Characteristics of English Literature

Literature

Clan= a group of related people with a chief.

From the Pre-Celts to the Normans

The invaders of Britain
Ca 8000 BC: The Iberians
BC: prima di cristo
AD: anno domini
C 700BC-43 AD: the celts
43-409 AD: the Romans
5 century: the angles and the Saxons were Germanic tribes.
9 century: the Vikings arrived from Norway, Sweden and Denmark
1066: the Normans were the last invaders of the Britain isles; they came from France.
Flint= selce

The Iberians

-land bridge.
-dark haired.
-hunter-gatheres and fishermen.
-neolithic or new stone age flint.
-huge stone circlesmegalithic temples.

The celts

The celts: society
-they were brave warriors.
-they lived in extended families called clans.
-women were almost equal to men.
-they built hill forts on top of hills surrounded by ditches filled with water.
The celts: economy
-they were famous, hunters, fishermen
-thy worked iron
-they introduced the iron plough
-they make a beautiful jewel
The celts: religion
They worshipped the natural elements.

The sun

The moon trees and rivers

-they held their religious ceremonies in the woods and near water.
-their priests were called druids.
-the druids were influential figure who administered justice and educated the young.

The romans

-invaded and settled in 43-47 AD under Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD);
-encouraged the growth of towns near their army bases which became centers of vibrant commercial activity.
-built over 9,600 km of paved roads in Britain.
-they built Hadrian’s wall in the north, on the 122 AD.
-they built the first bridge on the river Thames in their settlement Londinium.
-they withdrew their legions in 409 AD to defend Rome.
From the Pre-Celts to the Normans

The Anglo-Saxons

They from Germany and north Europe
-the Germanic tribes collectively called Anglo-Saxons came from the North Sea regions of northern Europe.
-they used a runic alphabet.
-they were deep-sea fishermen and farmers.
-their language, old English, is the basis of modern English
Society
-they were organised in family groups of clans.
-loyalty to family and lord was the most important value.
-the centre of communal life was the hall= case grandi dove si riunisce il Villaggio.
-they formed seven kingdoms known as the heptarchy
-the kingdom of Wessex became the most important.

Christianisation

-in 597 Pope Gregory I sent a monk, Augustin, to bring Christianity back to England.
-Canterbury Cathedral was founded in 602. Augustine was the first Archbishop of Canterbury.
-monasteries became important cultural centres.
-a monk wrote The Ecclesiastic History of the English People.

The Vikings

A member of a race of Scandinavian people who attacked and sometimes settled in parts on north-west Europe, including Britain.
Viking is an old Norse word meaning warrior of raider.

York= capitale dei vichinghi

Alfred

-united the U.K.
Athelstan
-united England father of the English state
-coinage
-common law
900

Danegeld

Conquer and settle.
A Viking king, Canute
Becomes king of England
Edward the confessor
-interested in religion
-built Westminster abbey
-childless
1066: battle of hasting
Normandy: William

Anglo-Saxon literature

Old English
Second half of the 5 century-1066
-epic poems
-elegies
-chronicles
-translation of the bible
-stories about the lives of saints
-riddle
-sermons
-anonymous and oral
-celebrated the cultural values
-the scop or bard entertained the noblemen in the hall of the king and sang epics, often accompanied by the harp
What is a scop?
Scop
-professional singer who was hired to entertain guest with stories, usually in poetry form about the heroic adventures of tribes heroes.
Features of Anglo-Saxon literature
Features
Alliteration: repited consonant sounds at the beginning of world.
Caesura: a break or pause within a line of poetry indicated by punctuation and used to emphasize meaning.
Kenning: is a way of describing something using clues rather just saying what it is.

Epic poem

Epic: epos= oral exposition

The art of poetry

Meaning
-Poetry: poiein= to create
-born as an oral art
-the oldest form of literature
-most remarkable events
Basic structural units
-line (the basic unit) = verso
-stanza (a group of lines) = strofa
-canto (the main division of a long poem) =
Types of stanzas
-couplet (two lines)
-tercet (three lines)
-quatrain (four lines)
-sestet (six lines)
-octave (eight lines)
Kinds of poetry
-narrative
-epic tell a story in verses, something with a moral
-dramatic
-lyric= are short and express individual’s feelings or thoughts.
Most important elements
-sound
-visual layout
-language

Sound devices vocale
Assonance: the repetition of the same vowel sound
Alliteration: the repetitions of the same consonant sound
Onomatopoeia: the use of worlds whose sound illustrates their meaning
End-stopped line: the end a line coincides with a grammatical pause. The most common line.
Rune-on line (enjambement): a line end in the middle of a phrase

Beowulf

The epic poem
-it’s a long narrative composition
It deals with: the recollection of a glorious past in the history of a nation

The brave deeds of heroes

-history is the frame, but supernatural characters, like moments, are the canvas of the poem.
-an aristocratic military society is described
-the narrative of the poem is made up of a series of type-scenes battles, banquets, funeral, voyages
-the narration is objective
-the main theme is the nature of heroic life
-the didactic aim is the celebration of eroic values.
-the language is vivid, and the style is elevated.

Beowulf: a national epic

-the oldest surviving Anglo-Saxon poem, written more then 1200 years ago
-the post is unknown
-it deals whir a time following the initial invasion of England by Germanic tribes over the course of the 5 and 6 centuries
The plot
It is divided into three selections:
1) Beowulf, the war leader of the Scandinavian greats, fights against Grendel, the monster and succeeds in killing him in Heorot.
2) The hero fights against Grendel’s mother, Beowulf manages to kill her at the bottom of the misty lake with a magic sword.
3) After fifty years, the hero kills a fire-breathing dragon in Scandinavia but is mortally wounded.

Characters

-the hero Beowulf, praised fot is courage…
-the monsters
1) Grendel
2) Grendel mother
3) Dragon