Unseen Time periods

Question 1

When is the middle english period?

Answer 1

1066-1485

Question 2

What were the key types of literature in the middle english period?

Answer 2

Oral tradition, folk ballads, mystery/ morality plays

Question 3

Name some key authors/texts from the middle english period

Answer 3

Chaucer, (Canterbury Tales), Malory, The tales of King Authur

Question 4

Historical context in the middle english period

Answer 4

Money economy established by crusades, as trading increases dramatically. Willy conqueror crowned in 1066. Many people illiterate so they see/hear literature in morality plays - church instructs in this way. Henry III crowned in 1154 brings judical system, royal courts, juries and chivalry to britain.

Question 5

When was the British Renaissance? When were the Elizabethan and Jacobean subdivisions?

Answer 5

1485-1660 - renaissance
Elizabethan period: 1586 - 1603
Jacobean period: 1603 - 1625

Question 6

What style of literature was popular during the Renaissance?

Answer 6

sonnets, metaphysical poetry, metaphors and conceits, drama, verse, tragedies, comedies histories.

Question 7

Literary context during renaissance?

Answer 7

world view shifts from religion and afterlife to one stressing human life on earth. Development of human potential, many aspects of love e.g. unrequited, constant timless courtly, love subject to change. Chain of being and religious ideas still used. Pastoral settings idealised

Question 8

Historic context during renaissance?

Answer 8

Stability comes as war of roses ends in 1485, printing press helps to stabilise english language - more people read variety of literature. Economy shifts from farm based to international trade - age of exploration

Question 9

What was the effect of the new forms of literature in the Renaissance period?

Answer 9

Commoners were welcome at some stage productions e.g. Globe, but conservatives try to close theatres on the grounds that they promote brazen behaviours. Not all middle class embrace metaphysical poets and their abstract conceits.

Question 10

Who were some key authors of the Renaissance era?

Answer 10

Willy Shakey, Thomas Wyatt, Cavalier Poets, Metaphysical Poets, Christopher Marlowe, Andrew Marvell, Aphra Behn

Question 11

When was The Restoration period?

Answer 11

1630-1660

Question 12

Historical context of restoration?

Answer 12

The reign of Charles II after his restoration to the throne following the Civil War and Cromwell. 50% of men now literate. Enclosure laws cause demise of traditional village life. Start of industrial revolution, impoverished masses grow - farming life declines. Coffee houses, where educated men spend their evenings with literary and political associates emerge.

Question 13

Literary context of Restoration period?

Answer 13

emphasis on reason and logic, stresses harmony stablity wisdom. Locke philosophy: a social contract exists between the government and the people. The government governs guaranteeing “natural rights” of life liberty and property. Emphasis on the individual - belief that humanity is basically evil.

Question 14

What was the theatre according to conservatives?

Answer 14

‘A hotbed of dissident politics’ -John Brewer

Question 15

What were popular literary styles during the Restoration?

Answer 15

Satire, poetry, essays, letters, diaries, biographies, novels

Question 16

Key Authors from the Restoration Period?

Answer 16

Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, John Bunyan, John Milton

Question 17

When was the Romantic Period?

Answer 17

1798-1832

Question 18

Historical context for Romantic period?

Answer 18

Tory philosophy that government should not interfere with private enterprise. Middle class gain representation in parliament, railroads. British empire brought global trade and class divide, nationalism and trade

Question 19

Literary context in Romantic period?

Answer 19

Human knowledge consists of impressions and ideas formed in the individuals mind
Introduction of gothic elements and terror/horror stories- reaction against previous period, importance of rebellion and independence
Nature offers peace and comfort that man-made urbanised towns cannot
evil is attributed to society not human nature, human beings are basically good
children seen as hapless victims of exploitation and poverty

Question 20

Popular styles of literature during Romantic era?

Answer 20

Poetry, lyrical ballad, gothic poetry and prose, romantic novels

Question 21

Key Romantic writers?

Answer 21

Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Robert Burns, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Sammy tays Coleridge, Lord Byron Burger, Percy Shelley, his kickass wife Mary and Johnny from down the road keats

Question 22

When was the Victorian Period?

Answer 22

1832-1900

Question 23

Historical Context of Victorian period?

Answer 23

Conflicts between those in power and the common masses of labourers and the poor. Industrial revolution and Shocking life of working class and urban poor is highlighted in literature to insist on reform. Paper becomes cheap - magazines and novels become cheap to mass produce, unprecedented growth of industry and business in UK unparalleled dominance of nations. Economies trade abroad. British empire continues. Darwinian influence on knowledge

Question 24

What were popular literary styles of the Victorian period?

Answer 24

Novels (mass produced for the first time), political and patriotic verse, bildungsroman, detective novels (Sherlock), Serialised novels (Dickens), elegies, daramatic monologue, magazines offer stories to the masses - poetry falls out of fashion

Question 25

Common Victorian themes?

Answer 25

country v.s. city life, sexual discretion (or lack thereof) strained consciences, romantic triangles, heroines in physical danger, aristocratic villains, misdirected letters, bigamous marriages, doubt and poigniancy

Question 26

Key Victorian authors?

Answer 26

Dickens, Lord Tennyson, Charlotte Bronte, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Darwin, Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti

Question 27

When was the modern period?

Answer 27

1900-1940s/50s

Question 28

Historical context of modern period?

Answer 28

World War one brought upheaval and questioning to all aspects of life, rupture with past ideals and beliefs e.g. heroes British empire loses one million soldiers in WW1. British colonies demand independence. Winston Churchill leads britain through WW2, Germans bomb britain.

Question 29

Literary context of modern period?

Answer 29

Writers turn to art for arts sake, intrest in theory, experimentalism and breaking the rules. preoccupation with social and personal identity. Breakdown of social norms, realistic embodiment of social meanings. Spiritual lonliness and alienation. Frustraion, disilusionment. Rejection of history and outdated social systems, objection to traditional thoughts and moralities and religion, substitution of mythical past. Traditional chronological narrative replaced by connotation, association and use of symbols

Question 30

Popular forms of literature?

Answer 30

Stream of consciousness novels, sci-fi and psychological fiction emerges. Concept of epiphany, recognition of instability and complexity of personality. Speeches, memoirs, attempt to search for truths and deep ideas and meanings

Question 31

Key Modern Authors

Answer 31

T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, William Butler Yeats, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Bernard Shaw

Question 32

When was the Postmodern period?

Answer 32

1950s (ish) - now

Question 33

Historical context of early postmodernism

Answer 33

60s - nuclear and atomic bomb threat, melancholic undertones.

Question 34

Literary context of postmodernism

Answer 34

preoccupations of modernism shared but taken futher. Traditional linear narrative mocked and rejected and comfort of closure rejected. Randomness, discontinuity, and contradiction, pastiche and deliberate irony makes us reflect on act of writing and relationship between writer, character and reader.

Question 35

How is post-modernism different from modernism?

Answer 35

1. modernism places faith in ideas, values, culture and norms of the west, postmodernism rejects this
2. modernism attempts to reveal profound truths of experience and life, postmodernism is suspicious of being ‘profound’ because this is based on particular western value systems.
3. modernism attmepts to find depth and interior meaning beneath the surface of objects and events, postmodernism dwells on exterior image and avoids drawing conclusions or suggesting underlying meanings
4. modernism is focused on central themes and a united vision, in a particular piece of literature, postmodernism sees human experience as unstable, internally contradictory, ambiguous, inconclusive, indeterminate, unfinished, fragmented and discontinuous. No one specific reality is possible - vision of a contradictory and fragmented world
5. modern authers guide and control the readers response to their work, postmodern writer creates an “open” work in which the reader must supply their own connections, work out alternative and provide their own unguided interpretation

Question 36

Key postmodern authors?

Answer 36

Bret Easton Ellis, Jack Kerouac, George Orwell, Tom Stoppard, Sylvia Plath, Margaret Atwood, McEwan