English Literature Preodic chart

Literary

Time	English Literature
450-1066	Old English (Anglo-Saxon) Period
1066-1500	Middle English Period
1500-1660	The Renaissance    1558-1603    Elizabethan Age    1603-1625    Jacobean Age    1625-1649   Caroline Age    1649-1660   Commonwealth Period                           (or Puritan Interregnum)
1660-1785	The Neoclassical Period    1660-1700   The Restoration    1700-1745   Augustan Age (or Age of Pope)    1745-1785   Age of Sensibility                            (or Age of Johnson)
1785-1830	The Romantic Period
1832-1901	The Victorian Period     1848-1860   The Pre-Raphaelites     1880-1901    Aestheticism & Decadence
1901-1914	The Edwardian Period
1910-1936	The Georgian Period
1914-1945	The Modern Period
1945-	The Postmodern Period

Periods

Time	American Literary Movements
1607-1776	Puritan / Colonial
1765-1790	Revolutionary /   Age of Reason
1775-1828	Early National Period
1828-1865	American Renaissance
1865-1900	Realism
1900-1914	Naturalistic Period
1914-1939	American Modernist Period 1920s:  Jazz Age, Harlem Renaissance 1920s, 1930s : The "Lost Generation"
1939-present	The Contemporary Period 1950s : Beat Writers 1960s & 1970s : Counterculture

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Biography of William Shakespeare

Details about William Shakespeare’s life are sketchy, mostly mere surmise based upon court or other clerical records. His parents, John and Mary (Arden), were married about 1557; she was of the landed gentry, he a yeoman—a glover and commodities merchant. By 1568, John had risen through the ranks of town government and held the position of high bailiff, similar to mayor. William, the eldest son, was born in 1564, probably on April 23, several days before his baptism on April 26, 1564. That Shakespeare also died on April 23, 52 years later, may have resulted in the adoption of this birthdate.
William no doubt attended the local grammar school in Stratford where his parents lived, and would have studied primarily Latin rhetoric, logic, and literature [Barnet, viii]. At age 18 (1582), William married Anne Hathaway, a local farmer’s daughter eight years his senior. Their first daughter (Susanna) was born six months later (1583), and twins Judith and Hamnet were born in 1585.
Shakespeare’s life can be divided into three periods: the first 20 years in Stratford, which include his schooling, early marriage, and fatherhood; the next 25 years as an actor and playwright in London; and the last five in retirement back in Stratford where he enjoyed moderate wealth gained from his theatrical successes. The years linking the first two periods are marked by a lack of information about Shakespeare, and are often referred to as the “dark years”; the transition from active work into retirement was gradual and cannot be precisely dated [Boyce, 587].
John Shakespeare had suffered financial reverses from William’s teen years until well into the height of the playwright’s popularity and success. In 1596, John Shakespeare was granted a coat of arms, almost certainly purchased by William, who the next year bought a sizable house in Stratford. By the time of his death, William had substantial properties, both professional and personal, which he bestowed on his theatrical associates and his family (primarily his daughter Susanna, having rewritten his will one month before his death to protect his assets from Judith’s new husband, Thomas Quiney, who ran afoul of church doctrine and public esteem before and after the marriage) [Boyce, 529].
Shakespeare probably left school at 15, which was the norm, and took some sort of job, especially since this was the period of his father’s financial difficulty. Numerous references in his plays suggest that William may have in fact worked for his father, thereby gaining specialized knowledge [Boyce, 587].
At some point during the “dark years,” Shakespeare began his career with a London theatrical company—perhaps in 1589—for he was already an actor and playwright of some note in 1592. Shakespeare apparently wrote and acted for Pembroke’s Men, as well as numerous others, in particular Strange’s Men, which later became the Chamberlain’s Men, with whom he remained for the rest of his career.
When, in 1592, the Plague closed the theaters for about two years, Shakespeare turned to writing book-length narrative poetry. Most notable were “Venus and Adonis” and “The Rape of Lucrece,” both of which were dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, whom scholars accept as Shakespeare’s friend and benefactor despite a lack of documentation. During this same period, Shakespeare was writing his sonnets, which are more likely signs of the time’s fashion rather than actual love poems detailing any particular relationship. He returned to play writing when theaters reopened in 1594, and published no more poetry. His sonnets were published without his consent in 1609, shortly before his retirement.
Amid all of his success, Shakespeare suffered the loss of his only son, Hamnet, who died in 1596 at the age of 11. But Shakespeare’s career continued unabated, and in London in 1599, he became one of the partners in the new Globe Theater [Boyce, 589], built by the Chamberlain’s Men. This group was a remarkable assemblage of “excellent actors who were also business partners and close personal friends . . . [including] Richard Burbage . . . [who] all worked together as equals . . . ” [Chute, 131].
When Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 and was succeeded by her cousin King James of Scotland, the Chamberlain’s Men was renamed the King’s Men, and Shakespeare’s productivity and popularity continued uninterrupted. He invested in London real estate and, one year away from retirement, purchased a second theater, the Blackfriars Gatehouse, in partnership with his fellow actors. His final play was Henry VIII, two years before his death in 1616.
Incredibly, most of Shakespeare’s plays had never been published in anything except pamphlet form, and were simply extant as acting scripts stored at the Globe. Only the efforts of two of Shakespeare’s company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, preserved his 36 plays (minus Pericles, the thirty-seventh) [Barnet, xvii] in the First Folio. Heminges and Condell published the plays, they said, “only to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive as was our Shakespeare” [Chute, 133]. Theater scripts were not regarded as literary works of art, but only the basis for the performance. Plays were a popular form of entertainment for all layers of society in Shakespeare’s time, which perhaps explains why Hamlet feels compelled to instruct the traveling Players on the fine points of acting, urging them not “to split the ears of the groundlings,” nor “speak no more than is set down for them.”
Present copies of Shakespeare’s plays have, in some cases, been reconstructed in part from scripts written down by various members of an acting company who performed particular roles. Shakespeare’s plays, like those of many of the actors who also were playwrights, belonged to the acting company. The performance, rather than the script, was what concerned the author, for that was how his play would become popular—and how the company, in which many actors were shareholders, would make money.
William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, and was buried two days later in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church where he had been baptized exactly 52 years earlier

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Introduction to Romeo and Juliet

A perennial staple of high school English classes, Romeo and Juliet was written by Shakespeare at a relatively early juncture in his literary career, most probably in 1594 or 1595. During much of the twentieth century, critics tended to disparage this play in comparison to the four great tragedies that Shakespeare wrote in the first decade of the seventeenth century (Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello). Appraised next to the Bard's mature works, Romeo and Juliet appears to lack the psychological depth and the structural complexity of Shakespeare's later tragedies. But over the past three decades or so, many scholars have altered this assessment, effectively upgrading its status within Shakespeare's canon. They have done this by discarding comparative evaluation and judging Romeo and Juliet as a work of art in its own right.
Viewed from this fresh perspective, Shakespeare's tragic drama of the "star-crossed" young lovers is seen to be an extraordinary work. Indeed, Romeo and Juliet was an experimental stage piece at the time of its composition, featuring several radical departures from long-standing conventions. These innovative aspects of the play, moreover, reinforce and embellish its principal themes. The latter include the antithesis between love and hate, the correlative use of a light/dark polarity, the handling of time (as both theme and as structural element), and the prominent status accorded to Fortune and its expression in the dreams, omens and forebodings that presage its tragic conclusion.

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Summery of Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli

Milkweed, penned by Newbery Medal winner Jerry Spinelli, tells the story of a young boy with no identity. The setting for this young adult novel is the Warsaw ghetto, and the time is the onset of the Holocaust in 1939.
The novel opens with a dream or a memory; the narrator is not sure which. He is running, having stolen a loaf of bread, and is being chased. "Stop, thief!" someone yells. Exhausted, he collapses and is pulled into an alley by a stranger who warns him that he should be careful because soon he will be chased by "Jackboots" instead of old women. Suddenly, the city is under attack and they must find cover. The stranger introduces himself as Uri and asks the narrator for his name; the narrator says he is called "Stopthief."
Uri leads him to a stable where several other boys are hiding. They ask him if he is a Jew; he shrugs his shoulders, unsure. He asks the boys what a Jew is and they tell him, "A Jew is an animal. A Jew is a bug. A Jew is less than a bug." The boys do not really believe this; they are merely spouting back the latest rhetoric. After all, they are Jews themselves. The group presses him further, suggesting that he is a Gypsy. Unsure what else to say, he assents. One of the boys suggests that they send him away because "next to Jews, they hate Gypsies the most." The boys proceed to joke around about why Jews are being targeted; they know that people think Jews drink people's blood and eat babies. They find these accusations utterly absurd since they are beyond what even fiction writers could conjure up. As the bombings worsen, the boys run for better shelter. They lead their new group member to an abandoned barbershop where they find safety for the night. It becomes evident that Uri is the group's de facto leader and has assumed the role of guardian. Uri procures a mattress for the boy and then gives him a bath and cuts his hair to delouse him.
Later that fall, the bombings become more frequent and food becomes more scarce. For the first time, the boy comes face to face with the Jackboots.  A few days later, however, he begins to understand. There are drastic changes in the town. He sees an elderly man washing the street with his long beard. Next, he sees the soldiers cutting off another man's beard. At first, he tells Uri that he wants to be a Jackboot. Uri becomes angry and tells him "you are what you are," meaning that he will never be a Jackboot. Uri seems to know that the boy has no idea what is really going on and as a result, he tries to shield the boy from their reality.
Uri decides that the boy needs a name and so Uri names him Misha Pilsudski. Uri also crafts an identity for him. Misha Pilsudski is a Gypsy of Russian descent. His father was a horse trader (his favorite was named Greta). Misha has seven brothers and five sisters. They ended up in Poland where he was separated from the rest of his family after a Jackboot bombing. Misha found his way to Warsaw and learned how to steal food as a means of survival. Misha is so thrilled to have an identity that he repeats his new name over and over to himself. As the story progresses, Misha begins to truly embrace his identity. Each time he hears a horse, he looks to see if it is Greta, his favorite horse. When he learns that Uri and the other boys are orphans, he does not believe that he fits into that category since he has parents and twelve siblings.
Misha witnesses the destruction of Jewish homes and businesses in Warsaw. He thinks to himself, "I'm glad I'm not a Jew." Prophetically, Uri tells him not to be too glad....

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The Way of the World Summary

The Way of the World is generally viewed as the supreme example of its genre. Its characters—the vengeful and ultimately pathetic Lady Wishfort, the sparring lovers Mirabell and Millamant, the dark and devious Mrs. Marwood—remain in the mind long after the play is over. The complexities and subtleties of relationships are observed with a keen psychological insight: the domineering nature of Lady Wishfort turning to abject dependence on her mentor Mrs. Marwood; the carefully manipulated shifts of power between Fainall and Mrs. Marwood; and the passionate attraction between Mirabell and Millamant, disguised beneath a covering of mockery and indifference.
As in The Double-Dealer, covert motives and hypocrisy govern the action of the play. Old Lady Wishfort has loved Mirabell since he pretended to love her in order to woo her niece Millamant: Her ostensible motivation in opposing the young couple’s marriage is to protect her daughter from a deceiver, but her actual motivation is to avenge herself on Mirabell. Mirabell counters with an equally underhanded plan to foil Lady Wishfort’s plots with a decoy—his servant Waitwell disguised as wealthy suitor Sir Rowland. Waitwell is to prepare to marry Lady Wishfort, and Mirabell is to reveal his servant’s true identity and release her from the match on condition that she release Millamant’s fortune and grant Mirabell her hand in marriage.
Mrs. Marwood, at the center of the scheming, exploits Lady Wishfort’s dislike of Mirabell to pursue her own ends. Her ostensible desire throughout is to protect Lady Wishfort’s interests. Her actual desire, however, is to fan the flames of Lady Wishfort’s fury against Mirabell and to persuade her to disinherit Millamant in favor of Fainall, Mrs. Marwood’s lover. Fainall, meanwhile, means to denounce his wife (Lady Wishfort’s daughter) publicly for infidelity with Mirabell in an effort to blackmail Lady Wishfort into making over Mrs. Fainall’s estate to him. The blatant hypocrisy of his scheme becomes evident in the light of his true motivation: to have his wife’s fortune under the control of himself and his mistress, Mrs. Marwood. Congreve depicts a constant satirical tension between outward self and inward self, between the mask and the face behind it.
Deception is not only an interface between the characters and the world; it also serves to illustrate the characters’ view of themselves. Lady Wishfort’s attempt to turn back the years by painting herself a new face is an image whose symbolism reverberates throughout the play. It is a visual illustration of the affectations in which the foolish characters indulge. In the same vein, Petulant pays prostitutes to hire a coach and call on him in order to give the impression that he is in demand among ladies; and Mrs. Marwood makes a great show of hating men even while her actions are motivated by desire for them. All these characters are, metaphorically speaking, painting their own faces—cultivating appearances that are at odds with reality. Hence, Mirabell’s premarital condition to Millamant—“I article, that you continue to like your own face, as long as I shall, and while it passes current with me, that you endeavour not to new-coin it”—suggests a conscious rejection of the affectation and pretense that characterize the foolish sector of society.
The appearance of the unsophisticated, country-bred Sir Wilful Witwoud shows the extent to which this world has become divorced from the natural order. Lady Wishfort condemns his uncouth manners as barbaric—though shortly afterward she displays true cold-blooded barbarity in her relish at the prospect of Mirabell’s slowly starving to death. The metropolitan Witwoud disowns his brother (Sir Wilful Witwoud) because it is not fashionable to acknowledge relations in town. One treasures Sir Wilful’s ingenuous response to Witwoud’s snub: “The fashion’s a fool; and you’re a fop, dear brother.”
Mirabell and Millamant, with their wit and good sense, stand in contrast to the fops and fools. They embrace the pleasures of the town—indeed, Millamant is uncompromising in her disdain for the country—yet are not blind to its folly. The famous scene in which Mirabell and Millamant barter conditions and provisos for their life together shows a couple who see their world as it is and prefer not to waste time pretending it is otherwise. It is significant that Mirabell’s clear-sighted, if cynical, understanding of “the way of the world” helps him foil the plot against Mrs. Fainall and restore himself to Lady Wishfort’s good graces. Lacking faith in Fainall’s integrity, Mirabell had previously ensured that Mrs. Fainall’s estate was made over to him in trust, making her husband’s claim on it ineffective. Lady Wishfort is happy to offer Millamant to Mirabell in exchange for her daughter’s honor and fortune intact, and the prospect of their marriage makes a satisfying resolution to this complex plot.

Mrs. Millamant, by far the most beautiful and wittiest of all the fine ladies in London, is sought after by all the beaux in town. The niece of the rich Lady Wishfort, she is also an heir in her own right and is looked upon with great favor by Witwoud, a kinsman of Lady Wishfort. Millamant’s acknowledged preference among her suitors, however, is for young Mirabell, who is the only man in London who can match that lady’s devastating wit.
Mirabell is as great a favorite among the ladies in the town as Millamant is among the beaux. He is the perfect gallant; she is the perfect coquette. Among Mirabell’s jealous admirers is Mrs. Marwood, the mistress of Fainall, Lady Wishfort’s son-in-law. In fact, Mirabell has but one real enemy among the ladies, and that is Lady Wishfort herself. On one occasion, to further his suit with Millamant, Mirabell falsely made love to the old lady. Discovering his subterfuge later, she never forgave him. She determines that he will never marry her niece so long as she controls Millamant’s fortune. In consequence, Mirabell is hard put to devise a scheme whereby he might convince Lady Wishfort to consent to the marriage.
The plan he devises is an ingenious one. Realizing that Lady Wishfort will respond to anything that even resembles a man, he promptly invents an imaginary uncle, Sir Rowland, who, he says, has fallen madly in love with Lady Wishfort and wants to marry her. He forces his servant, Waitwell, to impersonate this fictitious uncle. To placate Waitwell and further ensure the success of his plan, he contrives his servant’s marriage to Lady Wishfort’s maid, Foible.
His scheme might have worked were it not for the counterplans of the designing Mrs. Marwood and her unscrupulous lover, Fainall. Although she pretends to despise all men, Mrs. Marwood is secretly in love with Mirabell and has no intention of allowing him to marry Millamant. Fainall, although he detests his wife heartily, realizes that he is dependent upon her and her mother’s fortune for his well-being, and he resolves to stop at nothing to make sure that fortune is in his control.
While these plans proceed, Millamant gives little thought to plots or counterplots. She has not the slightest intention of compromising with life but insists that the world’s way must somehow be made to conform to her own desires. She has little use for the life around her, seeing through its shallow pretenses and its falsity, and yet she knows that it is the world in which she has to live. She realizes that any attempt to escape from it into some idyllic pastoral existence, as her aunt often suggests, will be folly.
Millamant tells Mirabell the conditions under which she will marry him, and they are stringent conditions, not at all in conformity with the average wife’s idea of her lot. She will have in her marriage no place for the ridiculous codes and conventions that govern the behavior of the people around her. She will be entirely free of the cant and the hypocrisy of married life, which are only a cloak for the corruption or misery hidden underneath social custom. In short, she refuses to be merely a married woman in her husband’s or society’s eyes. Mirabell, likewise, has certain conditions that must be fulfilled before he turns from bachelor into husband. When his demands prove reasonable, both lovers realize that they see life through much the same eyes. They decide that they are probably made for each other.
However, the world does not come to the same conclusion. Lady Wishfort, still embittered against Mirabell for his gross deception, resolves that Millamant is to marry a cousin, Sir Wilfull Witwoud, a country lout many years her senior, who has just arrived in London. Fortunately for Millamant, Sir Wilfull turns out to be a harmless booby who, when drunk, becomes the most understanding of men.
There is a greater obstacle, however, in the scheme that Mirabell himself plans. Waitwell, disguised as Mirabell’s imaginary uncle, Sir Rowland, pays ardent court to Lady Wishfort and would have been successful in inveigling her into marriage were it not for a letter from Mrs. Marwood exposing the whole scheme. Lady Wishfort’s maid, Foible, succeeds in intercepting the letter, but Mrs. Marwood appears at Lady Wishfort’s in person and discloses the deception.
Lady Wishfort is furious, and more determined than ever to prevent any marriage between her niece and Mirabell. She angrily discharges Foible from her employ. Mrs. Fainall, Lady Wishfort’s daughter, is on the side of the two lovers. When Foible informs her that she has tangible proof of the relationship between Fainall and Mrs. Marwood, Mrs. Fainall resolves to prosecute her husband to the limit. Meanwhile, the wily Fainall takes pains to have all of his wife’s property transferred to his name by means of trumped-up evidence of an affair between his wife and Mirabell.
In this act, Lady Wishfort begins to see for the first time the scheming villainy of her daughter’s husband. Mirabell, with the aid of Foible and Millamant’s servant, Mincing, exposes the double-dealing Mrs. Marwood and her lover and further proves that, while she is yet a widow, Mrs. Fainall conveyed her whole estate in trust to Mirabell. Lady Wishfort is so delighted that she forgives Mirabell all of his deceptions and consents to his marriage to Millamant.

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