The 17th Century
• The literary giant of the 17th century,John Milton(1608-1674) was much bound up in Puritan Revolution.His materpieces: the epic Paradise Lost,its sequel,Paradise Regained,and the poetic tragedy Samson Agonistes.
Hale Waihona Puke The 18th Century
♣ Scotland produced a much-loved poet,Robert Burns,who wrote in Scotland dialect.Among the most cherished of his poems are "Holy Willie's Prayer","To a Mouse",and "To a Louse".He remains the beloved folk poet of Scotland. ♣ Daniel Defoe(1660-1731)led an active life as a journalist and political pamphleteer.He wrote many books,including the novel Moll Flander.Dofoe's first and greatest novel appeared in1719.This was Robinson Cruson, the most famous tale of shipwreck and solitary in all literature.
The Romantic Period • Three men brought the Romantic Movement to its hight. • Georoge Gordon,Lord Byron(1788-1824),his large body of work includes the partly autobiographical Childe Harold's Pilgrimage written for the most part. • John Keats came from origins as plain as Byron's were aristocrstic.He was superb at pictorial poetry---painting a picture with words.His art is nowhere greater than in the two poems"Ode on a Grecian Urn" and"Ode to a Nightingal".
Early Writing
• With the Norman Conquest in 1066 Britain entered the Middle Ages(1066-1485),and the language of the royal court became French.One work from these times often studied today by middle school and college students is The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer(1343-1400) .He was the first court poet to write in English.
The Romantic Period
• ♪ Roughly the first third of the 19th century makes up English literature's romantic period.Writers of romantic literature are more concerned with imagination and feeling than with the power of reasons,which marked the 18th century. • ♪ This poets offered what had been called romantic poetry's"Declaration of Independence".This was a vliume of poems called lyrical Ballads,written by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
The Romantic Period
♫ Coleridge's major work of this sort is ♫ Wordsworth's the autobiographical verse are about Biographia country scenes Literature.The most and country people. famous of his poem Representative of is "The Rime of his other work is Ancient Mariner".
Elizabethan Drama
• In British culture one of the most successful and long-lasting expression of this development lay in drama.The first professional theatre opened in London in 1576,and other followed,producing the work of many notable playwrights,including Christopher Marlowe,Ben Jonson,and ,of course,William Shakespeare.
British Literature
♥Early Writing ♥Elizabethan Drama ♥The 17th Century ♥The 18th Century ♥The Romantic Period ♥The 19th Century Novel
Early Writing
• Much early writing was concerned with Christianity:AngoSaxons produced beautifully illustrated version of the Bible:the most famous of these is the Book of Kells. • One of the oldest of these early "Old English" literary works is a long poem from Ango-Saxon times called Beowulf.It tells the story of the 6th century Swedish warrior Beowulf.
the long autobiographical poem The Prelude and such shorter poems as"My Heart Leaps up When I Behold" and"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" ,also called "Daffodils".
Elizabethan Drama
♣Christopher Marlow(15641593)was the earliest of this great trio,and his style is thought to have been a great influence onShakespeare.His most play is The Tragical History of Faustus,the story of a man who sold his soul to the devil in return for power.
The 18th Century
♣ 18th century English literature is marked by a rather large shift from the mood and tone of 17th-century literature. ♣ The first important dictionary of the language was produced in this times. Satire,making fun of people and things,expressed the spirit of the time.Prominent on the stage,satire also found a powerful medium in a form that came to full growth in this country---the novel.
Early Writing
♥The legend of King Arthur became established in literary from with the publication in 1138 of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain,a Latin work which,though calling itself a work of history,invented material to fill the broad gaps in the historical records.