Anglo-saxon period
Poetry:
Unknown scribe------------The song of Beowulf (pagan poetry)
Caedmon --------------paraphrase (religious poetry) / the Hymn of Praise
Caedmon is known as the father of English song
Cynewulf -------------The Christ (religious poetry)/Juliana / the Fates of the Apostles ./Elene
Prose:
Venerable Bede ------------The Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Venerable Bede is regarded as the father of English learning
Alfred the Great --------The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles
Aelfric-------------______________
Anglo-norman period
The matters of Britain --- (mainly about the king Arthur and his knight the round table)
- such as: sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The matters of France------(mainly about the Charlemagne )
Such as: Chanson de Roland
The matters of Rome ------- (mainly about Alexander the Great and Trojan War)
William Langland-------Piers the plowman
Geoffery Chaucer------the Canterbury tales / Troilus and Criseyde / The Romaunt of the Rose /The House of Fame
Geoffery Chaucer is regarded as the father of English poetry and the father of English fiction
Thomas malory(he is the only important prose writer in the fifteen century) -------Morte d’ Arthur
Unknown author --------- the geste of Robin Hood (it is a famous ballad singing the goods of Robin Hood )
Layamon -- --------brut (not in the book )
Geoffery of Monmouth ---------the history of the king of Britain (not in the book)
English poetry in the Renaissance period
Thomas Wyattt----(he was the first to introduce the sonnet its English literature)
Henry Howard,Earl of Surrey(he was the first to give the sonnet its English form) ------translations of book2 and book 4 of virgil’s Aeneid
[Surrey . English prosody ( )has gained a magnificient instrument -----blank verse]
Sir Philip Sidney ----------Arcadia, /Astrophel and Stella ,/Apology(defense) of poetry
(he is known both as a poet and a critic of poetry )
Edmund Spenser ------------Faerie Queene / the Shepherd ‘s Calendar/ Amoretti /Epithalamion
Edmund Spenser is acclaimed as “the poets’ poet”
English prose in the Renaissance period
Thomas More --------- Utopia (it is written in the form of a conversation between More and a returned sailor)
(More distinguished himself as a learned scholar, a master of Latin . a witty talker, a lover of music. An honest statesman , a man of noble character )
John Lyly ----------Euphues ,
Francis Bacon ----------Essays / the advancement of learning /the new Atlantis /the new instrument(the novum organum)/of studies /of travel/ of wisdom
Francis Bacon is the first English essayist.
English drama in the Renaissance period
John Lyly -------Alexander and campaspe /king midas
George Peele------the old wives’ tale
Thomas Kyd -----the Spanish tragedy
Christopher Marlowe --------Tamburlaine /the tragical history of doctor Faustus/ The jew of Malta/
The passionate shepherd to his love
Christopher Marlowe made blank verse the principal vehicle of expression in drama.
* before Shakespeare ,a group of university graduates known as “University Wits”
They are ;John Lyly , Robert Greene ,George Peele , Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd.*
Shakespeare --------------main comedies:
Merchant of Venice
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
As you like it
The winter’s tale
The twelfth Night
(The heroines of Shakespeare ‘s great comedies ,Portia, Rosaland, Viola, Beatrice are the daughters of renaissance ,whose images and stories will remain a legacy to readers and audiences of all time)
Main tragedy;
Hamlet
Othello
King Lear
Macbeth
Historical plays:
Henry 4
Henry 5
Henry 6
Richard 2
Richard 3
Fictional plays:
Romeo and Juliet
Poetical works;
Venus and Adonis
Lucrece
Ben Johnson------------Everyone in his humour/volpone/the Alchemist /the silent woman |
