English Literature -I-English Literature -I-

Lecture 1

ContentContent1. Introduction to ENGLISH LITERATURE

2. WAYS TO STUDY * Collaborate

3. EVALUATION – ASSIGNMETS

4. STUDY FIELDS

5. OVERVIEW

The History of English Literature

Periods

Popular Works

5. CONCLUSION

What’s in a name?What’s in a name?

Playing with words!Playing with words!

What would you say about the following terms?

ENGLISH?

ENGLAND ?

GREAT BRITAIN?

BRITISH?

UK?

UK / Britain / England ?UK / Britain / England ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL66NfKUWDE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10

The most difficult job! Defining…!

What is...?

LITERATURE

Definitions…!Definitions…!

In one of Charles Dickens’ most memorable schoolroom scenes, Mr Thomas Gradgrind, who believes in the importance of facts, asks Sissy Jupe to define a horse. She panics and struggles to find the correct answer. ‘“Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!” said Mr Gradgrind… “Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some boy’s definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.”’ Cold-eyed Bitzer knows the facts: ‘Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth’ (Hard Times, 1854).

Bate, Jonathan (2010-10-07 00:00:00+08:00). English Literature: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (Kindle Locations 607-612). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

I am/was wondering WHY…!I am/was wondering WHY…!

Sissy’s ignorance of the correct nomenclature is ironic, since she knows horses infinitely better than Gradgrind ever will, let alone Bitzer. She is one of the circus people. She has lived with horses all her life. She loves them, cares for them, lives in a world where they are ridden with consummate skill. Dickens’ point is that true knowledge comes from experience and relationship, not from fact and system. The influential Cambridge University literary critic Dr F. R. Leavis at one time admired Hard Times above all Dickens’ other novels because it starkly dramatized the division between vitality – as embodied by the circus people – and the deadening of the human spirit effected by Gradgrind’s educational theory that only facts matter. Gradgrind’s academy sought to extirpate children’s capacity for wonder, for poetry and imaginary play, in order to prepare them to become factory hands, mechanical cogs in the wheel of Victorian capitalist production. Conversely, the aim of literature teachers in the Leavisite tradition was to create beings of strong feeling and humane understanding.Bate, Jonathan (2010-10-07 00:00:00+08:00). English Literature: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (Kindle Locations 607-612). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

What’s is literature?

• Literature is a mouth:

it is the form of art that uses words as opposed to images (the visual arts) or

music. But great literature shares some essential characteristics with great

artworks in other media.• Bate, Jonathan (2010-10-07 00:00:00+08:00). English Literature: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short

Introductions) (Kindle Locations 855-856). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

ENGLISH LITERATURE -1-

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJgmrhBg_EQ • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Q-Uad4rt8

I. STUDY FIELDSI. STUDY FIELDS1a. SEMESTER• The Anglo Saxons.• Old English Literature. Beowulf. Its importance.

• The Medieval Period. Geoffrey Chaucer. Life and Career. • The Cantebury Tales. (1)• The Cantebury Tales.(2)

• The English Renaissance and Reformation. • Writers and ideas.

• Christopher Marlowe. Life and career. Dr. Faustus.• Analysis.

• William Shakespeare. Life and career. • Shakespeare`s language. Shakespeare`s sonnets.

• The Merchant of Venice. (1)• The Merchant of Venice. (2)• The Merchant of Venice. (3)

• Exam Hamlet. (1)• Hamlet. (2)

• MIDTERM

I. STUDY FIELDSI. STUDY FIELDS1b. SEMESTER• Macbeth. (1) • Macbeth. (2)

• John Milton. Life and Career. Paradise lost.• Paradise Regained.

• Daniel Defoe. Life and Career. • Robinson Crusoe. (1)• Robinson Crusoe. (2)

• Jonathan Swift. Life and Career.• Gulliver`s Travels.

• Robert Burns. Life and Career.• Poems.

• William Blake. Life and Career. • Historical Linguistics

• Presentation of Course Works.

• Review

• FINAL EXAM

II. STUDY FIELDSII. STUDY FIELDS2nd. SEMESTER

• Week Topics• 1 Romantic period Literature• 2 Burke, Paine• 3 William Blake: Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience• 4 Lord Byron• 5 Shelley, Carlyle• 6 Mills, Brownings• 7 Dickens, Wilde• 8 Midterm Exam

• 9 English Literature during 20th Century• 10 English Literature during 20th Century• 11 Rise and fall of an Empire • 12 Voices from World War I• 13 Present Days Literature• 14 Presentations• 15 Review• 16 Final Exam

History of English in 10 Minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfKhlJIAhew

English – Birth of a Language

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsVz5U76kX0 *5-7min

Overview

1. Old English Literature - 1066

2. Medieval Literature 1066 - 1510

3. Renaissance and Reformation 1510 - 1620

4. Revolution and Restoration 1620 - 1690

5. Eighteenth-Century Lit. 1690 - 1780

6. The Romantic Period 1780 - 1830

7. High Victorian Literature 1830 - 1880

8. Late Victorian & Edwardian Lit. 1880 - 1920

9. Modernism and Its Alternatives 1920 - 1945

10. Post-War and Post-Modern Lit. 1945 …

British Literature 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJgmrhBg_EQ

British Literature 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Q-Uad4rt8

1. Old English

1. Old English

• Source * Unknown