English Language Literature

Understanding Literature

Glossary for Literary Terms

Introduction to literary criticism

1.

The Origins of English Language (to 1066)

(British)

- Listen to Beowulf
- Working Papers

- Anglo Saxon Verse

2.

The Development of Middle English (1066 to 1400)

(British)

- The Ballad of Bonnie George Campbell

- (MP3)

3.

The Middle English Period (1340 to 1400)

(British)

Geoffrey Chaucer
- Listen to The Canterbury Tales

- In Old English

- The Nun's Priest's Tale - Original

- in Modern English

In Portuguese:

- Traducao de Paulo Vizziolli (pdf)

4.

The Renaissance and the Elizabethan Age

Shakespeare - the authorship problem
- Sonnet 18 (WAV)

(British)

5.

Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Drama

(British)

Shakespeare Oxford Society
- Hamlet
(Slideshow - Portuguese)

6.

The Puritan Tradition

(American)

Jonathan Edwards
- Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

7.

The Age of Reason (1700 to 1800) 

(British)

Lord Chesterfield
- The Education of a Gentleman
Jonathan Swift
- Gulliver's Travels

8.

The American Age of Reason

(American)

Benjamin Franklin
- Autobiography

9.

The Independence and Foundation of the Republic

(American)

Thomas Jefferson
- Declaration of Independence
- Letter Concerning George Washington

10.

The Romantic Revival (1800 to 1850)

(British)

William Wordsworth
- The World is too much with us [MP3]
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner [MP3]
Sir Walter Scott
- Ivanhoe

11.

Romanticism and the Beginning of the Novel

(American)

Nathaniel Hawthorne
- The Scarlet Letter

12.

Maturing of the Novel

(American)

Herman Melville
- Moby Dick

13.

The Victorian Age (1830 to 1900) - Part I

(British)

Jane Austen
- The Novel of Manners

14.

Romanticism and Poetry

(American)

Edgar Allan Poe (Slide show - Portuguese)
- Annabel Lee
- The Cask of Amontillado

15.

The Victorian Age (1830 to 1900) - Part II

(British)

Charles Dickens
- David Copperfield 

16.

American Idealism of Nature

(American)

Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Nature 

17.

The Victorian Age (1830 to 1900) - Part III

(British)

Oscar Wilde
- The Comedy of Manners
- The Importance of Being Earnest

18.

American Individualism

(American)

Henry David Thoreau
- Walden
- Civil Disobedience 

19.

American Poetry

(American)

Walt Whitman
- Leaves of Grass 

20.

The American Civil War

(American)

Stephen Crane
- The Red Badge of Courage

Abraham  Lincoln
- The Gettysburg Address

- Letter to Mrs. Bixby

Julia Ward Howe
- Mother's Day Proclamation

21.

The First World War (1914~1918)

(British)

Robert Graves
- Goodbye to All That

22.

The American West

(American)

Mark Twain
- Huckleberry Finn.

23.

The Inter-War Years (1918~1939)

- The Decline of the Empire          (British)

George Orwell
- Shooting an Elephant

- A Hindoo Fable

24.

The Inter-War Years (1918~1939)

- The Advance of Technology       (British)

Aldous Huxley
- Time and the Machine

25.

The American Realistic Writing 

(American)

Henry James

- The Portrait of a Lady

Theodore Dreiser

An American Tragedy

26.

American Satire

(American)

Sinclair Lewis
- Babbitt        (listen to the song)

27.

The Lost Generation

(American)

Ernest Hemingway
- The Sun Also Rises
F Scott Fitzgerald
- The Great Gatsby
- Babylon Revisited

28.

The Great Depression

(American)

John Steinbeck
- The Grapes of Wrath

29.

American Drama (Part I)

(American)

Eugene O'Neill
- Long Day's Journey into Night

30.

American South

(American)

William Faulkner
- Light in August

31.

The Second World War (1939~1945)

(British)

Winston Churchill

32.

Modern American Poetry

(American)

Robert Frost
- The Road Not Taken
- Stopping by a Woods on a Snowy Evening

- Fire and Ice

33.

American Humor

(American)

James Thurber
- The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

34.

War Writing

(American)

Norman Mailer
 - The Naked and the Dead

35.

The American Drama Revived

(American)

Arthur Miller
- Death of a Salesman

36.

Post-War Britain (1945~1950)

- The Age of Austerity    (British)

Evelyn Waugh
- The Loved One

37.

The Working Class and the “Angry Men” (1950~1960) 

(British)

Alan Sillitoe
- The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

38.

American Jewish Writing 

(American)

Saul Bellow

- The Adventures of Augie March

39.

American Black Writing

(American)

James Baldwin

- Go Tell it on a Mountain

40.

Aspects of Contemporary Britain (since 1960)

(British)

Graham Green
- Travels with my Aunt
Doris Lessing
- The Four Gated City