Literature from "Old English" to "Modern English"

The literary map of Europe

While searching some reference to write some something here, I found a video giving very little introduction to English literature. It's actually a speech like a preface for an book about English literature but it has been mentioned almost the same facts as we had mentioned in the classroom. You can easily get a main idea of what we did this week by watching this:  http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199569267.do

And, I put this image because I found it very helpful too see these times' Europe the map. Here is the URL where I have got it: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10609/10609-h/10609-h.htm

The Significance of English and American Literature

First of all I would like to start with the importance of literature on understanding how people convey their feelings, thoughts, ideas and messages in their written language. That's why, we -as prospective English language teachers- need to pay a great attention to read as much as we can on this field.

Secondly, one can make assumptions about a culture just reading the works on its literature without being aware of what actually this culture is. What I have meant here, literature could help to understand a culture deeply. Considering that we should focus on this way of literature in order to enhance intercultural awareness.

Additionally, literature can called as a the study of imagination of human-beings. It allows people not only to develop new ideas but also to agree or disagree to something which has been written previously. So, concerning all the facts I have meant here, we should put an emphasis on literature.

Lastly, I want to point out that this is not my first time that I have taken English Literature as a subject. So I am familiar with what we are going to learn on the following weeks: William Shakespeare, Joseph Conrad, Earnst Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe and the others. Anyway I think that it is not a bad idea to take this course secondly and revise what I have learnt before.

URL of the previous image I have used : http://histlit.fas.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/slider2_0.jpg