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Robert Frost - The Road Not Taken Frost’s wife - Elinor Frost
Notable Works of Robert Frost
➢ Mending Wall
➢ Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
➢ Tree at My Window
➢ Acquainted with the Night
➢ Fire and Ice
➢ Birches
➢ The Witness Tree
➢ Choose Something Like a Star
William Shakespeare - The Merchant of Venice
● Birth: April 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom
● Death: April 23, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom
● Parents: John Shakespeare (father) and Mary Arden (mother)
● Spouse: Anne Hathaway
● Children: Hamnet Shakespeare, Judith Quiney, Susanna Hall
● an English playwright, poet, and actor widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist
● England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"
Notable Works of William Shakespeare
➢ The Merchant of Venice
➢ Romeo and Juliet
➢ Hamlet
➢ Othello
➢ The Taming of the Shrew
➢ Antony and Cleopatra
➢ Macbeth
➢ The Comedy of Errors
➢ Julius Caesar
➢ Love’s Labour’s Lost
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Elizabeth Barret Browning - How Do I Love Thee
● Birth: March 6, 1806, Coxhoe, United Kingdom
● Death: June 29, 1861, Florence, Italy
● Spouse: Robert Browning (m. 1846–1861)
● Child: Robert Barrett Browning
● English poet of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime and frequently anthologized after her death greatly influenced renowned authors such as Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe came from an acclaimed family
and was disinherited by her father after her marriage to Robert Browning.
Notable Works of Elizabeth Barreth Browing
➢ How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43, 1845)
➢ Aurora Leigh (1856)
How Do I Love Thee
● composed of 14 lines of poetry (making it a sonnet)
● fixed rhyme scheme of ABBA ABBA CDCDCD (Petrarchan sonnet) - The other is the Shakespearean sonnet which rhymes ABAB CDCD EFEFGG
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Beowulf - Author (anonymous)
● It is a heroic poem and is considered as the oldest documented epic of the English literature. It is also considered the highest achievement of Old
● English literature and the earliest European vernacular achievement.
● No title at first but because of the Scandinavian hero, they named it.
● Shield Sheafson
● Beow
● Halfdane
● King Hrothgar
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English Literature refers to the collection of literary works written in Great Britain and British Colonies from the 7th century up to the present. The following are the most salient characteristics of English literature.
● Classic and refined.
● Reflection of ideas, beliefs, and traditions.
● Relatively small-scale.
Common Themes of English Literature
● Intelligence of people, manner, and rich and poor.
● portrays plots on the subjects and gives emphasis on the characterization.
● features stories about government – which includes knights, cavalry, heroes, medieval kings and queens.
American literature is a collection of literary works written and published in America.
● America was colonized by British people.
English Literature is written in British English and for the American Literature, it is written in American English.
Salient Chracteristics of American Literature
● A young literature.
● Disregarded of the traditional writing styles and themes, leaving away from the mark of English literature.
● Contemporary styles and modern style of writing.
● Focus on individualism, romanticism, realism, modernism, and naturalism.
● More realistic in portraying characters.
The following figures are some of the notable writers in English and American literature and their titles.
1. Venerable Bede – Father of English History
2. William Shakespeare – The Bard of Avon; Greatest English Writer; Greatest Sonnet Writer; Exponent of Tragic Comedy
3. John Donne – Greatest Metaphysical Poet
4. Edgar Allan Poe – Father of Detective Stories; Father of Horror Stories; Father of Short Story
5. Geoffrey Chaucer – The Morning Star of English Literature; Father of English Literature
6. Francis Bacon – Father of English Essay; Father of Modern English Prose; Exponent of Social Essays
7. Samuel Langhorne Clemens – Father of American Literature
8. Alfred the Great – Father of English Prose
9. Ralph Waldo Emerson – Father of American Transcendentalism; The Sage of Concord
10. Sir Walter Scott – Father of Historical Novel
11. Edmund Spenser – Father of Second English Poets
12. Charles Lamb – Prince of English Essayist
13. Christopher Marlowe – Father of English Drama
14. John Wycliff – Morning Star of Reformation
15. Samuel Richardson – Exponent of Epistolary Novel
16. Robert Browning – Exponent of Dramatic Monologue
17. Jane Austen – Exponent of Domestic Novel
18. John Dryden – Father of English Criticism
19. William Culler Bryant – Father of American Poetry
20. Eugene O’Neil – Father of Modern Drama
The following are some writers and their pseudonyms used.
1. Samuel Langhorne Clemens
● Mark Twain
2. Mary Ann Evans
● George Eliot
3. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
● Lewis Carroll
4. Eric Arthur Blair
● George Orwell
5. Theodor Seuss Geisel
● Dr. Seuss
6. Charles Dickens
● Boz
7. Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller Christie
● Mary Westmacott
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Modern Period of American Literature
A. Modernism and Experimentation
● Gertrude Stein termed this age as the "Period of the Lost Generation."
● The world depression of the 1930s affected most of the population of the United States.
● Freudian psychology and to a lesser extent Marxism (like the earlier Darwinian theory of evolution) became popular.
● Henry James, William Faulkner, and many other American writers experimented with fictional points of view.
● To analyze such modernist novels and poetry, New Criticism arose in the United States.
B. The Modernist Poet
● Ezra Pound (1885-1972) was one of the most influential American poets of this century. Best know for his clear, visual images, fresh rhythms, and muscular, intelligent, unusual lines, such as the ones inspired by Japanese haiku - "In a Station of the Metro"
● Thomas Stearns (TS) Eliot (1888-1965) wrote influential essays and dramas, and championed the importance of literary and social traditions for the modern poet.
● Robert Frost (1874-1963) combines sound and sense in his frequent use of rhyme and images. Frost's poems are often deceptively simple but suggest a deeper meaning.
● Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) lived a double life, one as an insurance business executive, another as a renowned poet.
● William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) championed the use of colloquial speech.
● Edward Estlin Cummings (1894-1962), commonly known as E.E. Cummings, wrote highly experimental verses
● Langston Hughes (1902-1967) embraced African-American jazz rhythms in his works.
C. The Modernist Writers
● F. Scott Fitzgerald is known for novels whose protagonists are disillusioned by the great American dream.
● Ernest Hemingway received the Nobel Prize in 1954 for his The Old Man and the Sea. Hemingway wrote of war, death, and the "lost generation" of cynical survivors.
● William Faulkner experimented with narrative chronology, different points of view and voices, and a rich and demanding baroque style built of extremely long sentences full of complicated subordinate parts.
● Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) is the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930.
● John Steinbeck (1902-1968) received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963 for his realist novel The Grapes of Wrath, the story of a poor Oklahoma family that loses its farm during the Depression and travels to California to seek work.
● Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, short story, and children's author.
● Richard Wright was the first African-American novelist to reach a general audience, despite his little education.
● Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) focused on disturbed emotions and unresolved sexuality within families - most of them southern.
D. Other Writers
● Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) is known for his one highly-acclaimed book the Invisible Man
● Alice Walker (1944-) is an African-American who uses lyrical realism in her epistolary dialect novel The Color Purple where she exposes social problems and racial issues.
● Maya Angelou wrote I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970) which celebrates mother-daughter connection.
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The Early Periods of American Literature
A. The Literature of Exploration
1. Christopher Columbus, the famous Italian explorer, funded by the Spanish rulers Ferdinand and
Isabella, wrote the “Epistola,” printed in 1493 which recounts his voyages.
2. Captain John Smith led the Jamestown colony and wrote the famous story of the Indian Maiden, Pocahontas
B. Colonial Period in New England
● William Bradford - Plymouth Plantation
● Anne Bradstreet - wrote the first published book of poems to be published by a woman.
● Edward Taylor
● Jonathan Edwards
C. The American Enlightenment
● Enlightenment thinkers and writers were devoted to the ideals of justice, liberty, and equality as the natural rights of man.
● Benjamin Franklin "first great man of letters”
● Thomas Paine America's greatest pamphleteer, “Common Sense.”
● Philip Freneau - Poet of the American Revolution
● Washington Irving “Sketch Book”
● James Fennimore Cooper “Leather Stocking Tales”
● Phillis Wheatley - first African-American author who wrote of religious themes
D. The Romantic Period
➢ The Transcendentalist Movement was a reaction against 18th century rationalism and a manifestation of the general humanitarian trend of 19th century thought.
➢ The movement was based on the belief in the unity of the world and God.
➢ The doctrine of self-reliance and individualism developed through the belief in the identification of the individual soul with God.
● Ralph Waldo Emerson - leading exponent of the transcendentalist movement
● Henry David Thoreau “Walden, or Life in the Woods”
● Walt Whitman - incorporated both transcendentalist and realist ideas
● Emily Dickinson - radical individualist who found deep inspiration in the birds, animals, plants, and changing seasons of the New England countryside.
● The Boston Brahmin Poets.
● The Romanticists (Fiction) - Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Beecher Stowe
E. Realist Writers
● Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
● Bret Harte - a local colorist and author of adventurous stories
● Henry James "makes life, makes interest, makes importance."
● Edith Wharton - social transformation is the background of many of her novels.
● Stephen Crane - journalist who also wrote fiction, essays, poetry, and plays.
● Jack London - Naturalist “The Son of the Wolf in the Klondike region of Alaska and the Canadian Yukon.”
● Theodore Dreiser - explores the dangers of the American dream
● Edwin Arlington Robinson - best U.S. poet of the late 19th century
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Early Historical Timeline
A. Old English Period
● Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Written by the Venerable Bede (673 – 735) who is considered as the Father of English History and regarded as the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar.
● Anglo-Saxon Chronicle - chronological events in Anglo-Saxon history and the life and culture after the Roman invasion.
● Caedmon’s Hymn - vernacular praise poem in honor of God
● Cynewulf - Fates of the Apostles, Juliana, Elene, and Christ II or The Ascension
● Beowulf - The national epic of England
● Dream of the Road - One of the earliest Christian poems
● The Battle of Brunanburh - This is a heroic old English poem that records the triumph of the English against the combined forces of the Scots, Vikings, and Britons
● The Battle of Maldon
● The Wanderer. The lyric poem is composed of 115 lines of alliterative verses that reminisce a wanderer’s past.
● The Seafarer. An Old English lyric poem recorded in the Exeter Book that begins by recounting in elegiac tone the perils and glory of seafaring.
B. Middle English Period
● Everyman. Regarded as the best of the morality plays.
● Allegory. A form of extended metaphor
● English and Scottish Ballads. Preserved the local events, beliefs, and characters in an easily remembered form.
● Ballad. A narrative poem meant to be sung.
● Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The best example of the romance of the Middle Ages attributed to the Pearl Poet
● The Canterbury Tales. Geoffrey Chaucer’s frame narrative (story within a story) which showcases the stories told by 29 pilgrims on their way to the shrine of the martyr Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury.
● Le Morted’Arthur. Originally written in eight books, Mallory’s collection of stories revolves around the life and adventures of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
C. The Renaissance (16th Century)
● Doctor Faustus. Christopher Marlowe (Father of English Tragedy)
● The Faerie Queen. Edmund Spenser composed this elaborate allegory in honor of the Queen of Fairyland (Queen Elizabeth I)
● Song to Celia. A love poem written by Ben Jonson – a poet, dramatist, and actor best known for his lyrics and satirical plays.
● The King James Bible. One of the supreme achievements of the English Renaissance.
● Shakespearean Sonnets. Also known as Elizabethan or English sonnets, Shakespearean sonnets are composed of three quatrains and one heroic couplet with the rhyme scheme – abab-cdcdefef-gg.
● William Shakespeare. The great genius of the Elizabethan Age (1564 – 1616). He wrote more than 35 plays as well as 154 sonnets and 2 narrative poems – Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.
D. The Age of Reason (17th Century)
● The Essays of Francis Bacon. The greatest literary contribution of the 17th century is The Essay. Francis Bacon is hailed as the Father of Inductive Reasoning and the Father of the English Essay.
● The Pilgrim’s Progress of John Bunyan. An allegory that shows Christians tormented by spiritual anguish.
● Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained of John Milton. Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse that tells of the fall of the angels and of the creation of Adam and Eve and their temptation by Satan in the Garden of Eden
● Holy Sonnets by John Donne. Metaphysical poetry makes use of conceits or farfetched similes and metaphors intended to startle the reader into an awareness of the relationships among things ordinarily not associated.
● Easter Wings and the Altar of George Herbert. Concrete poems that deal with
man’s thirst for God and with God’s abounding love.
● Cavalier Poems. Popularized by Thomas Carew, Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling, and Robert Herrick, cavalier poems are known for their elegant, refined, and courtly culture. The poems are often erotic and espouse carpe diem, “seize the day.”