Terms from Old English (500 - 1066):

warrior (Germanic or heroic) code:  an understanding about how a man should behave. Attributes include allegiance (lord-thane), bravery, and strength. Revenge motivates the warrior to practice these three values

thane:  one who pledges lifetime loyalty to a lord (a soldier or warrior, for example)

alliteration:  repeating consonant sounds, frequently occurring at the beginning of words

comitatus:  a loyal band of brothers; a community of thanes and lord who have pledged one another loyalty (the lord offers protection and the thanes give devotion).

meter:  consistent, repeating beat or rhythm within a poem

caesura:  a deliberate break in a line of poetry; a stylistic pause

epic:  long narrative poem written using elevated diction about a serious subject and usually centered on a larger-than-life character

myth:  stories, often about supernatural characters and events, used by a culture to explain itself to others and to its own people.

hero:  person, greatly admired, who best exemplifies the highest values of the culture. In Beowulf, those values were strength, courage, and loyalty.

kenning:  two- or three-word phrase that constitutes one thing (e.g., "whale-road" for ocean, "bone-cage" for body)

litotes:  ironic understatement; (on occasion) to damn with faint praise

wergild:  also known as "man-price," is the compensation for avenging a death (either in treasure or slaughter).

wyrd:  also known as "fate" (but not in the Greek sense of "destiny"), this is simply the condition of events as they happen. There is implied in the use of this word a resignation about conditions--not hopelessness, but rather "what will be, will be."

elegy:  poem written to honor the dead. (And thus, "elegiac" refers to a view that mourns the passing of something of value.)


Terms from Medieval or Middle English Era (1066 - 1485):

chivalry:  from the French chevalier, meaning knight (literally, "soldier on a horse," which also gives us cognates such as "cavalier" and "cavalry"): a code of conduct exemplified by the knights of King Arthur's Round Table, including courtesy (gentilesse), loyalty/honor (trouthe), and bravery.

romance:  once the term for the vernacular language, now refers to stories of adventure, involving kings, knights, and damsels (sometimes in distress). Structure is loose, subjects often focus on courtly love, and have adventure, mystery, and even fantasy.

rhyme scheme:  introduced to us in SGGK, refers to the rhyming pattern within a stanza, and is indicated by lowercase letters of the alphabet.

bob-and-wheel:  five-line coda for each stanza in SGGK, in which the first line is two or three-syllables, followed by four rhyming lines in the scheme ababa.

Alliterative Revival:  Sir Gawain is the best example, but this refers to the heavy use of alliteration in 14th century poems (especially in the north of England) to recall the old Anglo-Saxon style of poetry (think Beowulf as an example) rather than to follow the French rhyming traditions that had been around since the late 12th century.

courtly love:  a set of behaviors regarding love and lovemaking that upper class men and women would follow based on chivalric ideals, based in part on a manuscript that appeared in the 12th century by Italian Andreas Capellanus ("The Art of Courtly Love").

Great Chain of Being:  an idea whose expression was never stated but implied in the medieval and Renaissance worlds, whereby everything exists in a cosmic hierarchical system. Even men and women exist at different levels and this not only was supposed to predict behavior, but it also provided the justification for what we would call oppression (and they would have called God's plan).

medieval estates:  an idea that society has three strata: clergy ("those who pray"), nobility ("those who fight"), and commoners ("those who work"). Emergence of the middle class by Chaucer's time started to blur these lines. Women had their own "three estates": maiden, wife, widow.

humors:  understood in medieval medicine to be the four controlling (or elemental) liquids in the human body.

Seven Deadly Sins:  a medieval notion that these are the sins that are fatal (deadly) to spiritual progress for a Christian. The list includes greed, envy, lust, sloth, pride, anger, and gluttony. The greatest of these sins is said to be pride.

rhyming couplets:  in the Canterbury Tales, this is the poetic form taken by Chaucer to tell his stories.  This form (aa bb cc dd, etc.) creates a musicality in the reading and does require Chaucer to find words that rhyme at the end of his lines--a more difficult feat in English than in the French or Italian languages.

fabliau:  a "little fable" in verse that tells a story of deception (with hilarious results) usually involving sex and/or money. Fabliaux are filled with gross and vulgar language and props.

satire:  seen most prominently (and to some extent initially in English) in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. These tales were estate satires, poking fun of character types and institutions of the medieval estates. Satire, while ridiculing its subject, also implicitly advocates for change.

apologia:  a "confession" but not necessarily in the literal sense. Perhaps a better synonym is "defense." This is literature that can either explain the reason for guilt or defiantly explain one's behavior. Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath's Prologue" serves as a fine example.

lyric:  a short poetic form (originally the word meant "song") that usually has personal emotion expressed by a narrator in the first person. Chaucer's lyrics begin what will become a very popular tradition in English literature: the lyric poem.

rhyme royal:  a stanzaic form in poetry, developed by Chaucer in English (based on the Italian poet Petrarch), and given the name "rhyme royal" because King James I wrote poetry in this form. The stanzas are seven-line iambic pentameter, and use the rhyme scheme of ababbcc.

envoy:  a final stanza addressed to a patron or friend.

ballade:  a verse form of three or four stanzas with a regular rhyme scheme and a common refrain. 

--First Exam--

Terms from Early Renaissance up to Restoration Age (1485 - 1660):

conceit:  an elaborately sustained metaphor

sonnet:  form of poetry originating in the Italian Renaissance and practiced there most notably by the poet Petrarch. The form has 14 lines and, in the Italian version (also called the Petrarchan sonnet), uses an octave and sestet with the rhyme scheme usually of abba abba cde cde. In England, this form was initially popularized by Sir Thomas Wyatt, but mastered by Shakespeare (hence the English or Shakespearean sonnet) and uses three quatrains (four lines) and a closing couplet (two rhyming lines) with the rhyme scheme usually of abab cdcd efef gg. In each there is a point in the sonnet when the action turns (called a volta), either answering a question or responding to a dilemma.

courtier:  literally, a man of the court, but actually, this refers to a man (and it was always men) who operated in and among royal circles, who was gifted in the arts whether it was singing or painting or writing, and who frequently (but not always) functioned as a political operative, diplomat, or even spy. Sir Thomas Wyatt was a courtier and it nearly got him killed. So was Christopher Marlow, and it did indeed get him killed.

soliloquy:  a dramatic device in which a character offers a speech alone on stage that allows the audience to see the character's thoughts, and frequently helps move the plot. Famous in the many plays of Shakespeare (Edmund has several soliloquies in King Lear.)   This is distinguished from the monologue, which is a composition or speech that is delivered to a listening audience.

tragedy:  drama, best demonstrated by Shakespeare in our language, of a sort that details the events in a life of a person of significance that often leads to a sad or catastrophic ending. This result is often due to a tragic flaw--some characteristic of or decision by the central figure of the play.

protagonist:  the main character around whom the action of a story revolves. A chief villain or rival for the protagonist is called the antagonist. In addition, while the protagonist in a tragedy has a tragic flaw, usually hubris (excessive pride), he also experiences a moment of recognition of what he has done called anagnorisis. When tragedy works well, it evokes a response from the audience that expresses a catharsis, or a purgation of emotions, such as pity and fear for the characters and for ourselves.

principle of unities in theatre:  developed by Aristotle and used by many playwrights of the early Renaissance era. There are three described in our class:

metaphysical poets:  a term originally given in derision of the poets of the early 17th century. They were characterized as writing complicated, paradoxical verse in plain diction using unusual images and metaphors to describe all manner of subjects. Frequently, the meter and rhythm of their poems appeared rough and irregular. John Donne is the best example of the metaphysical poet by this definition.

metaphysical conceit:  a variation on a conceit (ordinarily an elaborate metaphor), which, in the hands of the Metaphysical Poets often resulted in comparisons that were strange, grotesque, or simply commonplace (but unexpected). Donne's poem "The Flea" is an example.

dramatic monologue:  a poetic form used by several of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century. The dramatic monologue has one speaker (not necessarily the poet), who tells a story in a dramatic setting (i.e., the action of the story occurs as the speaker speaks). 

enjambment:  technique in poetry when a line of a poem continues unbroken in both sense and grammar to the next line of verse. (Remember as well, the contrast this feature has with what we discussed in the medieval period: caesura:  a deliberate break in a line of poetry; a stylistic pause)

apostrophe:  a figure of speech in which someone or something (sometimes even an abstract or supernatural entity) is directly addressed, as if in conversation with the speaker. (e.g., "Death, be not proud...")

emblem poem:  most commonly seen in poet George Herbert who used the form of the poem itself as additional symbolic meaning. "Easter Wings" is his most famous example.

carpe diem:  from the Latin, meaning "seize the day." In both Herrick's verse ("To the Virgins") and Andrew Marvell's ("To His Coy Mistress"), these poets argued for their poem's subjects to put off delay any further and act on their love. 

--Second Exam--

Terms from the Restoration and Neoclassical Periods (1660 - 1798):

epic:  a long narrative poem on a serious subject, written in a grand or elevated style, about a larger-than-life hero. Also begins in medias res, offers a statement of theme, and makes an invocation of the muses.

epic simile:  like the conceit, it is an elaborate version of a simple comparison. Used by Milton in Paradise Lost, the extended simile allows Milton both to deepen an image or event, and (frankly) to show off his book learning!

blank verse:  unrhymed iambic pentameter (used most notably in King Lear and Paradise Lost).

felix culpa:  a theological construct, translated as "happy fault" or "fortunate fall," that refers to the good news about humankind's original sin. Had such an event not taken place, there would be no Christ event in human history. Satan discusses this idea in Book IV of John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Neoclassical:  a movement in English literature and history in which writers and thinkers valued ideals such as order, decorum, and rationality, using as models the literature of Greek and Roman antiquity.

empiricism:  a radical form of rationality and a dominant philosophy during the Enlightenment, which is synonymous with the 18th century. Although its roots are earlier (philosophers Rene Descartes and Thomas Hobbes, especially in his work Leviathan, laid the foundations), empiricism flourished in England during the 1700s with writings by Hume, Berkeley, and Locke--espousing the idea that all knowledge comes from human experience only. 

satire: a form perfected by Jonathan Swift, especially in his essay "A Modest Proposal." A simple description of the form is that satire intends both to mock and instruct. Often, because satire is indirect and subtle, those who are a part of the intended audience don't get it. 

heroic couplet:  a rhyming pair, usually end-stopped after the second line and often rendered in iambic pentameter, used to its finest form in the poetry of Alexander Pope (e.g., "Essay on Criticism"). While it can seem sing-songy, the form when used as Pope used it, can sound epigrammatic and profound. ("Good nature and good sense must ever join/To err is human, to forgive divine"). 

genius, wit, nature, ancients, rules:  these are terms used commonly by writers of the Neoclassical period and represent concepts central to their understanding of the world. In a word, "genius" means both innate intelligence but also character, "nature" both the outside world and the inside landscape (essence), "wit" natural intelligence as well as cleverness, and "ancients" and "rules" the models and mentors for all good writers of the period.  (See the introduction to Alexander Pope in our anthology for a fuller description.)

elegiac stanza:  also called the "heroic quatrain," this form was pioneered by Thomas Gray, in his famous poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" from 1751. The stanza uses an abab rhyme scheme and has as its subject the veneration of past persons, places or events. For Gray, his elegy was for the common man--a precursor to the ideas of the Romantic era.  


Some historical information to remember:

In general, recognize these dates for major works:

597:  Introduction of Christianity to the British Isles. Took about 100 years to fully flower across the island.

1066:  Norman Conquest (Battle of Hastings), when William the Conqueror invaded England (and introduced the French language into the vernacular)

Geoffrey of Monmouth:  produced History of the Kings of Britain around 1136 - 8, which introduced Britons to the legend of King Arthur.

Crusades:  in many ways, these defined English knighthood--they took place primarily in the 12th and 13th centuries, with the first around 1095, and the last around 1290.

1100's:  Early English renaissance:  emergence of architecture (cathedrals), education (Oxford and Cambridge), literature (proliferation of French romances), and legal system.

1215:  Magna Carta:  King John I agrees to demands for certain political rights made by landed gentry (barons) that indicates the rise of power outside royalty.

1348:  Black Death:  Outbreak of the bubonic plague. Originally called "The Great Pestilence." There were many years when the plague ravaged Europe, and it was never completely eradicated until the 1700s, but this year represents an epicenter of outbreaks.

1381:  Peasants Revolt (or the Great Rising): after a series of poll taxes, peasants (also called serfs) rose up and attacked the nobility. While the uprising failed, it helped accelerate the dissolution of the feudal state and serfdom.

1485:  when printer William Caxton published Sir Thomas Mallory's Morte D'Arthur, the first work of literature published of English in England (using a printing press rather than handwritten manuscripts).

-First exam--

1517:  Protestant Reformation, begun in Germany by Martin Luther.   
1534:  English Protestant Reformation, when King Henry VIII broke from the Church in Rome.   

1588:  Defeat of the Spanish Armada led to two significant consequences: Protestant rule over Catholic rule, and the emergence of England as a world power.   

1603:  death of Queen Elizabeth, ascension to the throne of King James I, who also commissioned the Authorized Version of the English Bible (King James Version) in 1611.

1605:  Gunpowder Plot when Catholic extremists, led by Guy Fawkes, attempted unsuccessfully to blow up the Houses of Parliament by igniting barrels of gunpowder beneath the building.

1649:  execution of King Charles I and the beginning of the period in English history known as the interregnum (literally "between kings"). Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell assumed the mantle of leadership. King Charles II ascended to the throne in 1660, thus ending the rule by Puritans and restoring monarchy to England (hence the Restoration).

--Second exam--

1666:  the Great Fire of London, documented so personally by Samuel Pepys. Many historians also believe the fire destroyed many rats, carriers of the bubonic plague, which thus diminished the outbreak that had grown so virulent in 1665.

1660 - 1700:  Age of Dryden (also known as the Restoration, since King Charles II ascended to the throne in 1660, and the theatres re-opened). Ends with the death of Dryden in 1700.

1700 - 1745:  Age of Pope and Swift (also know as the Augustan Age). Ends with the deaths of Pope in 1744 and Swift in 1745.

1745 - 1798:  Age of Johnson, when Dr. Samuel Johnson dominated the literary scene the way Dryden had done in the late 17th century. Ends in 1798 when Coleridge and Wordsworth (two Romantic poets) publish the Lyrical Ballads, with its manifesto in the Preface, signaling the dawn of the Romantic age. (Johnson dies in 1784.)