14. BRITISH LITERATURE
1. Old English Literature (700-1100)
- Anglo-Saxon period before the Normans came
- the language totally different from today’s English
- types of works: chronicles, records of battles
- the earliest piece of writing: Beowulf – a long epic poem of conquest and bravery
2. Middle English Literature (1100-1500)
- After William the Conqueror’s victory at the Battle of Hastings (1066): French and Latin
became the main languages.
- the printing was invented in England by William Caxton (1476)
- the most prominent writer of the period who wrote in English:
Geoffrey Chaucer: Canterbury Tales – comic and moral stories (e.g., The Knight’s Tale)
3. Renaissance Literature (1500-1600)
- transition between medieval and modern times
- the period of flowering arts and literature
- Elizabeth I supported drama and poetry
- the most important playwright of the Elizabethan drama:
William Shakespeare – Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet
4. 17th century Literature – Revolution and Restoration (1600-1700)
- There was a conflict between the feudal classes (James I) and the Puritans (Parliament)
- Ben Jonson: a post Shakespeare dramatists who wrote satirical comedies for the court
- John Donne: a metaphysical poet
- John Milton: supported the Puritan revolution (Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained)
5. 18th century Literature – Classicism (1700-1780)
- the period of social criticism and satire
- the origin and the development of the novel
- Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels
- Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe
- Alexander Pope (a poet)
6. Romanticism (1780-1832)
- Romantics looked for beauty in man and expressed feelings and emotions as a contrast to the
Industrial Revolution
- The Lake Poets: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- other poets of the period: Lord George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats
- Romantic prose writers: Walter Scott: Ivanhoe, Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice
7. Victorian Literature (1832-1901)
- critical realism and social novel emerged
- Charles Dickens: wrote about the lowest classes, criticized the rich people’s superiority –
Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, David Copperfield
- William M. Thackeray – Vanity Fair, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte
- Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest
- Robert Lewis Stevenson: Treasure Island, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (neo-romantic)
8. 20th century Literature (1900-now)
novelists:
- George Orwell: 1984, Animal Farm (allegory novels criticizing totalitarian society)
- Agatha Christie: Ten Little Niggers (detective stories)
- James Joyce: Ulysses (experimental prose)
dramatists:
- G. B. Shaw: Pygmalion
- Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot (absurd drama)
poets:
- W.B. Yeats, Dylan Thomas