LITERATURE
1
Vojtěch Legler
CONTENTS
Anglo-Saxons
 Medieval Period
 The Renaissance
 Neoclassical Period
 Romantic Period
 Victorian Period
 20th Century

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ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE (450-1066)
Old English
 Oral poetry
 Genres: chronicles, poetry
 Alliteration

The Ecclesiastical History of the English People
by the Venerable Bede
 Anglo-Saxon Chronicles by Alfred the Great

3
BEOWULF (AROUND 1000)
Oldest Old English poem
 Heroic epic
 Unknown author

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MEDIEVAL PERIOD (1066-1500)
French influence
 secular and religious literature
 Appearance of drama

The Bible by John Wycliffe
 Piers Plowman by William Langland

5
GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1343-1400)
Father of English literature
 Inspired by French and Italian poetry

Troilus and Criseyde,
The Book of the Duchess
 The Canterbury Tales
collection of stories

6
THE RENAISSANCE (1500-1660)
Humanism and science
 Rediscovery of Greek and Latin literature
 Flowering of drama
 Influence by Italian art

Paradise Lost by John Milton
 Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
 Period of William Shakespeare

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)
member of Lord Chamberlain's Men company
 Globe theatre
 3 periods of work
 Comedies, tragedies


Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
tragedy with comical elements
existentialist questions
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NEOCLASSICAL PERIOD (1660-1800)
scientific and reasoned writing
 Genre of novel
 Literature for middle class
 Sentimentalism

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
 Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel
Johnson

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ROMANTIC PERIOD (1800-1830)
focus on nature and feelings
 Gothic novel

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
 Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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VICTORIAN PERIOD (1830-1880)
Reflection of relevant concerns of the period
 Increased importance of novel
 Critical realism
 Dramatic monologue

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

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CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870)
social criticism
 Novels, short stories
 Agitation for social reforms

The Pickwick Papers, David Copperfield
 Oliver Twist
Social novel
child labour

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LATE VICTORIAN PERIOD (1880-1915)

scientific knowledge and self-discovery
Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
 Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
 Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

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OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900)

condemned for homosexual
relationship to 2 years
social comedies (A Woman of No
Importance, An Ideal Husband,
The Importance of Being Earnest)
 Picture of Dorian Gray
relation of a man and an artwork
progress of character more important than a plot

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20TH CENTURY
Modernism, postmodernism
 Reflection of political changes
 Experimental

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
 Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

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GEORGE ORWELL (1903-1950)
Critic of totalitarianism
 Invented new words
 Experience from Spanish Civil War

Animal Farm
 1984
Dystopian novel
about a totalitarian
state

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QUIZ
The oldest old English poem
 The most important British writer in middle ages
 Which country influenced literature of
renaissance
 Main literary genre during Victorian period

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SOURCES
http://www.susanlake.net/publications/unit/conte
nt/british_literature.html
 https://www.ucm.es/data/cont/docs/119-2014-02191.%20The%20Development%20of%20English%20
Literature%20(Summary).pdf
 http://www.daimon.org/education/english/british_
literature_history_chart_summary.htm
 http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/lit/history.ht
m

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