A brief history of English literature The story of English literature begins with the Germanic tradition of the Anglo-Saxon

settlers. The most important work of that time is Beowulf which is an epic poem of the 8th century in Anglo-Saxon (now more usually described as Old English). In the 11th century so called Middle English began to develop. After the Norman conquest it added French vocabulary. Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 1400) undertook diplomatic missions abroad on behalf of the king. He was given administrative posts, such as controlling the customs. Chaucers most famous work is called Canterbury Tales. Thirty pilgrims gather one spring day at Tabard in Southwark. The host of the inn is a real contemporary of Chaucers (his name features in historical records). Each pilgrim is to tell two stories on the way and two on the way back. Whoever is judged to have told the best tale will have a free supper at the Tabard on their return. The pilgrims represent all sections of society, they are respectable people from various classes such as the knight, the parson, and the yeoman. The pilgrims are vividly described, one by one, in Chaucers Prologue. By the time of his death Chaucer completed only 24 stories. Edmund Spencer (1552 1599) was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse. Next important Spencer s work, The Shepheardes Calendar shows a side range of subjects in many metres and many styles of poetry. James Burbage (1531 1597) was an English actor, theatre impresario, and theatre builder in thee English Rennaissance theatre . He built The Theatre. Christopher Marlowe (1564 1593) was a dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Together with W.Shakespeare he is known for blank verse. Marlowe wrote The Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta or Doctor Faustus. William Shakespeare (1564 1616) was the greatest English dramatist of all times. He was born on 23rd April 1564 at Stratford upon Avon. His father was a tradesman and for some time mayor of the town. Shakespeare attended the local grammar school, but owing to his fathers financial problems he was taken from school at the age of fourteen. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years older than he. They had three children, but their marriage was not happy. In 1592 he left Stratford for London where he soon became an actor and playwright. He joined the theatre company known as The Lord Chancellors Players, later called The Kings Players. The success of his plays increased from year to year, so that at about the end of the century Shakespeare was both famous and wealthy. He became the principal shareholder of the Globe Theatre. In 1610 he retired to his home town where he bought a house called New Place. He died there on 23rd April 1616 and was buried in the parish church where his body still lies. A memorial to him is also in Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey. Shakespeares work include comedies, historical plays, tragedies or sonnets. The most important works are: Richard III, The Comedy of Errors, Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Measure for Measure, King Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, Cymbeline, The Winters Tale and The Tempest.

John Milton (1608 1674) was a poet, author, polemicist and civil servant for the Commonwealth who became famous for his epic poem Paradise Lost. This work was followed by Paradise Regained. Milton also wrote political, philosophical and religious prose, for example Of Reformation, Defensio pro Populo Anglicano (First Defence) or Of Education. Ben Jonson (1572 1637) was a Rennaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare he is best know for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartolomew Fair. Jonathan Swift (1667 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of St.patricks Cathedral in Dublin. He is remembered mostly for his work Gullivers Travels (officially Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. Gullivers Travels include Gullivers Voyages to Lilliput, to Brobdingnag, to Laputa etc. On his voyages Gulliver appears in different and strange worlds. Alexander Pope (1688 -1744) was a famous eighteen century poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. Pope is famous for his use of heroic couplet. Of his work may be mentioned for example The Rape of the Lock. Daniel Defoe (1659 1731) was a writer, journalist and pamphleteer who gained his fame with his work Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is sometimes referred among the founders of English novel. Robinson Crusoe the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character, Robinson, who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Venezuela before being rescued. Crusoe sets sail on a sea voyage in September 1651, against the wishes of his parents, who want him to stay home and assume a career in law. His journey ends in disaster as the ship is taken over by pirates and Crusoe becomes the slave of a Moor. He manages to escape with a boat and a boy named Xury; later, Crusoe is befriended by the Captain of a Portuguese ship off the western coast of Africa. The ship is on her route to Brazil. There, with the help of the captain, Crusoe becomes owner of a plantation. Years later, he joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa, but his shipwrecked in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an island (which he calls the Island of Despair) near the mouth of the Orinoco river on September 30, 1659. His companions all die. Having overcome his despair, he fetches arms, tools, and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He proceeds to build a fenced-in habitation near a cave which he excavates himself. He keeps a calendar by making marks in a wooden cross built by himself, hunts, grows corn and rice, dries grapes to make raisins for the winter months, learns to make pottery, raises goats, etc., using tools created from stone and wood which he harvests on the island, and adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and suddenly becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but society. Years later, he discovers native cannibals who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. At first he plans to kill them for committing an abomination, but later realizes that he has no right to do so as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; and indeed, when a prisoner manages to escape, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion Friday after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe then teaches him English and converts him to Christianity.

After another party of natives arrives to partake in a cannibal feast, Crusoe and Friday manage to kill most of the natives and save two of the prisoners. One is Friday's father and the other is a Spaniard, who informs Crusoe that there are other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised wherein the Spaniard would return with Friday's father to the mainland and bring back the others, build a ship, and sail to a Spanish port. Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears; mutineers have taken control of the ship and intend to maroon their former captain on the island. Crusoe and the ship's captain strike a deal, in which he helps the captain and the loyalist sailors retake the ship from the mutineers, whereupon they intend to leave the worst of the mutineers on the island. Before they leave for England, Crusoe shows the former mutineers how he lived on the island, and states that there will be more men coming. Crusoe leaves the island December 19, 1686, and arrives back in England June 11, 1687. He learns that his family believed him dead and there was nothing in his father's will for him. Crusoe then departs for Lisbon to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil, which has granted him a large amount of wealth. In conclusion, he takes his wealth over land to England to avoid traveling at sea. Friday comes with him and along the way they endure one last adventure together as they fight off hundreds of famished wolves while crossing the Pyrenees. Lake Poets all lived in the Lake District of England and turn of the nineteenth century. They are considered part of Romantic Movement. The three main poets were William Wordsworth (1770 1850) Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 1834) and Robert Southey (1774 1843). Wordsworth wrote Lyrical Ballads with Few Other Poems, Southeys work includes The Fall of Robespierre or Joan of Arc An Epic Poem. George Gordon Byron (1788 1824) is the most famous poet and leading figure in the period of Romanticism. Among Byrons best known works are the brief poems She Walks in Beauty and narrative poems Childe Harolds Pilgrimage. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 -1822), another famous poet of the Romanticism period wrote for example Prometheus Unbound Jane Austen (1775 1817), a romantic novelist lived almost all her life as a part of a closeknit family. Among her most famous works belong Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey or Emma. Charles Dickens (1812 1870) was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. Many of his characters were not rich, middle-class ladies and gentlemen, but poor and hungry people. Dickens family lived in London, his father was a clerk in an office. It was a good job but he always spent more money than he earned and he was often in debt. There were eight children in the family, so life was hard. Charles went to school and his teachers thought he was very clever. But suddenly, when he was only eleven, his father went to prison for his debts and the family went, too. Only Charles did not go to prison. He went to work in a factory, where he washed bottles. He worked ten hours a day and earned six shillings a week. Every night, after work, he walked four miles back to his room. Charles hated it and never forgot the experience. He used it in many novels, especially David Copperfield and Oliver Twist. When he was sixteen, he started work for a newspaper. He visited law courts and the Houses of Parliament. Soon he was one of the Morning Chronicles best journalists. He also wrote short stories for magazines. These were funny descriptions of people that he met. Dickens characters were full of colour and life

good people were very, very god and bad people were horrible. His books became popular in many countries and he spent a lot of time abroad, in America, Italy, and Switzerland. Dickens had ten children, but he didnt have a happy family life. He was successful in his work but not at home, and his wife left him. He never stopped writing and travelling, and he died very suddenly in 1870. Dickens novels include: The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, The Adventure of Oliver Twist, The Old Curiosity Shop, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit or A Tale of Two Cities. Charlotte Bront (1816 1855) was the eldest of the three sisters whose novels are English literature standard. Under the pen name Currer Bell she wrote Jane Eyre. Emily Bront (1818 1848) wrote just one famous novel called Wuthering Heights George Bernard Shaw (1856 1950) was an Irish playwright who wrote Pygmalion Oscar Wilde (1854 1900) was an Irish writer and poet. He wrote for example The picture of Dorian Gray, The Canterville Ghost, Lord Arthur Saviles Crime, The Happy Prince and other stories. John Galsworthy (1867 1933), a novelist and playwright who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932. His most famous novel is called The Forsyte Saga Thomas Stearns Elliot (1888 1965) Portait of a Lady James Joyce (1882 1941) an Irish writer and poet - Dubliners Virginia Woolf (1882 1941) was an English, novelist, essayist, diarist, publisher and faminist. Her most famous works include Mrs Dalloway, To the lighthouse, and Orlando. Archibald Joseph Cronin (1896 1981) wrote Hatters Castle, The Stars Look Down or The Citadel.

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