A History of English Literature: From the Old English Period to the Renaissance.

Year One

College of Foreign Languages, Silesian Technical University

Types of questions to be expected on the test paper:

1. Explain the meaning of the following terms and their relevance to English literature, providing a) relevant examples, b) names of people they are related to and c) time span (2-3 sentences/bullet points for each term).

2. Explain the relevance of the following people for English literature, providing a) their cultural roles and influences, b) relevant titles of texts (if applicable), and c) time span (2-3 sentences/bullet points for each person).

3. State: a) where the following quotation comes from (title, author), b) provide approximate date of its composition (+/- 50 years) and c) in bullet points present its short interpretation (e.g. what main medieval literary ideas it presents or it is related to).

4. Multiple choice questions (suggested answers provided, you choose one correct answer).

I. Required critical reading (aside from the texts listed above):

Andrew Sanders, The Short Oxford History of English Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). [relevant chapters only: pp. 16-82]

OR: Liliana Sikorska, An Outline History of English Literature (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 2002). [relevant chapters only: from Old English to the end of the Middle Ages]

II. Concisely answer the following questions. Be able to sufficiently explain and locate your answers chronologically (within 25 years of a century):

1. What is Old English/Anglo-Saxon, Middle English?

2. Mead-hall and scop and their place in Old English culture.

3. What do the themes of ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt and sic transit gloria mundi mean?

4. What was the Heptarchy?

5. What were the three estates (oratores, bellatores and laboratores)?

6. What was orature?

7. What were alliteration, kennings and variation in Old English poetry?

8. What was elegiac, heroic, gnomic poetry in Old English period?

9. What was the Exter Book in Old English period?

10. How does a heroic narrative contribute to the rise of a community?

11. What is Beowulf, what are its origins and main themes?

12. What is wyrd in Old English literature?

13. What does “transitoriness” mean (in senses rel. to medieval literature)?

14. How and when did Christianity arrive to Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (two direction).

15. What is Franks Casket and what do some of its scenes prove?

16. What was Cædmon's Hymn and where was it recorded?

17. What was Historia Ecclesiastica Gents Anglorum? What was its role in the establishment of Englishness?

18. How does The Dream of the Rood combine pagan and Christian elements?

19. What were the Northumbrian revival and insular art?

20. What was the role of King Alfred the Great in the establishment of English (Old English) as the language of literature?

21. What were the two major Latin works translated by King Alfred?

22. What is logocentrism and pansemiotism (in medieval sense)?

23. What does giedd mean and what does(do) its meaning(s) prove?

24. What are the main themes of Old English sea elegies?

25. How is the sense of “The Seafarer's” voyage different from that of “The Wanderer”?

26. What is Anglo-Norman period / Anglo-Norman literature?

27. What was the Doomsday Book?

28. What were the chanson de geste?

29. What were the three matters of medieval chivalric romances? Who were the main heroes of the matter of Rome, Britain and France?

30. What was the connection between Britain and ancient Rome and Troy (Brutus)?

31. What was Brut, its main themes and who wrote it?

32. What was fin amor / “courtly love”? Where did it originate?

33. What is the chief theme of Laüstic and who is its author?

34. What were the lais (sing. lai)?

35. Who (and when) were troubadours, touveres and minnesänger?

36. What is a fable (in medieval literature)?

37. What were the chief changes among the bellatores in the 14^th c.?

38. What were the chief changes among the oratores in the 14^th c.?

39. What were the chief changes among the laboratores in the 14^th c.?

40. What were the effects of the Hundred Years' War on English language and literature?

41. What are the main themes of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?

42. How are 14^th c. social changes presented in G. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (in the Prologue)?

43. What are the main features of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales? What is so new in the Tales?

44. What is a fabliau?

45. What is a fable, an exemplum, a mock-heroic poem?

46. Explain the idea of the carnivalesque in medieval culture.

47. What are the origins of medieval theatre?

48. What were medieval mystery plays?

49. Miracle plays?

50. Morality plays (their example)?

III. Who were the following people, what did they create and what was their relation to (English) literature? Be able to locate them chronologically (within 25 years of a century).

St. Columba (of Ireland)

Gregory the Great (pope)

St. Augustine of Canterbury

Cædmon

(The Venerable) Bede

Alcuin of York

King Alfred the Great

Boethius

Aldhelm (bishop)

Ethelred the Unready

Canute the Great

Edward the Confessor

William the Conqueror

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Wace

Brut (Brutus) [legendary]

Lawman (Layamon)

Marie de France

Andreas Capellanus (André le Chaplain)

John Wycliff

Giovanni Boccaccio

Geoffrey Chaucer

The Pearl-Poet / the Gawain-Poet

William Caxton

IV. Be able to identify fragments from the following texts: Beowulf, “The Wanderer”, “The Seafarer”, “The Dream of the Rood”, Marie de France's Laüstic, Layamon's Brut, Sir Gawain aand the Green Knight, Geoffrey Chaucer's Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer's “Miller's Tale” from The Canterbury Tales.

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^{© Rafał Borysławski}

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