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From Fall of Roman Empire (500AD) to the beginning of the Florentine Renaissance (1500AD)
Religious literature in Latin produced by Catholic clerics was dominant form of literature
11th c : rise of "courtly love" literature in Romance languages
travel literature |
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| Spoken by the Anglo-Saxons. Brought to Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers around mid 5th c. Replaced after the Norman conquest (1066) by Anglo-Norman. During this period Old English was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, leading to Middle English. |
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| People from Germanic tribes who migrated from continental Europe to Great Britain in the 5th c. Anglo-Saxon period denotes period between initial settlement (~450) until the Norman conquest (1066) |
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Native to Germain poetry and the standard of Old English verse until the 11th c. Also occurring in Middle English poetry as a formal alternative to syllable-counting rhymed verse borrowed from French (Alliterative Revival).
Unrhymed line consisting of two distinct half lines, separated by a cesura. Each half line contains two stressed syllables. Alliteration on the first stress of the second half line, alliterates with either or both of stresses of the first half line. |
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Old English Poetic device. A compound word that employs figurative language in the place of a more concrete word.
Beowulf : selg-rad = sail-road = sea |
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| Code of conduct that arose under the Holy Roman Empire, especially among Charlemagne's cavalry (etymology traces to an old French term for cavalry). By the Late Middle Ages, chivalry was a moral system that combined warrior ethos, piety, and courtly manners to establish a notion of honor and nobility. |
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From the Old French meaning "to translate into French," Romance refers to the popular courtly stories in verse on three traditional subjects (King Arthur, Charlemagne, and classical heroes). Originally a French genre, English equivalents are found from 13th c. onwards.
Revived interest in medieval Romance (Keats, Sir Walter Scott) contributed to naming of 19th c. Romanticism. |
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A short tale in verse dealing with ordinary life from a comic point of view. A French poetic genre of the 12th and 13th c.
The Miller's Tale. The Pardoner's Tale. |
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An Old English poem surviving in a 10th c. manuscript. The date of composition (8th c. - 11th c.) is a point of contention among scholars. The historical period its events described can be dated to 6th c. Scandinavia. Virtually unknown until first modern edition was made in 1815.
Christian poem celebrating a pagan history. |
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Written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the late 14th c. 29 pilgrims but only 23 of them tell stories, Chaucer himself tells two stories. The final ordering of the stories is uncertain, most editions follow the Ellesmere Manuscript.
Written in verse and prose of various meters though the predominant form is rhyming couplets. The formal structure of a series of tales collected within a frame narrative may be derived from Boccaccio's Decameron. |
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Shortened version of Boccaccio's Teseida. Story of Palamon and Arcite vying for Emelye, sister of Hippolyta (Queen of Amazons and wife of Theseus, King of Athens).
Chivalric Romance. Iambic pentameter, end-rhymed couplets.
Departs from the Romance tradition in Theseus' final speech, which begins by reference the First Mover, and argues that, since death is inevitable in all things, the best we can do is to die with a good name and reputation. |
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"Quites" the Knight's Tale. Miller interrupts the Monk to answer the Knight's Tale, possibly suggesting an upset to an order by rank.
Parody of courtly love. |
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Tale of three young men who take on death is a folk tale with wide ranging precedents. Source for the prologue is the Old French poem Romance of the Rose.
Exemplum genre: a moral anecdote, especially concerning the life of a famous figure, held up to make a moral point. Common in medieval sermons |
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The source could be a similar tale from Boccaccio's Decameron but also from A Thousand and One Nights.
Questionable status as a fabliau because of more philosophical questions about gender. |
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| Genre of Medieval and early Tudor play in which the protagonist, who represents humanity at large, is met by personifications of various moral attributes who prompt him to choose a Godly life over one of evil. Represent a shift from religiously based Medieval mystery plays towards a more secular theater. |
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| Early Modern / Renaissance |
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Originated in 14th c. Italy, spread to the rest of Europe in 15th c. Revived interest in Classical models. Early Modern period usually denotes the 16th and 17th c.
Humanism: regarding the human figure and reason without necessarily relating them to the superhuman/divine. |
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| Rather than being a miserable sinner awaiting redemption from a pit of fleshly corruption, ‘Man’ was a source of infinite possibilities, ideally developing towards a balance of physical, spiritual, moral, and intellectual faculties. |
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| Francis Bacon's Essays (1597) began the tradition in English. From a french term meaning "trying out," the essay discusses a subject or proposes an argument without claiming to be a complete or thorough exposition. |
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| Tragedy & Revenge Tragedy |
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A serious play presenting the downfall of the protagonist, usually ending with his death. Defined in Aristotle's Poetics as the imitation of an action that is serious and complete, achieving a catharsis by incidents arousing pity and terror. Tragic protagonist is led to calamity by a fatal error, often hubris. The tragic effect usually depends on our awareness of admirable qualities in the protagonist.
Shakespeare's tragedy, and Early Modern English tragedy was not modeled on Greek tragedy but on Roman Senecan tragedy.
Revenge Tragedy was a popular English dramatic genre following the success of Kyd's Spanish Tragedy. Centers on the protagonist's attempt to avenge the murder of a loved one, sometimes involving ghosts, intrigues, disguises, and contemplation on the morality of revenge. |
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| Elizabethan period v Jacobean Period |
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Elizabethan: 1558-1603
Shakespeare history plays and comedies and Hamlet
Marlowe, Spenser, Francis Bacon
Jacobean: 1603-1625
Shakespeare's tragedies (Othello) |
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Octave (abbaabba) + sestet (cdecde)
Petrarchism is the 16th c. European poetic tradition imitating Petrarch's poetry. Increasingly conventional presentation of courtly love where the poet speaks in fanciful praise of a disdaining mistress. Conventions include the blazon. |
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| Three quatrains (abab cdcd efef) + couplet (gg) |
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17th c. English poetry notable for its ingenious illustration of intellectual and theological concepts in surprising conceits, paradoxes, and imagery.
Term coined by Johnson, "the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together" |
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| Elaborately formal lyric poem, often addressed to a person or abstract entity. |
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Execution of Charles I (1649), English Common Wealth, replaced by Cromwell, succeeded by his son until throne reclaimed by Charles II (1660)
Royalists v Parliamentarians
Aphra Behn was a loyalist, spied for Charles II
Major achievement of the English Civil War was that no monarch can rule without the approval of Parliament (effectively, this excluded Catholic monarchs |
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Restoration of English monarchy under Charles II (1660)
Stuart line (James I, Charles I, interregnum, Charles II, James II) |
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| Catholic opponent to Protestant Reformation. Opposed Henry VIII separation from the Catholic Church and refused to recognize him as the Supreme Head of the Church of England. Executed 1535. |
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| Died 1674. Defender of the Commonwealth under Cromwell. Went into hiding after Restoration (1660). |
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| Died 1626. Royal Society was founded in Bacon's spirit. |
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| Comedy genre that flourished during Restoration period (1660-1700). Comedies of manners that appealed to a narrow audience of aristocrats. Characters often divided between aristocrats and middle class upstarts who betray themselves in social blunders. |
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| 1790-1820s novelistic tradition that followed the success of Anne Radcliff's Mysteries of Udolpho. |
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