The History of English Literature

The literature of England is one of the highest achievements of a great nation. The language in which it is written has evolved over hundreds of years and is still changing. Several nations, including Canada, the United States, and Australia, are indebted to England for a literary heritage.

c. 658	An illiterate English shepherd named Caedmon composed (orally) his Hymn, which was commonly considered to be the earliest surviving Old English poem.
731 – 732	St. Bede the Venerable, theologian and chronologist,finished his historical work the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which contained the description of events from the raids of Julius Caesar to the development of Christianity in Britain.
	The only manuscript copy of the epic poem Beowulf, the oldest (c. 700 AD) of the great heroic epics written in English, was produced. Beowulf is an odd blend of Christianity and paganism. The story of Beowulf takes place in lands other than England, but the customs and manners described were those of the Anglo-Saxon people. This epic poem describes their heroic past.
	The medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was composed by an unknown English poet.
	The poem the Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman was written by a poet believed to be William Langland.
	The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s most enduring literary work and the project he devotedasbe sh himself to until his death, began in London.
	English writer Sir Thomas Melory finished in prison Le Morte d’Arthur, the first English prose account of King Arthur and Fellowship of the Round Table.
	Le Morte d’Arthur was edited and printed by William Caxton, the first English printer
	English Humanist poet Sir Thomas More published his masterpiece (written in Latin), Utopia
c. 1530	English poet Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced the sonnet form into English poetry
	English poet Edmund Spenser published the Shepheardes Calender (Shepherd’s Calendar), which marked the beginning of the English Renaissance in literature.
1590 –1616	The “age” of the great English playwright William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616), who was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, became an actor in London and then the creator of the world’s famous theatre “The Globe”. The poet wrote about the eternal things in life: love, death and high human aspirations. He reflected the spirit of the Renaissance. He taught to understand the essence of the human relations, passions and conflicts, and presented them with great dramatic vigour. “Richard III”, “Hamlet”, “Macbeth”, “Othello”, “King Lear”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “Much Ado About Nothing” and other plays belong to the golden pages of world’s literature. William Shakespeare is also known as the author of poems and 154 sonnets.
	English playwright Christopher Marlow, whose Dr. Faustus and other plays introduced blank verse into English literature, was killed under mysterious circumstances.
	The 6 books of Edmund Spenser’s the Faerie (Fairy) Queen were published together in a single volume.
	British philosopher Sir Francis Bacon, one of the great masters of English prose, published the first edition of his Essays.
	Volpone and the Alchemist, English playwright Ben Johnson’s most successful satiric comedies, were written and performed between 1606 and 1610.
	British philosopher Thomas Hobbs published Leviathan, one of the great works of political philosophy.
	Samuel Pepys began his Diary, one of the most comprehensive and detailed portraits of English society during Restoration.
	John Milton published Paradise Lost, his masterpiece.
	The Way of the World, considered by many to be the wittiest and the most successful allegory in the English language, was completed by British playwright William Congreve.
	British writer and editor Sir Richard Steel founded the first famous London newspaper the Tatler.
	Another famous newspaper the Spectator was founded by Steel and his friend and partner Joseph Addison.
	English novelist Daniel Defoe published Robinson Crusoe, the first and the most famous of his series of adventure tales
	English novelist Jonathan Swift’s masterpiece, the satirical novel Gulliver’s Travels, was published and got critical success and controversy.
	English poet and playwright John Gay published his famous ballad-opera the Beggar’s Opera, considered to be the greatest theatrical success of the 18^th century.
	English novelist Samuel Richardson published his epistolary novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded.
	“The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling” by Henry Fielding (a well-known English novelist and playwright) was published.
	Early Romantic British poet William Blake published his poetry collection Songs of Innocence and Experience.
	English Romantic poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge published the most important collection of poems and essays in English literature, Lyrical Ballads.

Words:

heritage achievement raid enduring paganism medieval aspiration vigour playwright circumstance volume comprehensive epistolary controversy

наследие достижение набег длительный язычество средневековый стремление сила драматург обстоятельство том исчерпывающий эпистолярный спор

TEXT IB

1. Pay attention to the following proper names:

Romanticism, Gothic, Horace Walpole, Ontario, Ann Radcliffe, Udolpho, Mary Shelly, Frankenstein, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Edgar Allan Poe, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, Percy Bysshe Shelly, John Keats, George Gordon Byron, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, John Galsworthy, Forsyte, Herbert G. Wells, Edwardian period, Georgian period, Robert Bridges, George Orwell, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Italo Calvino, Vladimir Nabokov, William S. Burroughs, Joanne Kathleen Rowling.

2. Read after the speaker:

Equal, inherently, industrialization, livelier, ghost, reign, provincial, empire, doubt, undernourished, metaphor, sociological, psychological, scientific, transition, rhythm, existence, totalitarianism, satire, genre, phenomenon, possession, distinguish, magician.

English Literature of the 19^th and 20^th Centuries

English literature of the two last centuries is the history of various movements, which could exist at the same time and which are presented in their incorporation now.

At the end of the 18th century a new literature arose in England. It was called Romanticism, and it opposed most of the ideas held earlier in the century. The Romanticists believed that every person has a right to life, liberty, and equal opportunity. They also believed that people should live close to nature. Thus the Romantic movement was inherently antiprogress, if progress meant industrialization.

Because of this concern for nature and simple folk, authors began to take an interest in old legends, folk ballads. It is generally accepted that the Romantic movement established itself with the publication of the “Lyrical Ballads” by Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1798. Many writers started to give free play to their emotions and to their imaginations. Their pictures of nature became livelier and more realistic. They loved to describe rural scenes, graveyards, majestic mountains, and roaring waterfalls. They also liked to write poems and stories of such eerie or supernatural things as ghosts, haunted castles, fairies and mad folk. In such a way the Gothic novel arose. It was a reaction against pastoral, didactic and sentimental literature. The first Gothic novel in English literature was Horace Walpole’s “The Castle of Ontario” (1764). Later novelists of this genre were Ann Radcliffe “The Mysteries of Udolpho” (1794), Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein”(1816), Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” (1897), the stories of Edgar Allan Poe in America. But Romantic literature is of course the poetry of great English poets: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, Percy Bysshe Shelly, John Keats, George Gordon Byron.

From this romantic tradition a realistic one was developed. The literature created during Queen Victoria's reign (1837–1901) was given the name Victorian. Many great changes took place in the first half of the 19th century. Intellectual rebellions, such as those of Byron and Shelley, gave place to balance and adjustment. Individualism began to be replaced by social and governmental restraints. More and more people were gaining comfort and prosperity. Great Britain changed from a provincial nation to a worldwide empire. This progress brought its problems. Science made rapid strides in the 19th century. The theory of evolution gave new insight into the biological sciences. Technical progress transformed Britain into a land of mechanical and industrial activity, but science also created doubts. Nevertheless, many people in England were still poor – badly housed, undernourished, and sick. That period is the period of Charles Dickens. “The Pickwick Papers”, “Oliver Twist”, “David Copperfield” and especially “The Great Expectations” established Dickens’s reputation as the greatest English novelist. Next to Charles Dickens the greatest Victorian English novelist was William Makepeace Thackeray. His “Vanity Fair” was the first novel in English to show a woman who was neither very good nor very bad but only very human. The title of the story became the best metaphor for our society, the title of modern world.

The most interesting literary person at the end of the 19^th century was Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900). He published his early poetry, wrote book reviews, and edited the journal “Woman's World”. His only novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1891), was severely criticized as immoral. He had the ability to take conventional plots and turn them into brilliant comedies by his witty dialogue. In the classic “The Importance of Being Earnest” the plot and the dialogue are equally fantastic.

Before 1914 the post-Victorian writers were in the unhappy position of looking back at a well-marked literary road and looking ahead at a pathless jungle. They had to grapple with new forces—sociological, psychological, and scientific—because these forces were a part of their lives. They were writers in transition. John Galsworthy turned to the social life of an upper-class English family in “The Forsyte Saga” (1922), a series of novels that recorded the changing values of such a family. The first works of science fiction by Herbert G. Wells were published: “The Time Machine” (1895), “The War of the Worlds” (1898).

The poetry of the Edwardian and Georgian periods (Edward VII, 1901–10; George V, 1910–36) showed many new and unusual characteristics. Robert Bridges experimented with inverse forms. He employed usual subjects of the poet but brought strange rhythms and unusual music to his verse.

World War II more than World War I had a considerable impact on people's ideas about themselves and their place in the universe. The terrible fact of the atom bomb's existence shook their sense of stability. The situation after World War II was such that Communism could spread to many other countries. It could cause people a lot of dangers to individual freedom. The greatest “fairy tale” by George Orwell, “Animal Farm” (1945), came after the war, with the powerful anti-Communist satire. This was followed in 1949 by his attack on totalitarianism entitled “Nineteen Eighty-Four”.

Fantasy fans all over the world know who was the great Father of this genre: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, one of the greatest English novelists and scientists. He achieved fame with epic trilogy "The Lord of the Rings". It is his most famous work, which consists of 3 books: "The Fellowship of the Ring", "The Two Towers", "The Return of the King". By the mid-60s this remarkable work had become a cultural phenomenon especially among young people. Both "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Ring" are set in the mythical past. This work is about the struggle between good and evil kingdoms for possession of a magical ring that can shift the balance of power in the world.

In the 1940s postmodernism, a new artistic movement in the west, began to develop. It rejects an ordered view of the world. In literature, the movement denies any inherent meaning in language and abandons conventional formal structures. Postmodern fiction distinguishes itself by irony and self-reference and often incorporates a variety of styles. The antinovel, or new novel, rejects such traditional literary features as character development, linear narrative, and social or political content. Magic realism, seen in the works of the Latin American writers Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez, joins fantastic or mythical elements with everyday events. Other writers associated with postmodernism are Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Italo Calvino, Vladimir Nabokov, and William S. Burroughs.

The most popular English book of the latest time is “Harry Potter” by Joanne Kathleen Rowling. Children and adults all around the world read books about small magicians. Can literature for children be a new way of literary evolution?

Words:

equal inherently antiprogress to give free play to smb’s emotions to accept graveyard to roar eerie ghost reign rebellion adjustment doubt undernourished to grapple transition existence to achieve fame with possession to reject convention conventional to distinguish

равный зд. выражено антипрогрессивный давать волю чувствам соглашаться, принимать кладбище реветь мрачный, странный привидение правление восстание регулирование, регулировка сомнение недоедающий бороться переход существование снискать славу обладание отвергать договор, соглашение общепринятый охарактеризовать

Tasks for the discussion:

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