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What is Literary History?

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Literary History is not just out there - it is something we construct from various facts we connect and emphasize - it is constantly re-written - it is a narrative within national and cultural discourses - Globalization started early within literature. Encountering other cultures via literature.

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Basic Terminology

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Lyric poetry = German Lyrik Genre, literary kind = Gattung German: Lyrik, Epik, Drama - English: verse vs prose Characteristics of verse - left justification (Linksbündigkeit) - texts tend to be relatively short - line segmentation is important - "Sangbarkeit" (lyric: instrument: "Leiha") Lyric poetry is part of the verse tradition - not all verse is lyric poetry - but all lyric poetry is verse Metre: Verse uses metre, except free verse Old English literature themes: winter, sea, going to exile Renaissance themes: precise description of how nature reacts, spring

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Problems encountered with literature and literary history

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individual approach constantly re-written how do we know it is a song? what is a cover? what is the original? what is literary history? background information? some artists give wrong backgrounds there is not one lit. history, but many what is important to us might not have seemed important to the writer

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Facts in Literary History

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some facts are "under erasure" Causal fertility: one way of selecting a text by thinking about what is its importance, its impact

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The Cuckoo song - sumer is ycumen in

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Early Middle English Middle of the 13th century Author: anonymous about the beginning of spring total different meaning to a mediaval person not just a poem, also a song ballad stanza,

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G. Harrison: Here comes the sun

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people might think covered version is the original many unauthorized texts Can a Beatles song be part of literary history? - times have changed, not possible in former times - trivial literature has become part of the canon

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Bede: Caedmon's Hymn

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The Latin version of an Old English orally composed hymn - the oldest poem in the Old English language - orally composed by the Venerable Bede - Bede means Schreiber we don't know whether it was sung or read

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Timeline Part 1

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700 B.C. Homer 400: Plato, Vergil 0: Jesus 700: Old English: Beowulf 1066: Battle of Hastings: Norman Conquest - middle English: court language - late middle english: again for literature - Saussure was very important for language 1400: Death of Chaucer - Father of English Literature - Black Death created another society, feudalism started falling apart

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Timeline Part 2

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1400: Death of Saussure, Renaissance: Rebirth of Greek 1453: 100 year war ends 1455-85: War of Roses, lots of old nobilities killed 1476: Caxton introduces printing to England 1564: Shakespeare (Early Modern English), Marlow, Michelangelo 1588: Defeat of Spanish Armada, Spain wanted GB to be a catholic country Age of colonialism 1600: Shakespeare: Hamlet 1603: Death of Elizabeth I; then Scottish king (son of Mary Stuart) 1628: Circulation of blood was discovered 1662: Royal Society was founded as a scientific institution 1666: Great fire of London 1690: The bank of England was founded - age of oligarchy 1798: Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge

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Timeline Part 3

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1900: end of Victorian age - Modernism Middle English as language of literature 700 - 1150: Old English 1150 - 1500: Middle English 1500 - 1700: Early Modern English 1700 - now: Modern English The novel of the 20th century is James Joyce' Ulysses 1066: Anglo-Saxcon Chronicle 1137: Peterborough Chronicle

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Adam Lay Bound

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traditional english Christmas carol simple but hard to understand symbolically connection to spring because of salvation it is a song, but we don't have the music around 1400, author unknown bound means "In prison"

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Adam Lay Bound Background

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religion was very important, christianity was very successfull Christianity gives you some sense of what's going to happen after life concept: felix culpa: happy sin, Adam's sin was good in a way harrowing of hell

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Old English

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contained many compound words, most of which have been lost in Modern English most of the names in Beowulf are compounds: Hrothgar: glory+spear Angles and Saxons conquered England in the 5th and 6th centuries In the 7th century christian missionaries taught the English to write

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Middle English Literature

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1066 - 1500 Literature in England in this period was in English, Latin and French After 1066 the classical OE verse died out

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Tudor Literature

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1500 - 1603 Renaissance, Reformation, Elizabethan Age Shakespeare helped "Tudor myth" New learning: Humanism: man as center Puritan Movement Rediscovery of ancient Greek texts

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The Renaissance

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Spread from the 15th century Italy to France, Spain and beyond. The art is better known than the literature: Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael Content of literature, art and architecture remained christian

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Elizabethan Age

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Elizabeth managed to balance various political movements "'Virgin Queen" Catholicism forbidden - leads to events like Pilgrim Fathers Authorized Version of Bible under James I

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Investigations

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Columbus, da Gama, Magellan, Galileo Ideas of what the world looked like changed dramatically

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Political Events

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As a consequence of Norman conquest: Feudalism

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Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. General Prologue

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Medieval to Early Modern English Chaucer was influenced by Petrarch seasons, symbolism, astrological references, astronomical aspets Canterbury Tales are set in April (spring!)

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From Medieval to Early Modern

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the young sun - the sun in spring is till young and grow

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Worldviews

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geocentric worldview - ptolemaic universe: - world is at the center and everything revolts around it (Ptolemaios) - everything above the moon is stable and perfect - the sun was beyond the moon as well - everything is surrounded by heavens - change only happens below the moon - number of outer-spheres with God all around it dominant idea in Shakespeare/Pope time

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heliocentric worldview

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16th century: Sun in center

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Three Souls in Man

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vegetative (plants) controls - nutrition - growth - reproduction - found in liver sensitive (animals) controls - apprehension (through senses) - movement - appetites and passions - found in heart rational (human) controls - understanding - common sense (perception) - imagination - memory - will - found in brain These analogies work by connecting the body with a planet, a zodiac sign, an element and an age.

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the four temperaments

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Galen idea: body fluids affect huma personality traits and behaviors. Food is made of the four elements.

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Sanguine

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pleasure-seeking and sociable in liver air Jupiter Sign: Gemini, Libra, Aquarius Spring Childhood

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Choleric

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amibitious and leader-like in yellow bile (gelbe Galle) fire Mars Sign: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius Summer Adolescence

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Phlegmatic

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relaxed and quiet from blood water moon sign: Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn Autumn Manhood

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Melancholy

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analytical and thoughtful in spleen (Milz) earth saturn sign: cancer, scorpio, pisces winter old Age

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Temperamente

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Depending on which of the fluids was dominant, this influenced your character Man is seen as a fallen culture, because he depends on other elements. People were compared to animals because they shared the fluids

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Sonnets

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Came from Italy (Petrarch, Dante) France was also an important step in the development (Pierre de Ronsard) Wyatt and Surrey brought it to England We are mainly looking at the 17th and 18th century Tudors love sonnets

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Sonnets: formal aspects

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Fixed verse form: usually 14 lines (occasionally 12 or 16) sophisticated rhyme scheme English form: usualyy iambic pentameter Petrachan sonnet: octave: abba - abba and a sestet Shakespearean Sonnet - 3 quatrains, final couplet, abab cdcd efef gg

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Development of the Sonnets

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- The Elizabethians called everything a sonnet, no strict terminology - Sonnets were not mass literature - Thomas Wyatt introduced form to England and also changed the Italian form - Many not published, just love sonnets - 1557 Tottel's Miscellany (a book) - 2nd wave of sonneteers: Shakespeare, Spencer, Sidney - Sonnet is a form which continues throughout history - Shakespeare 154 sonnets

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Petrarchism

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- not only form, but also contents are determined - angelic purity of lady, power of lady's glances - catalogue of ideas and qualities - point of speaker: unfulfilled love, pain, blazon of catalogue, oxymorons, paradoxons

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Sir Thomas Wyatt: Whose List to Hunt

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Wyatt was a highly educated courtiert - adaption of Petrarch's Rima 190

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Sir Philipp Sidney

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The last knight in the English courtly context wrote the Arcadia wrote Astrophil and Stella important critic criticized Shakespeare - too unrealistic

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Shakespeare

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Was highly acknowledged at his time Problem: Plays were not considered proper literature Came from the middle class but became wealthy as shareholder and actor probably never went to University

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Shakespeare's sonnets

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154 in total, all real sonnets except 2 1-126 are addressed to a young man, so called "friend" 127-154 are addressed to a dark lady Anatomy of Love: Shakespeare's sonnets are not a story, but they attempt at looking at love from various aspects (adultery, jealousy, sexual love) - Sonnets 1-17 are called procreation-sonnets - Anti-Petrarchan Movement in Shakespeare's sonnets

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Sir Edmund Spenser

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- middle class - moved to Ireland - wrote big epic: The Faire Queen

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Metaphysical Poetry

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Is poetry base on conceits creating a (surprising) connection between two remote concepts/elements or fields of reality. Conceit (kühne Metapher) = an elaborate figurative device of a faithful kind which often incorporates metaphor and simile.

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John Donne

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- brought up catholic, later protestant - womanizer - in his older times obsessed with death and time (slept in a coffin at night) - poems published after his death

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George Herbert

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- a religious poet, humorous and witty

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Augustan Age

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Age of Classicism, of Enlightenment It was called Augustan age in regards of the Augustan age in ancient Rome because the age of peace and tranquility

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Alexander Pope

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Age of Pope = Age of reason and enlightenment Pope is THE classicist - thought a lot about the position of men in the universe and about what men should achieve in society - an originally catholic background - educated himself (Wunderkind) - wrote perfect poetry at a very early age - cripple, suffering person - translated the Iliad - made him wealthy Point of classicism is not innovation of form, but perfection of form Essay on Man Essay on Criticism

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dramatic monologue

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Vicotianism: newly developed form which influenced modernism a lot o only one person speaking, others are there o historical speaker is far away from the writer also used by modernists!

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heroic couplet

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Pope is famous for it A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used for epic and narrative poetry; it refers to poems constructed from a sequence of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines. The rhyme is always masculine. Use of the heroic couplet was first pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Legend of Good Women and the Canterbury Tales.

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metaphysical poetry

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established by John Donne Metaphysical poetry is poetry based on conceits creating a (surprising) connection between two remote concepts/elements or fields of reality Subjects of metaphysical poetry: o Religious and philosophical subjects

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felix culpa

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"the happy sin" Adam's sin was also happy in a way; gives Christ the opportunity to save mankind

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fertile facts

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facts that have an impulse on history

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teleology

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history is purposeful and not accidental, assesses the importance of facts and dates in history - shifting process of evaluation

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