A Survey of the Development of English Literature

陈巧

English literature has a long history of about 1300 years up to present. From the academic angle, it can be divided into seven periods: Old and Middle English literature, the English Renaissance, the 17th Century – the Period of Revolution and Restoration, the 18th Century –The Age of Enlightenment, the Romantic Period, the Victorian Age and the 20th Century Literature –Modernism and Post-Modernism.

In Old English Literature, the major literary form was poetry. Most poems were preserved for a time in oral tradition. After the entering of Christianity into Britain, the Christian poets reintroduced themes and values into these poems, and its masterpiece is the national epic The Song of Beowulf, which is the oldest poem in the English language and the oldest surviving epic in Anglo-Saxon literature.

Then in 1066, the Normans defeated the Anglo-Saxons at the battle of Hastings. After the conquest, the customs and ideals known as chivalry were introduced by the Normans into England, making the literary form of Romance popular. The most famous Romance was Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Besides, a large number of excellent ballads arose, of which the most well-known is the Robin Hood Ballads. As to poetry, the greatest poet, Geoffrey Chaucer’s the Canterbury Tales represents the summit of achievement.

The 16th century in England was a period of the breaking up of feudal relations and the establishing of the foundations of capitalism. The result is an intellectual movement known as the Renaissance. The key-note of Renaissance is humanism and the greatest humanist is Thomas More, the author of Utopia. The representatives in literature are Shakespeare, Bacon, Edmund Spenser, and Marlowe. Shakespeare has the greatest contribution in drama and sonnets. Bacon’s essays are very condensed and witty, among which “Of Studies” is the most popular. Spenser created the famous epic the Faerie Queen with Spenserian stanza. And Marlowe is also a greatest dramatist before the rise of Shakespeare.