Literature VWO 6

Literary periods & Movement

(English) Renaissance (1500-1670)

Romantic Period (1798 - 1870)

Modernism (1910 - 1965)

The Renaissance/Elizabethan Age

Characteristics of the Renaissance

Lyric Poetry / Sonnet

Setting/Vision of Literature

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 29

Christopher Marlowe - The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Sir Thomas More - Utopia

Describing poetry

Lyric poetry (p. 108)

Expresses personal emotions rather than events. An emotional rhyming poem

Sonnets (p.108)

Are a form of lyric poetry. There are two forms. Italian & English.

Sonnet 29 - William Shakespeare (p.111)

1564-1616

Typical English sonnet

3 quatrains (stanzas of four lines that rhyme)

2 tercets (stanzas of three lines that rhyme)

a turning point

1 couplet (stanza of two lines that rhyme) usually containing a conclusion

Explaining Sonnet 29

The quatrains

The tercets

The turning point

The couplet

The conclusion

Literary Terms

Setting - place and time

Vision of Literature - reason for writing

entertainment / historical perspective / raise awareness

Christopher Marlowe 1564 - 1593

Born in 1564

Son of a shoemaker

University Education at Cambridge

Lived a wild and violent life

Deported from the Netherlands for trying to pass off forged coins

Stabbed to death at the age of 29

Best known works : The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus  and The Jew of Malta

Sir Thomas More 1478-1535

Son of a famous lawyer

He became a brilliant lawyer

Was friends with Erasmus and shared his humanist ideas about human dignity and tolerance fused with Christian principles

Imprisoned and eventually beheaded by Henry VIII for taking the side of the Pope 

Best known work is Utopia - 

vision of literature: criticise contemporary society

Utopia page 122

What is the setting?

What is More's attitude to the people described?

What is his vision of literature?

Romantic Period

Characteristics of the Romantic Period

blank verse / ode / sonnets / ballads / frame story

William Wordsworth - Strange Fits of Passion have I known

Samuel Coleridge - Kubla Khan

Percy Shelly - Song to the Men of England

John Keats - To Autumn

Mary Shelly - Frankenstein

Characteristics of the Romantic Age

return to nature

importance of feeling and imagination

renewed interest in the past

interest in countryside, common people, and folk literature

interest in distant civilizations (medieval, Greek, Oriental)

interest in gloomy places (ruins, graveyards)

escapism from reality

Literary Terms

blank verse - most fluid of verse forms and comes closest to natural speech (Strange Fits of Passion)

ode - orginally a song in honour of gods or heroes but now in written form (To Autumn)

 frame story - a story within a story (Frankenstein)

Writers

William Wordsworth - Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan

Percy Bysshe Shelly - Song to the Men of England

John Keats - To Autumn

Mary Shelly - Frankenstein

William Wordsworth 1770 - 1850

Spent his childhood in the Lake District and his poetry is linked with this beautiful part of England

A passionate believer of the French Revolution and republican ideals

He chose subjects that appeal to most people

He describes the beauty of nature and expresses his beliefs in the effect of nature on man's soul.

Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known 

When the moon suddenly disappears behind the roof of Lucy's cottage the I figure panicks at the thought that Lucy may be dead. This sudden fear is a "strange fit of passion" there is no logical link between the moon's disappearance and Lucy's well-being.

Romantic? A lover, a moonlit night, and comparing her to a rose.

Romantic? Feeling, imagination, interest in nature, countryside, common people

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 - 1834

A temperamental, dreamy child, who read Latin and Greek poetry at an early age

Had an intense friendship is Wordsworth based on a mutual love of poetry, critical discussion and walking

Interest in the supernatural

Habit of taking opium which inspired one of his greatest works Khubla Khan

Percy Bysshe Shelly 1792-1822

Son of a conservative country squire (landowner high social standing)

Conventional upbringing made him deeply unhappy and rebellious (Eton, Oxford)

Shelly was interested in social and political problems of his day

He believed that a bette society was to come without oppression, tyranny, cruelty and with freedom for everybody

Was drowned in 1822 on a return trip from visiting Byron at Livorno 

Song to the Men of England

theme:

Greatness and authority are not seen as honourable. They are based on cruelty and oppression.

John Keats 1792 - 1821

Parents both died when he was 14

became apprenticed to an apothecary - surgeon (pharmacist/surgeon) but abandoned the profession for poetry

Shelley invited him to Italy where he settled until his death in 1821

To Autumn p.142

consists of three stanzas, each of them Keats emphasizes a different phase of the season

To Autumn is an ode and it is all about nature. 

Think about the phases of autumn and answer the question on the next slide

Which phases of autumn are there? Write down phrases, words, or perhaps images (if that works)

Mary Shelley 1797-1851

daughter of very famous couple

Mary's mother died after giving birth

Mary Shelley married Percy Shelley (famous writer) and also edited his work

Wrote a number of Gothic novels (characterised by horror, violence, supernatural effects, and a taste for the medieval

Frankenstein is her best-know work

Frankenstein -  frame story - a story within a story 

The novel Frankenstein is a story about a monster which is told to an Englishman, named Walter by Frankenstein, the creator of the monser, himself. Walton is an explorer in the polar regions where he meets Victor Frankenstein. In his letters to his sister, Walton tells her what Victor has told him. 

The I-figure in the first paragraph is the monster (called the being) talking to Victor Frankenstein. (p.150 let's read)

Modernism (Surrealism/The Lost Generation)

Characteristics 

Rupert Brooke - The Soldier

Wilfred Owen - Anthem for Doomed Youth

George Orwell - The Road to Wigan Pier

Characteristics of Modernism

War poetry and prose

1914 - 1940 was characterised by a descreasing belief in:

reason as the guiding principle (psychology gaining ground - Freud) 

progress as a means to improve quality of life

absolute values

Poetry 

Soldiers of World War 1 began to write poems to communicate their experiences

There are three stages with regard to attitude toward war:

1) heroic and glorious

2)pity - senseless waste of human lives

3) protest and sacrasm 

Rupert Brooke 1887 - 1915

Was educated at a famous public school and Cambridge

Travelled to Germany and published Poems in 1911

Joined the war effort and published 5 war sonnets in 1915

Died of blood poisoning while on a naval expedition to Turkey

Wilfred Owen 1893-1918

Failed to win a scholarship to study English Literature, he went to France to teach

Joined the army in 1919 and fought during the worst winter of the war

4 poems was published in his lifetime

He died one week before the armistice