25 British and American literature
Activities
25.1
A quiz
a) Match the authors with their works.
1 Geoffrey Chaucer
a/ Animal Farm
2 John Milton
b/ A Christmas Carol
3 Jonathan Swift
c/ Howl
4 Jane Austen
d/ Moby Dick
5 Mary Shelley
e/ Frankenstein
6 Charles Dickens
f/ Great Gatsby
7 R.L. Stevenson
g/ Paradise Lost
8 Oscar Wilde
h/ The Canterbury Tales
9 H.G. Wells
i/ The Lord of the Flies
10 G.B. Shaw
j/ The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
11 George Orwell
k/ Sophie´s Choice
12 William Golding
l/ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
13 E.A. Poe
m/Pygmallion
14 Herman Melville
n/Gulliver´s Travels
15 Mark Twain
o/The Time Machine
16 Jack London
q/The Picture of Dorian Gray
17 F.S. Fitzgerald
r/ White Fang
18 Ernest Hemingway
s/The Raven
19 Allen Ginsberg
t/ Pride and Prejudice
20 William Styron
u/The Old Man and the Sea
b) Answer the questions:
Who is considered the father of the horror and the detective story? ____________________
Who created the following characters?
Sherlock Holmes:
_____________________
Hercule Poirot:
_____________________
James Bond:
_____________________
c) Read the text and check your answers.
British and American literature timeline
English literature ranks among the oldest ones in Europe. The Anglo-Saxons brought back
from Germany an ancient alphabet called rune and until the 11th century they wrote in Old
English, a language similar to German and Dutch. The masterpiece of that period was the
famous heroic epic Beowulf (8th century).
In the Middle English period (12th – 15th century), epics were still popular, especially stories
of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. However, the greatest writer of that period
was Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 – 1400), author of The Canterbury Tales, inspired by
Boccaccio´s Decameron.
The most famous Renaissance author was, of course, William Shakespeare (Romeo and
Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Taming of a Shrew etc), although he wasn´t the
1
only writer of that period. His older contemporary Christopher Marlowe, the author of
Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, was also an excellent playwright.
In the 17th century, John Milton, the poet of the English Revolution, wrote his famous poem
Paradise Lost. The greatest 18th and early 19th century novelists were Daniel Defoe
(Robinson Crusoe), Jonathan Swift (Gulliver´s Travels), Henry Fielding (Tom Jones) and
Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice, Emma).
The end of the 18th century is the era of pre-romanticism. We should remember the names
of two great poets – Robert Burns (Scottish national poet, famous especially for the New
Year´s Eve song Auld Lang Syne) and William Blake (Song of Innocence, Songs of
Experience). Anne Radcliffe wrote ´´Gothic´´ novels such as The Mysteries of Udolpho.
Pre-romanticism was followed by romanticism. The best-known British romantic authors were
William Wordsworth (Lyrical Ballads), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner), Lord George Gordon Byron (Childe Harold´s Pilgrimage, Don Juan), Percy Bysshe
Shelley (Prometheus Unbound), his wife Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and Walter Scott
(historical novels – Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian, Ivanhoe).
The best-known novelists of the Victorian period were Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist,
A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Great Expectations), W.M. Thackeray (The Book of
Snobs, Vanity Fair), Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre), her sister Emily (Wuthering Heights),
Thomas Hardy (The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d´Urbervilles), Robert Louis
Stevenson (Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). Oscar Wilde,
author of some excellent short stories (The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Canterville Ghost)
and plays (Lady Windermere´s Fan, Salome, The Importance of Being Earnest), became a
victim of the hypocritical Victorian morals (he was put in prison for his homosexuality).
Herbert George Wells, together with the French novelist Jules Verne, is considered the father
of science fiction. His novels The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The Island of Dr.
Moreau are still respected.
In the 20th century a lot of writers were very critical about the British society and traditional
morals. In the first half of the century it was the novelist David Herbert Lawrence (Women in
Love, Lady Chatterley´s Lover) and the playwright George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion, Saint
Joan), after WWII the ´´Angry Young Men´´ - John Osborne (Look Back in Anger), Kingsley
Amis (Lucky Jim), John Braine (Room at the Top). George Orwell criticized totalitarian
regimes (Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four), William Golding wrote symbolic psychological
novels about evil in human hearts (Lord of the Flies, The Spire).
Britain has a long tradition of detective stories – perhaps everyone knows Arthur Conan
Doyle´s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie´s Hercule Poirot. Ian Fleming is famous for his
James Bond spy novels. The best-known fantasy novels were also written in Britain – J.R.R.
Tolkien (Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings) and J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter) are the most popular
writers in the world.
American literature is much younger. The first really great writer was Edgar Allan Poe, one
of the most influential writers in human history: he is considered the father of symbolistic
poetry (The Raven), the horror (The Pit and the Pendulum, Fall of the House of Ushers) and
the detective story (Murders in the Rue Morgue). Other great poets of the 19th century were
Emily Dickinson (Poems) and Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass).
The first world-famous American novel, The Scarlet Letter (about Puritan New England), was
written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Other famous 19th century novelists were James Fenimore
Cooper (The Last of the Mohicans, The Deerslayer), Herman Melville (Moby Dick, or the
2
White Whale), Mark Twain (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn) and Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom´s Cabin) – she was very critical about slavery.
A. Lincoln called her ´´the little woman that caused the great war.´´
In the first half of the 20th century, Jack London wrote about Alaska and about the sea
(White Fang, The Sea Wolf), William Faulkner about the South (A Rose for Emily, The Sound
and the Fury), Francis Scott Fitzgerald about the American dream (Great Gatsby).However,
the most famous writer of that period was Ernest Hemingway. He wrote about WWI (A
Farewell to Arms), about the Spanish civil war (For Whom the Bell Tolls) and about man´s
struggle with nature ( The Old Man and the Sea).
Since 1950s, many authors have been very critical about traditional American consumer
society. You have probably heard about the Beat Generation – Allen Ginsberg (Howl), Jack
Kerouac (On the Road), William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch) and others. Unfortunately, the
great satirist John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces) didn´t experience fame during
his life.
Since 1960s, the most popular American writers have been William Styron (Sophie´s
Choice), John Irving (The World According to Garp), Stephen King (It, Needful Things,
Misery) and Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, From
Beginning to End).
The USA has also had some great playwrights – Eugene O´Neill (Desire Under the Elms),
Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Arthur Miller (Death
of a Salesman) and Edward Albee (Who´s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Everything in the
Garden).
John Milton
Jane Austen
Charles Dickens
Oscar Wilde
J.R.R.Tolkien
E.A. Poe
Mark Twain
Ernest Hemingway
25.2
a) Read the sample book review and answer the questions:
In which paragraph do we write about the following?
- the characters and plot ___
- basic information about the book and author ___
- why we like/don´t like the book ___
What tense do we use when retelling the plot? __________________
3
Thomas Hardy: The Three Strangers
One of my favourite English books is The Three Strangers. It is a short story by Thomas
Hardy, a British novelist, poet and short story writer who lived in 1840 – 1928 and is famous
mostly as an author of naturalistic novels such as Tess of the d´Urbervilles.
The story is set in the fictional county of Wessex at the beginning of the 19th century. A
shepherd´s family celebrates a newborn daughter so they have a party with music, dance
and mead. As the weather is very cold and rainy, a stranger comes to the shepherd´s
cottage to hide from the rain. It is a mysterious tall young man who doesn´t say much and
spends most of the time smoking his pipe. Soon the second stranger appears. He is very
different from the first one: he talks, laughs and drinks a lot. All the people in the cottage are
surprised when they learn that he works as a hangman. Unfortunately for him, the prisoner
who was supposed to be hanged the next day for stealing a sheep has just escaped from
prison. Suddenly, the door opens and the third stranger appears. When he sees the first two
strangers, he runs away into the dark. The hangman is convinced that it is the escaped
prisoner so he asks all the people to look for him. In the end they catch him, but find out that
he is not the prisoner. The real thief is his brother – the first stranger. The people pretend to
keep on looking for him, but in fact they let him run away because they admire how brave he
was and they don´t think he should die for stealing just one sheep to feed his family.
I like the story because it is very exciting, it has a twist and the main characters are really
interesting.
b) Write a similar review on a British/American book you have read.
mead/mi:d/ - medovina
hangman – kat
twist – dějový zvrat, překvapivý závěr
Sources of pictures:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John-milton.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jane_Austen_coloured_version.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Dickens_3.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oscar_Wilde.jpeg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tolkien_1916.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edgar_Allan_Poe_daguerreotype_crop.png?uselang=
cs
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_Twain_by_AF_Bradley.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ernest_Hemingway_1950_crop.jpg
4