Old English literature

  • 7th century to 1066
  • literature is only spoken, oral
  • sort of language – old English (totally different)
  • kind of nation – Angles and Saxons
  • in the 7th century religion was originally pagan, but later Christianity appeared (2 religions were mixing)
  • life – at those times sea was important, it was shown in the riddles (90 riddles – Swan, Anchor, Water, etc)
  • people – were brave, protective and proud, they had to be good fighters, they were warriors = the ideal of a man
  • the main features of this literature were ALLITERATION and KENNINGS

Beowulf – is the greatest old English poem (710 – 734). Beowulf is the main hero, other heroes are the king of the Danes Hrothgar (to whom Beowulf went to help with the terrible creature, Hrothgar lived in Heorot), Grendel (the creature which eats up people) and monster's mother.

  • it is a story about pagan religion (the nation influenced each other)
  • Beowulf won the battle with Grendel (he pulled its arm off) and he was celebrated, but its mother came and killed king's friend. Beowulf said that he had to kill Grendel's mother, too. He finds it and dying Grendel in the lake with red water and with the help of a magical sword which he found out in the cave he defeated it.
  • the second part of the story is after 50 years, when Beowulf and Wiglaf fought against a fire-breathing creature, Beowulf was badly wounded and died. The poem ends with a sorrowful description of Beowulf's funeral fire
  • it was from the 8th century (Viking's) but later rewritten with the Christian features (accursed of God)

Kenning – the most characteristic feature of Old English literature, it is a kind of metaphor = a two-word description (sea = whale's road, ship = sea horse, in Beowulf the high-roofed house, wine hall, high-built hall = Hothgar's home).

  • there is no rhyme, they use alliterative verse – they are two or more words beginning with the same sounds/consonants (Grendel came creeping, accursed of God)
  • there are many other Old English poems:
    • Genesis A and Genesis B – the second one is short and is concerned with the beginning of the word and the fall of angels (servants of God in Heaven, according to old accounts, satan and other angels disobeyed God and became the devil and the Devil's servants in Hell). Genesis A is very old and dull.

We know the names of some poets:

  • Cynewulf – wrote four poems (Juliana, The Fates of Apostles, Christ, Elene) and Caedmon –we don't know anything about his poetry.

Prose

  • King Alfred (of Wessex) – had a great influence on the most interesting piece of prose – The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle = an early history of the country. He also translated a number of Latin books into Old English, so that people could read them. He brought back learning to England and improved the education of this people.
  • Aelfric – another important writer, his works were mostly religious (Lives of Saints), he wrote out in Old English the meaning of the first seven books of the Bible. His prose style is the best in Old English, used alliteration to join his sentences together.

Very good poems of the period were:

  • The Battle of Maldon – the disaster for English troops by Vikings, they showed that people wanted to die like heroes, life was cruel and violent
  • The Seafarer – it differs, it isn't about fighting, it's about feelings, reflection, melancholic and lyric poems. He showed the sea was a friend and an enemy, too. The Seafarer doesn't belong anywhere, doesn't have any background or family.

Middle English literature

  • 1066 to Elizabethan era, a rapid development of the English language (now Middle English) began in the middle of the 14th century (the last king speaking French was Richard II who died in 1399)
  • it was the beginning of the clash between the English and the French (the beginning of their antagonism)
  • the ideal of a man = KNIGHT – a noble man who is gentle, educated (writes poetry, sings, dances, plays chess, has conversations), is honest, loyal, courteous (dvorný), very religious, with chastity, helps and saves poor people, has its sword, horse and coat of arms (erb)
  • many Arthurian legends appear – there is a mixture of pagan and Christian features (Merlin = pagan, Holy Grail = Christian symbol)
  • the first printed books appeared (Caxton – printing, Le Morte d'Arthur was printed)
  • romances and other legends about Alexander the Great and Troy

 

There appear many romances and legends about Arthur, about Alexander the Great and Troy.

  • Arthurian legends these were stories about Arthur – who was a symbol of Anglo-Saxon England (=period of warriors), but in these legends he is a symbol of Middle Ages = an ideal of knight
  • Sir Gawain and the Green King – anonymous, from the 14th century, this poem uses alliteration again and as new features there are rhymes. It is a story about one of Arthur's knights who struggles against an enemy with magic powers as well as great strength and cunning. Features of Christianity – Sir Gawain prays to Mary, human fallibility (lidská omylnost).
  • Le Morte d'Arthur (1485) by Sir Thomas Mallory – prose. It's a story about Arthur's death and his coming to Avalon.

Geoffrey Chaucer

  • He is the greatest poet of the time, foreshadows the Renaissance way of thinking, is often called the father of English poetry – he speaks very freely in the first person, he doesn't use alliteration, but the new feature – rhyme. He enjoys writing because he mixes prose, poetry, fables = variety of genres = new aspect too.
  • The Canterbury Tales (1387 – 1400 probably) – Canterbury was the Pilgrimage place (in the 12th century Thomas Beckett was killed there – so he was a martyr). People went there because it was a kind of spiritual revival (the serious reason) and because it was a sort of holiday (meeting new people). Group of people (29 pilgrims) were symbol of different characters – poor, rich, middle class, boring people, monk, worthy woman, knight, carpenter, miller etc. he described the people like living people. In the first part they are characterized directly and in the second part the pilgrims tell stories to pass the time on their journey from London to Canterbury – it is indirect characterization.
  • It is regarded as the most important work of Middle Ages because it was progressive and Chaucer used English language in literature for the first time and like Jungman made up new words.
  • Chaucer was well educated and travelled much – so his works was inspired by Renaissance works especially Bocaccio's Decameron (in Italy there was Renaissance at that time)

William Langland

  • He used old alliterative verse in his work Piers Plowman (14th century) – it is an example of dream vision poems (vision of a better, perfect Christian life).
  • Piers is sleeping and he can see 2 types of people – hardworking = they save us and lazy people who only eat and sing = the vision of hell. At the end he returns to nature, nature is important for people's lives.
  • He sadly says how people prefer the false treasures of this world to the true treasures of heaven. The characters are not as real as Chaucer's ones.

John Wycliffe

  • He was a priest. One of his beliefs was that anyone who wanted to read the Bible should be allowed to do, but how could this be done by uneducated people when the Bible was in Latin. He himself translated the part of the Bible.
  • He was in the opposition to Rome (many of his doctrines appeared in the Puritan doctrines).

Renaissance poetry and prose in British literature

  • The Tudor period (1585 – 1603) was distinguished by a great flowering of arts and literature. Main genres: pastoral novels, travel books, or essays. It was a new period of prosperity and stability for England.
  • writing poetry was a part of gentlemen's education

It is the beginning of sonnets (poems, properly expressive of a single idea, of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, with rhymes arranged in a fixed scheme) – there were some differences between the types of sonnets:

  • Italian sonnets – 14 lines with 4 stanzas, fixed form of rhymes ABBAABBA (8) + two or three rhymes in the last six lines, its topic was usually one thing – love, feeling etc. and it was introduced with various forms.
  • Italian sonnets were brought to England by Sir Thomas Wyatt – he was inspired especially by Petrarch (Petrarca).
  • Earl of Surrey – he used so called blank verse = verses, esp. iambic pentameters, that do not rhyme (used by Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton and others)
  • Shakespearean sonnets have another form: ABABCDCDEFEF+GG or ABABABABABAB+CC
  • Spenserian stanza – verse has 9 lines, of these the last has six feet (= a unit of sound in verse, changing stressed and unstresses, in iambic feet there is changing unstressed and stressed), the others have five, the rhyme is ABABBCBCC

Christopher Marlowe

  • the famous dramatist and lyric writer
  • The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus – (1600) – Faustus wanted to know everything (all knowledge), he had big ambitions. He rejects the values of society, his mental courage is accompanied by physical fear of the devils to whom he sells his soul
  • Marlowe was a great competitor of Shakespeare, at that time he was much more popular

Edmund Spenser

  • he produced The Shepherd Calendar – a poem in 12 books, one for each month of a year
  • his greatest work was The Faerie Quenne – about Elizabeth, it was planned in 12 books, but he wrote 6, there are magic feelings, the beauty of sounds and special Spenserian stanza, 12 knights representing different virtues and the King Arthur (gentlemanliness)
  • he also wrote 88 sonnets – Amoretti – in which he speaks about importance and immorality of poetry

Sir Philip Sidney

  • he wrote a cycle of love sonnets Astrophel and Stella

William Shakespeare

  • he wrote sonnets with a specific form
  • Sonnets – he wrote them in 1609, there were 154 sonnets

The Metaphysics – in the 17th century

  • it was a group of poets with metaphysical poetry – they join body and soul, ground and heaven, real and spiritual lives
  • one of the most famous representatives is John Donne (dan) – one of the first poets who speaks about physical love, he wasn't very popular at his time. Holy Sonnets, Poems – earthquake is a symbol of relationship, everything that has bad basis is broken down, but what have good basis, it lives
  • Francis Bacon - Essays
  • Ben Jonson - lyrics To Celia

Cavaliers

Richard Lovelace

John Milton

  • even though after Civil War Puritans closed theatres and had very negative attitude to literature, he became one of the best poets
  • he got blind and all his poetry was dictated to his daughter, it sounds very well, because he repeated it all the time – musical verse
  • in his poetry there was a special role of lights
  • Paradise Lost – was planned in 10 books, but written in 12. The scene is the whole universe, including heaven and hell. Main hero is Satan – his revolt against heaven and the God, Adam represents mankind in general
  • Satan has human feelings and he also speaks, which was very unusual at that time, it is round character (it develops the story). Satan's revolution in heaven is compared to Cromwell's revolution. Satan and fallen angels – idea of independence and freedom, evokes sympathy in the reader
  • Paradise Regained - is more severe, less splendid, it is about Christ and New Testament

John Bunyan

  • Polgrim's Progress - addressed to common people

English drama from beginnings till the end of 18th century

Scops

  • professional poets travelling through the country, they improvised their performance, it depended on the place they visited

Tropes

  • they are regarded as precursors of drama, they were read in churches by priests, there were two types – Christmas and Easter (about Jesus life)

Miracles or mystery plays

  • The verse plays on biblical subjects (Noah's Flood) from the 15th century. There were cycles presented the whole history of mankind from the beginning to the Last Judgement, centring on the life and passion of Christ, they were performed at the summer feast in York (from this cycle I can mention Joseph's Trouble about Mary – Joseph is a round character, he is very confused), Chester, and Coventry.

Morality plays

They offer more opportunity for dramatic invention. They are allegorical dramas and their subject is not biblical history, but the life history of an individual considered as typical everyman. Characters are not people, but virtues or bad qualities – temptation, truth, or revenge, it represents all of us and confront us with a situation which involves a moral decision. They are similar to miracles, because they have some connection to Bible, too. The best morality plays were:

  • Everyman – it is the story of the end of Everyman's life, when Death calls him away from the world. Among the characters there are Beauty, Knowledge, Strength, and Good Deeds. When he faces the Death, all leave him except Good Deeds
  • The Castle of Perseverance – it performs the whole life from birth to death

Interludes

  • Interludes – were usually short, humorous pieces, suited for two or three actors, and it was the banquet entertainment, it was witty and full of action
  • topics from Greek and Roman history
  • occasionally it was used as a comic diversion between the more serious parts of a sacred play, or as one of the features of medieval vaudeville in a program of juggling acts, necromancy (= practice in communicating with the dead to learn about future), and wrestling
  • in the 14th century interludes were played for King Richard
  • John Heywood – The Four P's, The play of the Weather

Elizabethan Theatre

  • it was the golden age of theatre, in London there were many theatres – the Globe, the Rose, the Swan etc.

Christopher Marlowe

The first great dramatist of that time was Christopher Marlowe – he discovered the splendid power of the sound of proper names, he used the violence of the language – it's powerful and effective. He was killed in a quarrel, that is why he could not continue in his work.

  • Tamburlaine the Great, The Jew of Malta, Dr Faustus – the story is based on the well-known story of a man who sold his soul to the devil to have power and riches in this life
  • Edward the Second – is probably his best plays, which deals with history, it is possible that he helped Shakespeare with the writing of parts of his Henry the Sixth
  • Marlowe's writing set an example in 2 important ways – the use of powerful blank verse to strengthen the drama and the development of character to heighten the sense of tragedy

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare added to these his own mastery of plot (the choice and use of events for that story) and his human sympathy – so the drama reached its greatest heights.

  • he began with historical plays (at first he improved the plays by other authors)
  • his first great tragedy was Romeo and Juliet
  • the first of his comedies was probably A Comedy of Errors, then The Taming of the Shrew (= noisy and troublesome woman), the real step forward comes with A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, As You like It, Much Ado about Nothing, Twelfth Night – it has been called the perfection of English comedy, the whole play is alive with humour and action
  • Hamlet – Hamlet's tragic weakness is hesitation, inability to act when action is needed. He is too much of a thinker. There are many nowadays allusions: “to be or not to be”, “words, words, words”. In his famous monologue he speaks about it that better is the devil you know
  • King Lear, Macbeth, Othello
  • the main last plays are usually called the romances: Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest

Benjamin Jonson

  • he was 8 years younger and much more popular than Shakespeare, he was more educated
  • Volpone, or the Fox – is his comedy acted at the Globe
  • Every Man in His Humour – his best known play
  • he was also one of the best producers of masques – these masques (are dramatic entertainment with dancing and music performed at court and in rich people!s houses in the 16th and 17th centuries), which are more important than the story and the characters

Comedy of manners

  • reflection of the behaviour of upper class society
  • give a picture of the immoral manners of the society
  • a new kind of comedy appeared at the end of the 17th century. It is hard and bright, witty and heartless
  • it often satirizes the manners and affectation of contemporary society (at that time = Restoration period) – after 1600 when King opened the theatres again – he wanted people to be merry again, there were mainly plays about aristocracy, about love = it was called Restoration comedies)
  • comedy of manners has typical stock characters – rake (hejsek), false hero, and the third one (uncle, …) who reveals others' characters
  • it was introduce by Sir George Etherege – The Man of Mode, William Wycherley – The Country Wife
  • Richard Brinsley Sheridan – most famous representative: The Riddle, The School of Scandal, (introduces three characters whose love for scandal is so great, scandal = talk in which the reputation of other people is attacked), The Critic.
  • John Gay - Beggar' s Opera - the topic was later used by Bertolt Brecht and Václav Havel

18th CENTURY PROSE AND POETRY IN BRITISH LITERATURE

  • It is the period of classicism – coming back to antique mythology, culture is more important than nature.
  • Typical for this period was REASON – RATIO, no emotion as in Renaissance, there was also great degree of formality (rules, conventions)
  • enlightment = the age of reason, all branches of science were developing - it led to technical progress
  • genres are divided into:
    • high – tragedy, ode (a poem in praise of sb/st), epos (a long narrative poem in the grand style, often praising heroic adventures), elegy (a poem of mourning for sb who is dead)
    • low – comedy, ballad (originally a song for dancers, then simple poem with short stanzas telling a story), novel = new genre for “low” people who didn't understand high genres and most of them could not read, it fought very long for its place in literature (critics admitted it in the 19th century). Novel became popular and common genre, the father of English novel was Daniel Defoe
    • rules how to write – convention:
  • language – high genres had formal and standard English, now it is very difficult to understand it, poetic language, elevated style
  • encyclopaedias, journalism, and political pamphlets and satire = dominant feature
  • the most important feature is equality of time, place and action
  • topics – civilized society, modern nature, culture

Poetry

Alexander Pope

  • The Rape of the Lock = (the stealing of the hair), the word rape is quite strong to use in this situation, from 1714, it is a light subject and he treats it as important and serious (difference between form and contents)
  • Essay on Man, Moral Essays – about the characters of men and women
  • he also translated the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer

Thomas Grey

  • he was a good poet
  • he used so called mock-heroic epic – it means it was trivial and tragic, ridiculous and heroic (difference between genre/style and contents)
  • Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fish – a cat is a main character of drama (= unhappy, tragic..) but there is a very stupid plot (= drowning cat) and poetic style – elevated

Prose

Daniel Defoe

  • the father of an English novel
  • Robinson Crusoe – the first adventure book for adults (not for children as now), the idea of being on a deserted island is romantic but the description is very practical. It is almost a method (handbook) of survival – he describes what is useful – a typical feature of classicism is to be reasonable and sensible.
  • primary qualities = those you can describe objectively, which are measurable (about size, colour, height, weight, shape and others) and utility (if it is useful or not) Moll Flanders – more important Defoe's novel. It is a story about a woman who through certain misfortunes has to become a prostitute and a thief, she always counts her money and thinks what cost what (primary qualities). At the end she gets married in America and becomes a worthy woman (there she finds her son whose she sold earlier). It is a realistic picture.

Jonathan Swift

  • very good satirist – a bitter satirist – an example of his bitterness can be A Modest Proposal, which contains the suggestion that the poor who needed money can sell their children to the rich as food. It also describes situation between the Irish and the English (the Irish were very poor).He was deeply touched by their situation.
  • his most famous satire is Gulliver's Travels (1726) in four books, children and young people like reading the first two: Gulliver' s voyages to Lilliput (where the people are six inches high) and Brobdingnag (where they are immense), others are to Laputa (flying island - satirize philosophers and scientists) and Hwaima (clever horses).
  • the first three societies are not perfect (by juxtaposition = placing side by side, no linkage to show the contrast – he shows the bad sides of these societies) – the Lilliputians fight wars (as the English do) which seem foolish
  • the last society is perfect, but Swift is not as good when he describes perfect world, he is much better in his satire

People started to discuss problems newly opened coffee-houses. Journalism appeared too.

Richard Steele

  • he worked with Joseph Addison (they were two most important journalists) and they invented new literary genre – a paper of essays on various subjects political, theatrical and general-interest item
  • The Tattler (periidocal,it ran for 21 months), The Spectator – these essays reflecting the spirit of their age promote a type of gentlemen most unlike the Restoration hero – he believes in reason and control, admire women for their moral qualities, he has noticed that they are badly educated and wishes to raise their standard of knowledge (Steele was fascinated by women, Addison more critical to them)

Samuel Richardson

  • Pamela – is a novel written in the form of letters, it examines the human heart and shows the effects of human characters
  • It is funny, it describes everyday life, behaviour and manners, and possible conflict is she is a virgin and she receives the reward of virtue
  • Pamela's mistress' son proposed her. She resists hi sexual advances

Henry Fielding

  • Shamela – a kind of satire, reaction to Pamela and its moral hypocrycy
  • The History of Tom Jones, the Foundling – his greatest novel in 18 books. Tom is a boy found in Allworth's (všechna ctnost) house and is brought up with their bad son – Brifil. Both of them fell in love with Sophie, Tom leaves for London and Sophie goes there too, they get married.
  • it is an allusion to antique literature and culture
  • dialogues are distinguished from narrative, novel is complicated, characters are described through dialogues
  • it is rich in style – classical drama mixed with comedy

Samuel Jonson

  • Dictionary of the English language

Tobias Smollett

  • he follows Fielding in life-stories and describes bitterly the life – Roderick Random
  • a Scottish writer

Laurence Sterne

  • Tristram Shandy – experimental novel, he has blank pages, dialogue: ****, he adds comments on any subject
  • One third of a novel is about the life before his birth and when he was born, novel is about his uncle Toby

Pre-Romanticism and Romanticism in British literature

  • features: the poets turned again to emotions
  • sources: nature, love, history, using all sorts of English (dialects, too), everyday things, folklore – people begin to collect songs and fairy tales
  • Scottish literature appears – ballads
  • revolt against classicism, against situation in England – breaking the rules, return to nature, spontaneity, idealistic philosophy, glorification of heroes, they admire to visit exotic and unusual places
  • gothic novel – something dark, unknown, mysterious, elements of horror
  • 2 most prominent genres – poetry and novel
  • the main subject is an individual, strong emphasis on individual thoughts and feelings - individualism

Poetry

William Blake

  • a poet of pre-romanticism, much of his poetry has hidden meanings – hard to understand
  • his best known works include Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience

Robert Burns

  • a Scottish poet of pre-romanticism
  • he wrote hundreds of songs and lyrics – Mary Morison, John Anderson, The Banks of Doon
  • he is an author of well-known song Auld Lang Syne which is sung on New Year's Day

William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  • Lyrical Ballads – the joint work of them, it came as shock, it was the signal of the beginning of the romantic age
  • they were known like Lake Poets because they liked Lake District
  • Wordsworth was very good in writing sonnets – Westminster Bridge, he chose common things in his ballads (simplicity and purity of his English, very poetic language): The Daffodils (it is favourite flower of romanticism), The Solitary Raper, Lucy, Ode on Intimations of Immorality – memories of childhood (only as children we can see heaven), philosophical books and about his travels – The Excursion (in 9 books), The Prelude (in 13 books) - autobiographical
  • Coleridge suffered some misfortunes in his life, inner loss, philosophy. He chose very mysterious things, nature was for him very important, man is separable part of nature
  • The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (his contribution to lyrical Ballads) – all sailors died, one blesses them at the end, Christabel – he finds a beautiful lady in a wood and brings her home, Kubla Khan – it is difficult to understand – dreams and visions

George Gordon Byron

  • he is the most famous, but not the best one
  • he was influenced by the classical form of Pope – he spoke about possibility of damnation (=zatracení)
  • he inherited a title Lord (by his great-uncle) [.ghe was also very influenced with travels – the Mediterranean and Near East
  • Hours of Idleness – first, very criticized, so he wrote as a reaction English Bards and Scotch Reviewers – he turned back to classicism, attacked great romantic poets
  • Childe Harold Pilgrimage – reaction to his travels, written in Spenserian stanza, it tells the story (in fact autobiographical) about a traveller who visits different places
  • The Giaour (=Christian) - maybe Arabic, it is a narrative poem about exotic slave Layla and her master Hassan. He threw her into the sea and her lover Giaour kills Hassan in revenge.
  • Manfred, Don Juan – a satirical poem, hero is followed in his adventures from Spain to exile in Turkey, Russia … It gives him opportunity to mock.
  • his poetry is very powerful (in the contents) but with poetic imagination

Percy Bysshe Shelley

  • he was a close friend t Byron. Both of them were representatives of revolutionary romantics = belief in individual freedom
  • he was the rebel against convention and against all that hindered (bránilo)the full expression of free spirit
  • he rejected romantic melancholy and despair
  • The Revolt of Islam – a kind of revolutionary programme, vision of future
  • Prometheus Unbound – his greatest play, the main character represents a rebel against authority (in an old legend Prometheus was bound, he wanted to give fire to mankind and is chained to rock)
  • The Cenci (čenči) – tragedy, very shocking and cruel
  • Ode to the West Wind, Adonais – elegy on the death of Keats
  • Defence of Poetry – describe his conception of poetry and social function of poetry

John Keats

  • he wrote about supernatural elements, he loved beauty and rest
  • he expressed search for ideal beauty and also his beliefs of progress of society, improve of society
  • his create motto was True is beauty, beauty is true.
  • Endymion, Hyperion – never finished, express stillness, Ode on a Grecian Urn – description of the figures on its side, which will never move
  • La Belle Dame San Merci – of his most famous, the story of a knight, he falls asleep and dreams of his lady, then he wakes up alone on a very cold hillside. The woman is a symbol of tuberculosis on which Keats died.
  • a very important feature of his poetry is detail

Gothic novel

  • the world of nightmare
  • these novels explore more violent emotions of terror, guilt, and horror
  • they use the medieval settings of castle, in their ugly aspect as prisons, physical and emotional
  • the Gothic castle usually occurs in mountainous landscape, one may be sure that it is far away from sunshine
  • the Gothic villain is exercising a sadistic power over a helpless heroine (Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights

Jane Austen

  • she isn't typical romantic, her novels are more realistic novels of manners (early Victorian age)
  • the aim of women was to get married, they are prepared all their childhood to be good wives, but her heroines are intellectual, too
  • she manages her character with a master's touch, the least attractive characters are the young men
  • Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion

Mary Shelley

  • she is remembered mainly as an author of famous work written at her 18:
  • Frankenstein – Frankenstein is a scholar who is obsessed with the desire to find the “principle of life”. He gives life to a creature, gigantic and hideous, and as it turns out, with needs that he has not anticipated and cannot satisfy. The mountains above Chamonix are the scene of a meeting in which the creature makes his demands. When the monster, in revenge at Frankenstein's refusal to supply him with a mate, haunts him and destroys those he loves he seems to an evil familiar

Walter Scott

  • he wrote historical novels
  • it was at the edge of poetry and prose
  • his first novel was Waverley – published anonymously, very successful
  • he is very descriptive, the most valuable is his description of his characters, they are drawn very well, but Scott is very difficult to read (sometimes his characters speak dialect)
  • he wrote about Stuart and Tudor period – Old Morality, Kenilworth, about middle ages – Ivanhoe, The Talisman, and about Scottish history – Waverley, Rob Roy
  • he began with poetry – The Lady of Lakes, The Lord of the Isles

Victorian prose and poetry

  • at the end of the 19th century new stream appeared – realism
  • it was a period of the reign of Queen Victoria – very successful, prosperous, growing of British Empire, progress of industry
  • there were rich people on one side and on the other there were very poor people – there exists a huge gap between them
  • it was also a period of starting changes – women (they were used to sit at home, waiting for their husbands = typical Victorian picture) – they began to go out, they worked only when they were single, when they got married, they stopped working
  • there exists rules how to behave – social behaviour
  • typical settings = towns
  • people = working class mainly – writers show the bottom of the society, not the nice places of towns – to the worst sides of society (naturalism)
  • the first half of the 19th century – Victorian Romanticism (early Victorian period)
  • the second half of the 19th century – Victorian Realism (later Victorian period)

Robert Browning

  • for him was the most important understanding, he travelled as many Victorian artists to Italy
  • Pauline – it has 1,000 lines but it is only a part of a much longer poem
  • Pippa Passes – one of his successful dramatic poems, Pippa wanders through the town singing, and her song influences people who hear it.
  • The Pied Piper of Hamelin – a poem from Dramatic Romances – describe a removal of rats from a city by a musician whose music leads them away, they did not want to pay him, so he led away children to hills
  • his four major collections were: Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, Dramatic Lyrics, Men and Women, Dramatic Personae
  • The Ring and the Book – is the climax of his poetic career

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  • a poetess who protested against employing children in factories

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  • he put Mallory's story into blank verse – Morte D'Arthur
  • The Idyll of the King (idyll = short, descriptive and sentimental poem) – Arthurian legends (he idealizes King Arthur and his knights), Ulysses, The Princess
  • he did experiments with metres in his poetry

Christina Rossetti

  • a subtle woman lyric poet who wrote mostly sad and religious poems
  • she uses alliteration and half-rhymes, odd combination of irregular metre and sing-song rhymes
  • Goblin Market and Other Poems, The Prince's Progress and Other Poems

Prose

Charles Dickens

  • is generally considered to be one of the greatest English novelists, and he is one of the few whose works did not become unpopular after his death
  • he began with Pickwick which came out in parts –most charming and amusing characters
  • Oliver Twist – the story of a poor boy
  • A Christmas Carol – is the story of a bad character who improves his behaviour after the ghost tells him the manner of his death
  • David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, Martin Chuzzlewit, Great Expectations
  • he describes many unpleasant people and places – bad schools, bad prisons, government departments, dirty houses, his characters include thieves, murderers, stupid people, hungry children and those who do their best to deceive
  • he wanted to raise kindness and goodness in men's hearts

William Makepeace Thackeray

  • his best known book Vanity Fair describes the adventures of two girls of different sorts: one is a clever, brave and poor girl and the other is gentle and rich. The title is from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress
  • he also wrote historical novels – about the 17th century and about the American War of Independence: The Virginians, Henry Esmond

Charlotte Bronte

  • she used first-person narrative and her heroines were the girls with some autobiographical elements
  • Villette – related to her experience as a teacher in Brussels, Lucy Snowe becomes a teacher and wins respect by her fine character
  • Jane Eyre – is her best novel, describes the life of a poor and unbeautiful girl who is brought up by her cruel aunt and sent to a miserable school. After that she goes to teach Mr Rochester's daughter at Thornfield Hall. Although she is not beautiful, Rochester falls in love with her, but when Jane discovers that his mad wife is still alive, she runs away. Later the Hall is burnt down and the mad wife is killed. In trying to save her, Rochester is blinded and losses all hope of happiness. On hearing of this, Jane marries him and so is able to bring comfort into the remaining part of his life.
  • the book was very successful, the dialogues were more realistic and less formal than in many novels of that time

Emily Jane Bronte

  • she wrote one of the greatest English novel Wuthering Heights
  • the passionate Heathcliff falls in love with Catherine Earnshaw, but he hears her say that she never marry such a low sort of creature, so he leaves the house. He comes back after three years, Catherine has married Edgar Linton, a man of weak character. Heathcliff begins the life of cruelty and revenge. Catherine dies and he marries Edgar's sister and treats her very badly.
  • the novel is full of great and uncontrollable passions, in opinion of some critics, no woman could have written such a novel

George Elliot

  • her real name was Mary Ann Evans
  • she wrote calmer books than Brontes, she was a great moral novelist
  • Adam Bede – is set in England of peasants, farmers, and clergymen. It describes the society working co-operatively far from wars, powers, and politicians

Thomas Hardy

  • in his novels nature plays an important role, he thinks that it can influence people, the best way of life is to accept calmly the blows of fate
  • Far from the Madding Crowd – a sad story of love affairs
  • The Mayor of Casterbridge – Michael Henchard, while he is drunk, sells his wife and children for a few pounds. He decides not to drink for twenty years and works hard, becomes rich, and is made a Mayor. His wife returns, but that is not the end of their troubles. Henchard is ruined, and starts drinking again. He dies miserably.
  • Tess of D'Ubervilles – is a tale of a poor girl, whose misfortunes are so great that in the end she murder a man and is hanged

Robert Louis Stevenson

  • he studied engineering and law before he wrote books
  • he travelled a lot because of his lungs
  • his adventurous books were: Treasure Islands, The New Arabian Nights – a book of stories
  • The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – is his best plot about struggle between two forms of the same man – the good Dr Jekyll and the evil Mr Hyde

Oscar Wilde

  • The Picture of Dorian Gray – both the novel and the author shocked people

Rudyard Kipling

  • he was born in India and educated in England
  • he was awarded Nobel Prize in 1907
  • he had optimistic view of the future
  • he preferred the company of soldiers and men of action to the company of writers
  • he was an inspired writer of the best kind of children's books (enjoyed by adults)
  • The Jungle Book – about a boy Mowgli who is brought up in the jungle by wild animals
  • Just So Stories, Kim – the story of a boy in India who does the service to the British Empire by capturing some important secret papers

Other writers of that time: Lewis Carroll – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, Charles Robert Darwin – The Origin of Species

19th and 20th century in British drama

In the 19th centurythere was decline in the drama because of censorship and because plays were very poetic and difficult to be staged (Byron's Manfred, shelley's Cenci etc) There exist three groups – streams. The first one relates to the attempt to show on stage some parts of the daily lives of ordinary people in a realistic way that often contains social and political criticism (John Galsworthy, G B Shaw, Seán O'Casey)

George Bernard Shaw

  • was born in India
  • he enjoyed shock and offence, he was delighted in saying and showing the opposite of what his audience expected
  • he was awarded Nobel Prize in 1925
  • several his plays shows the workings of the “Little Force”, the power that drives people: Man and Superman – the main character says that a woman's real aim in life is to find the man that nature tells her is the right father for her children (social problem plays influenced by Ibsen)
  • Caesar and Cleopatra, Saint Joan
  • Pygmalion – well known because it was the basis for the musical play and film “My Fair Lady”. A story of the professor who takes a flower-seller from the London streets and makes her into a grand lady, he shows that it is behaviour and not ways of talking that really shows the differences between the characters. For Eliza the most important thing is that people care about each other, for Professor Higgins it is that they help each other to improve themselves

James Matthew Burrie

  • he wrote famous faity tale Peter Pan

Seán O'Casey

  • he was an Irishman and his plays were about the Irish
  • Juno and the Paycock – is set in the Irish Civil War, but the chief interest of the main character Juno is trying to hold the whole family together
  • The Shadow of a Gunman – about the Irish War of Independence but mainly about ordinary people who suffer most, especially women are those who suffer most.

The second group of playwrights is that of the individual's search for identity in an unfriendly outside world, and the difficulty and fear of communicating with other individuals.

Samuel Beckett

  • he was born in Ireland and spent a lot of time in France – wrote many works in French
  • the main representative of the THEATRE OF ABSURD - show psychological forces and absurdity of modern life
  • his play Waiting for Godot is one of the most influential works, from 1952, Godot's identity is not revealed
  • the play shows two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, who are waiting for the arrival of mysterious Godot to give their lives some purposes and direction
  • Happy Days – the main hero is a woman who resigned to her fate

Oscar Wilde

  • he is a representative of the third group of drama – for them the language is not only the means by which the character's feelings and beliefs are expressed but an important part of the play in its own right, particularly when it is used for a witty or comic effect to contrast with the seriousness of the theme beneath. His dramas are sparkling comedies with witty dialogues.
  • the most famous is The Importance of Being Earnest – 1895 – it is a world in which the appearance of things and people, and their reality, are always in contrast with each other, and these surprising contrasts are expressed in language of great wit and balance = witty paradox
  • Lady Windermere's Fan
  • in French Salome - written for Sarah Bernhardt, it was banned in London for its sexual motif)

Tom Stoppard

  • his real name is Tomáš Straussler, of Czech origin
  • he uses play to explore ideas about life and death, right and wrong
  • he is younger representative of THEATRE OF ABSURD
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – 1966 – the play about two unimportant characters from Hamlet
  • Jumpers, Travesties – about fictitious meeting Lenin and James Joyce
  • Dogg's Hamlet and Cahoot's Macbeth - flat theatre performance

John Osborne

  • a young man who is in permanent opposition against everything of old generation
  • he became famous in 1956 when his play Look Back in Anger presented a new type of hero who became known as the “angry young men”.
  • A Patriot For Me, Luther – about men who cannot fit into the society and fight against it
  • The Entertainer - second most successful

Agatha Christie

  • Mouse Trap

Andrew Lloyed Webber

  • writes mainly musicals like Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar,etc

Peter Shaffer

  • his most famous play is Amadeus

T. S. Elliot

  • is better known as a poet and his three plays are in verse, too: Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, The Cocktail Party
  • Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats became the basis of the musical Cats

British poetry in the 20th century

  • the main stream of the beginning of the 20th century was modernism
  • it was reaction against all literature forms, not only realism
  • their motto was “make it new”
  • it means using new forms, new topics, new vocabulary, breaking old rules of poetry and prose
  • flashbacks – jumping back from the present to the past and back
  • stream of consciousness – they express what happens in person's mind, exactly what and how he or she thinks

William Butler Yeats

  • he was the great figure in the poetry of the early part of the century, whose work covered fifty years (1889 to 1939)
  • he was awarded Nobel Prize in 1923
  • he was Irish
  • an important concern of his poetry was to show and honour the nature and character of Ireland and the Irish people, later his themes were more universal
  • An Irish Airmen Foresees His Death, The Tower, A Vision
  • he was influenced by Imagists later and his poetry became less romantic

Thomas Stearns Elliot

  • he is one of the best-known figures in the second quarter of the 20th century
  • he was born in America, but most of his life he lived in England
  • he sees the root of the modern world's unhappiness and confusion as the fact that the people today cannot bring together the different areas of their experience – cultural, sexual, and religious to make a healthy and complete whole
  • The Waste Land – 1922 – a long poem with many characters who are unhappy
  • Four Quarters – 1944 – shows different ways of experiencing God and reality in different times and shows that timeless values still exist and can still be touched. Each quartet symbolizes one of four elements - air, water, fire, and earth.

Wystan Hugh Auden

  • well-known in the 1930s
  • he wrote directly about political events and their effect on private lives (Spanish Civil War, beginning of WWII) – it was because this decade was very political
  • he also wrote many lyrics poems
  • Poems, On This Island, The Age of Anxiety

Wilfred Owen

  • he is possibly the best-known English poet of WWI
  • his poems shows very powerfully the discomfort, danger, and pain of the soldiers, and the permanent damage which the war did to their minds and happiness
  • Strange Meeting – about meeting two soldiers – enemies in hell (one killed another)

Dylan Thomas

  • he was the best poet of 1940s, wrote about 100 poems
  • his language is full of life, energy and feeling (different from others), with great strength and power
  • he was born in Wales
  • his first poems were published in 1934 and praises and delights natural forces: 18 Poems

Philip Larkin

  • his poetry looks back to the past with a sense what have been lost
  • real happiness was only in the past
  • the leader of a group of poets The Movement

Ted Hughes

  • is concerned with strong and sometimes violent forces of nature
  • was Sylvia Plath's husband
  • The Hawk in the Rain - he frequently uses birds to symbolize the wild forces of nature, living creatures have the hidden vital power in their fight to survive

Seamus Heaney

  • rom the 1970s, comes from the Northern Ireland
  • his early poems were about the countryside and the natural world
  • his later poems about the present political situation in the Northern Ireland and Irish mythology
  • Nobel Prize in 1995

British prose in the 20th century

The writers of the 20th century were not satisfied with the situation of the confidence of the 19th century, political changes influenced them very much (especially WWI and disappearance of the British Empire). The phrase fin de siècle came into common use (the end of the century)

Herbert George Wells

  • father of science fiction in English
  • he took characters from lower classes, but many of his characters are given a chance of happiness
  • The Time Machine – 1895 – about a machine that can travel through time
  • The War of the World – describes an attack on the world from Mars
  • The First Man on the Moon – shows men flying to the Moon much more before it actually happened
  • Kips, The History of Mr Polly – comic social novels about men who found out that the things that would change their lives (money,…) do not bring them what they hoped.

John Galsworthy

  • The Forythe's Saga - about the life of upper-middle-class family

Edward Morgan Foster

  • he had completely different view of the values, maybe that was why he was a homosexual
  • his major contribution to English literature is A Passage to India - 1924 – about English officials
  • Howard's End is the most interesting (but not the most successful) about late-Edwardian England

Joseph Conrad

  • his original name was Josef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, he was born in Poland
  • it is not usual that a foreigner is able to write in another language and he had fine style, much better than many Englishmen
  • Lord Jim – one of his greatest novels
  • The Secret Agent, Under Western Eyes – his description is very good

David Herbert Lawrence

  • he used the form of the traditional novel and made it wider and deeper
  • Sons and Lovers – is taken from his own early life, about relationship between son and mother, he wants to be independent and has to struggle to become free from her influence
  • The Rainbow – tells the story of a family through three couples of different ages
  • Women in Love – is one of the masterpieces of English literature, about two sisters, and about the men connected by close friendship – they try to understand the meaning of love
  • Lady Chatterley's Lover – very unusual, three versions (because of much sexual scenes) - banned from publications until 1959, written in 1928

George Orwell

  • original name - Eric Arthur Blair, Orwell = river
  • wrote several novels in the 1930s, but his fame is mainly on his later books and his political and critical writing
  • Nineteen Eighty-Four – 1949 – this book describes a future world (England under dictatorship) where every word and action is controlled by the state, which has developed a kind of television that can watch people in their own homes
  • Animal Farm – is perhaps his most famous work – political allegory, which tells the story of a political revolution that went wrong. Revolt led by intelligent pigs.
  • doctrine: ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

James Joyce

  • was born an educated in Ireland and wrote about Dublin
  • Ulysses – is regarded as one of the most important novels – about three people through one day in Dublin. The characters and parts of the novel are connected with and reflect characters and events from ancient Greek stories, as the title suggests – using stream of consciousness (it has no plot). He is wandering Dublin, not Mediterranean.
  • The Dubliners – short stories in naturalism style, it carries a deeper meaning

Features of modernism - stream of consciousness, later Freud's influence - dreams, obsessions, and individual psychology = main features, not PLOT. They ignore taboo of Victorian age and discuss sexuality.

William Golding

  • Lord of the Flies – his best known novel, which describes how a group of English schoolboys are wrecked on a dessert island, and how the effects of civilization break down and they return to their essential animal nature = the essential nature of all human beings
  • they are divided into two groups – the dreamers and the poets, and the men of action – two groups cannot work together for the good of them all, but attack and ty to destroy each other with frightening violence
  • writes in the form of moral fables exploring the devil
  • all his novels consider absolute values of good end evil and the essential nature of man

Graham Greene

  • divides his many books into two groups – serious novels and entertainments
  • his characters are in failure and are seeing nearer God
  • Brighton Rock – about an evil man who is outside the laws of man, but only God's law is strong enough to reach him
  • The Power and the Glory – his greatest work, about a priest in South America who is in danger from the forces of the state and has the choice of saving his soul (by continuing to act as a priest) or his body (either by escaping or by breaking the promises he made when he became a priest). He knows very well the weakness of his own nature and this makes him more able to rise a spiritual greatness than a man who had not done so much wrong.
  • spy novel The Confidential Agent
  • anti-war novel Quiet American

Kingsley Amis

  • his novel have greater comedy and less moral concern
  • the best known Lucky Jim – 1954 – shows the attempts of a young university teacher to break the rules of his social class (parodes all profesors and is dismissed) and connect with the working class and unusual characters outside any social groups, who experience a different sort of life from the one he knows and who, in his opinion, have stronger and deeper feelings than the people around him

Alan Sillitoe

  • Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – his novel was made into a film, shows a young man from the working class who is determined to do what he wants to in his life and not what the rules of the society in which he lives is the right thing to do.
  • The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner – it was also made into film, about a boy in boys' prison, who refuses to do what the governor of the prison wants him to do, by losing a race which the governor wants him to win, he keeps his pride in himself and his own sense of freedom

John Braine

  • The Room at the Top – about a working class Yorkshire boy, who wants a car, expensive clothes, etc. he gets what he wants but it cost him his humanity.
  • Life at the Top - from 1962
  • he was labelled as an angry young man
  • The Jealous God is regarded as his best - intelectual Catholic didn't find local Catholic girl socially acceptable, falls in love with a Protestant girl (but she is divorced)
  • later in 1976 he explored the themes of desire, divorce, sexual divorce and relationship - Waiting for Sheila - they aren't so good and so expressive
  • he is very proud of his Yorkshire accent
  • Other writers: Evelyn Waugh, Iris Murdoch, Virginia Woolf
  • Detective novels: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Phyllis Dorothy James
  • Spy novels: John Le Carré, Ian Fleming (James Bond's stories) Science Fiction: Arthur C Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey), John Wyndham (The Day of Triffids), H.G. Wells

David Lodge

  • Changing Places - 1975, professors changing places - about different lives in British and American universities, very satirical
  • British Museum Is Falling Down

Helen Fielding

  • Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget Jones - the Edge of Reason

John Fowles

  • one of the best contemporary writers
  • The Collector- his first novel
  • The French Lieutenant's Woman - the best, from Victorian England, morals and manners are compared to present ones.