ENGLISH LITERATURE The Dawn of English Literature

ENGLISH LITERATURE The Dawn of English Literature

The Ancient Britons and Their Language We find Celtic in geographical names: dun/dum = down, dune (the towns of Dunscore, Dunedin, Dumbarton) avon=river (Stratford-on-Avon) kil=wood (Kilbrook)

The Roman Invasion • 55 B. C. : • the Roman(Latin) till 407 A. D. • Julius Caesar the first Roman • castra=camp (Lancaster, Manchester, Worcester)

The Invasion by Germanic Tribes 410: Angles, Saxons, Jutes ¡ West Germanic language ¡ They were pagans, believed in many gods: Tuesco (god of darkness) – Tuesday…

Beowulf the first page of Beowulf in Cotton Vitellius A. xv. Remounted page, British Library Cotton Vitellius A. XV

An illustration of Grendel by J. R. Skelton from Stories of Beowulf. Grendel is described as "Very terrible to look upon. " An illustration of Grendel's mother by J. R. Skelton from Stories of Beowulf (1908) described as a "water witch" trying to stab Beowulf.

A 1908 depiction of Beowulf fighting the dragon by J. R. Skelton. Beowulf is challenged by a Danish coast guard, Evelyn Paul (1911).

Anglo-Saxon literature (the 7 th-11 th Centuries) Caedmon (poet) - the 7 th century - wrote in Anglo-Saxon “The Paraphrase” ¡ Bede - the father of English history ”The History of the English Church” ¡ Alfred the Great (849 – 901) Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – the first prose in English literature ¡

The Norman conquest William the Conqueror and Harold at the Battle of Hastings The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the Battle of Hastings and the events leading to it.

King Harold Kern Norman archer Norman knights riding

Model of the Anglo-Norman castle

William of Normandy go ashore in England, French drawing from 1883. William Bastarden invades England. Illustration of French manuscript from 1400 -1410

King Arthur Merlin kidnaps baby Arthur. (N. K. Wyatt, 1922) King Arthur by Charles Ernest Butler (1903)

Mark Twain. "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (1889) Lady of the Lake presenting Excalibur

Culhwch entering Arthur's Court in the Welsh tale Culhwch and Olwen, 1881

The Round Table experience a vision of the Holy Grail. From a 15 th century French manuscript.

Mordred, Arthur's final foe according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, illustrated by H. J. Ford for Andrew Lang's King Arthur: The Tales of the Round Table, 1902 The combat of Arthur and Mordred, illustrated by N. C. Wyeth for The Boy's King Arthur, 1922

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14 th century.

Geoffrey Chaucer, 1380, N ew Catholic Encyclopedia. The first page of the Hengwrt Chaucer manuscript with the beginning of the. General Prologue.

Then said the first of them when this was done: “Now for a drink. Sit down and let’s be merry…” He took a bottle full of poison up And drank; and his companion, nothing loth, Drank from it also, and they perished both, Thus the two murderers received their due, So did the treacherous young prisoner too

Woodcut Chaucer as a pilgrim from the from William Caxton's Ellesmere Chaucer manuscript in second edition of The Canterbury Tales, ca 1484. the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.

A story from Il Decameron by John William Waterhouse. The English Peasant Revolt of 1381 is mentioned in The Canterbury Tales.

Ezra Winter, Canterbury Tales mural (1939), Library of Congress John Adams. Building, Washington, DC The murder of Thomas Becket. The dilemma of Bors - he rescues a girl instead of his brother Lionel.

The Wars of the Roses (1455 -1485) The White Rose of the House of York The Red Rose of the House of Lancaster

The Tudor Rose, created at the end of the Civil War, joining the two emblems.

Robin HOOD The title page of Howard Pyle's 1883 novel, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood statue in Nottingham

"Robin shoots with Sir Guy" by Louis Rhead Douglas Fairbanks as Robin Hood; the sword he is depicted with was common in the oldest ballads

Robin Hood and Maid Marian (Robin Hood wife)

When was England called Britain? in the 7 th century B. C. about 25 centuries ago in the 4 th century A. D. What Christmas tradition originated from the Druids? to go to the darkest parts of the woods to hang mistletoe in the houses to eat the leaves of an oaktree

How long did the from 55 Roman occupation last? B. C. to 704 A. D. What interesting some ruins remains of Roman of public times can you still find baths and in England? tiled floors of Roman villas more than 40 years 400 years the highways have been built on the military roads made by the Romans a large number of English words come from the Latin language

What dialects did Angles, Saxons and Jutes speak? of the Latin language of the English language of the West Germanic language What traces of the Germanic tribes’ language can we see in the modern English? the names of fruit many people the weekdays

Find the odd one: The Roman invasion, the Danes invasion, the Norman invasion, the French invasion ¡ Celtic, Latin, West Germanic, Roman ¡

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