British History and Literature

• First popular in France
• Was about writing love lyrics
• New literary movement, where woman were addressed as superior beings
• The poet is happy only if the woman loves him
• This movement did not mirror reality

E.g.: in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" King Arthur has dinner with his knights, which is an indicator to a more "personal relationship".

• Exploits it by convincing Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge 
• Goes to paradise in the shape of a serpent and shows Eve that he, after eating from the tree, can speak like a human being 
  • Although he is an animal and therefore subordinate to humans

Copy those who were the best at copying nature, so the Latins and the Greeks

• Seen as a transformative process
• Art was the expression of the imagination
  • Artists had more imagination than the others
• Was used to present normal things in an unusual way 
  • Associate ideas in a state of excitement

• General literary rose
  • People had to provide new reading materials for the new readers (mainly women)
• Progress in technology 
  • Books could be printed cheaper than before
• Rise of the middle class
  • Established a democratic movement
• Public libraries 
  • You couöd now borrow books more easily

• Colonies
• Science
• Coal
• Infrastructure
• Enclosure
• Protestanism

• Art never expresses anything but itself
• Life imitates art far more than art imitates life
• Lying and telling of beautiful untrue things is the proper aim of art
• The content of art is irrelevant, but it needs to be beautiful

• It took more than 100 years to start the Christianisation in England
• Celts: Christianised in the 5th century
• Columba, a Scottish priest (Irish free church), started the Christianisation of Britain from the North and the Roman-Catholic church from the south
• The Christianisation of England by Augustine and his followers went rather smoothly 
• Advantage: men were married to already Christian (continental) woman, so it was easier to convince them
• Augustine did not destroy important pagan shrines of the Anglo-Saxons, instead he gave those symbols a new meaning
  • Forced to adopt new worldview/ideology
  • New language, chance of old words via adding new meaning
    • Concept of euhemerismn

Speaker loves a woman, who does not love him back, makes him despair

Misogyny and courtly love

• The protagonist of a Shakespearean tragedy commits an error of judgement which leads to a certain action 
• This action produces inevitability the further actions until the protagonist dies

• In Othello the characters flaw is his inferiority complex/jealousy
• He thought that a white woman would not love him because of his descent and kills her
• He did not believe his wife and killed her
• He kills himself in the end

• Deductive method: 
  • Based on authorities 
  • Somebody set something and you were not allowed to question it
• Inductive method:
  • Based on experiment
  • When you question something, you have to do your own research

• Parliament has the power to pick the monarch who is not chosen by God 
• Glorious Revolution took place from 1688 to 1689 in England
• Involved the overthrow of the catholic King James II, because of the fear that England would become Catholic agai
• Replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange

• Is all about the imitation of nature and reality in ar
• In the 18th century literature copied and reflected reality
• People relied on classical authors like Homer or Virgil and imitated them

• Most important theoretical text of romantic times
• Tells what literature is like and what it should be like
• Shows how language is used by ordinary people
• Is about low and rustic life

• Lyrical poetry
• Imagination
• The individual
• Language of the common people
• Nature
• Ordinary things
• Weltschmerz

• Nature is so imperfect
• L'art pour l'art
• Art never expresses anything but itself
• The only beautiful things are the things that don't concern us
• Life imitates art (inversion)
• Lying (the telling of beautiful untrue things) is the proper aim of art

• The concept of Utilitarianism means the greatest benefit for the greatest number of society
• Favored the novel over poetry because it could be read by everybody
• Utilitarianism  brought an end to romanticism
  • During romanticism many poems that deal with the feelings of the speaker were written
  • People began to care less about the feelings of the speaker and were more interested in reading novels than poetry
  • Novels became more popular than poems

It means that art is not a mimesis of life and nature as it is for Aristotle,but life imitates art. You have to lie about things that are not true and tell them beautiful instead. We look at reality through art and when we see art we want to see the portrayed object.

1. Mental dimension:
   • Shows in the mentality of a culture towards things
2. Social dimension:
   • Showing society and its institutions
3. Material dimension:
   • E.g texts and architecture from that culture

• Manifestation of Neo-Platonism
• Is about love that is not consummated 
• Male poet speaks about his woman of desire like a saint
• Lady is never to be reached by him and never gives in to his requests
• She is to be worshipped but is only seen as perfect because she is a virgin

• Comedy: 
  • End with a Happy End, e.g. marriage
• Tragedy:
  • End with death
  • About remote history
• Histories:
  • End with death
  • About recent history

Theodicy is the vindication of God. The good will always win and deals with the question why God permits the manifestation of evil. "Paradise Lost" explains why humankind was banished from paradise and explains how they were tricked by the devil. It aims to explain why God is the way he is.

The theodicy in Paradise Lost is a question. The question is "How can God be powerful and all-knowing and there is still so much evil in the world?". Milton uses this theodicy to justify gods actions. He answered this question with the fact that people are free and have a free mind

It is Juvenalian pros Satire. Juvenalian satire is cruel and mean. It critiques the English government and its aristocracy in a very mean and degrading way, however hides this critique and satire through a story and disguises itself as a travelogue.

The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected im tranquility

Poetry should be about situations from common life. It should employ language used by men (common people) and should be simplistic. To him poetry is "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, recollected in tranquility".

The major points according to Wordsworth are lyrical poetry, imagination versus mimesis, the individual, the language of the common people, nature, ordinary things and Weltschmerz

Utilitarianism means the theory of morality that advocates the greatest benefit for the greatest amount of people. The industrialization for example used exactly that, it pleased the most amount of people.

Utilitarianism means something should have the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people. This movement ultimately ended Romanticism because its main topics were not relatable for the people anymore. People started favouring novels over poetry, as it was more accessible for them. The novel became the main genre of the time. Poetry was to hard to understand and only a few people could understand and read it, so the novel was understandable for almost everyone and everyone could read it

• Old English Period (500 - 1100)
• Middle English Period (1100 - 1500) 
• Renaissance (1500 - 1603/1660)
• Neoclassical Period (1600 - 1785)
• Romantic Period (1785 - 1832) 
• Victorian Period (1830 - 1900)

• Romanization 500BC - 300 AC
• Anglo Saxon 449 AC
• Christianization 565 AC
• Chatholic Church 595 AC
• Viking Age 787/800 AC

• A collection of 24 tales which are strung together by a frame narrative
• Starts with general prologue
• then the pilgrims who tell the stories go on their journey and each one tells their tale(s).
• between each tale there is an intermission of the characters until they reach their destination and they go back to the cycle
• Is written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer
• the 24 tales encompass all the major genres of medieval literature, including romances, fabliaux, fables, sermons and legends of the saints

• 3 Protestant Maximus: 
  • sola scriptura: you must read the Bible in order to connect with God
  • Sola fide: only someone's believe/faith in God is important, and not good deeps
  • sola gratia: believe in predestination
  • concept of order -> chain of being
• Anthropogenetic Renaissance: social hierarchy, human beings are worth a certain value -> from what they achieved ( not every human the same) 
  • Unlike in the 18th century male and female are the same

• Comedy:
  • Midsummer Night's dream
  • Twelfth Night
  • Much Ado About Nothing, As you Like it
• Tragedy: 
  • MacBeth
  • Hamlet
  • King Lear
  • Othello
• History:
  • King Henry 4th, 5th, 6th;
  • King Richard 2nd, 3rd
  • King John

• 1603: Queen Elizabeth 1st dies
• 1603-1625: James 1st of England 4th of Scotland
• 1625-1649: Charles 1st was executed -> first King ever executed by his own people
• 1649-1660:Commonwealth by Oliver Cornwall -> refused the title as a king - titled as Lord Protector of England -> first time England was without a monarch/monarchy
• 1660-1688: Charles II. -> James II. maried catholic wife -> fear England will become catholic again -> james 2nd was thrown out of England -> Glorious Revolution
• 1688: William of Orange became king of England
• 1642-1646: first civil war
• 1648-1652: second  civil war 

The justification from god to humans