Студент: Агафонова Марина Александровна. Отделение: «Дизайн», курс :2 Руководитель проекта: Ильющенкова Елена Николаева Written Word Lives for Centuries

Written Word Lives for Centuries  Medieval period  Norman period (XI-XIII)  The Renaissance  Elizabethan period – Golden Age in English history  Restoration  Bourgeois literature  Romanticism  Critical Realism  XIX- XX century

Beowulf (dated by VIII century) The most significant of the surviving works of Anglo- Saxon poetry. Beowulf is the unique sample of the medieval heroic epic. The manuscript is kept in the British Museum in London, and was first published in 1893.

The development of English literature is closely connected with the conquest of the country by the Normans. In 1066 William the Conqueror and his army defeated Anglo-Saxon army in the battle of Hastings and invaded Britain.

French became the official language -- the language of the ruling class: it was the language of the Parliament, it was spoken at Court and at schools. Anglo-Saxon language (spoken by the native population) went through significant changes.

Geoffrey Chaucer – “the father of English poetry” and the creator of standard English Chaucer’s name is connected with his “Canterbury Tales”, the stories told by pilgrims, travelling around the country. This masterpiece shows a vivid picture of the medieval life.

A new stage in poetry begins – it is given the leading role. One of the most prominent writers of that epoch was famous humanist and politician Thomas More, known for his “Utopia” (1516)

Main features:  The development of English humanism;  Rise in literature;  Expressions of humanistic cheerfulness;  Mix of medieval traditions and Renaissance optimism;  Poetry, prose and drama are the main styles. Known writers: Thomas Kyd, Robert Green, Christopher Marlowe and the greatest William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is often called the English national poet, he is widely considered to be the greatest dramatist of all time. His works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets which deal with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality.

He expressed the main trends of the Renaissance: the interest in human nature, the passions and feelings of human personality. The Globe became a new stage in the development of English Drama.

Plays such as “Julius Caesar”, “Antony and Cleopatra”, “Coriolanus” were the tragedies of ancient plot but viewed through the prism of Shakespeare’s time and set the problems of great importance.

After the bourgeois revolution in 1648 and the execution of the king, English theatre was persecuted, and trends in literature became more severe and harsh. Poetry gave way to prose.

Fierce political struggle led to the disappearance of literature for entertainment and political literature took the 1st place. Among the writers under Cromwell’s rule, the most eminent were: John Milton, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, who raise important problems of democracy, church, education, religious tolerance.

This movement affected French philosophers one century later and then spread all over Europe. After Restoration theatre was re-opened and gave way to new comedies of manners (with sometimes indecent content), to the revival of gallant literature and the birth of French classicism. The representative: John Dryden.

The tone of literature was defined by the aristocracy, whose influence was clearly felt in novels and plays on stage. New consumers asked for their literature, for the images of family virtues, of honest merchants, sensibility and nature.

English romantic school never existed: like in France or Germany there were not groups of writers, united by romantic topic.

However, a number of typical romantic features that belong to English literature in the first decades of the XIX century gives the right to speak of romantic movement.

The representatives: Lord Byron, Walter Scott, John Keats, William Blake, Percy Bysshe Shelley and lake poets.

A group of English poets who lived in the Lake District of England and followed no single “school” of thought or literary practice then known.

The main founders of the Lake School were William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey. They changed the technique of verse, revived ballad poetry and praised nature in their works.

Charles Dickens is the most eminent writer of that epoch. He depicts pictures of greed, cruelty, ignorance and selfishness of the capitalists, he tries to touch people’s hearts by the sight of suffering and never wakes up hatred or called for a riot.

Literature of soft and subtle feelings and fleeting impressions appears: individualism, pure art, the cult of sentiments become the main features of the XIX century’s literature. However, the main theme – the organization of society, the end of exploitation – occupies an important place in literature.

During that period poetry went through significant changes: music and verse complemented one another. Paul McCartney and John Lennon proved to the world that literary tradition is still alive and that it can be different.

Famous hits as “Yesterday”, “Here Comes the Sun”, “All You Need Is Love” became loved among the public and showed how philosophical thoughts can be expressed through the prism of songs and music. Summing up, we do say: in fact, written word lives for centuries

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