自考英美文学选读 早期英国文学.ppt

Selected Readings in English and American Literature Lecture 1 An Introduction to Old and Medieval English Literature Periods of English Literature 450-1066 Old English(or Anglo-Saxon) Period 1066-1500 Middle English Period 1500-1660 The Renaissance (or Early Modern) 1558-1603 Elizabethan Age 1603-1625 Jacobean Age 1625-1649 Caroline Age 1649-1660 Commonwealth Period 1660-1785 The Neoclassical Period 1660-1700 The Restoration 1700-1745 The Augustan Age 1745-1785 The Age of Sensibility (or Age of Johnson) Periods of English Literature 1785-1832 The Romantic Period 1832-1901 The Victorian Period 1848-1860 The Pre-Raphaelites 1880-1901 Aestheticism and Decadence 1901-1914 The Edwardian Period 1910-1936 The Georgian Period 1914- The Modern Period 1945- Postmodernism Brief Introduction of History 1. Roman Britain (55BC-410AD) Julius Caesar, the great Roman general, invaded Britain for the first time in 55 BC and Romans rules the Celts, the aboriginal inhabitants, for about 500 years. 2. The Anglo-Saxon Period (449-1066) About 449, Anglo-Saxons invaded the land, drove the Celts to the north and west and developed their own language and culture. In 597, Pope Gregory I sent St. Augustine, the Prior of St. Andrews Manastery in Rome, to England to convert the heathen/pagan English to Christianity. 3. the Norman Conquest (1066) In 1066, William the Conqueror defeated the Anglo-Saxons and began to rule England and then established the feudal system. Old English Literature the time period: about 450 to 1066; Old English refers to the Anglo-Saxon language, the basis of Modern English; Anglo-Saxon poetic tradition: both bold and strong, mournful and elegiac in spirit. Two Groups of Old English Poetry 1. the religious group: maily on bibilical themes e.g. Genesis A, Genesis B, Exodus == the Old Tes