Unit 2,3&4

Question 1

Middle English

Answer 1

English used from 1100 to 15000 AD
-Poetry had no rhyme- alliterative verse
ME Drama: Miracle prays, mystery plays, morality plays, Interludes (influenced by religion)
-Geoffrey Chauser-> main author

Question 2

Middle english Drama

Answer 2

religious stories performed in or around churches
-dramatization of scenes in religious history

Miracle plays
Morality plays
Interludes

Question 3

Miracle plays

Answer 3

subjects: christ’s life and other episodes (adam and Eve)
- 4 groups: chester, Coventry, york, Wakefield
- Acted by town people on a pageant
- serious themes but introduce comic potential (Noah’s flood)

Question 4

Morality plays

Answer 4

subjects similar to mystery plays
characters not people but virtues or vices
Everyman (15th C) Trans. Dutch

Question 5

Interludes

Answer 5

common in 15th and 16th C
played between acts of long morality plays or during long meals
performed in colleges or privates houses, only 2 or 3 actors
writers unknown until 16th C-
john Heywood:the Four Pa (1545), The play of the Weather (1533)
More appealing and associated to other forms of entertainment, rise of professional actors

Question 6

Middle english prose

Answer 6

Religious prose
Jhon Wycliffe
William Coxton
Geoffrey Chaucer

Question 7

Religious prose

Answer 7

• the Ancrene wisse (13th C)- Guide for anchoresses
• richard Rolle, the form of Perfect Living (1300-1349)

Question 8

John Wycliffe

Answer 8

• organized and translated Bible in English

Question 9

William coxton

Answer 9

1st Printing press in england 1476-1477
Translated books in other languages

Question 10

Geofry Chaucer

Answer 10

Father of English poetry, introduced the rhyme (italian) in english (/= alliteration)
introduce references from outside UK
Create credibe characters

The canterbury Tales

ca 17.000 lines, more than 20 stories
- party of pilgrims who tell stories to pass the time during journey from Tabard Inn, Southwark to Canterbury
- characters are ordinary people (merchant, lawyer, cook, sailor, widow, miler, wife of bath..)
-brings together religious and secular
- diversity of characters, social levels, attitudes of life, ways of life..

• Translation of Romam de la Rose (ca 1230)

-Troilus and Crysde (mid 1380s)
- Themes of Petrarca
- adaptation by Shakespeare

-The legend of Good Women
- series of stories with common link

Question 11

Queen elizabeth I (regined 1558-1603)-> Elizabethan period: 1579

Answer 11

-Sir thomas Sir Thomas Wyatt – Italian sonnet (14 lines, fixed rhyme)
-The Earl of Surrey – blank verse (no rhyme, 5 iambic feet υ -)
- Shakespeare, The Sonnets (1609)
•Written between 1593-1600
•WH: William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke
•Characters: Girl, rival poet, dark-haired beauty
•Iambic pentametre: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
-> present a probem and a solution

Question 12

Edmund spencer

Answer 12

-Introduced the Elizabethan Age (with his book)

-The Shepherd’s Calendar (1579)
●12 books, one for each month
●Pastorals: discussions by shepherds in “locus amoenus”

-The Faerie Queene (1589-96)
●Only 6 of planned 12 books
●Spenserian Stanza: rhyme ababbcbcc ( 9 lines: 5 feet excepte last line 6 feet)

Question 13

Lyric Poetry

Answer 13

-Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis & Lucrece

-Sir Philip Sydney (1554-1586)
●True Elizabethan gentleman

●Astrophel and Stella (1591)

-Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618)
●Poet, soldier, courtier, sailor, explorer & writer
●Most poems are lost

-Christopher Marlowe (1564-1693)
● famous as dramatist but also lyric writer

Question 14

The jacobean age

Answer 14

The Jacobean Age (1603-1625)
More interested in the mind than in the heart

-Metaphysical poets
●Less musical
●Unusual style & images to attract attention

-John Donne (1572-1631)
●Lawyer & priest
●Religious & secular poems

-Ben Jonson (1564-1693)
● famous as dramatist but also poetry & prose

Question 15

Elizabeth Prose

Answer 15

Sir thiomas north
Richard hayklut
John lyly
Thomas nashe
Frencis bacon
William tyndale
Miles coverdale
Ben jonson

Question 16

Elizabeth poetry

Answer 16

Edmund soencer
Lyric poetry
The jacobean age

Question 17

Sir thomas north

Answer 17

●Translated Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (1579)
●Used by Shakespeare for Coriolanus, Julius Caesar & Antony & Cleopatra

Question 18

Richard hayklut

Answer 18

The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589)

Question 19

John lylyt

Answer 19

● employed at court
● Style: alliterations, similies, complicated, mannered, common for ladies - Euphuism
● Euphues: the Anatomy of Wit (1578)

Question 20

Thomas Nashe

Answer 20

The Unfortunate Traveler; or The Life of Jacke Wilton (1594)
● 1st picaresque novel in English

Question 21

Francis bacon

Answer 21

● philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, and author
● served as Attorney General & Lord Chancellor of England
● Essays (1597, with additions in 1612 & 1625)
● include most popular & best-known expressions in English

Question 22

William tyndale

Answer 22

first authorised version of the Bible 1382-1395 (John Wycliffe)
● Tyndale translated New testament from Greek and part of New Testament from Hebrew – burntfor his faith

Question 23

Miles coverdale

Answer 23

Complete translation of the Bible (1535) in Antwerp, based on Tyndale

Question 24

Ben jonson

Answer 24

Timber or Discoveries (1640)
•collection of notes & ideas on several subjects
•Father of English literary criticism

Question 25

Drama before shakespeare

Answer 25

Nicholas udakk
John lyly
Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville
Thomas kyd
Christopher marlowe

Question 26

Nicholas udall

Answer 26

Ralph Roister Doister (1553)-> First english comedy
-Gammer Gurton’s Needle (1566) performed at cambridge
-Headmaster of Westminster school

Question 27

John lyly

Answer 27

Campaspere-Prose comedy (1584)
Endymion- allegorical play (1591)
-> both performed before Queen Elizabeth by “children of Paul’s”

Question 28

Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville

Answer 28

Gordobuc (1564)
- first english tragedy (in blank verse)
- king Gordobuc of England and his Family

Question 29

Thoms kyd

Answer 29

-The Spanish Tragedy (1592)
- typical blood tragedy, popular at the time
- similar to Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Question 30

Christopher marlowe

Answer 30

Tamburlaine the Great(1587)
- two parts, blank verse “mighty line”
- succesful, violent, cruel

-Dr Faustus (acted 1588)
- Fastus and mephistopheles -> 24 years

-the Jew if Malta (1593)

-Edward the second (1593)
- use of a powerful blank verse dor more drama
- development of characters for more tragic efect
- Possibly helped Shakespeare with Henty VI
-> Drama reached its highest when Shakespeare added these elements to his sympathy and mastery of plot

Question 31

William shakespeare

Answer 31

-Married Anne Hathaway in 1582 and went to London to work as an actor
-The order of his work is uncertain
-He copied and improved work of other writers-> Immense power of his works-> one man cannot have written all
-various meanings and perspectives with each reading

Comedy: emphraises coincidences, mistakes, appearances and reality
Tragedy: focus on fatal weakness in a great character that unleashes tragedy

Question 32

OTHER ELIZABETHAN PLAYWRIGHTS

Answer 32

John webster
-plays depended on violence and blood
-the white devil* (1611)
-the Duchess of Malfi (1614)

Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
-wrote many plays together
-Fletcher mat have worked with shakespeare
-The king of the Burning Pestle* (1607)-> comedy
-the maid’s tragedy (1611)