5V History of Engish Lit 1 - Middle Ages (Chaucer)

• Engels
• Middelbare school

History of English Literature

When is a text 'literature'?

- The 'Classics'

- The Literary Canon

a 'classic'

There are three essential criteria for defining a classic: it must have endured a number of years; it must have intrinsic literary quality; but, most crucially, it must still be alive, to be able to connect with readers, thrilling them with flashes of recognition and revelation. 

Henry Eliot ~ www.theguardian.com 26.11.18

Which classics do you know?

Make a time line; 

drag the right authors to the proper period.

1340 - 1400

1563 - 1616

1775 - 1817

1812 - 1870

1854 - 1900

1882-1941

1903 - 1950

William Shakespeare

George Orwell

Charles Dickens

Geoffrey Chaucer

Jane Austen

Virginia Woolf

Oscar Wilde

Which works would you like to add to the literary canon?

Early Middle Ages (600-1066)

- Britain been under Roman rule for 350 years
- 1st:  Irish raiders     

- 2nd: Angles, Saxons & Jutes     
- 3rd: Vikings
- King of Wessex signed the Danelaw
      = Treaty with the Vikings allowing them to control Northern  and                    Eastern bit of England. 
        

High Middle Ages (1066-1272)

- Period that people think of when they hear "Medieval"
- Norman Conquest 1066
- 11th century: all of Europe Christianised   +   Crusades
- Higher women in charge of households/castles when men 
   were away. 

High Middle Ages: Feudalism

- Set up by the French

- Domesday Book: 
   listed all counties, 
   landholders, taxes, etc. 

Late Middle Ages (1272-1485)

- Hundred Years' War: France vs. England
- Migration
- Columbus to America 
- 14th century: Great Famine & Black Death
- English Parliament set up

Late Middle Ages: Women & Society

- Great Famine & Black Death: lots of men dying
- Women allowed to take up jobs previously done by men

- Scholarly breakthroughs in astronomy, alchemy, philosophy
- Technological advances: printing press, furnaces, watermills,
   introduction of hopped beer

Late Middle Ages: Art

- Snails as mounts or knights
   fighting them
- Group of people from Europe?
- Inevitability of death? 
- First form of abstract art?

1. Which of the following groups did not invade England during the Early Middle Ages?

1. Romans
2. Irish Raiders
3. Vikings
4. Angles, Saxons & Jutes

2. Who signed the Danelaw, the treaty between England and the Vikings?

1. King of Sussex
2. King of Wessex
3. King of Northumbria
4. King of Essex

3. True or False: "The Domesday Book listed all the counties, landowners, taxes, etc."

1. True
2. False

4. Which of the following did not occur during the Late Middle Ages

1. Great famine & Black death
2. Setting up of the English Parliament
3. The first crusades
4. Columbus sailing towards America

5. Which of the following is not one of the possible explanations for snails in Medieval art?

1. Group of people from Europe
2. Inevitability of death
3. First form of abstract art
4. Hallucinating Monks