ENGLISH-AMERICAN

• Literary-historical and historical knowledge


  Important when confronted with satirical allusions to political events and socioeconomic problems, as well as intertextual references to other works within international literary canon
• 2 Main Preconditions

  • Familiarity with some of fundamental terms of literary historiography
  • Preliminary overview of development and most important periods in English and American literary history
• Literary history and literary theory are mutually interdependent rather than that opposing fields
• Literary history


  • Underpinned by numerous theoretical presuppositions
  • Result of theories - based process of construction
  • Do not offer an objective representation of the literary past
  • Produced models of this past with assistance of literary-historical categories
• Literary history


  Refers to the subject-matter (historical development of literature) and its reconstruction and presentation in literary historiography
• Canon formation


  Plays also play an important part
• Canons


  • Refers to all those texts that are regarded as particularly important or artistically superiorTexts included among the "great works" of the canon have status of classics
  • and providing framework for study of literature) should not be overlooked
• Synchronic and Diachronic influences


  Process of ordering and structuring literary histories
• Synchronic cross section


  Encompasses variety of text types and genres that are in existence within particular period of time
• Genre and Period designations


  Also perform descriptive and communicative functions: by referring to literary work as "tragedy", "a picaresque novel" or as a typical of Romantic or Modernist period, we implicitly allude to a cluster of characteristics, without having to restate the thematic and formal specifics of text with each new interpretation
• Genre and Period designations


  Also prerequisites for teaching and learning about literary history (whether in context of educational establishment or of private reading), as well as for communicating factual information (e.g. exams)
• Literary history


  • Can differ in terms of their theoretical and methodological premises
  • Predominantly intrinsic: text-orientated
  • Predominantly extrinsic: context-orientated
• Folk Poetry


  Poetry of the common people
• Germanic group (Angle, Saxon and Jutes) invaded Britain


  1. Jutes were less in population, major chunk were Angle and Saxons

  2. Angle is the larger ones
• This Angle-Saxon period is predominantly stretching for 600 years
• Old English


  A combination of the original language spoken by Britons and the language spoken by this Germanic tribes (Angle, Saxon, and Jutes)
• Metrical Tales

  A type of poem which follows a narrative format; featuring characters, a plot, setting and a theme
• Metrical tale


  A narrative poem which is written in verse that relates to real or imaginary events in simple, straight forward language, from wide range of subjects, characters, life experiences, and emotional situations
• Metrical romances


  Originally written in Old French and later translated into German and English, and they were brought to England by the Normans
• Famous example of Metrical Tales and Romances

  • KING ARTHUR AND THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE
• Symbols 


  are powerful tools author use to convey complex ideas and emotions.
• Themes


  are the central ideas or messages in a literary work.
• Canterbury Tales


  is a medieval literary work by the poet Geoffrey Chaucer (l. c. 1343-1400 CE) comprised of 24 tales related to a number of literary genres and touching on subjects ranging from fate to God's will to love, marriage, pride, and death.