English Literature

English Literature * An Introduction * Presentation for English by Dr. Erjon Grori

• How much do you know about “English”?

• What is literature?

English Literature is the literature written in English language. English Literature is not only the literature of a particular country but it also it is the literature of the world. No other literature is as popular as it because it is read and written in whole world. We can’t say it only the literature of England for instance – Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Edgar Allen was American and Vladimir Nabokov was a Russian writer, but all have major place in the history of English literature.

Literature Definition and Meaning  If we go with the terminology of the word ‘Literature’, Literature has been taken from the latin word – Literae. The word Literae is the plural of letter. So literature is the art of written work in the form of prose, poetry, fiction or non-fiction. Literature may be divided by language and periods or era. But we can understand it in the following words –  Literature is the knowledge and experience of human life written in the form of prose, poetry, fiction or non-fiction which can full fill anyone’s life with knowledge joy and happiness.”  “Literature is the composition of those golden words which may brighten our life as gold if we adopt them.”

Importance of Literature Literature preserves the ideals of a people; and ideals--love, faith, duty, friendship, freedom, reverence--are the part of human life most worthy of preservation.

Why Study Literature • 1. Literature has aesthetic and cognitive value. • 2. Literature has much influence on the English language. • 3. Literature can breed the students’ sensitivity to the use of English.

English Literature English literature has been divided by the periods and time to time it got growth and development.

So take a glimpse of periods of English literature. Growth

‫ تطور‬/ ‫نمو‬

Glimpse

‫نظرة‬/ ‫لمحة‬

Literature

‫أدب‬

But we will get to look into all these

Periods in History of the English Language Through Three main Periods as follow.

Periods in History of the English Language *Beowulf *The Canterbury Tales by G.Chaucer

*Shakespeare

The first time literature was written in old English so we use the term of old English literature when we start talking about it. I`m going to gather the old period in what I call best points.  Epic poem was the most popular achievement of this age.  Old English Literature is also called Anglo Saxon Literature.  The period of old English literature started form 7th century to 1066.  The major works are: Epic poetry, Hagiography, Sermons, and Bible translations.   Beowulf – the epic poem is the important work of old English and it has gained national epic award in England.  Most famous poets of the age were Caedmon, Bede, Alfred the Great and Cynewulf.  Caedmon was the most famous poet and called father of old poetry in 7th century. There is only one poem of nine lines available named Hymn

Now let us praise the Guardian of the Kingdom of Heaven The might of the Creator and the thought of his mind, The work of the glorious Father, how He, the eternal Lord Established the beginning of every wonder. For the sons of men, He, the Holy Creator First made heaven as a roof, then the Keeper of mankind, the eternal Lord God Almighty afterwards made the middle world The earth, for men. -Hymn (Caedmon)

From Old English language

to Things took a different turn in 1066 when the Normans came and conquered England. Now English was being spoken alongside the French language of the Normans called Anglo-Norman. Merchants and lower-ranked nobles became bilingual, but English was still the common language of the people.

It was during this time that French had a huge influence on the English language that can still

be seen today. Celtic dialects also continued to influence, as well as Old Norman. The increased integration of Norman languages into English significantly changed its linguistic structure; thus Old English transformed into Middle English. As Anglo-Norman declined, English remained popular. Chaucer is the most famous Middle

English author, penning such works as the aforementioned The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales Whan that Aprille with his shoures swote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote When April with his sweet showers has struck to the roots the dryness of March…

‘The Canterbury Tales’ • Chaucer’s most famous work is ‘The Canterbury Tales’ (about 1387), a long poem, or a collection of stories in verse. And it is real verse – another novelty. The rhyme has taken place of Old English alliteration. • The story is about a party of pilgrims, the poet among them, traveling to Canterbury to visit the grave of Thomas a Becket. To pass the time, they agree to tell tales. In those tales we get to know the characters themselves. They come from every class of the society of the time, from the nobility, members of the church, merchants and craftsmen, to peasants.

1. Early Modern English (1500-1800) 2. Late Modern English (1800-Present)

The change from Middle English to Early Modern English was not just a matter of vocabulary or pronunciation changing: it was the beginning of a new era in the history of English. An era of linguistic change in a language with large variations in dialect was replaced by a new era of a more standardized language with a richer lexicon and an established (and lasting) literature. Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from the beginning of the Tudor period until the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle English in the late 15th century to the transition to Modern English during the mid to late 17th century. Prior to and following the accession of James I to the English throne in 1603 the emerging English standard began to influence the spoken and written Middle Scots of Scotland. Modern readers of English are generally able to understand texts written in the late phase of the Early Modern English period (e.g. the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare), while texts from the earlier phase (such as Le Morte d'Arthur) may present more difficulties. The Early Modern English of the early 17th century forms the base of the grammatical and orthographical conventions that survive in Modern English.

Portrait of Francis Bacon, by Frans Pourbus (1617), Palace on the Water in Warsaw. Born: 22 January 1561 Strand, London, England Died: 9 April 1626 (aged 65)Highgate, London, England

Born: November 6, 1558, London Died: August 15, 1594, London Education: Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood Books and plays: The Spanish Tragedy, works of Thomas Kyd

William Shakespeare, chief figure of the English Renaissance, as portrayed in the Chandos portrait (artist and authenticity not confirmed).

England had a strong tradition of literature in the English vernacular, which gradually increased as English use of the printing press became common by the mid 16th century. By the time of Elizabethan literature a vigorous literary culture in both drama and poetry included poets such as Edmund Spenser, whose verse epic The Faerie Queene , the lyrics of William Shakespeare, Thomas Wyatt and others, typically circulating in manuscript form for some time before they were published, and above all the plays of English Renaissance theatre, were the outstanding legacy of the period. The English theatre scene, which performed both for the court and nobility in private performances, and a very wide public in the theatres, was the most crowded in Europe, with a host of other playwrights as well as the giant figures of Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Philosophers and intellectuals included Thomas More and Francis Bacon. All the 16th century Tudor monarchs were highly educated, as was much of the nobility, and Italian literature had a considerable following, providing the sources for many of Shakespeare's plays. English thought advanced towards modern science with the Baconian Method, a forerunner of the Scientific Method. The language of the Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549, and at the end of the period the Authorised Version ("King James Version" to Americans) of the Bible (1611) had enduring impacts on the English consciousness.

In Short words : Early Modern English (1500-1800)

 Towards the end of Middle English, a sudden and distinct change in pronunciation  The Renaissance of Classical learning, meant that many new words and phrases entered the language.  The invention of printing also meant that there was now a common language in print. Books became cheaper and more people learned to read.  Printing also brought standardization to English.  Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the dialect of London, where most publishing houses were, became the standard.  In 1604 the first English dictionary was published

Late Modern English (1800-Present) The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal factors: Firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology created a need for new words; Secondly, the British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the earth's surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries.

Modern English: It starts as soon as we can understand a poem or prose without the help of a grammar book or dictionary.

Shakespeare is probably the most famous of all Englishmen. One of the things he is famous for is the effect he had on the development of the Early Modern English language. For example, without even realising it, our everyday speech is full of words and phrases invented by Shakespeare. He was able to do that because English was changing as people modernised it in their normal workaday speech. One of the ways the grammar was changing was that inflectional endings (suffixes that indicated the word’s grammatical functions in the way that many modern languages still have) had largely disappeared. Modern English was becoming wonderfully flexible and that was the background to the Renaissance explosion of the inventive language we see when we look at the poetry of the time. Shakespeare was a leading figure in that.

References 1. Basic language Message and Meanings IV ISBN 06-5301009-9 2. Anglo Saxon Beowulf PPT for Careers 3. Río-Rey, Carmen (2002-10-09). "Subject control and coreference in Early Modern English free adjuncts and absolutes". English Language and Linguistics (Cambridge University Press) 6 (2): 309–323. Retrieved 2009-03-12. 4. Stephen L. White, "The Book of Common Prayer and the Standardization of the English Language" The Anglican, 32:2(4-11), April, 2003 5. Ignorance, Faust o, Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981. 6. Burroughs, Jeremiah; Greenhill, William (1660). The Saints Happinesse. Introduction uses both happineſs and bleſſedneſs. 7. Sacks, David (2004). The Alphabet. London: Arrow. p. 316. ISBN 0-09-943682-5. 8. Sacks, David (2003). Language Visible. Canada: Knopf. pp. 356–57. ISBN 0-676-97487-2 9. W.W. Skeat, in Principles of English Etymology, claims that the o-for-u substitution was encouraged by the ambiguity between u and n; if sunne could just as easily be misread as sunue or suvne, it made sense to write it as sonne. (Skeat, Principles of English Etymology, Second Series. Clarendon Press, 1891. Page 99.) 10. Airs, Malcolm, The Buildings of Britain, A Guide and Gazetteer, Tudor and Jacobean, especially chapters 1, 3 and 8, 1982, Barrie & Jenkins (London), ISBN 0-09-147831-6 11. Lass, Roger, ed. (1999). The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III. Cambridge: Cambridge. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-521-26476-1

^ Lass, Roger, ed. (1999). The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III. Cambridge: Cambridge. pp. 165–66. ISBN 978-0-521-26476-1. ^ Charles Laurence Barber (1997). Early Modern English. Edinburgh University Press. p. 171. ISBN 978-0-7486-0835-5. ^ Charles Laurence Barber (1997). Early Modern English. Edinburgh University Press. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-7486-0835-5. ^ Charles Laurence Barber (1997). Early Modern English. Edinburgh University Press. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-7486-0835-5. ^ Lass, Roger, ed. (1999). The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III. Cambridge: Cambridge. pp. 231–35. ISBN 978-0-521-26476-1. ^ Lass, Roger, ed. (1999). The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III. Cambridge: Cambridge. p. 232. ISBN 978-0-521-26476-1. ^ Lass, Roger, ed. (1999). The Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III. Cambridge: Cambridge. pp. 217–18. ISBN 978-0-521-26476-1. http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-early-modern-english/