An Outline of History of British Culture and Literature

Every work of literature has a generic context. In addition, every work has a historical context. That is, it belongs to a particular historical period.

1. Old English or Anglo-Saxon period

· It mainly belongs to the period before the Norman Conquest in 1066.

· The language in which it is written is more like German than modern English.

· The greatest single poem is Beowulf (probably written around 700). It is either an epic or tragic poem.

· The other works: the prose Chronicles, Christian poem such as The Dream of the Rood and The Battle of Maldon.

· The major made in Old English is sort of narrative poem and deals with the desire for order in a savage and unruly world

2. Middle English or Medieval period

· It belongs to approximately the 1065 to 1550.

· The outstanding writer is Chaucer who wrote The Canterburg Tales.

· In this period, there are narrative poems, lyric poetry, and drama.

· The most distinctive feature of the literature of this period is that it is markedly Christian. A familiar pattern is the gap between the Christian ideal and the reality of life in this imperfect world.

3. Renaissance period (The seventeenth century)

· Approximately dates are 1550 to 1660.

· It is considered as one of the richest eras in English literature, because society was changing in such a fundamental way; the world was becoming much more complex, with the whole economic and social fabric of society changing.

· Like medieval writers, renaissance writer still recognize God as the only source of order, even though so much of their attention is on how man distracted and tempted by worldly ambition and secular concerns.

· There was attention between a traditional order and disruption of this order. We can see this in Shakespeare's work, Hamlet (1600), and King Lear (1605).

· The central historical event is the civil war of 1642-1651. it embodies a similar conflict between the king's traditional status and authority and new forces who wish to wrest power from the king.

· We can see this in Milton's work, Paradise Lost (1667).

· The outstanding writers such as: Shakespeare, Marlowe, Donne, and Jhonson.

4. Eighteenth Century

· It belongs to about 1660 - 1790.

· The tension is between the desirability and their awareness of the inevitability of social disorder. They deal with the gap between how things could or should be in society and how they really are.

· Outstanding writers: Richardson and Fielding.

5. Romantic period

· About 1800

· It is considered as the great ages of English poetry, with Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Bryan, and Shelley.

· It was no longer pay attention in God as the source at order, nor is order sought in society, but it seeks a harmony in life which is at one with a pattern that can be found in the natural world.

· The outstanding novelists are Jane Austen and George Elliot.

6. Victorian Period

· About 1830

· It develops from romantic literature

· It is the great age of novel because the novel was only form that could expand enough to cope with the scale and complexity of Victorian society as it, too, expanded and changed with the growth of industrialization.

· The great novelists are Charles Dickens and Eliot. They are fully aware of the disorder, injustice, and hand ships of the world they live in.

7. Twentieth Century

· It is a period of extraordinary creative in all the arts.

· The point is the fact that rapid social changes, an alteration in the whole structure of society, almost always stimulate the production of great art.

· The central historical event of the early years of the twentieth century is the First World War (1914-1918).

· There is find an increasing senses that life is overwhelmingly confusing and complicated. E.g.: novels of Hardy, Conrad, Joyee and Lawrence. Poetry of T.S Eliot and Yeats.

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