From Legend to History A.D. 449-1485
- English- mixture, coming together through conflict
- zeitgeist= the spirit of the time
English Historical Background, Literature of the Period, Beginnings of English >
Historical Background (England)
- Celts (800-600BC)- Brythons & Gaels
- Romans (55BC-AD 407)
- Anglo-Saxons
- Christian church throughout
- Vikings (9th century)> Norse(Norway)&Danes(Denmark)
- Anglo-Saxon period ended by Edward "The Confessor's" death in 1066
- William, Duke of Normandy took throne next
- Brought it to feudalism (serfs and ...)
- 1154 Henry Plantagenet; Canterbury & Thomas Becket>pilgrimage
- Richard 1 spent a lot of $, King John in debt> Magna Carta=marked start of English constitutional government
- 1399 House of Lancaster, Henry IV,V,VI; Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) vs. House of York "Game of Thrones"
- 1348 Black Death>decline of feudalism
Angle Saxon Lit
- spoken verse
- poetry: heroic poetry & elegiac poetry (loss of the past)
- Beowulf: epic, first work in English language, author unknown
- Anglo-Sax prose: Latin before Alfred the Great was the "written language"
English Middle Ages
- plays: church>churchyard>marketplace; morality play
- Johann Gutenberg: movable type 1454; William Caxton: first movable type press 1476
- Geoffrey Chaucer: poet, The Canterbury Tales, one of the first modern writers
- Romances, Lyrics, and Ballads
- adventurous knights, most popular about King Arthur
- Lyric from Lyre: secular/religious poems
- ballad told a story: Robin Hood
Beginnings of English
- Lav Germanic, tongue from Anglo-Saxons, Old English
- many words virtually unchanged since 500
- French influence from Normans
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