English Literature from the Old English Period Through the Renaissance

by Luebering, J. e.

• ISBN13: 9781615301102
• ISBN10: 1615301100
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-08-15
• Publisher: Britannica Educational Pub

Summary

Retaining the thrill and tone of oral storytelling as the written word became increasingly widespread was the charge of early English writing. Beginning in the Old English period and continuing through the Medieval and Renaissance periods, writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare began to elevate the place of literature in society. This volume details the evolution of early English literature and the enduring works that have withstood centuries of linguistic and cultural change.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 10
The Old English Period	p. 21
Poetry	p. 24
The Major Manuscripts	p. 25
Problems of Dating	p. 25
Religious Verse	p. 26
Elegiac and Heroic Verse	p. 27
Prose	p. 29
Early Translations into English	p. 30
Late 10th-and 11th-Century Prose	p. 32
Significant Figures and Texts	p. 33
Notable Old English Writers	p. 33
Notable Old English Texts	p. 39
The Middle English Period	p. 50
Early Middle English Poetry	p. 50
Influence of French Poetry	p. 51
Fabliau	p. 53
Didactic Poetry	p. 54
Verse Romance	p. 54
Beast Epic	p. 55
Arthurian Legend	p. 56
Breton Lay	p. 59
The Lyric	p. 59
Early Middle English Prose	p. 61
Later Middle English Poetry	p. 63
Alliterative Poetry	p. 63
Courtly Poetry	p. 68
Popular and Secular Verse	p. 72
Political Verse	p. 73
Later Middle English Prose	p. 73
Religious Prose	p. 74
Secular Prose	p. 75
Middle English Drama	p. 77
Mystery Plays	p. 77
Morality Plays	p. 81
Everyman	p. 83
Miracle Plays	p. 83
The Transition from Medieval to Renaissance	p. 84
Significant Middle English Literary Figures	p. 86
William Caxton	p. 86
Geoffrey Chaucer	p. 88
John Gower	p. 102
Lawamon	p. 104
Robert Mannyng	p. 104
Orm	p. 106
Richard Rolle	p. 107
The Renaissance Period (1550-1660)	p. 108
Social Conditions	p. 109
Intellectual and Religious Revolution	p. 109
The Race for Cultural Development	p. 111
Elizabethan Poetry and Prose	p. 114
Development of the English Language	p. 115
Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser	p. 117
Elizabethan Lyric	p. 121
The Sonnet Sequence	p. 122
Other Poetic Styles	p. 123
Prose Styles, 1550-1600	p. 127
Early Stuart Poetry and Prose	p. 130
House of Stuart	p. 131
The Metaphysical Poets	p. 133
The Metaphysicals	p. 133
Ben Jonson and the Cavalier Poets	p. 138
Continued Influence of Spenser	p. 140
Spenserian Stanza	p. 141
The Effect of Religion and Science on Early Stuart Prose	p. 142
Prose Styles	p. 144
John Milton and the Renaissance	p. 146
Milton's Life and Works	p. 148
Milton's Influence	p. 173
Elizabethan and Early Stuart Drama	p. 177
Theatres in London and the Provinces	p. 178
Professional Playwrights	p. 180
Blank Verse	p. 181
Christopher Marlowe	p. 182
Marlowe's Works	p. 184
Literary Career	p. 188
Assessment	p. 189
William Shakespeare	p. 191
Shakespeare the Man	p. 191
Shakespeare's Early Plays	p. 197
Plays of the Middle and Late Years	p. 207
The Poems	p. 233
Collaborations and Spurious Attributions	p. 236
Questions of Authorship	p. 237
Playwrights after Shakespeare	p. 240
Ben Jonson	p. 241
Other Jacobean Dramatists	p. 244
The Last Renaissance Dramatists	p. 246
Epilogue	p. 249
Glossary	p. 251
Bibliography	p. 253
Index	p. 257
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