2. What is meant by Humanism? What was the first effect of the study of Greek and Latin classics upon our literature? What excellent literary purposes did the classics serve in later periods?
3. What are the chief benefits to literature of the discovery of printing? What effect on civilization has the multiplication of books?
4. Describe More's Utopia. Do you know any modern books like it? Why should any impractical scheme of progress be still called Utopian?
5. What work of this period had the greatest effect on the English language? Explain why.
6. What was the chief literary influence exerted by Wyatt and Surrey? Do you know any later poets who made use of the verse forms which they introduced?
7. Which of Malory's stories do you like best? Where did these stories originate? Have they any historical foundation? What two great elements did Malory combine in his work? What is the importance of his book to later English literature? Compare Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" and Malory's stories with regard to material, expression, and interest. Note the marked resemblances and differences between the Morte d'Arthur and the Nibelungen Lied.
| [CHRONOLOGY] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| HISTORY | LITERATURE | ||
| 1413. | Henry V | ||
| 1415. | Battle of Agincourt | ||
| 1422. | Henry VI | 1470. | Malory's Morte d' Arthur |
| 1428. | Siege of Orleans. Joan of Arc | 1474(c). | Caxton, at Bruges, |
| 1453. | End of Hundred Year's War | prints the first book in | |
| 1455-1485. | War of Roses | English, the Recuyell of the | |
| 1461. | Edward IV | Histories of Troye | |
| 1483. | Richard III | 1477. | First book printed in |
| England | |||
| 1485. | Henry VII | 1485. | Morte d'Arthur printed |
| by Caxton | |||
| 1492. | Columbus discovers America | 1499. | Colet, Erasmus, and More |
| 1509. | Henry VIII | bring the New Learning to | |
| Oxford | |||
| 1509. | Erasmus's Praise of | ||
| Folly | |||
| 1516. | More's Utopia | ||
| 1525. | Tydale's New Testament | ||
| 1534. | Act of Supremacy. The | 1530(c). | Introduction of the |
| Reformation accomplished | sonnet and blank verse by | ||
| Wyatt and Surrey | |||
| 1539. | The Great Bible | ||
| 1547. | Edward VI | ||
| 1553. | Mary | 1557. | Tottel's Miscellany |
| 1558. | Elizabeth | ||