Anglo-Saxon to Renaissance Notes

Anglo-Saxon Period $450$–$1066$

• Early settlers: Celts → Romans → Anglo-Saxons
• Christianity to England by St. Augustine (Archbishop of Canterbury) in $597$
• King Alfred the Great ($871$–$899$) fostered education & Old English prose
• Beowulf (Old English epic)
  • Heroic code, pagan–Christian blend
  • Part $1$: Beowulf slays Grendel & Grendel’s Mother
  • Part $2$ ( $50$ yrs later): Beowulf, as Geatish king, kills dragon; dies; honored in burial

Celts & Roman Britain

• Celts (Britons): Iron Age $800\,BC$–$100\,AD$; spoke Brythonic Celtic
• Druids: priestly, learned class
• Cultural links with ancient Vedic India hinted
• Roman contact: Julius Caesar’s raids $55$ & $54\,BC$; full invasion under Claudius $43\,AD$ → province “Britannia” (occupation to late $4^{th}$ c.)
• Legendary King Arthur (late $5^{th}$ c.)
  • Christian war-leader vs. pagan Saxons; symbol of resistance

Medieval England $1066$–$1485$

• Norman Conquest $1066$: William of Normandy defeats Harold at Hastings → French ruling class; feudalism
• Church dominates culture; Latin for scholarship
• Key events: Crusades ($1096$–$1291$), Magna Carta $1215$, Black Death $1348$ (≈ $1/3$ population), Peasants’ Revolt $1381$
• Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” mirrors $14^{th}$-c. society; earns title “Father of English Poetry”

Language Shift: Early Middle English (≈ $5^{th}$–$13^{th}$ c.)

• Simplified grammar/spelling; Norman French vocabulary infusion
• London as administrative hub → basis for Standard English
• Aristocratic taste for French lit.; England adopts continental culture & militarism

Early English Drama

• Origin: liturgical Easter rituals; clerics as actors
• Miracle Plays (from $12^{th}$ c.): saints’ lives (e.g., “Harrowing of Hell”)
• Mystery/Corpus Christi Cycles (late $14^{th}$ c.): Biblical history; York, Chester, Wakefield, Coventry
• Morality Plays: allegories of Everyman’s soul; key works — “Everyman”, “The Castle of Perseverance”; central figure “Vice”
• Interludes (Tudor court): short, secular, comic; ex. Heywood’s “The Four Ps”
• Theatre moves from church → streets → pageant wagons; clergy grow suspicious

Renaissance Stirrings (late $15^{th}$ c.)

• Humanism & classical revival; Italian influence
• Wyatt & Surrey introduce English sonnet ( $14$ lines, iambic pentameter)

Elizabethan Golden Age $1558$–$1603$

• Queen Elizabeth I: strong patronage; maritime exploration broadens horizons
• University Wits (Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, etc.) professionalize drama
• William Shakespeare masters comedy, history, tragedy & sonnets; active mainly $1590$–$1613$
• The Globe Theatre (opened $1599$): key public playhouse; cultural hub of London

Major Renaissance Writers

• Edmund Spenser: “The Faerie Queene” (allegorical epic, celebrates Elizabethan ideals)
• Sir Philip Sidney: “Astrophel and Stella” (first major English sonnet sequence); “Defence of Poesy”

Quick-Recall Points

• Beowulf: earliest extant English epic
• Old English = language of Anglo-Saxon era
• Chaucer: “Father of English Poetry”
• Sonnet: $14$-line lyric form (Wyatt, Surrey; perfected by Shakespeare)
• Christianity spread in Britain via missionaries (St. Augustine onward)
• English drama originated inside churches, later secularized
• Elizabeth I’s reign = “Golden Age” of English literature