文档介绍：A Course of British and American Poetry: A Survey
Lecture one introduction
The earliest English poems appeared in the Anglo-Saxon period which experienced a Bookless Age. English literature was almost exclusively a verse literature in oral form. The oldest specimens now existent are found in the Exeter Book containing the following poems: Widsith, Doer’s Lament, The Wanderer and The Sea-Farer, The Battle of Maldon. By far the most significant poem of the Anglo-Saxon Age, however, is Beowulf, which is the oldest poem and the surviving epic in the English language. It is the representative work of Pagan poetry. The poem descended from generation to generation in oral form, sung by bards at the end of the sixth century. The present manuscript was written down in the 10th century or at the end of the 9th century.
The characteristics of Anglo-Saxon poetry are the abundant use of metaphor, understatement and alliterative meter. At the same time a number of Christian poets appeared. The most well-known were Caedmon and Cynewulf. They chiefly took their subject matter from the Bible, but their writing styles were almost the same as Anglo-Saxon poetry.
The Norman Conquest in 1066 brought forward a literary revolution. Thanks to the French influence, the language and literary taste experienced an enormous change. A new literary form named “romance” became prevailing. Romance dealt mainly with perilous adventures about courageous knights’ devotion to the king and church. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the most charming and enduring example.
The first harvest in English literature was, in the 14th century, in which several remarkable poets lived, such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, John Gower and John Wycliff. Among them, Chaucer towered above all and became the representative of this century. He has won the tide of the Father of English poetry.
The 15th century was an age full of wars, which greatly affected the development of literature. There were no great