British literature and writers
Medieval literature
without author
So, I’m going to talk about British literature and writers
- I start with medieval non-author literature. The very earliest Irish and Welsh texts, such as the Taliesin poems (containing the first reference to the wizard Merlin) and pagan Irish stories were probably being passed down by word of mouth.
- The most important literary relic is heroic epic Beowulf. It was written about 700 AD. In this poem pagan and Christian motif are mixed. It be enacted in Scandinavia and a plot contain supernatural elements.
- After Battle of Hastings Normans took control of England and affected development of literature. It’s knight novels era. The best-known knight novel is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from 14th
Medieval literature
with author
- Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 – 1400) is considered to be the father of English poetry because he wrote in English rather than in French or Latin. His Canterbury Tales (a rude, funny collection of stories in verse that mock most sections of medieval society, including the Church) records the imagined conversations of pilgrims as they journeyed from London to Canterbury.
- In 15th century the knight novels were on the wane and the last important work from this genre is Le Morte d’Arthur or The Death of Arthur written by Thomas Malory
Renaissance
William Shakespeare
- The Renaissance in England culminated during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (ruled 1558 − 1603), a period of prosperity, successful sea voyages, and cultural activities.
- William Shakespeare was a great playwright, an actor and he is often called England’s national poet and the „Bard of Avon“. He was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. We don’t know his birthdate, but we know, that he was baptised the twenty sixth of April 1564. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, the authorship of some of which is uncertain. Approximately, until year 1600 he wrote mainly comedies (The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice…) and historical plays about Kings of England (Richard II, Henry IV up to Henry VIII). After death of his son, he wrote tragedies (Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Antonius and Cleopatra…). To the end of his life he wrote romances (a kind of fairy-tale stories) – The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. His works contain many funny mistakes – for example in The Winter’s Tale a part of plot is situated in Bohemia – a desolate country by a sea. He wrote also sonnets. Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the age of 52.
Renaissance
Others
- Christopher Marlowe was born in the same year as Shakespeare and they were rivals. He died 30 May 1593. Among his work I can mention The Jew of Malta (play full of intrigues and crimes brings critical view on Jewish, Muslim and Christian religion) or Tamburlaine the Great (about the conqueror Tamburlaine, who rises from shepherd to war-lord).
- John Milton (1608–74) „was the last great poet of the English Renaissance“ and published a number of works. Is celebrated for his powerful, rhetoric poetry and is famous mainly for his spiritual philosophical epic poem Paradise Lost about Adam, Eva and the first sin.
18th century
Augustan literature (1700–1750)
- The most outstanding poet of the age is Alexander Pope (1688–1744). This name can sound familiar to someone – Dan Brown used it in his Da Vinci Code. Pope’s Rape of the Lock (1712–17) and The Dunciad (1728–43) are still the greatest mock-heroic poems ever written. Pope also firstly translated the Iliad (1715–20) and the Odyssey to English.
- Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745) uses his black humour and irony in his satirical pamphlets (The Battle of Books). His most famous work is Gulliver’s Travels, a satire on British society.
- However, the best-known author of this period was Daniel Defoe (originally only Daniel Foe). Everyone must know his novel The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York. This story is only in part fictional, because it’s based upon the true story of Alexander Selkirk. It is still one of the most popular books among children.
19th century
Romanticism (1798–1837)
- Literature at the end of the 18th century turned again to sentiments, traditions, and exotic settings.
- Lord George Gordon Byron (1788 – 1824) represents the so−called „Revolutionary Romantics“. His work is concerned with the freedom of the individual as well as nations (The Prisoners of Chillon). A trip to Europe resulted in the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812), a mock-heroic epic of a young man’s adventures in Europe, but also a sharp satire against London society.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley is perhaps known for poems such as Ozymandias or Ode to the West Wind, but his most important work is philosophical drama Prometheus Unbound – it’s fight between Prometheus and Zeus.
- His wife Mary Shelley (1797 – 1851) wrote Frankenstein, which is the most well−known of the Gothic novels (written in the style popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, which described romantic adventures in mysterious or frightening surroundings) with the horror genre that we are so familiar with in films and on TV today.
- Sir Walter Scott (1771 – 1832) took for his novels themes from Scottish history (Waverly, Rob Roy) and from English history (Ivanhoe).
19th century
Victorian literature (1837–1901)
- During the Victorian Age (Queen Victoria ruled from 1837 − 1901), novels in which writers described English society with all its characters became the most popular literary form.
- There were many talented women writers: The Brontë sisters lived in isolation in North Yorkshire. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1816 – 1855) and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1818 − 1848) were two of the most original novels of the day as they were very fresh and unconventional.
- Charles Dickens (1812–70) emerged on the literary scene in the late 1830s and soon became probably the most famous novelist in the history of English literature. One of his most popular works to this day is A Christmas Carol (1843). Dickens fiercely satirized various aspects of society, including the workhouse in Oliver Twist, the failures of the legal system in Bleak House. Heroes and villains were taken from the hustle and bustle of Victorian London
20th century literature
Detective genre
- Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (1859 –1930) was detective and sci-fi author, doctor and politician. He created Sherlock Holmes (The Hound of the Baskervilles) and Professor Challenger (The Lost World).
- Agatha Christie (1890–1976) was a crime writer of novels, short stories and plays, who is best remembered for her 80 detective novels as well as her successful plays for the West End theatre. Christie’s works, particularly those featuring the detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple, have given her the title the ‚Queen of Crime‘ and she was one of the most important and innovative writers in this genre.
20th century literature
Inklings
- Inklings was a literary club at Oxford University between 1930s and 1960s. Its members were lectors and students of Oxford (except Ch. Williams, he worked in Oxford University Press), well-wishers of fantasy genre. We know mainly John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (everyone know his Middle-earth, The Lord of Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion) and Clive Steples Lewis (Charles Williams’ books isn’t translated to Czech).
- The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels for children written between 1949 and 1954 and is considered a classic of children’s literature. The books contain Christian ideas intended to be easily accessible to young readers.
20th century literature
Other fantasy writers
- His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman is a trilogy consisting of Northern Lights (titled The Golden Compass in North America – and it is also a name of film), The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. The trilogy was inspired among other things John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
- Joanne Rowling (born 31 July 1965), pen names J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, is a British novelist best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series.