English & American Literature PDF

English & American Literature OLD ENGLISH PERIOD: - 10th century/ poetry/ novels/ nature/ romance Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Written by The Venerable Bede (673-735) who is considered as the Father of English History and regarded as the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar. Anglo-S...

English & American Literature OLD ENGLISH PERIOD: - 10th century/ poetry/ novels/ nature/ romance Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Written by The Venerable Bede (673-735) who is considered as the Father of English History and regarded as the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Different monks traces the annals that chronicle Anglo-Saxon history, life, and culture after the Roman invasion Beowulf ( Heroic Epic) - The National epic of England which appears in the Nowell Codex manuscript from the 8th to 11th century. It is the most notable example of the earliest English poetry, which blends Christianity and paganism. - Epic is a long narrative poem written about the exploits of a supernatural hero. Middle Ages -Everyman is regarded as the best of the morality plays. It talks about Everyman facing Death. He summons the help of all his friends but only Good Deeds is able to help him. Characters in this morality play are personifications of abstractions like Everyman, Death, Fellowships, Cousins, Kindred, Goods, Good Deeds, etc. which makes the play allegorical in nature. Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri  Renaissance period 17th century Humanism / life/ love William Shakespeare -is the great genius of the Elizabethan Age (1564-1616). He wrote more than 35 plays as well as 154 sonnets and 2 narrative poems –Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. Restoration Period Restoration Comedy John Dryden - He led the way in Restoration comedy, his best-known work being Marriage à la Mode (1673), as well as heroic tragedy and regular tragedy, in which his greatest success was All for Love (1678). - Dryden's poem, "An Essay upon Satire" Aphra Behn - first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. - pastoral pseudonym Astrea - Her best-known works are Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave, sometimes described as an early novel, and the play The Rover Age of Enlightenment / Reasons (18th century) The Essays (Francis Bacon). The greatest literary contribution of the 17th century is the essay. Francis Bacon is hailed as the Father of Inductive Reasoning and the Father of the English Essay. Jonathan Swift -Modest Proposal is a bitter pamphlet that ironically suggests that the Irish babies be specially fattened for profitable sale as meat, since the English were eating the Irish people anyhow – by heavy taxation. -Gulliver's Travels is a satire on human folly and stupidity. Swift said that he wrote it to vex the world rather than to divert it. Most people, however, are so delightfully entertained by the tiny Lilliputians and by the huge Brobdingnagians that they do not bother much with Swift's bitter satire on human pettiness or crudity. Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe was inspired by a real-life story of a castaway surviving on an island, but had little resemblance to it. - In the novel, dubbed as realistic fiction, a young affluent man who is shipwrecked on an island. The man eventually adapts, learns, and survives, even creating a calendar, domesticating goats, and embracing Christianity from reading the Bible, but he is missing the ultimate piece which is a presence of human society. Romantic Movement - Emotions -Song to Celia. A love poem written by Ben Jonson - a poet, dramatist, and actor best known for his lyrics and satirical plays William Blake - Samuel Taylor Coleridge The most important tenets of Romanticism include: Belief in the importance of the individual, imagination, and intuition Shift from faith in reason to faith in the senses, feelings, and imagination; from interest in urban society and its sophistication to an interest in the rural and natural; from public, impersonal poetry to subjective poetry; and from concern with the scientific and mundane to interest in the mysterious and infinite.  Because of this concern for nature and the simple folk, authors began to take an interest in old legends, folk ballads, antiquities, ruins, "noble savages," and rustic characters. - Many writers started to give more play to their senses and to their imagination. - They loved to describe rural scenes, graveyards, majestic mountains, and roaring waterfalls. - They also liked to write poems and stories of such eerie or supernatural things as ghosts, haunted castles, fairies, and mad folk. Victorian Era (19 century mid) shifted from the extremely personal expression (or subjectivism) of the Romantic writers to an objective surveying of the problems of human life. - Social issues - Rise of Novel -Charles Dickens (1812-1870) became a master of local color in The Pickwick Papers. He is considered as England's best-loved novelist. His works include: Great Expectations, Hard Times, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities. Wrote novels romantic novels. Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855) Emily Bronte (1818-1848) Anne Bronte (1820-1849) MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE /Early 20th-Century Prose T.S Eliot - T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) wrote influential essays and dramas and championed the importance of literary and social traditions for the modern poet. - As a critic, Eliot is best remembered for his formulation of the "objective correlative," as a means of expressing emotion through "a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events" that would be the "formula" of that particular emotion. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock embodies this approach, when the ineffectual, elderly Prufrock thinks to himself that he has "measured out his life in coffee spoons," using coffee spoons to reflect a humdrum existence and a wasted lifetime. James Joy -(1882-1941) - was an Irish expatriate noted for his experimental use of the interior monologue and the stream of consciousness technique in landmark novels as: Ulysses Finnegans Wake, semi-autobiographical novel The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’. - Stream of consciousness is a technique pioneered by DorothyRichardson, Virginia Woolf and James Joyce. It presents the thoughts and feelings of a character as they occur. - Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is one of the most notable bildungs-roman in English literature. A bildungsroman is a novel of formation or development in which the protagonist transforms from ignorance to knowledge, innocence to maturity. Virginia Wolf (1882-1941) - also believed that reality, or consciousness, is a stream. Life, for both reader and characters, is immersion in the flow of that stream. Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse are among her best works. Contemporary Literature AMERICAN LITERATURE - 17th century/ Politics/ Economic / sarcasms Stephen King ( most popular) Stephen King (born September 21, 1947, Portland, Maine, U.S.) is an American novelist and short-story writer whose books are credited with reviving the genre of horror fiction in the late 20th century. - Carrie - IT Romanticism ( Merges English/ American Literature) Transcendentalists -Artistic way of expressing oneself -Europe 18th century originated -Intution/ valued feelings/ idealism -way we think of Valued Character The Transcendentalist movement was a reaction against 18th century rationalism and a manifestation of the general humanitarian trend of 19th century thought. The movement was based on the belief in the unity of the world and God. The doctrine of self- reliance and individualism developed through the belief in the identification of the individual soul with God. The Brahmin Poets Boston Brahmin poets refer to the patrician, Harvard-educated literati who sought to fuse American and European traditions in their writings. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) was responsible for the misty,ahistorical, legendary sense of the past that merged American and European traditions.  Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) refined the short story genre and inventeddetective fiction. Many of his stories prefigure the genres of science fiction,horror, and fantasy so popular today. - His famous works The Cask of Amontillado, Masque of the Red Death, The Fall of the House of Usher, Purloined Letter, and the Pit and the Pendulum, all center on the mysterious and the macabre. He also wrote poetry like Anabel Lee, The Raven, and The Bell. American embrace the 18th century -The Raven Edgar Allan Poe - (1809-1849) refined the short story genre and invented detective fiction. Many of his stories prefigure the genres of science fiction, horror, and fantasy so popular today. - His famous works The Cask of Amontillado, Masque of the Red Death, The Fall of the House of Usher, Purloined Letter, and the Pit and the Pendulum, all center on the mysterious and the macabre. He also wrote poetry like Anabel Lee, The Raven, and The Bell. The Count of Monte Cristo - The Count of Monte Cristo, Romantic novel by French author Alexandre Dumas père (possibly in collaboration with Auguste Maquet), published serially in 1844–46 and in book form in 1844–45. 1870-1910 ( Realism/ Naturalism) -social realities -activity of ordinary people 1865-1900s Naturalism -Heredity -Environment ( Charles Darwin) Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) (1835-1910) Henry James Henry James (1843-1916) wrote that art, especially literary art, "makes life, makes interest, makes importance." With Twain, James is generally ranked as the greatest American novelistof the second half of the 19th century. James is noted for his "international theme" -- that is, the complexrelationships between naive Americans and cosmopolitan Europeans,which he explored in the novels The American, Daisy Miller, and amasterpiece, The Portrait of a Lady. Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) is the best U.S. poet of the late 19th century. Unlike Masters, Robinson uses traditional metrics. -Social( Realist) -Environment ( Naturalist) 1910-1946 ( Modernist) -Science and Technology -The Great Depression -World War I -Leonardo De Caprio - The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is known for novels whose protagonists are disillusioned by the great American dream. - The Great Gatsby focuses on the story of Jay Gatsby who discovers the devastating cost of success in terms of personal fulfillment and love. Tender Is the Night talks of a young psychiatrist whose life is doomed by his marriage to an unstable woman. The Beautiful and the Damned explores the self-destructive extravagance of his times. Contemporary -Ernest Hemingway ( The Sun in our Arms) Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) received the Nobel Prize in 1954 for his The Old Man and the Sea – a short poetic novel about a poor,  old fisherman who heroically catches a huge fish devoured by sharks. This also won for him the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 Hemingway wrote of war, death, and the "lost generation" of cynical survivors. His characters are not dreamers but tough bullfighters, soldiers, and athletes. If intellectual, they are deeply scarred and disillusioned. Only infants - For sale: baby shoes, never worn Contemporary period/ Liberation - After world war II - USSU ( 1992) SOVIET UNION 1950s- 1960s THE 1950s The 1950s saw the delayed impact of modernization and technology in everyday life left over from the 1920s - before the Great Depression. World War II brought the United States out of the Depression, and the 1950s provided most Americans with time to enjoy long-awaited material prosperity. Loneliness at the top was a dominant theme. The 1950s actually was a decade of subtle and pervasive stress. Novels by John O'Hara, John Cheever, and John Updike explore the stress lurking in the shadows of seeming satisfaction. Some of the best works portray men who fail in the struggle to succeed, as in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Saul Bellow's novella Seize the Day. Some writers went further by following those who dropped out, as did J.D. Salinger in The Catcher in the Rye, Ralph Ellison in Invisible Man, and Jack Kerouac in On the Road. Philip Roth published a series of short stories reflecting his own alienation from his Jewish heritage – Goodbye, Columbus.  The fiction of American Jewish writers Bellow, Bernard Malamud, and Isaac Bashevis Singer – are most noted for their humor, ethical concern, and portraits of Jewish communities in the Old and New Worlds. -educational trip - injustice James Baldwin The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, and Beloved. Don DeLillo - Underworld is a 1997 novel by American writer Don DeLillo. The novel is centered on the efforts of Nick Shay, a waste management executive who grew up in the Bronx, to trace the history of the baseball that won the New York Giants the pennant in 1951, The Corrections - is a 2001 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It revolves around the troubles of an elderly Midwestern couple and their three adult children, tracing their lives from the mid-20th century to "one last Christmas” LITERARY STANDARDS Artistry - beauty, an aesthetic appeal. Intellectual Value - stimulates our minds, making us realize the truths about life. Suggestiveness - man’s emotional power that deeply stirs our creative imagination. Spiritual Value - elevation of one’s spirit by bringing out moral values which makes us better persons. Permanence - lifetime, can be read again and again. Universality - timeless and timely. DIVISION OF LITERATURE POETRY- Rhythmic imaginative language expressing, thoughts, imagination, taste, invention, Passion of human. - Simple Lyric ( that do not belong under other type of lyrics) A Red Rose ( Robert Burns 1794) Robert Burns (1759-96) is also known as the national poet of Scotland because he wrote not only in Standard English, but also in the light Scot’s dialect. I wandered Lonely as a cloud ( William Woodworth) - The song ( a short lyrical poetry which has melodious quality intended to be sang) Song of Celia ( Ben Johnson 1616) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) was responsible for the misty, ahistorical, legendary sense of the past that merged American and European traditions. - He wrote three long narrative poems popularizing native legends in European meters Evangeline, The Song of Hiawatha, and The Courtship of Miles Standish. - He also wrote short lyrics like The Jewish Cemetery at Newport, My Lost Youth, and The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls. The arrow - The Arrow and the Song' by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is an interesting poem that utilizes quatrains. Throughout the piece, the speaker alludes to the unknown impact of his poetry before finding it in the heart of his friend in the last stanza. - Sonnet ( Is a lyric of 14 lines with formal rhyme of pattern) the word sonetto is actually Italian for "a little sound or song." This form has grabbed poets by the heart for centuries. It began as a 14-line poem written in iambic pentameter. There are two common forms of sonnet: Shakespearean and Petrarchan Sonnet 18 ( William Shakespeare) - the speaker uses the metaphor of summer's fleeting beauty to explain the beauty of the fair youth. When compared with a summer day, which the speaker notes can be too short, too cloudy, and too hot, the fair youth's beauty will not fade. - The elegy ( A lament of mourning for the death / grive similar to Eulogy ( speech for the dead) a type of poem that don’t really come with specific structural requirements but still constitute a recognizable form of poetry. What makes an elegy an elegy is its subject, that is, death. Elegies are poems of lamentation – the word elegy itself comes from the Greek word elegeia which means to ‘lament’. ✓ A poem of reflection on death, or on someone who has died ✓ Usually comes in three parts expressing loss: ✓ Grief/ praise for the deceased Thomas Grey ( Elegy Country Churchyard 1750) Thomas Gray (1716-71) wrote Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, which is a collection of 18th-century commonplaces expressing concern for lowly folk. - Ode ( majestic type express praises of a person object/ event/ idea A lengthy lyric poem typically of a serious or meditative nature and having an elevated style and formal stanza structure. Sappho’s “Ode to a Loved One” - Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), together with John Keats, established the romantic verse as a poetic tradition. Many of his works are meditative like Prometheus Unbound; others are exquisitely like The Cloud, To a Skylark, and Ode to the West  Wind. Adonais, an elegy he wrote for his best friend John Keats, ranks among the greatest elegies. In Ode to the West Wind, Shelley shows an evocation of nature wilder and more spectacular than Wordsworth described it. Ode to the west wind ( Percy Byssche Shelly) - Narrative Poetry ( Telling a story Chronologically written in verse. - Ballad ( Short simple narrative poem composed to be sang) A type of narrative poetry that has close ties to musical forms. Often written to be sung, usually but not always based in folklore. The ballad of Sir Patrick Spens English and Scottish ballads preserved the local events, beliefs, and characters in an easily remembered form. One familiar ballad is Sir Patrick Spens, which concerns Sir Patrick’s death by drowning. - sailer in a voyage - Death - Metrical Tale ( related real or imaging I'd event in simple straight forward language. ( Characters express mood) - Metrical Romance ( long rumbling love story revolving around knight/ lords during age of chivalry - Epic ( long majestic narrative poem which tells the exploits traditional heroes and develop of Nation Beowulf Beowulf. The National epic of England which appears in the Nowell Codex manuscript from the 8th to 11th century. It is the most notable example of the earliest English poetry, which blends Christianity and paganism. - Dramatic Poetry ( elements that closely related to drama written in dramatic techniques  - Dramatic Monologue ( Combinations of drama/ poetry present the speech of a single character in a specific character or moment, the speaker address I or more person who are presented and listening to the speaker who are silent. - A type of poem which is spoken to a listener. The speaker addresses a specific topic while the listener unwittingly reveals details about him/herself. My last Duchess ( Robert Browning) Robert Browning (1812-89) is best remembered for his dramatic monologues. My Last Duchess, Fra Lippo Lippi, and Andrea del Sarto are excellent examples. - Soliloquy (.passage spoken which choices or choice talking to himself by a play or character. Hamlet Act III Scene I To be or not to be - Character Sketch ( Character is the focus of interest and not the story Describe a character - Prose ( Discourse which uses verse sentence/ paragraph/ express ideas / feeling action and focus on the familiar / ordinary topics. Heroism Beauty Love Nobility of Spirit DIVISION OF PROSE - FICTION : Series of imaginative fact which illustrate rules about human life it opposes to the actual historicay true  - SHORT STORY: Anything that happened not giving the exact character. - ROMANTIC FICTION : choices are remote in time / place the adventure/ heroic dashing/ daring in action in the case of the character “ Happy ending" Me before you ( JoJo moyes) - REALISTIC FICTION: Familiar / common place in setting men/ women daily experience action The Fault in our star ( John Green) - NATURALISTIC: exaggerated/ extreme realism dominated by the materialism, persimism , determinism The grapes of wrath ( John Steinbeck) John Steinbeck (1902-1968) received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963 for his realist novel The Grapes of Wrath, the story of a poor Oklahoma family that loses its farm during the Depression and travels to California to seek work. NOVEL - FICTION: HISTORICAL NOVEL - CHOICES an age or era in the past / recapture the spirit and atmosphere of the Period and choose historically events / character to give authenticity to the character. - The book Thief ( Marcus Zusak 2005) - Nazi Germany ( Lizzel )  PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL: Transferring setting from the outside world to the mind /. interior life of an individual, it focuses to the insight on the motion behind the yearning/ impulse of the character - Gone Girl ( Gillian Flynn) SOCIAL NOVEL: Deals with the norms and custom of a district social group and problem faces in the society either political/ economical/ racial - to kill a mockingbird ( Harper Lee) STRUCTURE OF THE NOVEL PANORAMIC NOVEL: Follows linear development of loosely constructed plot and portraits a broad section of life. - War and peace ( Leo Tolstoy 1869) Napoleon war DRAMATIC NOVEL: Emphasis the interaction of the Character/ Action - A Street car name Desire ( Telsy William 1947) Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) focused on disturbed emotions and unresolved sexuality within families - most of them southern. As one of the first American writers to live openly as a homosexual, Williams explained that the sexuality of his tormented characters expressed their loneliness. He was known for incantatory repetitions, a poetic southern diction, weird Gothic settings, and Freudian exploration of sexual desire. He became famous for his The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. THE POINT OF VIEW - ( Vintage point of the writer / interpret his materials ) Internal POV ( The protagonist is himself The story is told by the minor characters Several ( composite POV)  External POV - Omniscient POV ( Reveals from the bontage point of all knowing but detach observee) NON- FICTION Essay - A prose composition of moderate length usually expository in nature which aims to explain an idea, theory, impression or POV The Essays (Francis Bacon). The greatest literary contribution of the 17th century is the essay. Francis Bacon is hailed as the Father of Inductive Reasoning and the Father of the English Essay. 1. Formal Essay - it deals with a serious important topic usually derived from philosophy theology, science, politics and morality. Ex: Politics and the English language by George Orwell Of Studies by Francis Bacon. “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention”. - Of Studies 2. Informal Essay - Deals with any subject even the common place and ordinary, the purpose is to entertain and amused. It's tone is light friendly and often humorous. Ex: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris The Joy of Morning Coffee 3. Oration - Often Contrasted to the essay by its structure and purpose the oration represents another form of prose. It is usually an important issue. The purpose is to convince and persuade.  Ex: I have a dream by Martin Luther 4. Biography - is a record of human life an account written by someone else or an individuals significant experiences. Their effects on him and his personal reaction in response to them. Ex: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson 5. Autobiography- Is an account of personal life written by himself ( more revealing of the person’s interior self) 6. Memoire - 7. Letters- 8. Journal-