Geoffrey Chaucer:
As with many important figures from this period, Chaucer’s life can be difficult to definitively trace , but thanks to his civil service career, we have some detailed records of his life and works. Chaucer w...
Old English (also known as Anglo-Saxon) was the language of the Anglo-Saxon settlers in England from the late 400s to early 1100s. The term “Anglo-Saxon” refers to two of the Germanic peoples, the Angles and the Saxons, that...
Struggling to choose a book for seminar novel project? Here are seven suggestions, organized in alphabetical order, with a brief description of each and the elements that you can explore in your project.
Disclaimer: This ...
Origins of “Hamlet”
Shakespeare, with the exception of “Love’s Labour’s Lost” and “The Tempest,” borrowed concepts and storylines for his plays from other works, including folk tales, mythologies and histories.
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Background on Hawthorne and “The Scarlet Letter” publication
Nathaniel Hawthorne (or, as he was known at birth, Nathaniel Hathorne) was born in Salem in 1804, bearing a heavy legacy. His great-great-great-grandfather was ...
During the 1700’s, the Enlightenment, a philosophical and literary movement emphasizing reason and science, took root in Europe, permanently altering European views on religion, art and philosophy. While the movement inspired soc...
Date of conception and composition
“Beowulf” is incomplete. Archaeologists have never managed to find more than the 3,182 lines of “Beowulf” that survived in the form of a single copy, which withstood the dissolutio...
