Download English Literature Timeline Annotations

English Literature Timeline Annotations
Prepared by Skylar Hamilton Burris
These are notes to the timeline on English Literature and history.
Bede (673-735): Bede wrote An Ecclesiastical History of the English People in Latin. In
this histroy, he tells the story of Caedmon, an illiterate cowherd who labored in the
monastery of Whitby. Caedmon miraculously received the gift of song, and his Hymn is
included in Bede's history along with a Latin translation. It may be the oldest poem
written in English.
Beowulf: This poem is preserved in a late 10th century manuscript, but some date it as
early as the 700's. The story has a pagan origin; it was passed down by oral tradition and
at some point written down and amended by an apparently Christian poet. The Danes and
Geats were Germanic tribes, the Danes from Zealand and the Geats from Southern
Sweden. In the Old English epic, Beowulf is a Geat who helps the King of the Danes
(Hrothgar) kill the monster (Grendel) that haunts his mead hall (Herot). Grendel’s mother
seeks revenge, and Beowulf kills her too. Beowulf later becomes a king and dies slaying
a dragon. Below some terms central to Beowulf are defined:
thane (warrior) --- the lord and his thane had more than a feudal relationship; their
interactions were expected to include respect, reward, and unity
kenning - two words used together to describe something, such as whale-road (sea) or
word-hoard (mouth)
wergild - "blood price" -- if someone killed a kinsman, you were required to kill him, or
he could pay a blood price--wergild--as compensation to the family.
wyrd - fate
The Battle of Maldon: This work is about a battle in the 10th century between
Scandinavian raiders and English defense forces. In it, Brihtnoth, leader of the English
militia, valiantly prevented the Scandinavians from crossing to the mainland. But his flaw
was his overconfidence; he allowed the Scandinavians free passage and was killed in the
battle.
The Dream of the Rood: date and author unkown; this work recounts a dream about
Christ's Cross
The Wanderer: This poem, written in the elgiac mood, is about an exile in search of a
new lord and hall.
The Battle of Hastings: In 1063, William of Normandy (William I, William the
Conqueror) tricked Harold into swearing to support his claim to the throne. When the
council of kings elected Harold to succeed Edward, William prepared his invasion.
Harold was killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. 1066 is one of the most important
dates in English history, because it would define the history and language of England for
years to come. It also explains the large number of words of French origin that may be
found in the English vocabulary.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1375-1400): This long, story-like poem is written
like Old English Verse (that is, the line is broken into two halves that are bound by
alliteration and stresses: "There hurtles in the hall door an unknown rider....Half a giant
on earth I hold him to be."). In the story, a Green Knight comes into Arthur's court and
challenges the knights to a beheading game. (He lets one of the knight's lay him a blow,
and, if it does not kill him, he can lay the knight a blow in return.) Gawain volunteers,
and beheads him. The Green Knight, unpreturbed, picks up his head, and then tells
Gawain to come and receive his blow later. Gawain sets out at the appointed time. On
the way he stays at a castle. His host wants to play the swap game, where each will give
the other everything he wins in one day. While he is gone, Gawain undergoes a
temptation by the host's wife. He ends up taking from her three kisses and a magic belt
to protect his life. When the host gets back from hunting, Gawain gives him the three
kisses, but not the belt. Gawain goes to the Green Knight, who turns out to be the host.
The Knight nicks him for each of the kisses and the belt. Gawain repents, and the knight
holds him free of fault. Moral: Hony soyt qui mal pense ("shame be to the man who has
evil in his mind")
William Langland (1330-1387): Scholars suspect Langland is the author of Piers
Plowman due to a play on words in the work. The work shows sympathy for the
commoner. In 1381, peasants used phrases from Piers Plowman in their revolt rhetoric.
The play contains personified characters: Envy, Gluttony, etc. In it, Piers Plowman
promises to show the way to St. Truth if they will plow his first acre. He goes through
Meekness, Conscience, Great Commandments, etc.
Margery Kempe (1373-1438): She was a house wife who had visions and wanted to
become chaste. She went to Julian of Norwhich to see if they were real. She was ordered
by the archbishop not to teach in his diocese, but she did so anyway. This and more is
recorded in The Book of Margery Kempe.
Mystery Plays: These are play version of bible stories, such as Noah's Flood, usually
performed in cycles. The Second Shepherd's Play was the second of two nativity plays.
It is modernized in that the shepherds complain about taxes, the cold, and high handed
treatment from the gentry. There is a comic subplot of Mak and Gill linked with the story
of Christ's birth.
Sir Thomas Malory (1405-1471) wrote Morte D'arthur - "In May when every lusty
heart floursheth...." It begins with the conspiracy against Guinevere--to catch her in the
act with Lancelot. But Gawain, Gaheris, and Gareth will not participate. It goes on to tell
of the war between Arthur and Lancelot, and the killing of Arthur by Sir Mordred. Sir
Bedivere hesitates to toss Excalibur back into the lake, but he finally does. In the end,
Lancelot and Guinevere die also.
Everyman: Morality Plays were not performed in cycles, and they often used allegory
to depict inner moral struggle. Everyman is stripped one by one of everything he relies
upon - Friends, Kinsman, and Wealth. Good Deeds, Strength, Beauty, Intelligence, and
Knowledge assist him, but when he must go to the grave, only Good Deeds comes with
him.
The Gun Powder Plot (1605): A failed effort by Catholic extremists (under the
leadership of Guy Fawkes) to blow up Parliament. Guy Fawkes's day celebrated
deliverance from this plot, and the English burned Guy Fawkes in effigy.
The English Civil War (1642-1659): War between the supporters of Charles I (Royalists
or "Cavaliers") and his Parliamentary opponents (Puritans or "Roundheads"). Charles I
was executed in 1649, and Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protectorate.
The Restoration (1660): General George Monk marched on London and declared for a
free parliament, which called back Charles II (HOUSE OF STUART--son of Charles I)
as King.
Exclusion Bill Crisis (1680): Charles II tried to prevent the passage of a bill excluding
his Catholic brother James, Duke of York, from the throne. (Because Charles had no
legitimate heir, his brother James would obtain the throne. Although James had two
protestant daughters, Mary and Anne, he was Catholic, and some Englishmen feared the
restoration of Catholicism.) The Earl of Shaftesbury lead the exclusionists, or Whigs,
who wanted to set up Charles’s illegitimate protestant son, the Duke of Manmoth, as
King. Charles II and the royalists, or Tories, wanted to preserve the laws of succession.
(For more on the exclusion bill crisis, read my paper on the politics of Otway's Venice
Preserv'd.)
The Englishmen's fear of James Catholicism later resulted in The Glorious Revolution,
also known as the Bloodless Revolution (1688). James II was deposed and fled with his
wife and infant son, "The Old Pretender." William III of Orange (a grandson of Charles I
by his daughter) and Mary II (a Protestant daughter of James II) became King and Queen.
John Skelton (1460-1529): Wrote several attacks on Cardinal Wolsley in his works,
including "Colin Clout," "Why Come Ye Not to Court," "Speak, Parrot", etc. The
Skeltonic line, named for him, contains 2 to 5 beats, has a strange meter, and is short,
rhymed, and jagged, as in the following from "Colin Clout":
And if ye stand in doubt
Who brought this rhyme about
My name is Colin Clout....
For the temporality
Accuseth the spirituality...
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542): In "Mine Own John Poin" he praised retired country
life and made cynical comments on foreign courts: "praise him for counsel that is drunk
of ale...." In 1541 he was charged with treason (Henry VIII, king) and imprisoned in the
Tower of London. He wrote "Whoso List to Hunt," "They Flee From Me," and other
poems.
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547): He established the English Sonnet form
and was the first to publish in blank verse (his translation of Virgil's Aeneid). In 1537 he
was imprisoned for striking a courtier at Windsor. Henry VIII's illegitimate son married
Surrey's sister. In his "Epitaph on Sir Thomas Wyatt" he writes:
Wyatt resteth here, that quick could never rest....
Thus for our guilt, this jewel have we lost;
The earth his bones, the heaven possess his ghost
Another sample of his poetry:
My friends, the things that do attain
The happy life be these, I find:
The riches left, not got with pain;
The fruitful ground, the quiet mind.
Sir Philip Sydney (1554-1586): Considered the perfect courtier during the reign of
Elizabeth I, he was killed in battle at age 32. He was a Protestant who witnessed the
massacre of 50,000 Hugenots in France on August 24, 1572 (Massacre of St.
Bartholomew's Day). He wrote "Astrophil and Stella," a love sonnet cycle. It begins
with a sonnet that says: "Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write." He
also wrote "Arcadia," a pastoral in which two Arcadian shepherds lament the loss of
Urania, a shepherdess whom both love. In his Defense of Poesy, Sydeny defends the
virtue of poetry against Puritan attacks. He uses etymology (from "vates" to "diviner" to
"prophet" to "poet") and argues that poets make another nature. "Nature never set forth
the earth in so rich a tapestry as divers poets have done..."
The Courtier praised "sprezzatura," the easy natural grace of the Courtier.
Edmund Spencer (1552-1599): His Shepherdess Calendar uses Chaucerian language.
His most famous work is The Faerie Queene, a romantic epic celebrating the Tudors,
Elizabeth, and England. It tells the stories of Redcrosse Knight (Holiness), Sir Guyon
(Temperance) and Britomart (Chasity), a female knight who represents Elizabeth
allegorically, and whose name is from Virgil's goddess (associated with Diana, chaste
goddess of the moon). Other characters include Duessa, Una, Gyant, Sir Trevisa, and
Arthur. The introduction is intended to remind us of Virgil, who also moved from
pastoral poetry to epic:
"Lo, I the man, whose Muse whilome did misleed
As time her taught, in lowly shepherds creed,
Am now entrust a far unfitter taske....."
Spencer also wrote "Amoretti," which means "little loves." These poems were dedicated
to Elizabeth and published with Epithalamion. They celebrate a yoking of the spirit and
the flesh. They have a difficult rhyme scheme of abab bcbc cdcd ee (spenserian sonnet).
Epithalamion is a celebration of a marriage (Hymen is the goddess of marriage). Spencer
begins by invoking the muses:
Ye learned sisters which have oftentimes
Been to me ayding, others to adorne . . .
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593): Poet and playwright, contemporary with
Shakespeare. In 1587 he published Tamburlaine, introducing blank verse, "Marlowe's
Mighty Line," on stage. Whereas Tamburlaine dealt with the power of rule ("Sweet
fruition of an earthly crown") and The Jew of Malta dealt with the power of money
("Infinite riches in a little room"), Marlowe's most famous play, Dr. Faustus, dealt with
the power of knowledge. Faustus makes a pact with the devil for knowledge and magical
powers. Mephastopilis and the 7 deadly sins (Pride, Covetousness, Wrath, Envy,
Glutony, Sloth, and Lechery) all play a role. Ultimately, Faustus must face hell because
he will not repent:
"I do repent, and yet I do despair:
Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast!
What shall I do to shun the snare of death?"
In the end, Faustus longs for a hinduisitc-like death, where his soul is not individual and
eternal:
"O soul, be changed into little water drops
And fall into the ocean ne'er to be found
My God, my God, look not so fierce on me!"
And the play concludes:
"Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burned is Apollo's laurel bough."
Marlowe's Hero and Leander is a mythological, erotic poem. The story was told
originally by the 5th century poet Musaeus, and by Ovid (who told the story in Heroides).
Hero was a nun vowed to chastity, devoted to Venus. Leander was her lover who swam
across Hellespont nightly to visit her and who eventually drowned. Hero drowned herself
in the same sea. The poem belongs to the genre of erotic narrative called epyllia (as does
Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis"). Marlowe's famous poem "The Passionate
Shepherd to His Love" begins: "Come live with me an be my love." Both Sir Walter
Raleigh and John Donne wrote responses to this poem.
Thomas Nashe (1567-1601): His Pierce Penniless, His Supplication to the Devil rails
against the enemies of poetry. His poem "A Litany and a Plague" contains these lines:
"Strength stoops unto the grave,
Worms feed on Hector brave..."
Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618): In The History of the World, he talks about the angelic,
rational (man), and brutal (beast) worlds. "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" is
Raleigh's response to Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love." Some quotes
from his poetry:
"Only we die in earnest--that's no jest."
"Tell zeal it wants devotion
Tell love it is but lust
Tell time it is but motion
Tell flesh it is but dust,
And wish them not reply
For thou must give the lie."
John Donne (1572-1631): In 1601 Donne was secretly married to Ann More. In 1615 he
became an Anglican priest, and in 1621 he was made Dean of St. Paul. Two years after
his death his poems were published. "The Bait" is Donne's response to Marlowe's
"Passionate Shepherd to His Love." It also starts "Come live with me and be my love."
Then it runs: "And we will some new pleasure prove." "The Ecstasy" describes the
movement of the soul outside the body: "We see by this it was not sex / We see we saw
not what did move." His "Elegy 19: To His Mistress On Going to Bed" contains this
pun: "Until I labor, I in labor lie." He wrote "An Anatomy of the World" to mark the
first Anniversary of the death of Elizabeth. Jonson called it profane, as if it were written
of the Virgin Mary. Two famous lines from his sermons are "No man is an island" and
"Ask not for whom the bell tolls."
Ben Jonson (1572-1637): Every Man in His Humour was his first play. In 1616 he was
made poet laureate. In 1626 his play New Inn failed; in response, he wrote "Ode to
Himself," which attacked criticism and public taste. He eulogized Shakespeare, writing
"Thou art a monument without a tomb."
Jonson's play Volpone was a reaction to commercialization and greedy laws. ("Volpone
or the Fox." Characters: Volpone, Mosca his parasite, Sir Politic Would-be, etc.) It
begins:
"Volpone, childless, rich, feigns sick, despairs
Offers his state to hopes of several heirs,
Lies languishing..."
And it ends:
"The seasoning of a play is the applause
Now, though the fox be punished by the laws..."
In his play The Alchemist, Master Lovewit leaves the city and his butler Jeremy (Face)
invites Subtle (posing as an alchemist) and Dol Common (a prostitute) to operate a con
ring out of the house. Dapple and Mammon are swindled by them. Mammon woos Dolly,
whom he is made to believe is an aristocrat. As new swindle victims come in, they keep
hiding the others away in rooms of the house. Surly, Mamon's friend, is dubious. He
disguises himself as a Spanish Don to confront them, but fails. Lovewit returns
unexpectedly, but wins Dame Pliant, and so forgives his butler.
Jonson's Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue was a masque presented at court before King
James in 1618. The Characters were Hercules, Pygmys, and Mercury, and they mingled
with the audience.
Jonson's poems include "To John Donne," "On My First Daughter", "On My First
Son", "To Penhurst" (one of the first poems celebrating a place--Sidney's estate), "In
the Person of Womankind" (in which he defends woman's inconstancy), "Song: To
Cecilia" ("Drink to me only with thine eyes"), and "A Celebration of Charis in 10
Lyric Pieces" (Charis means grace). Some quotes from this last poem:
"Poets, though divine, are men."
"She repented of the deed
And would fain have changed the fate,
But the pity comes to late."
"For his mind I do not care
That's a toy that I could spare
'Tis one good part I'd lie withal."
In Time: Or Discoveries he writes: "Poetry in this later age hath proven but a mean
mistress to such as have wholly addicted themselves to her."
John Webster (1580-1625): His play, The Duchess of Malfi, was based on a 16th
century scandal in Italy. The Duchess is considered to be on of the most positive female
characters in English drama. Other characters are Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria and the
Cardinal, his brother.
Robert Herrick (1561-1674): In 1648 he published Hesperides (his secular poems) and
Noble Numbers (his sacred poems). Poems include "The Vine," about a sex dream,
"Farewell to Sack," about an attempt to give up sherry wine, "Corinna's Going a'
mayin'," and the famous carpe diem poem "To the Virgin's to Make Much of Time"
("Gather ye rosebuds while ye may...). Also "Upon the Nipples of Julia's Breast" and
"The Bad Season Makes the Poet Sad"
"To his book's end this last line he'd have placed:
Jocund his muse was, but his life was chaste."
George Herbert (1593 - 1633): Herbert has displaced Donne, in the opinion of some, as
the supreme metaphysical poet. He was a minister beloved by his parishioners, and his
works were not published until after death, in a book called The Temple. He uses shape
poems (such as "The Altar" and "Easter Wings").
From "Denial":
"O that thou shouldst give dust a tongue
To cry to thee,
And then not hear it crying! All day long
My heart was in my knee,
But no hearing"
His two "Jordan" poems are about not dressing up the truth, but revealing its plain
beauty.
"The Collar" is about rebellion/lashing out and God and eventual submission. After all
his raging he ends:
"Methought I heard one calling: Child!
And I replied, My Lord."
"The Pulley" contains a play on words with "rest." God gives almost everything to man,
and debates whether to withhold the rest--and the rest is rest. He decides to leave man
with restlessness, therefore, so that:
"If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast."
Richard Crashaw (1613-1649): In 1644 he fled from the Puritans to the continent,
where he converted to Roman Catholicism. In 1646 he published his Steps to the Temple,
no doubt meant to recall Herbert's collection. He worked in the baroque tradition, using
elaborate and sometimes gaudy metaphors and conceits, like Mary Magdalen's crying
being "Two faithful fountains, two weeping baths, etc." in his poem "The Weeper." He
aims for a phantasmagoria affect--blurring together of the erotic and spiritual, the
tortured and ecstatic, the infantile and sadistic. He also wrote emblem poems, which
involved a picture representing something, such as "Non VI" with a picture of a chained
heart:
"'Tis not the work of force but skill
To find the way into man's will
'Tis love alone can heats unlock
Who knows the WORD, he need not knock."
His most famous work is "The Flaming Heart" based upon St. Teresa of Avila. She is
usually pictured with a seraphim holding a dart, but he considers that a mistake: rather,
she is the seraphim--such a painting is a "faint shade for her."
"One would suspect thou mean'st to paint
Some weak, inferior, woman saint."
Henry Vaughn (1621-1695): An occultist Welsh doctor, Vaughn was one of the first to
discuss mystic correspondence, the relations between the world of creatures and of
spirits. "A Rhapsody" was written upon his meeting with a friend in the globe tavern. It
begins:
Let's laugh now, and the pressed grape drink...
"Regeneration" contains these lines:
"Lord," then said I, "On me one breath,"
"And let me die before my death!"
"The Retreat" implies preexistence. He says "my soul....is drunk."
"The Waterfall"
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678): Poet. In "The Coronet" Eve, making a crown, finds the
serpent. "The Mower Against the Gardens" contains these lines: "Luxurious man, to
bring his vice in use / Did after him the world seduce." "The Garden" contains this
passage:
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bay....
When we have run our passion's heat
Love hither makes his best retreat....
Such was thy happy garden-state
While man there walked without a mate.
His most famous poem, "To His Coy Mistress," contains these lines:
...then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity
And your quaint honor turn to dust
And into ashes all my lust.
John Milton (1608-1674): Milton went blind in 1651, before writing Paradise Lost.
Paradise Lost was written in blank verse "to justify the ways of God to man." The action
begins in media res with Satan and the angels fallen in the burning lake. Satan gives them
the hope of regaining heaven and tells them of a world to be created. His palace is called
Pandemonium, and by incest with Sin, Satan has Death. Raphael tells Adam of creation,
the fallen angels, etc. Then Adam describes his own creation to him. Adam decides
through uxoriousness to persist with Eve after she eats the forbidden fruit. See my paper
on this work.
From 1640-60 Milton was involved in "the pamphlet wars." In 1644 he wrote the
pamphlet "Areopagitica." The Areopagus was the ancient, powerful tribunal in Athens.
The title means "things to be said before the Areopagus." It was a plea to Parliament for
the liberty of unlicensed printing.
Milton's Samson Agonistes was a closet drama, a stage play intended only for reading.
His "L'Allegro" and "Il Pensero" are companion poems about the happy and pensive
man. "Lycidas" is a dirge for a friend drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish
seas, and it foretells the ruin of the corrupted clergy. His poem "On Shakespeare" reads:
"Thou in our wonder and astonishment / Hast built thyself a lifelong monument."
Thomas Carew (1595-1640): His most famous work is the Carpe Diem poem "A
Rapture," which contains these lines:
I will enjoy thee now, my Cecilia, come
And fly with me to love's Elysium
The giant, Honor, that keeps coward out,
Is but a masquer, and the servile rout
From Carew's "An Elegy Upon the Death of...Donne"
Here lies a king, that ruled as he thought fit
The universal monarchy of wit;
Here lies two flames, and both those the best,
Apollo's first, at last the true God's priest.
Carew wrote "To Ben Jonson" in response to Jonson's ode of defiance, which he had
added to his failed play the New Inn:
Why should the follies then of this dull age
Draw from thy pen such an immodest rage?
Sir John Suckling (cavalier poet): Some quotes may be found below.
"Song"
Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
"Loving and Beloved"
There never yet was honest man
That ever drove the trade of love....
So we false fire with art sometimes discover,
And the true fire with the same art do cover...
Since it is thus, god of desire,
Give me my honesty again,
And take thy brands back, and thy fire,
I'm weary of the state I'm in.
Sir John Denham (1615-1669): His famous poem "Cooper's Hill" is about Chertsey
Abbey, dismantled by order of Henry VIII. He starts the poem gazing at Windsor castle:
"Here should my wonder dwell, and here my praise / But my fixed thought my wandering
eye betrays."
John Locke (1632-1704): An English philosopher who influenced English thought and
literature. He was physician to the first earl of Shaftesbury, and in 1684 he was expelled
from his Oxford post as part of an intrigue against Shaftesbury. In 1690 he wrote his
Essay Concerning Human Understanding.