Geography

Mesopotamia

Egypt

Phoenicia

Greece

Rome

Britain

England

Northern Ireland

Scotland

Wales

Cornwall

France

Brittany

Normandy

Norway

Sweden

Denmark

Danelaw

Ireland

Italy

**know where these are ig?!?!?

History

• Formation of the Universe—Present Day ( see brief history of the universe notes)

• English -

  • Old- 500-1100 (defined by Anglo-Saxons)

  • Middle-1100-1500 (defined by Normans)

  • Modern I-1500-1800 (defined by war of roses, GVS, renaissance, printing press)

  • Modern II-1800-present (colonization + influences of other languages on english)

• Invasions

  • Romans 55 + 449,

  • Celts

  • Britons

  • Angles, Saxons, Jutes

• Anglo-Saxons, Heptarchy, wyrd,

• Christianity 597, literacy + religion

• Brittany

• Wales

• danelaw

• Danes/Vikings 790s

• Normans, medieval period, feudalism

• The Hundred Years’ War

• King Arthur, 

• King Alfred the Great

• Canute, Edward, William I

• Henry II + Eleanor of Aquitaine 

• Thomas a Becket

• Chaucer and his life and times

• Richard + John (Magna Carta)

• plagues

• printing press

• Wars of the Roses

• Renaissance
  
  
  

Art

Bayeux tapestry

Sutton Hoo ship burial

Renaissance representations

Literature

• Beowulf

  • Anonymous, translated by Burton Raffel

• Exeter Book

• A History of the English Church and People

• The Canterbury Tales

• “Federigo’s Falcon,” The Decameron

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

  • Romance by the gawain poet Translated by john gardner

  • external vs internal conflict

• Le Morte d’Arthur

  • Romance by sir thoman mallory

  • Retold by keith baines

  • Characterization -Malory combines details of appearance, speech, thoughts, and actions with comments on the characters to establish the essential nature of his characters

  • remains the most complete English version of the Arthurian legends and has been the source of many later adaptations of the tales.

• Paston Letters

• ballads

• early renaissance poetry 

• sonnet form

• sonnets (Petrarchan, Spenserian, Shakespearean)

Literary Form

myth-a genre of folklore or theology consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin

folk tale-stories in the oral tradition, or tales that people tell each other out loud, rather than stories in written form

fable-a short fictional story that has a moral or teaches a lesson

legend- genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude

saga- form of the novel in which the members or generations of a family or social group are chronicled in a long and leisurely narrative. a dramatic history of a group, place, industry, etc.

riddles-tricky phrases or questions that have double meanings and are usually challenging to solve or answer

epic poetry and heroes-a long, often book-length, narrative in verse form that retells the heroic journey of a single person, or group of persons.

lyric

narrative poetry- contains setting, characters, and plot, one or more themes, setting, character, and plot are important

historical writing, primary and secondary sources

moral tale

frame story-a narrative that frames or surrounds another story or set of stories

metafiction

romance- refers to any imaginative adventure with noble heroes, gallant love, a chivalric code of honor, and daring deeds. usually have faraway settings, events not like ordinary life, idealize their heroes and the eras in which the heroes lived. Medieval ones often are lighthearted in tone and involve fantasy.

terms of poetic analysis (including poetic forms)- separate flashcards

sonnet

ballad- a lpong narrative poem, usually very regular meter

pastoral

elegy

epigram

epitaph

ode-a short lyric poem that praises an individual, an idea, or an event

meter (number and type of feet, etc.)

line numbers (octave, sestet, etc.)

short story

free verse

Writers 

• “The Beowulf  Poet”/ Burton Raffel

• The Venerable Bede

• Geoffrey Chaucer

• Giovanni Boccaccio

• “The Gawain Poet”

  • unknown author

  • aka the Pearl Poet

  • descriptions and language suggest that he wrote in the second half of the 14th century (same time as chaucer)

  • dialect indicates he lived somewhere in the northwestern part of England.

  • works reveal that he was widely read in French and Latin and had some knowledge of law and theology.

  • Although he was familiar with many details of medieval aristocratic life, his descriptions and metaphors also show a love of the countryside and rural life.

  • considered one of the greatest of medieval English poets bc of his imagination, technique, and knowledge

• Sir Thomas Malory

  • 1405?-1471

  • son of prosperous parents, led a surprisingly unsettled life that ended in prison

  • A native of Warwickshire, England

  • he fought in the Hundred Years' War, was knighted around 1442, and was elected to Parliament in 1445.

  • Malory then became embroiled in the political conflicts that preceeded the war of the roses

  • as a lancaster supporter, he was imprisoned repeatedly by the Yorkist government on a variety of charges, including robbery, cattle rustling, bribery, and attempted murder. He pleaded innocent to all the charges, and his guilt was never proven.

  • seems to have written LeMorte d'Arthur while he served a series of prison terms that began in 1451. He finished the book about two years before his death in 1471.

  • William Caxton, who introduced the art of printing to England, published the first edition of Malory's work in 1485, giving the book the title by which it is known today

• Francesco Petrarch

• Edmund Spenser

• William Shakespeare

Literary Elements

• usage and vocabulary

• alliteration

• stock epithet

• kenning

• caesura

• epic simile

• allusion

• epithet

• rhyme

• rhythm

• repetition

• parallelism

• scop

• translator

• narrator

• point of view (first, second, third, omniscient, limited omniscient, unreliable, etc.)

• theme

• methods of characterization

• setting

• plot stages and development (circular, fragmented, etc.) foreshadowing, suspense, Freytag’s pyramid

• internal and external conflict

• purposes of literature

• use of language (inc. symbolism, figures of speech, personification, imagery, conceits, dialect, etc.)

• tone

• irony (different types of irony)

• allusion

• analogy, paradox

• parody

• dialogue

• aside

• soliloquy

• blank verse

• free verse

• diction

• hero

• protagonist

• antagonist

• foil

• anti-hero

• tragic hero

• tragic flaw

• list of literary elements

• usage errors

• terms of poetic analysis