Chapter One The Anglo-Saxon period(450-1066) 1.Historical background 2.Northumbrian School and Wessex literature 3.Anglo-Saxon poetry Beowulf Chapter Two The Norman Period(1066-1350) 1.Historical backgroung 2.Middle English 3.Religious Literature 4.Romance and the in fluence of French of French literature Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Chapter Three The age of Chaucer(1350-1400) Historical background Geoffrey Chaucer(ca.1340?-1400) The Canterbury Tales Chapter Four The Fifteenth Century(1400-1550) 1.Historical background 2.Popular ballads 3.Sir Thomas Malory(ca.1405-1471) 4.Early English plays The Popular Ballads The Three Ravens Sir Patrick Spens Robin Hood and the Three Squires Chapter Five The English Renaissance(1550-1642) 1.Historical background 2.The enclosure movement 3.Humanism Edmund Spenser(1522?-1599) The Faerie Queene 4.the flourishing of drama Christopher Marlowe(1564-1593) The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus William Shakespeare(1564-1593) Sonnets Sonnets 18 Sonnets 19 Sonnets 66 Romeo and Juliet The Merchant of Venice Julius Caesar Hamlet Chapter Six The Seventeenth Century(1603-1688) Chapter Seven The Eighteenth Century(1688-1798)