A) English Literature

By the end of the 20th century, English had become a true world language, and English literature is taught in secondary schools and universities everywhere. Famous English poets, playwrights, and novelists are quoted, translated, and loved throughout the world.

The earliest celebrated example of English literature is the bloody Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, written sometime between the 8th century and the late 10th century. The greatest English writer of the Middle Ages was Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote The Canterbury Tales in the late 14th century. This work shaped the future of the English language for centuries to come.

A great flowering of English writing took place in the late 16th century, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The themes of Englishness, love, violence, and the turmoil of human emotions were explored from a nonreligious standpoint. Poetry was considered the most polished form of literary expression. The sonnet, a poetry style that uses a formal rhyme scheme, was used by Sir Philip Sidney and William Shakespeare, who excelled at this form.

During the 18^th century the modern novel emerged as a popular form of expression. Journalist Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe (1719) and a number of other popular adventure novels. Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift authored Gulliver’s Travels (1726), a charming and biting social commentary. Bawdy and wild aspects of 18th-century life are reflected in the novel Tom Jones (1749), by writer and lawyer Henry Fielding. Writer and literary critic Samuel Johnson compiled his Dictionary of the English Language (1755).

Toward the end of the 18th century romanticism developed. The romantic movement in literature idealized nature and was characterized by a highly imaginative and subjective approach. Emotions and exotic places, both present and past, became central to countless lengthy novels and torrents of poetry. Poet William Wordsworth found his inspiration in nature, while Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Blake were inspired by mysticism. Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats wrote romantic poetry. Scottish author Sir Walter Scott, whose most famous work is Ivanhoe (1819), wrote more than 20 historical novels, many of them set in the Middle Ages. Women also made their mark as writers during the romantic period. Mary Shelley is noted for the Gothic novel Frankenstein (1818). Jane Austen wrote clever, elegant novels such as Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813). Her down-to-earth main characters were reactions against the emotionalism of romantic writers.

The Victorian era produced an amazing number of popular novelists and poets. Perhaps the most famous author of this time was Charles Dickens, who portrayed the hardships of the working class while criticizing middle-class life. Writers prominent during the heart of the Victorian period include William Makepeace Thackeray, who wrote humorous portrayals of middle- and upper-class life; the Brontë sisters - Charlotte, Emily, and Anne - whose novels tended to be autobiographical; and Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote children’s books, adventure stories, and poetry. The most popular of the many Victorian poets was Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

The novels of Thomas Hardy, H.G.Wells, and Joseph Conrad, which appeared at the turn of the 20^th century, possess a certain pessimism and uncertainty about life. The dark, psychological novels of D.H.Lawrence were censored for their explicit language; his novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) was banned as pornographic. Exotic and foreign places are the settings of works by Rudyard Kipling. Irish writer James Joyce and English novelist Virginia Woolf were instrumental in forging the new stream-of-consciousness writing style. The rich and memorable poetry of Dylan Thomas made him the greatest Welsh poet of the 20th century.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Evelyn Waugh and P.G.Wodehouse wrote novels satirizing British upper-class life. In the mid-20th century the works of George Orwell, such as Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), focused on his fears about society. Works of fantasy were written during this period in response to the horrors of World War II. J.R.R.Tolkien is famous for his fantasy novels, particularly The Hobbit (1937) and its sequel, the trilogy Lord of the Rings (1954-1955).

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English art and architecture.	\|	B) American Literature

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