১৪০ দিনে ৫১তম বিসিএস প্রস্তুতি

The Parlement of Foules, a 699-line poem in rhyme royal by Geoffrey Chaucer, written in 1380–90.
- Composed in the tradition of French romances (while at the same time questioning the merits of that tradition), this poem has been called one of the best occasional verses in the English language.

Major works of Chaucer:
- “Hous of Fame”
- “Legend of Good Women”
- “The Book of the Duchess”
- “The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale”
- “The Canterbury Tales”
- “The Clerk’s Tale”
- “The Cook’s Tale”
- “The Franklin’s Tale”
- “The Friar’s Tale”
- “The Knight’s Tale”
- “The Man of Law’s Tale”
- “The Manciple’s Tale”
- “The Merchant’s Tale”
- “The Miller’s Tale”
- “The Monk’s Tale”
- “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale”
- “The Pardoner’s Tale”
- “The Parlement of Foules”
- “The Parson’s Tale”
- “The Physician’s Tale”
- “The Prioress’s Tale”
- “The Reeve’s Tale”
- “The Second Nun’s Tale”
- “Treatise on the Astrolabe”
- “Troilus and Criseyde”

Source: Britannica

John Wycliffe translated “The New Testament”.
- John Wycliffe(1330 - 1384), English theologian, philosopher, church reformer, and promoter John Wycliffe is widely considered one of the medieval forerunners of the Protestant Reformation.
- His criticism of the practices and beliefs of the church foreshadowed those of later reformers.
- Wycliffe also directed a translation of the Bible into English.

Wycliffe's other works include:
-The Last Age of the Church (1356)
- De Logica (''On Logic'') (1360)
- De Universalibus (''On Universals'') 1368
- De Dominio Divino (1373)

Source: Britannica.com

Geofrey Chaucer's The Legend of Good Women, The character Cupid is found.
- The ancient mythological love god who appears to the narrator in a dream to make those accusations of heresy and misogyny.
- Dido is the Queen of Carthage.
- Alceste also appears in that dream alongside Cupid and she offers some sage advice to Chaucer on the subject of avoiding everlasting damnation from Cupid.
- Ariadne is the daughter of the King of Crete who is seduced and abandoned by the Athenian prince.
- All of the character from The Legend of Good Women.

Source: Sparknotes.com

 Beatrice is the character found in the play Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespear.
- Leonato’s niece and Hero’s cousin. Beatrice is “a pleasant-spirited lady” with a very sharp tongue. She is generous and loving.
- And the other characters from this play are: Benedick, Claudio, Don Pedro, Leonato.

William Shakespeare's Comedies:
-All's Well That Ends Well 
- As You Like It 
- The Comedy of Errors
- Love's Labour's Lost 
- Measure for Measure
- The Merchant of Venice.

Source: Britannica.com

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.- Those lines are taken from Macbeth by Wlliam Shakespear.
- Some of favourite quotes from Shakespear as follow:
- Though she be but little, she is fierce.-
“We know what we are, but not what we may be.”
- “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
- “This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
- “Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great,
some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.
- “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”

Source: Britannica.com & Sparknotes.com

King John is a historical play by William Shakespeare.
- He wrote this play in 1595.
- William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright.
- He is often called England's national poet and the ''Bard of Avon'' (or simply ''The Bard'').

The 10 plays classified as histories are as follows:
-Henry IV, Part I
- Henry IV, Part II
- Henry V
- Henry VI, Part I
- Henry VI, Part II
- Henry VI, Part III
- Henry VIII
- King John
- Richard II
- Richard III.

Source: An ABC OF English Literature - Dr. M. Mofizar Rahman

The Imitations of Horace were a collection of poems written by Alexander Pope from 1733 to 1738.
- Famous Poems by William Shakespeare:
- The Rape of Lucrece
- The Phoenix and the Turtle
- Sonnet 20
- Venus and Adonis
- Sonnet 73
-The two Gentlemen of Verona,
-The Winter Tales, Coriolanus are the Shakespear plays.

Source: An ABC OF English Literature - Dr. M. Mofizar Rahman

Christopher Marlowe’s play Tamburlaine the Great was written around 1587 and 1588, is based loosely upon the life of the Asian emperor Timur.
- Desire, ambition, and power is the theme of Tamburlaine the Great.
- Tamburlaine the Great, first Play by Christopher Marlowe produced about 1587 and published in 1590.
- The play was written in two parts, each of which has five acts:
- r Silva de varia lección (1540;
- The Foreste; or, Collection of Histories) by the early 16th-century Spanish scholar and humanist Pedro Mexía.

Source: Sparknotes.com

The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, commonly referred to simply as Doctor Faustus(1592) is an Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlowe.
- In Doctor Faustus Marlowe retells the story of Faust, the doctor-turned-necromancer, who makes a pact with the devil in order to obtain knowledge and power. Both Doctor Faustus and Mephistopheles, who is the devil's intermediary in the play, are subtly and powerfully portrayed.
- Christopher Marlowe plays are :
- Dido, The Queen of Carthage(1586)
- Tamburlaine(1587)
- Parts One and Two
- The Jew of Malta(1589)
- Edward.

Source: An ABC OF English Literature - Dr. M. Mofizar Rahman

Christopher Marlowe is the writer of the poem Hero and leander(1593).
- Christopher Marlowe was an Elizabethan poet and William Shakespeare's most important predecessor in English drama. He is noted especially for his establishment of dramatic blank verse.
- His two most famous works(plays) were The Jew of Malta that was first performed in 1592 and Doctor Faustus.
- Marlowe's poetical works included:
- Hero and Leander in 1598 and
- The Passionate Shepherd of His Love
- Pharsalia - Amores.
- Hell is just a frame of mind.

Source: An ABC OF English Literature - Dr. M. Mofizar Rahman

University Wits:
Elizabethan Period - এর একদল নাট্যকার (Dramatist) - কে একত্রে University Wits বলা হয়।
এই নাট্যকারদের প্রায় সবাই Oxford বা Cambridge University এর গ্রাজুয়েট।
তারা তাদের লেখনীতে গতানুগতিক ধারা পরিহার করে বৈচিত্র্য ও সমসাময়িক আধুনিকতা আনায়ন করেন।

University Wits - রা হচ্ছেন:
1. Christopher Marlowe - (Cambridge)
2. Robert Greene - (Cambridge)
3. Thomas Nashe - (Cambridge)
4. Thomas Lodge - (Oxford)
5. George Peele- (Oxford)
6. John Lyly - (Oxford)
7. Thomas Kyd (not university-trained)

Source: Britannica.com

Thomas kyd wrote Pompey the Great.
- His “The Spanish Tragedy” one of the great work in his life.
- He also wrote “The First Part of Jeronimo.”
- Thomas is the writer of The Isle of Dogs .
- The Maid's Tragedy is from Francis Beaumont.
- Ben Johnson wrote “The Poetaster”.

Source: An ABC OF English Literature - Dr. M. Mofizar Rahman

From the play ‘The Spanish Tragedy”, Thomas Kyd(1558-1594) Introduced the character Bel Imperia.
- The main female character of the story.
- Bel-Imperia's role is prominent in the plot, especially toward the end.

Others character of this play are:
- Hieronimo
- Lorenzo
- Balthazar
- Ghost of Andrea
- Horatio
- Isabella 
- This is called a revenge tragedy .

Source: Sparknotes.com

Robert Greene(1558-1592) is the author of Orlando.
- He is an university Wits.
- His other work in english literature are:-
Friar Bacon & Friar Bangay- Alphossus. 
- Amoretti was written by Edmund Spenser.
- The author of Arcadia is Sir Philip Sydney.
- Campaspe was written by John Lyly.

Source: An ABC OF English Literature - Dr. M. Mofizar Rahman

Bonario is a character from Volpone by Ben Johnson.
- The other characters from this play are:
- Vopone, Mosca, Voltore, Corvino, Corbaccio.
- Wuthering Height was written by Emily Bronte.
- The Rape of the Lock was written by Alexander Pope.
- The Frogs wrote Aristophanes.

Source: Sparknotes.com

The poem The Ecstasy is one of John Donne's most popular poems, which expresses his unique and unconventional ideas about love.
- It expounds the theme that pure, spiritual or real love can exist only in the bond of souls established by the bodies.
- Donne explores the idea that love implicates not only the soul but also the body & Religious enlightenment as a form of sexual ecstasy .
- John donne’s work:
- The Sunne Rising
- The Undertaking
- The Good Morrow
- The Funeral

Source: Sparkmotes.com

Knowell is the character from Everyman in his Humour by Ben Johnson.
- Knowell, an old gentleman. A kind and generous father, he is somewhat inclined to formality and over strictness in governing his son.
Other Character from this play are:
- Master Stephen
- Wellbred
- Downright
- Master Matthew
- Captain Bobadil.

His Plays:
- Every Man in His Humour (1598),
- Volpone (1605),
- Epicoene; or, The Silent Woman (1609),
- The Alchemist (1610) and
- Bartholomew Fair (1614).

Source: Sparkmotes.com

John Milton's Areopagitica 's central theme is a philosophical opposition to censorship.
- Areopagitica, in full Areopagitica: A Speech of Mr John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, to the Parliament of England, pamphlet by John Milton, published in 1644 to protest an order issued by Parliament the previous year requiring government approval and licensing of all published books.

Source: An ABC OF English Literature - Dr. M. Mofizar Rahman

John Milton said on education ,The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents.His favourite quote from his epic are: “Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.”
- “Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss
- “I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night,
Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend.
- The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

Source: Britannica.com

Henry Fielding is the author of this line “Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.”
His other quotes are:
- “I am content; that is a blessing greater than riches; and he to whom that is given need ask no more.”
- “No one hath seen beauty in its highest lustre who hath never seen it in distress.”
- “It is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good.”
His notable work:
- Joseph Andrews (1742) 
- Tom Jones (1749)
- 'Amelia
- The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great (1743)

Source: Britannica.com

In 1657 he became assistant and friend to John Milton as Latin secretary in the foreign office.
- Andrew Marvell,( 1621 - 1678) is an English poet whose political reputation overshadowed that of his poetry until the 20th century.
- He is now considered to be one of the best Metaphysical poets.
He is the author of:
- “An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland” (1650)
- The Last Instructions to a Painter
- The Rehearsal Transpros’d (1672–73).

Source: Britannica.com

Henry Vaughan, the major Welsh poet of the Commonwealth period(16649-1660).
- Vaughan's early poems, notably those published in the Poems of 1646 and Olor Iscanus of 1651, place him among the ''Sons of Ben,'' in the company of other imitators of Ben Jonson, such as the Cavalier poets .
- His poetry from the late 1640s and 1650s, however, published in the two editions of Silex Scintillans (1650, 1655) &Thalia Rediviva in 1678.
- Robert Herrick(1591-1674) is in Caroline age(1625-1649).
- Robert Browning(1812-1889) & Lord Byron(1788-18750 is in The Romantic period(1798-1832). 

Source: Poetryfoundation.org

George Herbert is the author of “A True Hymn”.
- George Herbert was born in 1593 & died in 1633 who was an English religious poet, a major metaphysical poet, notable for the purity and effectiveness of his choice of words.
His literary work:
- The Temple
- The Country Parson
- Jacula Prudentum
- Easter Wings
- Life
- Affliction

Source: Britannica.com

Edmund Spenser born in The Renaissance period (1798-1832).
- He was one of the key literary figures of the English Renaissance.
- The Romantic period was between 1798-1832.
- The Neo-classical period was between 1660-1785
- And The Middle English Period was between 1066-1500.

Source: Britannica.com

 “The Wisdom Of the Ancients'' was written by Francis Bacon.
It was a scientific work.His other works:
- The Great Instauration

Religious works:
- The New Atlantis
- the Wisdom of the Ancient

Essays:
- Of Truth
- Of Death
- of Great Place
- Of Atheism

Source: An ABC OF English Literature - Dr. M. Mofizar Rahman

• 'Hudibras' is a satiric poem Written by Samuel Butler.
- It Was published in several parts beginning in 1663.
- The eponymous hero of Hudibras is a Presbyterian knight.
- It is the most memorable burlesque poem in English and the first English satire.

• Samuel Butler also wrote:
- The Elephant in the Moon - A long verse poem.

Jonathan Swift wrote The battle of books.
- John Bunyan wrote Some Gospel Truths Opened.
- The Voyage out was written by Viginia woolf. 

Source: An ABC OF English Literature - Dr. M. Mofizar Rahman

The Medal is a poetic work by John Dryden.
- The Indian Emperor is a tragedy.
- The Wild Gallant & An evening’s Love both are comedies by John Dryden.
-John Dryden, (1631- 1700), English poet, dramatist, and literary critic who so dominated the literary scene of his day that it came to be known as the Age of Dryden.

Source: An ABC OF English Literature - Dr. M. Mofizar Rahman

The Rape of the Lock published in 1712.
- This is a Mock herpic epic by Alexander Pope.
- He translated The Illiad(Homer).
His notable literary works are :
- Dunciad(1728)
- Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735)
- An essay on Criticism (1711).

Source: An ABC OF English Literature - Dr. M. Mofizar Rahman

The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot was written by Alexander Pope.
- A Farewell to Arm is the work of Ernest Hemingway.
-The Wanderings women was wriitten by W.B Yeats.
- Candida was written by G.B Shaw.

Source: An ABC OF English Literature - Dr. M. Mofizar Rahman

Psalmanazar is the character from A Modest Proposal.
- Jonathan Swift is the writer of “A Modest Proposal”.
- Psalmanazar is, in fact, a historical figure. He was a French literary imposter who claimed to be a native of Taiwan.
- The Pretender, The Proposer are the another character from A Modest Proposal.
- Jonathon Swift is known as the author of:
- A Modest Proposal (1729)
- Gulliver's Travels (1726) and
- A Tale Of A Tub (1704)
-Swift is widely acknowledged as the greatest prose satirist in the history of English literature.

Source: Poetryfoundation.org

Thomas Gray wrote Ode on the Spring (written in 1742)
His famous work:
- On the Death of Richard West (written in 1742) 
- Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat
- The Bard
- The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode
- The Curse Upon Edward

- To Blossom was written by Robert Herrick
- The Funeral was written by John Donne.
- Ben Johnson is the author of Volpone.

Source: An ABC OF English Literature - Dr. M. Mofizar Rahman