11 An outline of British literature

BRITISH LITERATURE

1. Old English (Anglo-Saxon period), 449 – 1066

• strong belief in fate

• admiration of heroic warriors

• express religious faith and give moral instruction through literature

• oral tradition of literature

• poetry dominant genre

Beowulf

• The most famous and the longest surviving poem in Old English, written c. 1000 in the West Saxon dialect. It is an epic recording the great deeds of the heroic warrior Beowulf

• In the poem, Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, battles three antagonists: Grendel, Grendel's mother; dragon

1. Middle English period, 1066-1485
   

GEOFFREY CHAUCER 1343/4-1400

• The greatest poet of the Middle Ages who is considered the founder of the English language of the time when much poetry was still written in Anglo-Norman or Latin. Chaucer‘s poetry was realistic, ironic and humoristic.

• His works were satirical. He criticized the corruption and hypocrisy.

• In Canterbury Tales he created a vivid picture of the 14th century society and his country.

• It is an unfinished collection of comic and moral stories told by a group of 30 pilgrims who travel to Canterbury to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket. Each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two more on the way back.

• But, instead of 120 tales, the text ends after twenty-four tales, and the party is still on its way to Canterbury.

• The pilgrims are people from various parts of England, representatives of various social groups, with various interests. (the Knight, the Cook, the Ploughman, among them is also the poet himself)

• The best tales are The Knight's tale and The Miller's Tale.

• The Canterbury Tales was Chaucer's masterpiece.

• The tales (mostly in verse, although some are in prose)

• He uses the tales and the descriptions of the characters to paint an ironic and critical portrait of English society at the time, and particularly of the Church.

• Structurally, the collection bears the influence of The Decameron

1. Renaissance literature, 1500-1600

• Elizabethan drama – see “the English Drama”

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1564-1616

• The greatest dramatist of the Renaissance literature (Elizabethan drama)

• Elizabethan drama had passion and vitality, plays were full of humour, wit songs and lyrical poetry

• Growing class conflicts and oppression of the poor began to be reflected in drama and literature

• Comedies turned into tragedies

• Shakespeare's plays showed people in various social and personal conflicts, the downside on human nature, cruelty, violence, horror and death

• He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"

• His surviving works consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems

• His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

• Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had 3 children – a daughter, and twins (a boy and a girl). He began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men.

• The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with W. Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire in 1613. A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 and closed in 1642 (by the Puritans). A modern reconstruction of the Globe, named "Shakespeare's Globe", opened in 1997 approximately 230 metres from the site of the original theatre.

• Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others

• His early plays were mainly comedies and histories; his climax works are the great tragedies; his later works consist of romances (tragicomedies), plays and fairy-tales

• Comedies: The Comedy of Errors, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew

• Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra

• Histories: King John, Richard II, Henry V, Henry VI, Richard III, Henry VIII

• Romances (Fairy-tales): The Winter's Tale, The Tempest