry II. Soon after his death, he became the most popular saint in England. The pilgrimage in The Canterbury Tales should not be thought of as an entirely solemn occasion, because it also offered the pilgrims an opportunity to abandon work and take a vacation. At line 20, the narrator abandons his unfocused, all-knowing point of view, identifying himself as an actual person for the first time by inserting the first person—“I”—as he relates how he met the group of pilgrims while staying at the Tabard Inn. He emphasizes that this group, which he encountered by accident, was itself formed quite by chance (25–26). He then shifts into the first-person plural, referring to the pilgrims as “we” beginning in line 29, asserting his status as a member of the group. The narrator ends the introductory portion of his prologue by noting that he has “tyme and space” to tell his narrative. His comments underscore the fact that he is writing some time after the events of his story, and that he is describing the characters from memory. He has spoken and met with these people, but he has waited a certain length of time before sitting down and describing them. His intention to describe each pilgrim as they seemed to him is also important, for it emphasizes that his descriptions are not only subject to his memory but are also shaped by his individual perceptions and opinions regarding each of the characters. He positions himself as a mediator between two groups: the group of pilgrims of which he was a member and us, the audience, whom the narrator explicitly addresses as “you” in lines 34 and 38. On the other hand, the narrator's declaration that he will tell us about the “condicioun,” “degree,” and “array” (dress) of each of the pilgrims suggests that his portraits will be based on objective facts as well as his own opinions. He spends considerable time characterizing the group members according to their social positions. The pilgrims represent a diverse cross section of fourteenth-century English society. Medieval social theory divided society

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into three broad classes, called “estates”: the military, the clergy, and the laity. (The nobility, not represented in the General Prologue, traditionally derives its title and privileges from military duties and service, so it is considered part of the military estate.) In the portraits that we will see in the rest of the General Prologue, the Knight and Squire represent the military estate. The clergy is represented by the Prioress (and her nun and three priests), the Monk, the Friar, and the Parson. The other characters, from the wealthy Franklin to the poor Plowman, are the members of the laity. These lay characters can be further subdivided into landowners (the Franklin), professionals (the Clerk, the Man of Law, the Guildsmen, the Physician, and the Shipman), laborers (the Cook, the Plowman), stewards (the Miller, the Manciple, and the Reeve), and church officers (the Summoner and Pardoner). As we will see, Chaucer's descriptions of the various characters and their social roles reveal the influence of the medieval genre of estates satire.

THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE OF THE COCK AND HEN, CHANTICLEER AND PERTELOTE

A widow poor, somewhat advanced in age, Lived, on a time, within a small cottage Beside a grove and standing down a dale. This widow, now, of whom I tell my tale, Since that same day when she'd been last a wife Had led, with patience, her strait simple life, For she'd small goods and little income-rent; By husbanding of such as God had sent She kept herself and her young daughters twain. Three large sows had she, and no more, 'tis plain, Three cows and a lone sheep that she called Moll. Right sooty was her bedroom and her hall, Wherein she'd eaten many a slender meal. Of sharp sauce, why she needed no great deal, For dainty morsel never passed her throat; Her diet well accorded with her coat. Repletion never made this woman sick; A temperate diet was her whole physic, And exercise, and her heart's sustenance. The gout, it hindered her nowise to dance, Nor apoplexy spun within her head; And no wine drank she, either white or red; Her board was mostly garnished, white and black, With milk and brown bread, whereof she'd no lack, Broiled bacon and sometimes an egg or two, For a small dairy business did she do. A yard she had, enclosed all roundabout With pales, and there was a dry ditch without,

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And in the yard a cock called Chanticleer. In all the land, for crowing, he'd no peer. His voice was merrier than the organ gay On Mass days, which in church begins to play; More regular was his crowing in his lodge Than is a clock or abbey horologe. By instinct he'd marked each ascension down Of equinoctial value in that town; For when fifteen degrees had been ascended, Then crew he so it might not be amended. His comb was redder than a fine coral, And battlemented like a castle wall.

Summary: The Tale of the Nun's Priest A poor, elderly widow lives a simple life in a cottage with her two daughters. Her few possessions include three sows, three cows, a sheep, and some chickens. One chicken, her rooster, is named Chanticleer, which in French means “sings clearly.” True to his name, Chanticleer's “cock-a-doodle-doo” makes him the master of all roosters. He crows the hour more accurately than any church clock. His crest is redder than fine coral, his beak is black as jet, his nails whiter than lilies, and his feathers shine like burnished gold. Understandably, such an attractive cock would have to be the Don Juan of the barnyard. Chanticleer has many hen-wives, but he loves most truly a hen named Pertelote. She is as lovely as Chanticleer is magnificent. As Chanticleer, Pertelote, and all of Chanticleer's ancillary hen-wives are roosting one night, Chanticleer has a terrible nightmare about an orange houndlike beast who threatens to kill him while he is in the yard. Fearless Pertelote berates him for letting a dream get the better of him. She believes the dream to be the result of some physical malady, and she promises him that she will find some purgative herbs. She urges him once more not to dread something as fleeting and illusory as a dream. In order to convince her that his dream was important, he tells the stories of men who dreamed of murder and then discovered it. His point in telling these stories is to prove to Pertelote that “Mordre will out” (3052)—murder will reveal itself—even and especially in dreams. Chanticleer cites textual examples of famous dream interpretations to further support his thesis that dreams are portentous One day in May, Chanticleer has just declared his perfect happiness when a wave of sadness passes over him. That very night, a hungry fox stalks Chanticleer and his wives, watching their every move. The next day, Chanticleer notices the fox while watching a butterfly, and the fox confronts him with dissimulating courtesy, telling the rooster not to be afraid. Chanticleer relishes the fox's flattery of his singing. He beats his wings with pride, stands on his toes, stretches his neck, closes his eyes, and crows loudly. The fox reaches out and grabs Chanticleer by the throat, and then slinks away with him back toward the

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woods. No one is around to witness what has happened. Once Pertelote finds out what has happened, she burns her feathers with grief, and a great wail arises from the henhouse. The widow and her daughters hear the screeching and spy the fox running away with the rooster. The dogs follow, and pretty soon the whole barnyard joins in the hullabaloo. Chanticleer very cleverly suggests that the fox turn and boast to his pursuers. The fox opens his mouth to do so, and Chanticleer flies out of the fox's mouth and into a high tree. The fox tries to flatter the bird into coming down, but Chanticleer has learned his lesson. He tells the fox that flattery will work for him no more. The moral of the story, concludes the Nun's Priest, is never to trust a flatterer.

Middle English Lyrics

Middle English lyric is a genre of English Literature, popular in the 14th Century, that is

characterized by its brevity and emotional expression. Conventionally, the lyric expresses "a

moment," usually spoken or performed in the first person. Although some lyrics have

narratives, the plots are usually simple to emphasize an occasional, common experience.

Even though Lyrics appear individual and personal, they are not "original;" instead, lyrics

express a common state of mind. Middle English Lyrics were meant to be heard, not read.

Keeping in mind an aural audience, the lyric is usually structured with an obvious rhyme

scheme, refrain, and sometimes musical effects. The rhyme scheme primarily functions as a

mnemonic device for the audience. The Refrain, however, has several critical functions. The

Refrain gives the lyric unity and provides commentary (this is not unlike the bob and wheel

found in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight). In addition to functioning thematically, the

refrain encourages audience to participate in singing the lyric. Finally, Musical Effects also

encourage audience participation, and they take the form of rhythms and sounds (for

example, onomatopoeia is not an uncommon trope employed).

Most Middle English Lyrics are anonymous. Because the lyrics reflect on a sort of

"community property" of ideas, the concept of copyrighting a lyric to a particular author is

usually inappropriate. Additionally, identifying authors is very difficult. Most lyrics are often

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un-dateable, and they appear in collections with no apparent organic unity. It is most likely

many lyrics that survive today were widely recited in various forms before being written

down. Evidence for this appears in a variety of Middle English poetry, especially Geoffrey

Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Many of Chaucer's lines bear an uncanny resemblance to

Middle English Lyrics.

The Month of April.Livre d'heures à l'usage de Rome.

Rés B 496344, f. A3v-4.Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon.

Alison

5

Bitweene Merch and Averil,When spray biginneth to springe,The litel fowl hath hire wilOn hire leod to singe.

  in the seasons of

pleasureIn her language

Dionisio Minaggio, 1618.McGill University Library

Cuckoo Song[Brit. Lib. MS Harley 978, f. 11v]

5

10

Sumer is ycomen in,Loude sing cuckou!Groweth seed and bloweth meed,And springth the wode now.Sing cuckou!

Ewe bleteth after lamb,Loweth after calve cow,Bulloc sterteth, bucke verteth,Merye sing cuckou!Cuckou, cuckou,Wel singest thou cuckou:Ne swik thou never now!

 

meadow blossoms

wood

leaps/farts

cease

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10

15

20

25

30

35

Ich libbe in love-longingeFor semlokest of alle thinge.Heo may me blisse bringe:Ich am in hire baundoun.An hendy hap ich habbe yhent,Ichoot from hevene it is me sent:From alle wommen my love is lent,And light on Alisoun.

On hew hire heer is fair ynough,Hire browe browne, hire yën blake;With lossum cheere heo on me lough;With middel smal and wel ymake.But heo me wolle to hire takeFor to been hire owen make,Longe to liven ichulle forsake,And feye fallen adown.An hendy hap, etc.

Nightes when I wende and wake,Forthy mine wonges waxeth wan:Levedy, al for thine sakeLonginge is ylent me on.

I liveseemliest, fairest

shepower

A gracious chance I have receivedI know

all other/removedalights

hue/haireyes

With lovely face she on me smiled

UnlessmateI willdead

turntherefore/cheeks

ladyLonging has come upon me

16th Century Renaissance English Literature (1485-1603)General Characteristics of the Renaissance

      "Renaissance" literally means "rebirth." It refers especially to the rebirth of learning that

began in Italy in the fourteenth century, spread to the north, including England, by the

sixteenth century, and ended in the north in the mid-seventeenth century (earlier in Italy).

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During this period, there was an enormous renewal of interest in and study of classical

antiquity.

      Yet the Renaissance was more than a "rebirth." It was also an age of new discoveries,

both geographical (exploration of the New World) and intellectual. Both kinds of discovery

resulted in changes of tremendous import for Western civilization. In science, for example,

Copernicus (1473-1543) attempted to prove that the sun rather than the earth was at the

center of the planetary system, thus radically altering the cosmic world view that had

dominated antiquity and the Middle Ages. In religion, Martin Luther (1483-1546) challenged

and ultimately caused the division of one of the major institutions that had united Europe

throughout the Middle Ages--the Church. In fact, Renaissance thinkers often thought of

themselves as ushering in the modern age, as distinct from the ancient and medieval eras.

      Study of the Renaissance might well center on five interrelated issues. First, although

Renaissance thinkers often tried to associate themselves with classical antiquity and to

dissociate themselves from the Middle Ages, important continuities with their recent past,

such as belief in the Great Chain of Being, were still much in evidence. Second, during this

period, certain significant political changes were taking place. Third, some of the noblest

ideals of the period were best expressed by the movement known as Humanism. Fourth, and

connected to Humanist ideals, was the literary doctrine of "imitation," important for its ideas

about how literary works should be created. Finally, what later probably became an even

more far-reaching influence, both on literary creation and on modern life in general, was the

religious movement known as the Reformation.

      Renaissance thinkers strongly associated themselves with the values of classical

antiquity, particularly as expressed in the newly rediscovered classics of literature, history,

and moral philosophy. Conversely, they tended to dissociate themselves from works written

in the Middle Ages, a historical period they looked upon rather negatively. According to

them, the Middle Ages were set in the "middle" of two much more valuable historical

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periods, antiquity and their own. Nevertheless, as modern scholars have noted, extremely

important continuities with the previous age still existed.

The Great Chain of Being

            Among the most important of the continuities with the Classical period was the

concept of the Great Chain of Being. Its major premise was that every existing thing in the

universe had its "place" in a divinely planned hierarchical order, which was pictured as a

chain vertically extended. ("Hierarchical" refers to an order based on a series of higher and

lower, strictly ranked gradations.) An object's "place" depended on the relative proportion of

"spirit" and "matter" it contained--the less "spirit" and the more "matter," the lower down it

stood. At the bottom, for example, stood various types of inanimate objects, such as metals,

stones, and the four elements (earth, water, air, fire). Higher up were various members of the

vegetative class, like trees and flowers. Then came animals; then humans; and then angels.

At the very top was God. Then within each of these large groups, there were other

hierarchies. For example, among metals, gold was the noblest and stood highest; lead had

less "spirit" and more matter and so stood lower. (Alchemy was based on the belief that lead

could be changed to gold through an infusion of "spirit.") The various species of plants,

animals, humans, and angels were similarly ranked from low to high within their respective

segments. Finally, it was believed that between the segments themselves, there was

continuity (shellfish were lowest among animals and shaded into the vegetative class, for

example, because without locomotion, they most resembled plants).

      Besides universal orderliness, there was universal interdependence. This was implicit in

the doctrine of "correspondences," which held that different segments of the chain reflected

other segments. For example, Renaissance thinkers viewed a human being as a microcosm

(literally, a "little world") that reflected the structure of the world as a whole, the macrocosm;

just as the world was composed of four "elements" (earth, water, air, fire), so too was the

human body composed of four substances called "humours," with characteristics

corresponding to the four elements. (Illness occurred when there was an imbalance or

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"disorder" among the humours, that is, when they did not exist in proper proportion to each

other.) "Correspondences" existed everywhere, on many levels. Thus the hierarchical

organization of the mental faculties was also thought of as reflecting the hierarchical order

within the family, the state, and the forces of nature. When things were properly ordered,

reason ruled the emotions, just as a king ruled his subjects, the parent ruled the child, and the

sun governed the planets. But when disorder was present in one realm, it was

correspondingly reflected in other realms. For example, in Shakespeare's King Lear, the

simultaneous disorder in family relationships and in the state (child ruling parent, subject

ruling king) is reflected in the disorder of Lear's mind (the loss of reason) as well as in the

disorder of nature (the raging storm). Lear even equates his loss of reason to "a tempest in

my mind."

      Though Renaissance writers seemed to be quite on the side of "order," the theme of

"disorder" is much in evidence, suggesting that the age may have been experiencing some

growing discomfort with traditional hierarchies. According to the chain of being concept, all

existing things have their precise place and function in the universe, and to depart from one's

proper place was to betray one's nature. Human beings, for example, were pictured as placed

between the beasts and the angels. To act against human nature by not allowing reason to

rule the emotions--was to descend to the level of the beasts. In the other direction, to attempt

to go above one's proper place, as Eve did when she was tempted by Satan, was to court

disaster. Yet Renaissance writers at times showed ambivalence towards such a rigidly

organized universe. For example, the Italian philosopher Pico della Mirandola, in a work

entitled On the Dignity of Man, exalted human beings as capable of rising to the level of the

angels through philosophical contemplation. Also, some Renaissance writers were fascinated

by the thought of going beyond boundaries set by the chain of being. A major example was

the title character of Christopher Marlowe's play Doctor Faustus. Simultaneously displaying

the grand spirit of human aspiration and the more questionable hunger for superhuman

powers, Faustus seems in the play to be both exalted and punished. Marlowe's drama, in fact,

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has often been seen as the embodiment of Renaissance ambiguity in this regard, suggesting

both its fear of and its fascination with pushing beyond human limitations.

Political Implications of the Chain of Being

      The fear of "disorder" was not merely philosophical--it had significant political

ramifications. The proscription against trying to rise beyond one's place was of course useful

to political rulers, for it helped to reinforce their authority. The implication was that civil

rebellion caused the chain to be broken, and according to the doctrine of correspondences,

this would have dire consequences in other realms. It was a sin against God, at least

wherever rulers claimed to rule by "Divine Right." (And in England, the King was also the

head of the Anglican Church.) In Shakespeare, it was suggested that the sin was of cosmic

proportions: civil disorders were often accompanied by meteoric disturbances in the heavens.

(Before Halley's theory about periodic orbits, comets, as well as meteors, were thought to be

disorderly heavenly bodies.)

      The need for strong political rule was in fact very significant, for the Renaissance had

brought an end for the most part to feudalism, the medieval form of political organization.

The major political accomplishment of the Renaissance, perhaps, was the establishment of

effective central government, not only in the north but in the south as well. Northern Europe

saw the rise of national monarchies headed by kings, especially in England and France. Italy

saw the rise of the territorial city-state often headed by wealthy oligarchic families. Not only

did the chain of being concept provide a rationale for the authority of such rulers; it also

suggested that there was ideal behavior that was appropriate to their place in the order of

things. It is no wonder then that much Renaissance literature is concerned with the ideals of

kingship, with the character and behavior of rulers, as in Machiavelli's Prince or

Shakespeare's Henry V.

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      Other ideals and values that were represented in the literature were even more significant.

It was the intellectual movement known as Humanism that may have expressed most fully

the values of the Renaissance and made a lasting contribution to our own culture.

Humanism

      A common oversimplification of Humanism suggests that it gave renewed emphasis to

life in this world instead of to the otherworldly, spiritual life associated with the Middle

Ages. Oversimplified as it is, there is nevertheless truth to the idea that Renaissance

Humanists placed great emphasis upon the dignity of man and upon the expanded

possibilities of human life in this world. For the most part, it regarded human beings as social

creatures who could create meaningful lives only in association with other social beings.

      In the terms used in the Renaissance itself, Humanism represented a shift from the

"contemplative life" to the "active life." In the Middle Ages, great value had often been

attached to the life of contemplation and religious devotion, away from the world (though

this ideal applied to only a small number of people). In the Renaissance, the highest cultural

values were usually associated with active involvement in public life, in moral, political, and

military action, and in service to the state. Of course, the traditional religious values

coexisted with the new secular values; in fact, some of the most important Humanists, like

Erasmus, were Churchmen. Also, individual achievement, breadth of knowledge, and

personal aspiration (as personified by Doctor Faustus) were valued. The concept of the

"Renaissance Man" refers to an individual who, in addition to participating actively in the

affairs of public life, possesses knowledge of and skill in many subject areas. (Such figures

included Leonardo Da Vinci and John Milton, as well as Francis Bacon, who had declared,

"I have taken all knowledge to be my province.") Nevertheless, individual aspiration was not

the major concern of Renaissance Humanists, who focused rather on teaching people how to

participate in and rule a society (though only the nobility and some members of the middle

class were included in this ideal). Overall, in consciously attempting to revive the thought

and culture of classical antiquity, perhaps the most important value the Humanists extracted

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from their studies of classical literature, history, and moral philosophy was the social nature

of humanity.

"Imitation"

      Another concept derived from the classical past (though it was present in the Middle

Ages too), was the literary doctrine of "imitation." Of the two senses in which the term had

traditionally been used, the theoretical emphasis of Renaissance literary critics was less on

the "imitation" that meant "mirroring life" and more on the "imitation" that meant "following

predecessors." In contrast to our own emphasis on "originality," the goal was not to create

something entirely new. To a great extent, contemporary critics believed that the great

literary works expressing definitive moral values had already been written in classical

antiquity.

      Theoretically, then, it was the task of the writer to translate for present readers the moral

vision of the past, and they were to do this by "imitating" great works, adapting them to a

Christian perspective and milieu. (Writers of the Middle Ages also practiced "imitation" in

this sense, but did not have as many classical models to work from.) Of course Renaissance

literary critics made it clear that such "imitation" was to be neither mechanical nor complete:

writers were to capture the spirit of the originals, mastering the best models, learning from

them, then using them for their own purposes. Nevertheless, despite the fact that there were a

great many comments by critics about "imitation" in this sense, it was not the predominant

practice of many of the greatest writers. For them, the faithful depiction of human behavior--

what Shakespeare called holding the mirror up to nature--was paramount, and therefore

"imitation" in the mimetic sense was more often the common practice.

      The doctrine of "imitation" of ancient authors did have one very important effect: since it

recommended not only the imitation of specific classical writers, but also the imitation of

classical genres, there was a revival of significant literary forms. Among the most popular

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that were derived from antiquity were epic and satire. Even more important were the

dramatic genres of comedy and tragedy. In fact, Europe at this time experienced a golden age

of theater, led by great dramatists such as Shakespeare.

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)

THE LOVER SENDETH SIGHS TO MOVE

HIS SUIT.1

O, burning sighs, unto the frozen heart,   To break the ice, which pity's

painful          dartMight never pierce ; and if that mortal prayerIn heaven be heard, at least yet I desireThat death or mercy end my woful smart.Take with thee pain, whereof I have my part,And eke the flame from which I cannot start,And leave me then in rest, I you require.Go, burning sighs, fulfil that I desire,I must go work, I see, by craft and art,For truth and faith in her is laid apart :Alas, I cannot therefore now assail her,With pitiful complaint and scalding fire,That from my breast deceivably doth start.                                     Go burning sighs !

Henry Howard, earl of Surrey (1517?-1547)

Love that doth Reign and Live within my Thought

              1 Love that doth reign and live within my thought

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              2And built his seat within my captive breast,              3Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought,              4Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.              5But she that taught me love and suffer pain,              6 My doubtful hope and eke my hot desire              7 With shamefast look to shadow and refrain,              8Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.              9And coward Love then to the heart apace            10 Taketh his flight, where he doth lurk and plain            11His purpose lost, and dare not show his face.            12 For my lord's guilt thus faultless bide I pain;            13Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove:            14Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.

Notes

1] Tottel's title: "Complaint of a louer rebuked." His version opens: "Loue that liueth, and reigneth in my thought." Adapted from Petrarch's 140th (109th) sonnet. Cf. Wyatt's "The longe love," a translation of the same sonnet. 6. eke: also.

6] eke: also.

7] shamefast: modest.

10] plain: complain.

12] bide: endure.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Nott, George Fred., ed. The Works of Henry Howard earl of Surrey and of Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder. London: Longman, 1815-16. 2 vols. PR 2370 A1 1815 ROBA.First publication date: 1557 RPO poem editor: F. D. HoenigerRP edition: 3RP 1.13.Recent editing: 4:2002/5/29

Form: SonnetRhyme: ababcdcdececff

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Sir Philip Sidney (1554 - 1586) Sonnet 18

With what sharp checks I in myself am shent When into reason's audit I do go, And by just counts my self a bankrupt know Of all those goods which heaven to me hath lent; Unable quite to pay even nature's rent, Which unto it by birthright I do owe; And, which is worse, no good excuse can show, But that my wealth I have most idly spent! My youth doth waste, my knowledge brings forth toys, My wit doth strive those passions to defend, Which, for reward, spoil it with vain annoys. I see, my course to lose myself doth bend; I see: and yet no greater sorrow take Than that I lose no more for Stella's sake.

Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)Lyke as a ship that through the Ocean wyde,

By conduct of some star doth make her way,

Whenas a storme hath dimd her trusty guyde,

Out of her course doth wander far astray:

So I whose star, that wont with her bright ray

Me to direct, with cloudes is overcast,

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Doe wander now in darknesse and dismay,

Through hidden perils round about me plast*. *(placed)

Yet hope I well, that when this storme is past

My Helice the lodestar* of my lyfe *(guiding star)

Will shine again, and looke on me at last,

With lovely light to cleare my cloudy grief.

Till then I wonder carefull comfortlesse*, *(full of cares)

In secret sorrow and sad pensivenesse.

My ship laden with forgetfulness passes through a harsh sea, at midnight, in winter, between Scylla and Charybdis, and at the tiller sits my lord, rather my enemy;

Each oar is manned by a ready, cruel thought that seems to scorn the tempest and the end; a wet, changeless wind of sighs, hopes, and desires breaks the sail;

A rain of weeping, a mist of disdain wet and loosen the already weary ropes, made of error twisted up in ignorance.

My two usual sweet stars are hidden; dead among the waves are reason and skill; so that I begin to despair of the port

-Petrarch, Rima 189 (a modern prose translation from the original Italian)

Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) , Sonnet 75

  One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Agayne I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray.

"Vayne man," sayd she, "that doest in vaine assay.

A mortall thing so to immortalize,

For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,

and eek my name bee wyped out lykewize."

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"Not so," quod I, "let baser things devize,

To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens wryte your glorious name.

Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,

Our love shall live, and later life renew."

The Seventeenth Century (1603-1660)

The earlier seventeenth century, and especially the period of the English Revolution

(1640–60), was a time of intense ferment in all areas of life — religion, science,

politics, domestic relations, culture. That ferment was reflected in the literature of the

era, which also registered a heightened focus on and analysis of the self and the

personal life. However, little of this seems in evidence in the elaborate frontispiece

to Michael Drayton's long "chorographical" poem on the landscape, regions, and

local history of Great Britain (1612), which appeared in the first years of the reign of

the Stuart king James I (1603–1625). The frontispiece appears to represent a

peaceful, prosperous, triumphant Britain, with England, Scotland, and Wales united,

patriarchy and monarchy firmly established, and the nation serving as the great

theme for lofty literary celebration. Albion (the Roman name for Britain) is a young

and beautiful virgin wearing as cloak a map featuring rivers, trees, mountains,

churches, towns; she carries a scepter and holds a cornucopia, symbol of plenty.

Ships on the horizon signify exploration, trade, and garnering the riches of the sea.

In the four corners stand four conquerors whose descendants ruled over Britain: the

legendary Brutus, Julius Caesar, Hengist the Saxon, and the Norman William the

Conqueror, "whose line yet rules," as Drayton's introductory poem states.

Yet this frontispiece also registers some of the tensions, conflicts, and redefinitions

evident in the literature of the period and explored more directly in the topics and

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texts in this portion of the NTO Web site. It is Albion herself, not King James, who is

seated in the center holding the emblems of sovereignty; her male conquerors stand

to the side, and their smaller size and their number suggest something unstable in

monarchy and patriarchy. Albion's robe with its multiplicity of regional features, as

well as the "Poly" of the title, suggests forces pulling against national unity. Also,

Poly-Olbion had no successors: instead of a celebration of the nation in the vein of

Spenser's Faerie Queene or Poly-Olbion itself, the great seventeenth-century heroic

poem, Paradise Lost, treats the Fall of Man and its tragic consequences, "all our

woe."

The first topic here, "Gender, Family, Household: Seventeenth-Century Norms and

Controversies," provides important religious, legal, and domestic advice texts

through which to explore cultural assumptions about gender roles and the

patriarchal family. It also invites attention to how those assumptions are modified or

challenged in the practices of actual families and households; in tracts on

transgressive subjects (cross-dressing, women speaking in church, divorce); in

women's texts asserting women's worth, talents, and rights; and especially in the

upheavals of the English Revolution.

"Paradise Lost in Context," the second topic for this period, surrounds that radically

revisionist epic with texts that invite readers to examine how it engages with the

interpretative traditions surrounding the Genesis story, how it uses classical myth,

how it challenges orthodox notions of Edenic innocence, and how it is positioned

within but also against the epic tradition from Homer to Virgil to Du Bartas. The

protagonists here are not martial heroes but a domestic couple who must, both

before and after their Fall, deal with questions hotly contested in the seventeenth

century but also perennial: how to build a good marital relationship; how to think

about science, astronomy, and the nature of things; what constitutes tyranny,

servitude, and liberty; what history teaches; how to meet the daily challenges of

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love, work, education, change, temptation, and deceptive rhetoric; how to reconcile

free will and divine providence; and how to understand and respond to God's ways.

The third topic, "Civil Wars of Ideas: Seventeenth-Century

Politics, Religion, and Culture," provides an opportunity to

explore, through political and polemical treatises and

striking images, some of the issues and conflicts that led

to civil war and the overthrow of monarchical government

(1642–60). These include royal absolutism vs.

parliamentary or popular sovereignty, monarchy vs. republicanism, Puritanism vs.

Anglicanism, church ritual and ornament vs. iconoclasm, toleration vs. religious

uniformity, and controversies over court masques and Sunday sports. The climax to

all this was the highly dramatic trial and execution of King Charles I (January 1649),

a cataclysmic event that sent shock waves through courts, hierarchical institutions,

and traditionalists everywhere; this event is presented here through contemporary

accounts and graphic images.

John Donne (1572 - 1631)

Song: Go and catch a falling starGO and catch a falling star,Get with child a mandrake root,Tell me where all past years are,Or who cleft the devil's foot,Teach me to hear mermaids singing,Or to keep off envy's stinging,And findWhat windServes to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,

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Things invisible to see,Ride ten thousand days and nights,Till age snow white hairs on thee,Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,All strange wonders that befell thee,And swear,No whereLives a woman true and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,Such a pilgrimage were sweet;Yet do not, I would not go,Though at next door we might meet,Though she were true, when you met her,And last, till you write your letter,Yet sheWill beFalse, ere I come, to two, or three.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

`The Bard of Avon', English poet and playwright wrote the famous 154 Sonnets and numerous highly successful often quoted dramatic works including the tragedy of the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet;

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;For loan oft loses both itself and friend,And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.This above all: to thine ownself be true,And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!"--Lord Polonius, Hamlet Act I, Scene 3

While Shakespeare caused much controversy, he also earned lavish praise and has profoundly impacted the world over in areas of literature, culture, art, theatre, and film and is considered one of the best English language writers ever. From the Preface of the First Folio (1623) "To the memory of my beloved, The Author, Mr. William Shakespeare: and what he hath left us"--Ben Jonson;

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"Thou art a Moniment, without a tombeAnd art alive still, while thy Booke doth live,And we have wits to read, and praise to give."

Over the centuries there has been much speculation surrounding various aspects of Shakespeare's life including his religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sources for collaborations, authorship of and chronology of the plays and sonnets. Many of the dates of play performances, when they were written, adapted or revised and printed are imprecise. This biography attempts only to give an overview of his life, while leaving the more learned perspectives to the countless scholars and historians who have devoted their lives to the study and demystification of the man and his works.

England's celebration of their patron Saint George is on 23 April, which is also the day claimed to be the birth date of Shakespeare. Although birth and death dates were not recorded in Shakespeare's time, churches did record baptisms and burials, usually a few days after the actual event. The infant William was baptised on 26 April 1564 in the parish church Holy Trinity of Stratford upon Avon. He lived with his fairly well-to-do parents on Henley Street, the first of the four sons born to John Shakespeare (c1530-1601) and Mary Arden (c1540-1608), who also had four daughters. John Shakespeare was a local businessman and also involved in municipal affairs as Alderman and Bailiff, but a decline in his fortunes in his later years surely had an effect on William.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow (quotation)

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" is the beginning of the third sentence of one of the most famous soliloquies in Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth. It is the response of the protagonist, Macbeth, to the news of his wife's death. The speech can be divided into two parts, with the line "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" marking the beginning of the second part. The full soliloquy reads:

"She should have died hereafter;There would have been a time for such a word.To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!Life's but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and furySignifying nothing." — Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

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Interpretation

The first sentence has caused much debate. Whether Macbeth was more concerned with the timing of his wife's death than the fact of her passing remains open to interpretation. The rest of the speech is a rush of despair. Macbeth is seeing life as a story, and death as a natural occurrence that is to be welcomed. He has seen so much death, and caused so much pain to others, that he has become numb to it. He no longer cares about anything, and wishes to die himself.

Sonnet 18XVIII.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou owest;Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou growest:  So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,  So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

 

 Sonnet 34

XXXIV.

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,And make me travel forth without my cloak,To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,

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For no man well of such a salve can speakThat heals the wound and cures not the disgrace:Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:The offender's sorrow lends but weak reliefTo him that bears the strong offence's cross.  Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,  And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

 Winter by William Shakespeare

When icicles hang by the wall And Dick the shepherd blows his nail And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When Blood is nipped and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-who; Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-who; Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Spring by William ShakespeareWHEN daisies pied and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo!

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Cuckoo, cuckoo!--O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, And maidens bleach their summer smocks The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo! Cuckoo, cuckoo!--O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear!

WHEN daisies pied and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo! Cuckoo, cuckoo!--O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear!

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

A Description of a City Shower

Careful observers may foretell the hour (By sure prognostics) when to dread a shower: While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more. Returning home at night, you'll find the sink Strike your offended sense with double stink. If you be wise, then go not far to dine, You spend in coach-hire more than save in wine. A coming shower your shooting corns presage, Old aches throb, your hollow tooth will rage. Sauntering in coffee-house is Dulman seen; He damns the climate, and complains of spleen.

Mean while the South rising with dabbled wings, A sable cloud a-thwart the welkin flings, That swilled more liquor than it could contain,

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And like a drunkard gives it up again. Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope, While the first drizzling shower is born aslope, Such is that sprinkling which some careless quean Flirts on you from her mop, but not so clean. You fly, invoke the gods; then turning, stop To rail; she singing, still whirls on her mop. Not yet, the dust had shunned the unequal strife, But aided by the wind, fought still for life; And wafted with its foe by violent gust, 'Twas doubtful which was rain, and which was dust. Ah! where must needy poet seek for Aid, When dust and rain at once his coat invade; Sole coat, where dust cemented by the rain, Erects the nap, and leaves a cloudy stain.

Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down, Threatening with deluge this devoted town. To shops in crowds the daggled females fly, Pretend to cheapen Goods, but nothing buy. The Templar spruce, while every spout's a-broach, Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach. The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides, While streams run down her oiled umbrella's sides. Here various kinds by various fortunes led, Commence acquaintance underneath a shed. Triumphant Tories, and desponding Whigs, Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs. Boxed in a chair the beau impatient sits, While spouts run clattering o'er the roof by fits; And ever and anon with frightful din The leather sounds, he trembles from within. So when Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed, Pregnant with Greeks, impatient to be freed, (Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do, Instead of paying chairmen, run them through.) Laocoon struck the outside with his spear, And each imprisoned hero quaked for fear.

Now from all Parts the swelling kennels flow, And bear their Trophies with them as they go: Filth of all hues and odours seem to tell What streets they sailed from, by the sight and smell. They, as each Torrent drives, with rapid force From Smithfield, or St. Pulchre's shape their course, And in huge confluent join at Snow-Hill ridge,

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Fall from the conduit prone to Holborn-Bridge. Sweepings from butchers stalls, dung, guts, and blood, Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud,  Dead cats and turnips-tops come tumbling down the flood. 

In world nis noon so witer manThat al hire bountee telle can;Hire swire is whittere than the swan,And fairest may in town.An hendy, etc.

Ich am for wowing al forwake, Wery so water in wore.Lest any reve me my makeIch habbe y-yerned yore.Bettere is tholien while soreThan mournen evermore.Geinest under gore,Herkne to my roun:An hendy, etc.

cleverexcellenceneck/whitermaidwooing/worn out from wakingasdeprive meI have been worrying long sinceendure/for a time/ Fairest beneath clothingsong

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References

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Literature

www.hss.iitb.ac.in/courses/HS%20204/Lec1IntroLit.ppt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kent

http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/English/Wanderer.htm

www.ww norton .com/.../ english / nael / middleages /welcome.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tabard

www.sparknotes.com

› › ... The Canterbury Tales

www.librarius.com/canttran/nunprst/nunprst055-080.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Middle _ English _ Lyric

dictionary.sensagent.com/ middle + english + lyric /en-en /

www.wwnorton.com/college/.../16 century /welcome.htm

http://frombooksofpoems.blogspot.com/2010/06/go-burning-sighs-by-thomas-wyatt.html

www.worldlingo.com/.../ Tomorrow_and_tomorrow_and_tomorrow _ (quotation)

1.www.cohs.com/teachers/docs/

269_SwiftDescriptionofaCityShower.doc

www.william-shakespeare.info/william-shakespeare-sonnet-34.htm

www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id

www.bartleby.com › ... › Arthur Quiller-Couch

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