letteratura inglese

The origin and the Middle Ages

Power point fatto da: Aurora R. - Soleica V. - Daniele F. - Federico P. - Matteo C.

Index of History

From Pre-Celtic to Roman Britain

• The Celts built massive hill forts on top of hills . They considered water a holy element since it generated life. For about fifteen generations Britain was part of the Roman Empire.
• The Romans were attracted by the rich agriculture of the South, tin and lead in the West, the availability of slaves and Britain's strategic whit the offshore base.

• The Romans built over 9,600 kilometres of paved roads in Britain, and the most important town was Londinium built around the Thames.
• The Romans also brought their culture, the Latin language and Christianity to Britain. Roman control of Britain came to an end in 409 AD

The Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings

• Over the course of the 5th and 6th centuries the British were overwhelmed by peoples Angles and Saxons. These peoples are referred to as Anglo-Saxons and they settled south of Hadrian`s Wall because they were lowland and were looking for farming land.

• Anglo-Saxon kingdoms === Heptarchy or Seven Kingdoms
• The Vikings (Danes) were sea people, their longships looking for treasure, cattle and slaves.
• The last Anglo-Saxon king was Harold, Earl of Wessex (1066). Harold defeat the Danes in the north of England, then had to march south to fight William,

The Norman Conquest

In the spring of 1066 William gathered his barons to claim the English crown. The feudal system:

The new French barons obtained their land by becoming the king's tenants and they paid their rent in military services to the king. The barons were allowed to sublet their lands to knights in return for their services. The Normans replaced English with French as the language of government

Henry Plantagenet

In other parts of Europe, legal practice was based on the civil law of the Roman Empire and the canon law of the Church.

Main concerns of Henry's reign were the insecurities of his French territories

In 1162 Henry appointed one of his favourites, Thomas Becket (1118-70), to be Archbishop of Canterbury.

In 1164 Henry had the Constitutions of Clarendon written: these stated that the king was supreme in civil matters and that all people in England, including the clergy, were subject to the Crown.

Magna Carta

King John and Magna Carta Richard I spent less than a year of his reign in England because, in 1190, as one of the leaders of the Third Crusade, he set out for the Holy Land. In oreder to get more money King John collected higher taxes. The barons, knights, clergy and townspeople organized a rebellion and asked the king to sign Magna Carta Edward I, in 1295 summoned a council made 10 of barons, clergy, knights and representatives of the towns. The Hundred Years War was interrupted in 1348 by a terrible plague which spread through Europe and killed more than one third of Britain's population.

In 1399 Richard surrendered the throne to Henry IV, who became the first Lancastrian King of England.

Wars of the Roses

The rivalry between the two families of York and Lancaster developed into a civil war

Richard, Duke of York, was chosen to rule England as regent until the king recovered in 1455.

The development of poetry

Poetry

Lyric

Literature

During the Middle Ages the lyric became a popular form.The greatest of all English metrical romances was the Green Knight. They were transmitted orally and were collected only in the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry

AngloSaxon poetry was formed in a long process of collective memorisation, passed by word of mouth. In the 12th century, it was written down by church clerks.

Literature was anonymous and oral. The poet, called a `scop', entertained the noblemen in the halls of kings, often accompanied by a harp.

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The epic poem

• The two major epic poems in the Western tradition are the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to the Greek poet Homer.
• The narration of poem is made up by a series of vivid, pictorial flashes or type-scenes such as the banquet, the battle, the voyage and the funeral.

The medieval

Ballad

Narrative poem

Ballad narrators do not speak in the first person and they do not comment on their reactions to the emotional content of the story.

A narrative poem tells a story in verse and contains narrative elements, such as the setting in time and place, the description of characters, and the use of a narrator, often in the first person.