How old is English Literature? ? ?
English literature consists of… upoetry uprose udrama
Ancient times: u the 4 th c. BC – Britain Britons
u the 1 st c. BC – the Roman conquest
u. Old English (OE) or Anglo -Saxon (A-S) u. Middle English
The end of the 4 th c. – the beginning of the 5 th c.
Egbert, the king of Wessex united Angles, Saxons and th c. Jutes in the 9
The Conversion of the English to Christianity - 597
Poetry (manuscripts) u The stories brought by Anglo-Saxons u Related to Christian religion (poems about saints and martyrs)
The stories brought by Anglo. Saxons: “Beowulf”
Widsith (the Far Traveller) u Exeter Book (“The Wife’s Lament”, “The Ruin”, “The Wanderer”)
Related to Christian religion: u the 7 th c. – Caedmon u The 8 th c. Cynewulf
Prose: u Aldhelm (709 A. D. ) u the Venerable Bede (673 -735) “Ecclesiastical History of the English Race” u Alfred, the Great (849 -899) The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles
The influence on the English language: u no English for written literature u Latin + Anglo-Norman (dialect of French) used instead of English
Common people who were illiterate used the English language. Minstrels (professional story-tellers) u
The first English poem written after the Conquest
Genre: romance u A story usually in verse relating the adventures of some hero of chivalry characteristic of the later MA
The end of the 12 th c. u Due to the influence of the middle classes literature changed (not aristocratic, covering a wide range of topics in a great diversity of styles, no idealized heroes).
New genres: u The fable – a short story with animals for characters conveying a moral u The fabliaux – a funny story in verse showing a practical attitude to life