SUMMARY ABOUT MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE

 Middle English (ME) was the dominant and traditional spoken language form in many parts of England during the Middle Ages. Though most language historians suggest that prior to about 1000 CE, the primary language in England was Anglo-Saxon, the Norman invasion of England had significant effect on Anglo-Saxon. It gradually morphed the language into Middle English, a form almost recognizable, at least in text, as far more relative to modern spoken and written English.History can have an intense effect on language. For England, the Norman invasion changed English forever. In the courts and in much of the writing of the time, French was definitely preferable, accounting for the numerous French-based words (over 10,000) that are now the common every day words of today’s English. Most documents dated after 1000 were written in either French or Latin, and Middle English drew from both, while still retaining some of its Anglo-Saxon roots. This in part accounts for the significant “exceptions” in English grammar, spelling, structure and pronunciation that can make English such a challenging language to learn, especially for those acquiring it as a second language. The term Middle English literature refers to the literature written in the form of the English language known as-middle English, from the 12th century until the 1470s, when the Chancery Standard a form of London-based English, became widespread and the printing process regularized the language. Between the 1470s and the middle of the following century there is a transition to early modern English though in literary terms the characteristics of the literary works written does not change radically until the effects of the categories of Middle English Literature: Religious,country love , and Arthurian, though much of Geoffrey Chaucer's work stands outside these. Among the many religious works are those in the Katherine  grop and the writings of Julian of Norwich and Ricard rolle.

SUMMARY ABOUT THE ELIZABETHAN PERIOD

 The earlier half of Elizabeth's reign, also, though not lacking in literary effort, produced no work of permanent importance. After the religious convulsions of half a century time was required for the development of the internal quiet and confidence from which a great literature could spring. At length, however, the hour grew ripe and there came the greatest outburst of creative energy in the whole history of English literature. Under Elizabeth's wise guidance the prosperity and enthusiasm of the nation had risen to the highest pitch, and London in particular was overflowing with vigorous life. A special stimulus of the most intense kind came from the struggle with Spain. After a generation of half-piratical depredations by the English sea dogs against the Spanish treasure fleets and the Spanish settlements in America, King Philip, exasperated beyond all patience and urged on by a bigot's zeal for the Catholic Church, began deliberately to prepare the Great Armada, which was to crush at one blow the insolence, the independence, and the religion of England. There followed several long years of breathless suspense; then in 1588 the Armada sailed and was utterly overwhelmed in one of the most complete disasters of the world's history. Thereupon the released energy of England broke out exultantly into still more impetuous achievement in almost every line of activity. The great literary period is taken by common consent to begin with the publication of Spenser's 'Shepherd's Calendar' in 1579, and to end in some sense at the death of Elizabeth in 1603, though in the drama, at least, it really continues many years longer. Several general characteristics of Elizabethan literature and writers should be indicated at the outset. 

A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf

Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure--a ghostly couple.

"Here we left it," she said. And he added, "Oh, but here tool" "It's upstairs," she murmured. "And in the garden," he whispered. "Quietly," they said, "or we shall wake them."

But it wasn't that you woke us. Oh, no. "They're looking for it; they're drawing the curtain," one might say, and so read on a page or two. "Now they've found it,' one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. "What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?" My hands were empty. "Perhaps its upstairs then?" The apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had slipped into the grass.

But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them. The windowpanes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room, the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling--what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound. "Safe, safe, safe" the pulse of the house beat softly. "The treasure buried; the room . . ." the pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure?

Puritan Period or the Age of Milton

The period from the accession of Charles I in 1625 to the Revolution of 1688 was filled with a mighty struggle over the question whether king or Commons should be supreme in England. On this question the English people were divided into two main parties. On one side were the Royalists, or Cavaliers, who upheld the monarch with his theory of the divine right of kings, on the other were the Puritans, or Independents, who stood for the rights of the individual man and for the liberties of Parliament and people. The literature of the age is extremely diverse in character, and is sadly lacking in the unity, the joyousness, the splendid enthusiasm of Elizabethan prose and poetry.

The puritans were never a majority in England. But, it was changed in the Civil War in 1642, which ended in puritan victory. The result of the War, England was for a brief period a commonwealth, disciplined at home and respected abroad, through the genius and vigor and tyranny of Oliver Cromwell. When Cromwell died (1658) there was no man in England strong enough to take his place, and two years later “Prince Charlie,” who had long been an exile, was recalled to the throne as Charles II of England. 
 

Analysis of Short Story The Children Story by James Clavell

About The Author of The Children’s Story

James Clavell, born Charles Edmund DuMaresq Clavell (10 October 1924 – 7 September 1994) was an Australian-born, British (later naturalized American) novelist, screenwriter, director and World War II veteran and prisoner of war. Clavell is best known for his epic Asian Saga series of novels and their televised adaptations, along with such films as The Great Escape .

Early life and World War II

Born in Australia, Clavell was the son of Commander Richard Clavell, a British Royal Navy officer who was stationed in Australia on secondment from the Royal Navy to the Royal Australian Navy. In 1940, when Clavell finished his secondary schooling at Portsmouth Grammar School, he joined the Royal Artillery to follow his family tradition.

Clavell grew up in England and later became a member of the Royal Artillery. A motorcycle injury caused him to leave the military in 1946. He developed an interest in film, and his first writings were screenplays, such as The Fly (1958) and The Great Escape (1963; with others). Although he continued to write screenplays and direct films for several years, in 1960 Clavell began writing novels as well. He based his first novel, King Rat (1962; filmed 1965), on his experiences as a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II. Struggles for power and wealth and, secondarily, sex and love occupy his fiction as East and West and male and female clash. Clavell’s other novels include Tai-Pan (1966; filmed 1986) and Noble House (1981; TV miniseries 1988), set in historic and modern Hong Kong; Shōgun (1975), set in 17th-century Japan; Whirlwind (1986), set in Iran during its 1979 revolution; and Gai-Jin (1993), set in 19th-century Japan. Many of Clavell’s novels were made into television miniseries; the 1980 version of Shōgun was one of the most popular miniseries ever made.

The Children’s Story by James Clavell (Short Story)

The teacher was afraid.

And the children were afraid. All except Johnny. He watched the classroom door with hate. He felt the hatred deep within his stomach. It gave him strength.

It was two minutes to nine.

 The teacher glanced numbly from the door and stared at the flag which stood in a corner of the room. But she couldn’t see the flag today. She was blinded by her terror, not only for herself but mostly for them, her children. She had never had children of her own. She had never married. In the mists of her mind she saw the rows upon rows of children she had taught through her years. Their faces were legion. But she could distinguish no one particular face. Only the same face which varied but slightly. Always the same age or thereabouts.  Seven. Perhaps a boy, perhaps a girl. And the face always open and ready for the knowledge that she was to give. The same face staring at her, open, waiting and full of trust.

Characters and Role Analysis Questions

The following resources supply approaches used singularly or in combination to analyze the character you are playing.  None of them are academic exercises, but rather important tools to unlock the character process for the actor.  Included are the following four character development tools:

1.      Character Analysis Questions

Although the questions are many and very involved, in order to create the full life of the character, the actor should know the answers to all these questions regarding:

            Physical

            Social

            Psychological

            Moral

The actor must know the answer to every question, though the character in performance may be

(probably is), ignorant of many.

A Brief Overview Of English Literature Up To The Age Of Sensibility (Unedited)

In the handling of the education of English literature, literary scholars have compartmentalized British literature into what is here referred to as "periods". While the precise accounts of dates, names and other details vary, the following chronology conforms to widespread agreement among today's literary historians and scholars. Following the chart below, are succinct descriptions of each period with brief mentioning’s of the major contributors of said period. 

SUMMARY “PLOT”

A plot or structure of story, is the arrangement of tied-together chronological events which have causal and thematic connections. The particular plot is something the novelist and short story writers are driven to. It is what is left after the whittling-away of alternatives.

Friedman asks three questions before considering a set of alternative repotheses for defining the form of a given plot;  First, who is the protagonist?;  Second, what is his character and how do we respond to it?;   Third, which is the principal part and how are the other two related to it?

Friedman in his book Form and Meaning in Fiction discusses plot under Part two of his book: The Problem of Form Chapter Five, Forms of the Plot, he proposes to have terms in defining the form of plot, for differentiating its structure effect from those of other plots. Since anyone of the parts an action may serve as the principal part, we may have plots of fortune, plots of character, and plots of thought.

The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had married beneath her; for women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or family, their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of wit, are their only mark of rank, and put the slum girl on a level with the highest lady in the land.

She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her. The sight of the little Breton girl who came to do the work in her little house aroused heart-broken regrets and hopeless dreams in her mind. She imagined silent antechambers, heavy with Oriental tapestries, lit by torches in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches sleeping in large arm-chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove. She imagined vast saloons hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture supporting priceless ornaments, and small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for little parties of intimate friends, men who were famous and sought after, whose homage roused every other woman's envious longings.

ANALYZING THE ELEMENTS OF FICTION

PLOT

1. What are the chief episodes and incidents which compromise the story's plot? Does the

plot proceed dramatically and chronologically? To what extent, if any, does the author

employ such devices as flashbacks and foreshadowing?

2. What is the conflict (or conflicts) on which the plot turns?

3. Is the plot unified? Are the episodes and incidents logically related to one another?

What role does change and coincidence play?

4. Is the ending (resolution) appropriate to and consistent with the rest of the story? Does it

depend on a surprise or reversal of some kind?

5. Describe the plot in terms of its introduction, its complication or conflict, its crisis, its

climax, and its resolution.

Setting analysis of Journey to the center of the earth By Jules verne

1.          INTRODUCTION

This book consists of 20 chapters. This book is about the quest to the cenhe of the earth. The expedition is led by Professor Otto Liedenbrock and includes Axel and their Icelandic goide Hans.

Liedenbrock stumbles upon this discovery when he was going through a runic script. In the runic script he discovers a coded message written by an Icelandic alchemist Ame Saknusserlm, saying that he has been to the centre of the earth. He goes on to describe how exactly he did it. So Professor Otto Liedenbrock, Axel, and Hans go to Sneffels where they are let down by cloudy skies. But on the last day the sun comes out and they enter the correct crater.

A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf

Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure--a ghostly couple.

"Here we left it," she said. And he added, "Oh, but here tool" "It's upstairs," she murmured. "And in the garden," he whispered. "Quietly," they said, "or we shall wake them."

But it wasn't that you woke us. Oh, no. "They're looking for it; they're drawing the curtain," one might say, and so read on a page or two. "Now they've found it,' one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. "What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?" My hands were empty. "Perhaps its upstairs then?" The apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had slipped into the grass.

The Black Cat By Edgar Allan Poe

FOR the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified - have tortured - have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror - to many they will seem less terrible than baroque. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place - some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.

Analysis Novel The Sun Also rises By Ernest Hemingway

I. Intrinsic element

A.Character and characterization

Major characters

Jake Barnes : The narrator of the story, Barnes served in World War I and was injured while fighting in Italy. This injury left him impotent, which becomes his curse and a major theme of the novel. He loves Brett, and she loves him, but she loves sex more. Since Jake cannot have sex, their relationship is doomed. Jake must sit back and watch her have affairs with Mike, Cohn, and Pedro. Unable to act himself, he will often help her, as when he sets her up with Pedro Romero. As a means of coping, he tries to be detached, focusing on the monetary value and the utility of things. Jake takes a trip to Spain every summer, fishing and then going to Pamplona for the festival. This year, his friends spoil his trip. Fishing with Bill is fun, but once they join everyone in Pamplona, the trip becomes a disaster. Jake loves bull-fighting, and his passion for the sport is greatly respected. But his friends' bad behavior, especially Brett's fling with Pedro, is so devastating that those who once respected him will no longer speak to him. Jake loses this comfort, and also his self-respect as he continually comes to Brett's aid.

Return to Paradise By Eliza Riley

Lisa gazed out over the Caribbean Sea, feeling the faint breeze against her face - eyes shut, the white sand warm between her bare toes. The place was beautiful beyond belief, but it was still unable to ease the grief she felt as she remembered the last time she had been here.

            She had married James right here on this spot three years ago to the day. Dressed in a simple white shift dress, miniature white roses attempting to tame her long dark curls, Lisa had been happier than she had ever thought possible. James was even less formal but utterly irresistible in creased summer trousers and a loose white cotton shirt. His dark hair slightly ruffled and his eyes full of adoration as his looked at his bride to be. The justice of the peace had read their vows as they held hands and laughed at the sheer joy of being young, in love and staying in a five star resort on the Caribbean island of the Dominican Republic. They had seen the years blissfully stretching ahead of them, together forever. They planned their children, two she said, he said four so they compromised on three (two girls and a boy of course); where they would live, the traveling they would do together - it was all certain, so they had thought then.

Analysis Short Story “Young Goodman Brown” By Nathaniel Hawthorne

A. Themes

The themes in the story are religion themed, mysterious and secret story, implicit moral education story/ contain moral or philosophical implications.

B. Plot Summary Plot

Summary in this story is happened in the village of Salem, Massachusetts, in the Puritan community of god-fear. On the front doorstep of his house, his wife kissed by a Young Goodman Brown, and he began the journey into the forest but he did not return the next day. In the other side, He gets a challenge of braving the forest and faces the temptations posed by the forces of evil. Then, Goodman Brown really might want to join the brotherhood of evil also. When in the woods, he meets a mysterious man with a face that resembles likes a snake, and eventually they continue their journey together. From time to time, Brown expressed a desire to return, but his feet kept him away move on. Along the way, there are members of the clergy, through their journey, while Brown hid behind the bark. At that meeting location, he experienced a terrible shock when he discovers that his beautiful wife, a plain also participate. Young Goodman Brown really surprised because he saw his wife, and in his heart, “why my wife could be in their members” but he’s still trying to find known until he participated in the group and see more about their activities. After the incident Young Goodman Brown was never the same again, he was one who liked to be sad when he had it firmly, like the gloomy solitude, a desperate man “. Finally, in this story he died (young goodman brown) leaving his wife and family. 

Young Goodman Brown By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while she called to Goodman Brown.

"Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, "prithee put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts that she's afterward of herself sometimes. Pray tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year."

"My love and my Faith," replied young Goodman Brown, "of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou call est it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married?

The Best Day by Margaret White Eggleston

One sunny summer afternoon Margaret sat reading beneath the shade of an old apple tree. Before her stretched a charming view but on her face was a troubled, dissatisfied look.

"Oh, dear," she sighed. "Even this book is stupid. It is the dullest, most stupid day that I ever saw."

"Stupid day?" said a tiny voice. There on the rock before her sat the daintiest little golden-haired fairy that she had ever seen. The fairy's feet were resting on a woodbine vine that was creeping up the wall, and her wings were as delicate as those of a butterfly.

"What makes such a bright day as this stupid?"

"Oh, I suppose it is myself," said the discontented girl.

"I believe it is," said the fairy. "Now I will take you with me to the Palace of Time and you shall choose a day that suits you better. Come."

The Killers by Ernest Hemingway

The door of Henry’s lunchroom opened and two men came in. They sat down at the counter. “What’s yours?” George asked them. “I don’t know,” one of the men said. “What do you want to eat, Al?”  “I don’t know,” said Al. “I don’t know what I want to eat.” Outside it was getting dark. The streetlight came on outside the window. The two men at the counter read the menu. From the other end of the counter Nick Adams watched them.He had been talking to George when they came in. “I’ll have a roast pork tenderloin with apple sauce and mashed potatoes,” the first man said. “It isn’t ready yet.”  “What the hell do you put it on the card for?”  “That’s the dinner,” George explained. “You can get that at six o’clock.” George looked at the clock on the wall behind the counter. “It’s five o’clock.”  “The clock says twenty minutes past five,” the second man said. “It’s twenty minutes fast.”  “Oh, to hell with the clock,” the first man said. “What have you got to eat?”  “I can give you any kind of sandwiches,” George said. “You can have ham and eggs,bacon and eggs, liver and bacon, or a steak.”  “Give me chicken croquettes with green peas and cream sauce and mashed potatoes.”  “That’s the dinner.”  “Everything we want’s the dinner, eh? That’s the way you work it.”  “I can give you ham and eggs, bacon and eggs, liver—”  “I’ll take ham and eggs,” the man called Al said. He wore a derby hat and a black-overcoat buttoned across the chest. His face was small and white and he had tight lips. He wore a silk muffler and gloves. “Give me bacon and eggs,” said the other man. He was about the same size as Al. Their faces were different, but they were dressed like twins. Both wore overcoats too tight for them. They sat leaning forward, their elbows on the counter. “Got anything to drink?” Al asked. “Silver beer, bevy, ginger-ale,” George said.