英国文学the-15th-century.pptVIP

LOGO The 15th century Although several major historical events happened in the one and a half centuries after the death of Chaucer, no remarkable achievements were made in the literary field and no epoch marking works produced in the literary scene. So in a sense, the 15th century was an age of literary barrenness despite a flourishing of folk literature characterized by English ballads. England in the fifteenth century saw the decline of feudalism and the rapid growth of capitalist relations in trade and industry, and England transited from the medieval period into the Renaissance period. 1. Historical Background The Hundred Years’ War Concluded House of Lancaster House of York The War of Roses (1455-1485) The Discovery of America and the new sea routes 2. Literary Achievements 1) Ballads What is ballad? In the field of literature, folk literature, especially ballads, became an important feature in the 15th century. A ballad is an anonymous narrative poem that tells a story and has been preserved by oral transmission. There are certain basic characteristics common to a large number of ballads. In the fifteenth century, the English and Scottish popular ballads greatly flourished and they became one of the main streams of English literature in this period when there were no great poets comparable to Chaucer of the 14th century or Shakespeare and Marlowe and Spenser and Sidney of the late 16th century. Among the ballads of this period the most significant are “The Robin Hood Ballads,” a series of 37 ballads of different lengths dealing with the famous outlaw Robin Hood and his followers and their exploits. These ballads actually reflected the hopes and fears and loves and hates and the illusions of the common English people of the time. 1) The beginning is often abrupt. As the listeners must be familiar with the characters and the story of the ballad, the narrator plunges directly into action at the very beginning without any introduction of the