Folk life in the works of English writers. English literature
Really admirable. It is based on the works of a whole galaxy of outstanding masters. No country in the world has given birth to so many outstanding masters of the word as Britain. There are numerous English classics, the list goes on for a long time: William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Daphne Du Maurier, George Orwell, John Tolkien. Are you familiar with their works?
Already in the 16th century, the British William Shakespeare earned the fame of the world's best playwright. It is curious that until now the plays of the Englishman "shaking with a spear" (this is how his surname is literally translated) are staged in theaters more often than the works of other authors. His tragedies "Hamlet", "Othello", "King Lear", "Macbeth" are universal values. Getting acquainted with his creative heritage, we recommend MANDATORY to read the philosophical tragedy "Hamlet" - about the meaning of life and moral foundations. For four hundred years now, she has headed the repertoires of the most famous theaters. It is believed that the English classics-writers began with Shakespeare.
She became famous for the classic love story "Pride and Prejudice", which introduces us to the daughter of an impoverished nobleman Elizabeth, who has a rich inner world, pride and an ironic outlook on the environment. She finds her happiness in love for the aristocrat Darcy. Paradoxically, this book with a fairly straightforward plot and a happy ending is one of the most beloved in Britain. It traditionally outstrips the works of many serious novelists in popularity. That's why it's worth reading. Like this writer, many English classics came to literature precisely at the beginning of the 18th century.
He glorified himself with his works as a deep and true connoisseur of the life of ordinary British people in the 18th century. His heroes are invariably heartfelt and convincing. The novel "Tess of the D'Urberville Family" shows the tragic fate of a simple decent woman. She commits the murder of a villainous nobleman who breaks her life in order to free herself from his persecution and find happiness. Using the example of Thomas Hardy, the reader can see that the English classics had a deep mind and a systematic view of the society around them, they saw its flaws more clearly than others, and, having ill-wishers, nevertheless courageously presented their creations for the assessment of the whole society.
She showed in her largely autobiographical novel "Jen Eyre" the emerging new morality - the principles of an educated, active, decent person who wants to serve society. The writer creates an amazingly holistic, deep image of the governess Jen Eyre, walking towards her love for Mr. Rochester, even at the cost of sacrificial service. For Bronte, inspired by her example, other English classics, not from the nobility, followed, calling on society for social justice, for an end to all discrimination against a person.
Possessed, according to the Russian classic F.M. Dostoevsky, who considered himself his student, "the instinct of universal humanity." The enormous talent of the writer created the seemingly impossible: he became famous in his early youth thanks to his very first novel, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, which was followed by the following ones - Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and others who won the writer unprecedented fame who put him on a par with Shakespeare.
William Thackeray is an innovator in the writing style of the novel. None of the classics before him turned bright, textured negative characters into the central images of their work. Moreover, as in life, often their characters were inherent in something individually positive. His outstanding work, Vanity Fair, is written in a unique spirit of intellectual pessimism mixed with subtle humor.
With her "Rebecca" in 1938 she did the impossible: she wrote the novel at a key moment when it seemed that English literature was exhausted, that everything that was possible had already been written, that the English classics were "over." Having not received decent works for a long time, the English reading audience was interested, delighted with the unique, unpredictable plot of her novel. The opening phrase of this book has become winged. Be sure to read this book of one of the world's best psychic imaging masters!
George Orwell will amaze you with the merciless truth. He wrote his famous novel 1984 as a powerful, universal, incriminating weapon against all dictatorships, present and future. His creative method is borrowed from another great Englishman - Swift.
The novel "1984" is a parody of the dictatorship society, which has finally trampled on universal human values. He denounced and called to account for its anti-humanity the ugly model of socialism, in fact, becoming a dictatorship of the leaders. The man is extremely sincere and uncompromising, he endured poverty and hardship, having passed away early - at the age of 46.
And how can you not love the "Lord of the Rings" professor This real miraculous and surprisingly harmonious temple of the epic of England? The work brings to its readers deeply humanistic and it is no coincidence that Frodo destroys the ring on March 25 - the day of the Ascension. The creative and competent writer showed discernment: all his life he was indifferent to politics and parties, dearly loved "good old England", was a classic British bourgeoisie.
The list goes on and on. I apologize to the dear readers who plucked up the courage to read this article for not including, due to limited volumes, the worthy Walter Scott, Ethel Lillian Voynich, Daniel Defoe, Lewis Carroll, James Aldridge, Bernard Shaw and, believe me, many, many others. English classical literature is a huge and interesting layer of achievements of human culture and spirit. Do not deny yourself the pleasure of getting to know her.
English literature has a number of specific features, which are generated by the originality of the culture, social and political development of the country. This is in the 19th century. determined the problems of literature and the forms that it took. The novelists of England, namely the novel in the first place develops at this stage, were looking for their heroes not among bankers, aristocrats, those who sought to make a career, as in France, - their heroes were also small owners, like J. Eliot (“The Mill on Flosse "), and even workers, like E. Gaskell (" Mary Barton ") or Charles Dickens (" Hard Times ").
But social protest in English literature, in contrast to French, manifests itself differently. The year 1641, when the king was executed and a constitutional monarchy was created, changed the state system of the country. The topic of violent regime change is absent in English literature, since there are no new Dantons or Cromwells, although the extremism of hungry workers sometimes leads to attempts on those in power. For English political life, the problems of unemployment and electoral reform, "bread laws" that generate hunger for the poor and wealth of the owners of estates, are becoming urgent. The poetry of the Chartists carries rebellious sentiments. One of the first places in this series is taken by T. Goode's poems, in particular, those quoted in the introductory chapter; poems by C.J. Rossetti are dedicated to the hardest plight of the workers.
Judicial reform, like the reform of the education system, turns out to be especially relevant for English society. As E. Sayo wrote: "Until 1832 in England, it never entered anyone's head to organize a state system of tsarist education." The theme of the school, like the theme of personality education, has become one of the central in English literature. The genre of the "upbringing novel" developed especially intensively in England.
Scientific discoveries give birth to a new type of thinking. "Foundations of Geology" (1830-1833) by Charles Lyell, as well as "The Rudiments of Creation" (1844) by R. Chambers, testified to the continuity of the development of the animal and plant world. Charles Darwin's book "The Origin of Species by Natural Selection" (1859) revolutionized the minds of not only the British, for its conclusions contradicted the Bible.
The teachings of the economists I. Bentham, D. Mill, J. S. Mill, J. B. Say were aimed at explaining the laws of society.
A. Smith was the first to draw attention to the fact that the basis of the well-being of a country is not stocks of money, but the products of human labor. The question of the working person became on the agenda. They solved it in different ways, sometimes under the influence of the socialists A.C. Saint-Simon and C. Fourier. Of particular importance were the works of Robert Owen (1771 - 1858), who, in his work "A New Look at Society, or Experiments on the Principles of Human Character Education" (1813-1816), based on the belief in the possibility of improving the human personality, assumed that the rich would come to help the poor and create conditions capable of eliminating such a sharp division of classes.
The desire of the oppressed masses to achieve a change in their position leads to the drafting of the Charter. The English word charter gave the name to the political movement of workers in the first half of the century. The charter was written with the participation of Owen's followers, and the peak of Chartism was 1848. It was then that the confrontation between the rich and the poor sometimes takes on especially sharp forms: in the novel "Mary Barton" the strikers decide to kill the owner. The extreme tension of the situation is reflected in the novel by Dickens "Hard Times". The literature of England at this stage included unemployment and workhouses ("Oliver Twist" by Dickens), nicknamed prisons for the poor (vagrants were forcibly placed there, and vagrancy was punishable by law - remember poor Joe from "Bleak House"!), Schools where children are beaten , and they do not teach, and if they do teach, then that which is very far from life ("Nicholas Nickleby" by Dickens, "Jane Eyre" by S. Bronte).
The problems of unemployment and hunger gave rise to the problem of overpopulation, surplus labor. The priest TR Malthus, out of the most noble motives, came to the conclusion that it was necessary to reduce the birth rate in the families of the poor, and to those who could not get a job in their homeland, he offered to move to the colonies. However, his ideas were met with indignation by the majority of society ("The Bells" and "Bleak House" by Charles Dickens).
One more feature of English life should be noted, without which the style of English realism will not be fully understood. The 19th century is the century of discoveries of archaeologists who reconstructed the past on the basis of objects discovered by them, first of all by G. Schliemann. Troy and Babylon received their rebirth precisely in this age. Attention to the material world for the first time acquired special significance in the work of W. Scott, but the novels of the period under study (primarily by Charles Dickens) are inconceivable without descriptions of the space in which the heroes live: it becomes a means of characterizing a person.
The period from 1837 to 1902 in England is called Victorian, because during these long years the country was ruled by Queen Victoria. Victorian literature was distinguished by the desire to safely resolve conflicts, although in the works themselves life situations remained extremely tense; Victorianism is characterized by a belief in the inviolability of moral laws.
The origins of 19th century realism should be sought in the works of the writers of the previous century. The works of G. Fielding "The Story of Jonathan Wilde the Great" and "The Story of Tom Jones, the Foundling" reproduced real life pictures, forced to see the hidden ulcers of the world. The comic beginning of his work was primarily developed by Dickens, as well as by E. Trollope. “The Journey of Humphrey Klinker” by T. Smollett, where comic scenes are no less significant, opened up the possibility of polyphony, and therefore ambiguity, requiring the reader's reflections, because the narration on behalf of several characters created a “three-dimensional” picture, depriving it of moral one-lineness.
The psychology of S. Richardson's novels is developed in the works of J. Austen, and then in S. Bronte, J. Eliot, E. Trollope, late Dickens and Thackeray. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the influence of the social orientation of the novels of W. Godwin, who depicted the life of people from the very bottom of society.
W. Scott, who drew attention to the relationship between the personality and its time, considered it necessary to convey the character of the character, describing the objective world around him, also laid the foundations for the next stage of English literature. Romantic literature, using complex philosophical symbolism (ST Coleridge, P.B.Shelley), more deeply revealed the ideas of the work. Romantic contrasts, unusual situations and characters also had a noticeable impact on the literature of the 1830s and 1860s.
One of the peculiarities of English literature is that there are many talented women among its writers: the Brontë sisters, J. Eliot, E. Gaskell. This creates a specific tonality, manifested in special attention to female psychology, to family and family relations, where the theme of love, its joys, mistakes and sacrifices occupies a significant place, although the most acute social contradictions attract the attention of women writers no less than men.
Connections of the creative consciousness of writers and artists in England in the 1830s - 1860s. help to more fully represent the life of the country.
They go through a number of significant stages, revealing the evolution of art, subject to changes in public interests.
John Constable (1776-1837) in the 1830s seeks new ways: he depicts the Cathedral in Salisbury from different angles, anticipating the discoveries of the Impressionists.
William Turner (1775-1851), not without the influence of the industrial revolution of the middle of the century, creates the painting "Rain, Steam and Speed" (1844), introducing a steam locomotive rushing across a bridge into a landscape with blurred forms. Previously, only ships could appear in his paintings.
Man and his spiritual life as early as the 18th century. found their embodiment in portraiture. Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) and Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) preserved on their canvases the spiritual image of the British of that time. At the end of the century, Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) became one of the most famous portrait masters, who developed the traditions of his famous predecessors and experienced some influence of romanticism: the faces of the British in his paintings help to understand the life of the country at the turn of the century.
William Hogarth (1697-1764) was a master of caricature. Broken lines in his paintings convey the lack of harmony in the life of society and the tragic essence of the existence of an individual. Its tradition was developed by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) and James Gilray (1757-1815). Without taking into account this trend in English art, it is difficult to imagine illustrators of Dickens's novels (J. Crookshank, first of all), and satirical figures created by the writer himself.
The novels of English writers introduce the reader to the world of ordinary people, so genre painting is of particular interest. David Wilkie's (1785 - 1841) painting The First Earrings (1835) is devoid of social content: an elderly lady with glasses pierces an ear for a pretty young girl. The girl is scared and at the same time she understands that this is already an entry into such a tempting "adult" life.
The purpose of genre painting was seen in satisfying the needs of the bourgeois and the bourgeois, but it conveys the everyday life that became the content of the works of English realists.
Within the framework of Victorianism, the so-called "medieval revival" is developing, which is essentially associated with post-romanticism. But unlike the art of romanticism at this stage, the Middle Ages, while remaining an ideal time, because they saw the basis of spirituality in them, are also perceived as a period of the highest development of art filled with a high spirit. The early Renaissance, pre-Raphaelian, seems to be free of canons, and Raphael is recognized as the pinnacle of the Renaissance - his followers see only the use of his discoveries. The "Medieval Revival" is reflected in painting and poetry.
The most significant phenomenon in art was the emergence of the Pre-Raphaelite group. In 1848, the students of the Royal Academy of Arts, the youngest of whom was 19, and the oldest 21 years old, abandoning the canons of the Academy, founded their own union. It included seven people: they were not alien to the mystics, and the number seven acquired a special meaning for them. The name of the union is associated with the name of Raphael Santi (1483-1520), but Sandro Botticelli (1444-1510), the author of the Annunciation, was one of those who, according to the Pre-Raphaelites, created true masterpieces. They were especially close to the ideas of the early Renaissance about the "anthropomorphism of the world around man" and "the cosmic nature of man in the original, Greek meaning of this word, that is, his divine beauty as an expression of the absolute harmony of external and internal, bodily and spiritual, beautiful and kind" 1. Petrarch's thought that "love is an all-encompassing, pure, youthful feeling that naturally and very humanly idealizes a woman" became one of the postulates of the Pre-Raphaelites.
William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) were the instigators of the movement. In their work, the Pre-Raphaelites wanted to convey the truth of feelings, individual movements of the soul.
Walking in something behind Constable, the Pre-Raphaelites believed that every bush, every leaf, no matter how far from the foreground of the picture, should be painted with extreme precision. They looked for opportunities to capture an unusual play of light in their paintings, tried to convey on their canvases all the bright colors of life, so they sometimes turned to the exoticism of the East, to knightly times. But the Pre-Raphaelites faced not only purely artistic tasks: they were convinced that art should awaken high feelings, educate a person. Therefore, in their paintings there were frequent biblical subjects or open moralizing in genre scenes. Allegory and symbol, as well as at the stage of the early Renaissance, created the deep meanings of the works.
For the first time, the Pre-Raphaelites declared themselves at the exhibition in 1849. The first paintings by John Everett Millais (182 ^ -1896) and W. X. Hunt, in many them thematically connected with romanticism, were met calmly. The scandal arose after the appearance of Milles' paintings "Christ in the parental home" and Rossetti "Annunciation"
(both 1850). The artists were accused of simplifying and reducing the pathos of the Gospel text. The painting by Milles depicts the workshop of the carpenter Joseph, with an instrument in his dirty hands, he bent over his work table, under which shavings lie, and little Jesus in a nightgown, with a sleepy face, fell to Mary, tenderly, humanly, kissing his barely awakened child ... The Annunciation takes the viewer into a poor house, where Mary sits in a nightgown, covered with a plain white sheet, and an angel brings her the news of her chosenness. The girl's face is scared and self-absorbed. This is not a canonical image of the Virgin Mary, but a picture from the life of an ordinary person, who opens his unusual path. Even Charles Dickens was outraged by such a simplification of biblical stories. Only the intercession of the most prominent and authoritative critic D. Ruskin made society see the significance of a new type of art.
The exhibition of 1852, where Hunt's paintings "The Hired Shepherd" and Milles's "Ophelia" were presented, forced to recognize the emergence of a new trend in painting.
Hunt's Hired Shepherd (1851) opens a series of Pre-Raphaelite genre paintings in which edification is conveyed with an almost allegorical unambiguity. In the painting Awakened Shame (1853), he depicts a young man lounging in an armchair, and a woman, frightened and alarmed, who breaks out of his embrace. On the carpet, a black cat is about to catch a bird, a dirty glove is lying nearby, on the wall you can see a part of the picture with the title "A Woman Caught in Adultery". Both works are distinguished by a bright festive flavor. So, in the painting "Awakened Shame" all the details, right down to the button, the cuff on the man's sleeve or the hairs of the cat's whiskers, are written out very clearly. The picture is overloaded with pieces of furniture that help to understand the social position of the characters and the nature of their interests.
In the first of them, Jesus Christ is depicted with a lantern in his hands near a simple house. The artist has departed from the canon. Night illumination creates a special effect: the light comes from the face of Christ, the lantern in the hand enhances the symbolic meaning of what is depicted. In the spirit of the Pre-Raphaelites, the artist pays special attention to the play of light spots, carefully recreates every leaf of a climbing plant and every bend of its trunk; the clothes of the protagonist are written out in the same detail.
D.G. Rossetti. Annunciation
In 1854, Hunt took a trip to the Holy Land, where he borrowed the plot of the second picture. It was custom among the Jews to take on a certain day two goats, one of which was sacrificed, and the other was driven into the wilderness. It was he who was called the "scapegoat" - with him, abandoned to perish on the deserted shore of the Dead Sea, the sins of the people who committed this ritual act were forgiven. The pose of a goat in Hunt, the expression of his eyes, which can rather be called human, the lying skeletons of previously dead animals, the lifelessness of the water and mountains around create the symbolic meaning of the picture, which was supposed to turn the viewer's thought and feeling to the suffering of Christ for the sins of people, to ingratitude and cruelty crucified him.
D.E. Milles became famous for Ophelia (1852), which he wrote with Elizabeth Siddell, forcing the girl to lie in a cold bath,
to more accurately convey all the shades on the face of the drowning Ophelia. Fidelity to nature was also observed in how clearly each leaf and blade of grass was drawn, how Ophelia's clothes flowed, falling into the water, and in the fact that the artist depicted a robin about which Shakespeare's heroine sang. The overload of details of the second plan, loyalty to nature and the unity of the model with it, so characteristic of the Pre-Raphaelites, manifested themselves especially strongly in this picture; she became, as it were, the standard of this trend.
Millee spoke with his paintings about the burning problems of his contemporaries. “Trust me” is an assertion of a girl's right to full confidence in her moral principles on the part of her father. The picture can be classified as genre paintings with special attention to the details of everyday life and furnishings.
The bond between the first seven members of the fraternity broke up by 1852, each of them went his own way. In 1857 a new group of seven was formed; it included William Morris (1834-1896), a connoisseur of culture and art, artist, book designer, patron of applied arts, preacher of the ideas of socialism. A figure of its kind, universal, he created a workshop where new members of the circle worked, Edward Burne-Jones (1833 - 1896), Ford Madox Brown (1821 - 1893), as well as D.G. Rossetti, who, after criticizing his first paintings, more did not exhibit, but continued his activity as an artist, although his poems were becoming more and more important.
F. M. Brown, who sympathized with the socialists, created the painting "Labor" (1852-1865), where he found a place for workers of various
confessions, philosophers, and even a lady distributing brochures. A special place in Brown's work is "Farewell to England" (1852 - 1855): the theme of the emigration of the disadvantaged, lost hope, who rush to the colonies, found here its tragic embodiment. All the grief, all the torment of these people is embodied in the postures and expression of the eyes of the two central fiiurs - a man and a woman. The fact that the poor have gathered on a distant and unknown journey is evidenced by the clothes of the characters and their luggage. This topic will appear more than once in Dickens, but the objective world is written out by Brown no less carefully than in the novels of this writer.
Gradually, the rebellion of the Pre-Raphaelites lost its sharpness, the technique of their painting approached the requirements that the members of the Academy were seeking - Millee himself became one of them.
Thus, English painting of the middle of the century touches both thematically (modern man and his concerns) and aesthetically with the realistic course of this period: there is the same desire to "fit" a person into the world around him, depicted with all the details inherent in him, as in literature (but in the second case it is primarily the world of the city, at home). The ways of conveying reality - allegoricality and symbolism, sometimes edification, the world of the Middle Ages and its legends, which attracted the Pre-Raphaelites - will be reflected in the poetry of post-romanticists.
Literature of England
England can be considered, to a certain extent, the ancestral home of romanticism. The early bourgeois development there also gave rise to the first anti-bourgeois aspirations characteristic of romantics. Over the course of the previous century, many essential features of the romantic outlook were outlined in English literature: ironic self-esteem, anti-rationalism, ideas about the "inexplicable", craving for "antiquity." The impetus for the emergence of English romanticism was both outside and inside events - an industrial revolution took place in England at this time. Its consequences were not only the replacement of the spinning wheel with a loom, and muscle power with a steam engine, but also profound social changes: the disappearance of the peasantry, the emergence of the industrial proletariat, the establishment of the bourgeoisie as "masters of life."
For about half a century, three generations of romantics have changed in English literature. The older ones are represented by Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Walter Scott; middle - Byron, Shelley, Keats; the younger is Carlyle. Internal distinctions in English romanticism go mainly along socio-political lines, English romantics are distinguished by the unity of aspirations, which puts them in the position of people who constantly resist the passage of time.
Along with the socio-historical prerequisites, the appeal to the traditions of oral poetry was of particular importance for the formation of English romanticism. A huge role in awakening the interest of English romantics in folklore was played by the publication in 1765. Thomas Percy (1729-1811) the collection "Monuments of Old English Poetry", which included various examples of English folk ballads. Subsequently, the publication of Percy had an impact on Walter Scott, the poets of the "lake school" and Keats. Interest in folklore gave rise to imitations and hoaxes. The so-called "Poems of Ossian", composed by a Scotsman, gained European fame James Macpherson (1736-1796) ... Macpherson, who studied Scottish folklore, used some motives and names to create his works. The bard Ossian was declared their author, and MacPherson called himself a translator. The authenticity of the poems, published from 1760 to 1765, was repeatedly questioned, but this did not prevent their success. Instead of the classical mythology ordered by the classicists, MacPherson introduced readers to the hazy and ghostly world of the North. The mystery and vague outlines, melancholy, which form the lyrical basis of the poems, later became the property of romanticism. In the 19th century, "Poems of Ossian" will pay tribute to Byron.
The first striking phenomenon in English romanticism was creativity William Blake (1757-1827) ... In drawings and verses, which he did not print, but, like drawings, engraved, Blake created his own special world. From an early age, he talked about wonderful visions in broad daylight, and in later years he said that he talked with Christ, Socrates and Dante. Blake's goal as an artist and poet was to create a distinctive mythology based on pagan and Christian components. The task of this particular religion was a general synthesis. Blake wanted to unite heaven and earth, and to make a deified person the crown of faith. Blake became famous for the works created in the 18th century: "Songs of Innocence" (1789), "Songs of Experience" (1794), "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" (1790). “In an instant to see eternity and the sky - in the cup of a flower” is the central idea of Blake's lyrics. In every grain of sand, he strove to see the reflection of the spiritual essence. Therefore, all Blake's activities were a protest against empiricism, the leading tradition of British thinking. In his poems there is a lot that is in tune with the romantics: universalism, pantheism, the desire for an all-embracing spiritual comprehension of the world. Nevertheless. Blake did not meet with the understanding of his contemporaries, who considered such mystical symbolism excessive.
The recognized pioneers of English romanticism were William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) , founders and leaders of the "lake school" or "leukism" (English lake - lake). As often happens, the name was given by opponents (Wordsworth settled in his homeland, in Cumberland - the edge of the lakes) and contained a mockery of the excessive verbosity of the works of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey, who was ranked among the "Lakeists". Nevertheless, the "lake school" as a certain spiritual kinship existed - all English romantics were guided by it in one way or another.
The establishment of Wordsworth's poetic reputation began after Lyric Ballads (1798), published jointly with Coleridge. The foreword to the collection, written by Wordsworth, became a manifesto of romanticism in poetry. Wordsworth demanded to bring the language of poetry closer to lively colloquial speech, abandoning rhetorical embellishments and poetic conventions. Only such a poetic language could become a means of conveying emotions and moods. Wordsworth put feeling so above reason that he saw the most complete expression of "natural" humanity in children and mentally disabled people, for they, in his opinion, express feelings in the purest and most direct way.
Wordsworth believed that poetry is more capable of knowing life than science, for it penetrates deeper into the essence of nature and the human soul, since poetic art “also absorbs what science gives, but all knowledge must be spiritualized, and without poetry it cannot to be achieved. "
The image of the poet presented by Wordsworth also became romantic. The poet is distinguished by the speed of thought, the power of passion, but above all, by the sense of unity with world life. The romantic poet does not divide the world into separate elements, unlike the classicists and enlighteners, but sees the universe as an organic whole, a huge living being. People have a sense of unity with nature, and through it - with the whole world. The poet feels more strongly than others what others are able to feel, and has a special gift with the greatest expressiveness to embody the vision of the world in artistic images.
A special creative merit of Wordsworth was that he seemed to speak in poetry - without visible tension and generally accepted poetic conventions. “We wanted to present ordinary things in unusual lighting,” Coleridge explained. The Lyrical Ballads opened with Coleridge's The Tale of the Old Sailor and Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey, the primary works of poets that became an epoch-making phenomenon. Unlike previous eras, poets painted not only what they saw and thought, but wanted to capture the very process of experiencing. Wordsworth did not need any special "poetic" conditions to find poetry in any phenomenon. The poet portrayed an unassuming life in his poems, calling from the crowded cities to the eternal peace of nature, in which a characteristic romantic denial of rationalistic "progress" was manifested.
Coleridge's leading poetic thought is about the constant presence in life of the inexplicable, mysterious, incomprehensible. Psychologism became the poet's creative contribution to the development of romantic literature. All pictorial means - from verbal colors to the author's commentary - are used for expressive reproduction of experiences, be they hallucinations or purely physical sensations, while each state of mind is transmitted in dynamics. The influence of Coleridge in the formation of the genre of romantic confession is especially noticeable.
General romantic ideas about the "inexplicable" are tested in the best works Roberta Southey (1774-1849) ... His career began with ballads dedicated to the destinies of the destitute (Complaints of the Poor, The Funeral of a Beggar). Using folklore and semi-folklore subjects as the basis of his works, Southey focused on the "miraculous". Thus, the protagonist of the ballad “The Judgment of God over the Bishop” (1799), known in the translation of VA Zhukovsky, is waiting for the judgment of higher powers for his avarice. The appeal to “antiquity” did not save her, however, an ironic assessment (as, for example, in the ballad “The Battle of Blenheim (1798), the official and genuine pictures of the battle that went down in history collide).
Unlike the romantics, who dreamed of the past, with which they had no successive connection, the Scottish Baronett Walter Scott (1771-1832) rightfully considered history to be a kind of part of national history. In addition, through self-education, he acquired extensive historical and ethnographic knowledge. Scott's legacy is great: a volume of poems (including his most remarkable ballads - "Castle Smalholm", 1802; "Marmion", 1808; "Two Lakes", 1810), 41 volumes of novels and stories, an extensive epistolary heritage. His historical novels are divided according to national themes into two groups: "Scottish" - of which the most important are "The Puritans" (1816), Rob Roy (1818)- and "English" ( Ivanhoe, 1819; Kenilworth, 1821, and others). Some novels are based on the history of other countries ("Quentin Dorward", 1823; "Count Robert of Paris", 1832), but still their plots intersect with English history.
Concreteness is what distinguishes Scott's novels from the "foggy antiquity" of other romantics. These differences were emphasized by the author himself. For example, the epigraph for Rob Roy is taken from Wordsworth's ballad. But if for the poet this name was an emblem and a half-tale, then Scott depicts the "old days" in all details and draws conclusions about it. To the fullest extent of his artistic possibilities, Scott tried to comprehend the life of the people, and through it - the general patterns in the change of times and customs.
It should be noted the general artistic features of Scott's novels, which have become canonical. First of all, the presence of a narrator - almost faceless, but constantly present: he literally conveys the past, serves as a link between the past and the future.
In novels about the recent past, the narrative is all the more presented to the reader as an oral truth about past affairs. The writer avoided parallels between past and present; the past is not a parallel, but precedence, the source of modernity. Drawing on the experience of Shakespeare and Dafoe, Scott did a lot in his own way. So, he changed the ratio in the arrangement of fictional and real characters: the foreground and most of the narrative are occupied by fictional figures. If Shakespeare followed the plot of the legend, then Scott created the event outline himself, presenting the legendary heroes anew. The author has created over 2.5 thousand characters, subordinated to one task: to create a convincing story of human destinies within a certain era. In other words, the goal was to show why "people of past centuries acted this way and not otherwise under the pressure of circumstances and political passions." The way in which characters and circumstances are created in Scott's historical novels will be perceived by the 19th century historical novel.
Next to Walter Scott, as his reader, admirer, and then friend, will stand George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) , a major figure in both English and European romanticism. In the fate of Byron, the same situation was repeated, which later became the core of all his work: trampled dignity, disfigured beauty, fettered strength, a sense of loneliness among loved ones. Defining the features that amazed contemporaries in Byron's poetry, Lermontov emphasized "a sad, unaccountable tone, an outburst of passions and inspirations." Unaccountable sadness, doubts, a rush to nowhere - all these common features of romantic poetry were expressed in Byron's work with special force. Already in the first poems of the poet, the appearance of a lyrical hero appears, who possesses a mixed feeling of wounded pride, thirst for life and early bitterness.
Poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (early 1809, ed. 1812-1818), which made Byron famous, took shape without a preliminary plan, so the fragmentation of the poem was at first the most direct. Then, as the poem was being worked on, “fragmentation” became a consciously observed compositional and stylistic feature. The author acquired the ability to freely transition from the epic to the lyric and back. The narration becomes unconstrained, which makes it possible, in abundant author's digressions, to address a variety of issues - from historical and philosophical to deeply personal.
According to the genre "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" is a travel diary, which, as it were, is kept by the author and the main character at the same time. However, after the first stanzas explaining the fate and state of mind of the hero, he becomes only a name. It is pushed aside by the author himself - more precisely, the distance between the author and the hero is not observed at all. The author's attitude to the hero can be very different: from sympathetic to condescending. Byron became one of the founders of indirect self-observation, which would then be cultivated by romantic poets.
Equally important for the development of both English and European romanticism have become "Oriental poems" ("Gyaur", "The Abydos Bride", "Corsair", "The Siege of Corinth" and close to them in spirit "Larra" and "Parisina"). It was in them that the appearance of a true "Byronic" hero was formed - it was no coincidence that Pushkin called Byron "the singer of Giaur". The conflict in each poem is created by the special position of the central character. This is a bright, colorful and mysterious figure who is in constant solitude, even among people (like, for example, Konrad in "Le Corsaire"). The inner forces of such a hero are aimed at achieving one goal - as a rule, revenge for outraged love. Such a hero remains faithful to only one oath, is able to experience "one, but fiery passion." Ultimately, any motivation for the hero's actions is weak - he is possessed by a spirit that does not know reconciliation and does not give in to reason. Talking about the "inexplicable", Byron, unlike Walter Scott, looks not at history, but at individuality. Recreating the oriental flavor, the poet pushes it aside with a stream of emotions: be it the Adriatic coast or Lake Geneva, the reader sees the same seething passions that are cramped in any time and space. Thanks to "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" and "Oriental Poems", the concept of "Byronic type" "with its immoral soul, / Self-loving and dry, / Immensely betrayed dream, / With his embittered mind, / Boiling empty in action", enters world literature. as described by Pushkin in the 7th chapter of "Eugene Onegin". The influence of this tradition spread to many countries and made itself felt at least until the 40s of the XIX century.
Changes in the position of the "Byronic" hero occur in poetic dramas. In poems, the hero is in conflict for a long time, before the beginning of the work. The spiritual state of the protagonist of the poetic drama Manfred (1817) is still characterized by restlessness and dissatisfaction, but they become even more inexplicable. In his auto-commentary to Manfred, the author emphasized that the reasons for this condition should remain unclear. But even this "inexplicability" is revealed as the obsolescence of the soul.
Self-destructive motive builds up in tragedy Cain (1821)... The protagonist's rebellion is not only a rebellion against human laws, but against a person as God's creation. Equality of evil and good - this is what Lucifer speaks to Cain, who appears in the poem as a disturber of consciousness, leaving the hero in a state of truly Cain's emptiness.
The hero of the last work of Byron - a poem Don Juan (1818-1823, unfinished)- emphatically faceless. Unlike his literary prototypes, Byron's Don Juan does not subjugate hearts and circumstances, but himself, obeying them, follows from Spain to Turkey, from Russia to England. The author is relentlessly beside him, boldly intruding into the narrative with his comments. The brightness of the event background - no longer fantastic, but emphatically reliable - is achieved due to the expressiveness of concrete everyday details and persons, thus a transition to the realism of characters and circumstances is outlined. This largest work of Byron will play a significant role in world literature, having responded in many outstanding works of the era - for example, "Eugene Onegin".
Despite the short and unsettled life, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) left a rich and varied creative heritage: poems, poems, poetic dramas, a treatise on poetry, political pamphlets, diaries. Sublime idealism became the pathos of his work. Shelley's lyrics - "a hymn to intellectual beauty" (the title of the poem of the same name in 1817) In such poems, the poet did not just talk about the spiritual, but inspired the world around him with verses, addressing his beloved ("To Mary"), to friends and the forces of nature ("Ode west wind ”), reflecting fleeting experiences (“ Wanderers of the World ”,“ Good Night ”). Shelley's political lyrics ("Song of the Irish", "Song to the People of England") are also distinguished by sublime and spirituality - it is not for nothing that the leaders of the first organizationally formed labor movement - Chartism - saw the poet as their inspirer. In his poems (Queen Mab, 1813; Prometheus Unleashed, 1819; The Rise of Islam, 1818), resorting to conventionally allegorical images, the poet strove to show the severity of the conflict between personality and society. At the same time, Shelley did not call back to nature and simplification, but preached the ability of man to resist and fight.
The third largest poet of this generation - John Keats (1795-1821) - by his radical political views was close to Byron and Shelley. During his short, sickly life, Keats managed to publish almost all of the main things he created, primarily the collections of poems from 1817 and 1820, which included sonnets, odes, ballads and poems. Keats' lyrics are a characteristic of romantics capturing states of mind and heart. The reasons for writing a poem are innumerable, brought to the surface by the course of life. This includes reading the Iliad, singing a nightingale, and receiving a friendly letter. Poetic introspection is sometimes directly declared the theme of a poem (sonnet "On the occasion of the first reading of Homer in Chapman's translation"). "I believe that poetry should surprise as a graceful extreme, but not as something exceptional, - said Keats, - it should amaze the reader as a verbal expression of his own most lofty thoughts, should feel like a memory."
Everyone knows the plot of Daniel Defoe's novel. However, the book contains many other interesting details about the organization of Robinson's life on the island, his biography, and internal experiences. If you ask a person who has not read the book to describe the character of Robinson, he is unlikely to cope with this task.
In the mass consciousness, Crusoe is a smart character without character, feelings and history. In the novel, the image of the protagonist is revealed, which allows you to look at the plot from a different angle.
Why you need to read
To get to know one of the most famous adventure novels and find out who Robinson Crusoe really was.
Swift does not openly challenge society. As a true Englishman, he does it correctly and witty. His satire is so subtle that Gulliver's Travels can be read like an ordinary fairy tale.
Why you need to read
For children, Swift's novel is a fun and unusual adventure story. Adults need to read it in order to get acquainted with one of the most famous art satyrs.
This novel, though not the most outstanding in artistic terms, is definitely a landmark in the history of literature. Indeed, in many ways, he predetermined the development of the scientific genre.
But this is not just entertainment reading. It raises the problem of the relationship between the creator and creation, God and man. Who is responsible for creating the creature destined to suffer?
Why you need to read
To get acquainted with one of the main works of science fiction, as well as to feel the difficult problems that are often lost in film adaptations.
It is difficult to single out the best Shakespeare play. There are at least five of them: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth. The unique style and deep understanding of life's contradictions made Shakespeare's works an immortal classic, relevant at all times.
Why you need to read
To begin to understand poetry, literature and life. And also to find the answer to the question, which is still better: to be or not to be?
The main theme of early 19th century English literature was social criticism. Thackeray in his novel denounces contemporary society with the ideals of success and material enrichment. To be in society means to be sinful - roughly this is Thackeray's conclusion regarding his social environment.
After all, the successes and joys of yesterday lose their meaning when the well-known (albeit unknown) tomorrow dawns ahead, over which sooner or later all of us will have to ponder.
Why you need to read
To learn to relate easier to life and the opinions of others. After all, everyone in society is infected with "fairground ambitions" that have no real value.
The language of the novel is beautiful, and the dialogues are exemplary of English wit. Oscar Wilde is a subtle psychologist, which is why his characters turned out to be so complex and multifaceted.
This book is about human vice, cynicism, the difference between the beauty of the soul and body. If you think about it, then to some extent each of us is Dorian Gray. Only we do not have a mirror on which sins would be imprinted.
Why you need to read
To enjoy the awesome language of Britain's wittiest writer, to see how much the morality can be out of line, and to get a little better. Wilde's work is a spiritual portrait not only of his era, but of all mankind.
The ancient Greek myth about a sculptor who fell in love with his creation takes on a new, socially significant sound in Bernard Shaw's play. What should a work feel towards its author if this work is a person? How can it relate to the creator - the one who made him in accordance with his ideals?
Why you need to read
This is the most famous play by Bernard Shaw. It is often performed in theaters. According to many critics, "Pygmalion" is a landmark work of English drama.
A generally recognized masterpiece of English literature, familiar to many from cartoons. Who does not hear Kaa's lingering hiss at the mention of Mowgli: "Human cub ..."?
Why you need to read
In adulthood, hardly anyone will take up The Jungle Book. A person has only one childhood to enjoy the creation of Kipling and appreciate it. Therefore, be sure to introduce your children to the classics! They will be grateful to you.
And again, a Soviet cartoon comes to mind. It's really good, and the dialogues are almost entirely taken from the book. However, the images of the characters and the general mood of the story are different in the original source.
Stevenson's novel is realistic and rather harsh in places. But this is a kind adventure work that every child and adult will gladly read. Boarding, sea wolves, wooden legs - the marine theme beckons and attracts.
Why you need to read
Because it's fun and exciting. In addition, the novel is disassembled into quotes that everyone is obliged to know.
Interest in the deductive abilities of the great detective is still great thanks to the huge number of film adaptations. Many people are familiar with the classic detective story only from films. But there are many adaptations, and there is only one collection of stories, but what a!
Why you need to read
H.G. Wells was in many ways a pioneer in the fantasy genre. Before him, people were not at enmity with, he was the first to write about time travel. Without the Time Machine, we would not have seen the movie Back to the Future or the cult series Doctor Who.
They say that all life is a dream, and besides, it’s a nasty, pitiful, short dream, although there’s no other dream anyway.
Why you need to read
To look at the birth of many science fiction ideas that have become popular in modern culture.
It remains one of the most important sources of the ancient history of England until 731. Bede carefully and critically selected sources for his story.
For chronology, Bede's work "De sex aetatibus mundi" is important, in which he first introduced the chronology of Dionysius the Small before and after the birth of Christ, which was later adopted in most medieval chronicles.
Christian writers left a large number of works in which biblical and legendary subjects were processed; the writings of Kadmon differ between them, as well as those attributed to Cinevulf. We must also mention the translations of psalms, hymns, the processing in verse of the works of Boethius, etc.
Among the prose works, the most ancient are collections of laws that date back to the 7th century. (Cf. Schmid, "Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen. In der Ursprache mit Uebersetzungen usw" (Leipz, 1832; 2nd ed. 1858). From writings of a historical nature, we know the free translation of Orosius and the church history of Bede, made by Alfred, and also the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, containing the time before 1164 and preserved in numerous copies.
Theology includes: Alfred's translation of the Cura pastoralis, written by Gregory; Werfert's reworking of Gregory's Dialogue, then a rich collection of sermons by Elfric, the Ensgam abbot who lived at the end of the 10th and 11th centuries; further here belong the translations of the Holy Scriptures in West Saxon and North Umbrian dialects.
From the ancient collections of proverbs and sayings, once very popular among the Anglo-Saxons, some have also come down to us.
Stories and novels have been preserved in the form of a narrative about Apollonius of Tire, letters of Alexander the Great to Aristotle, and others.
The greatest English writer of the 14th century was Geoffrey Chaucer (-), the author of the famous Canterbury Tales. Chaucer simultaneously ends the Anglo-Norman era and opens the history of new English literature.
All the richness and variety of thoughts and feelings, the subtlety and complexity of emotional experiences that characterize the previous era, he gave expression in English, completing the experience of the past and grasping the aspirations of the future. Among the English dialects, he established the dominance of the London dialect, the language spoken in this large shopping center, where the king's residence and both universities were located.
But he was not the only founder of the new English language. Chaucer did a common cause with his famous contemporary John Wyclif (-). Wyclif adheres to the accusatory literature directed against the clergy, but he, the predecessor of the Reformation, goes further, translates the Bible into English, appeals to the people in his struggle against the papacy. Wyclif and Chaucer, by their literary activities, arouse interest in the earthly nature of man, in personality.
In the next century, there was a great interest in living folk poetry, which already existed in the 13th and 14th centuries. But in the 15th century, this poetry shows a particularly active life, and the oldest examples of it, preserved to our time, belong to this century. Ballads about Robin Hood were very popular.
The language of Shakespeare's early plays is the language common to the plays of this period. This stylized language does not always allow the playwright to reveal his characters. Poetry is often overloaded with complex metaphors and sentences, and language is more conducive to the declamation of the text than to live play. For example, solemn speeches "Titus Andronicus" often slows down action, according to some critics; character language "Two people of Verona" seems unnatural.
Soon, however, Shakespeare begins to adapt the traditional style for his own purposes. Initial soliloquium from "Richard III" goes back to self-talk of Vice, a traditional character in medieval drama. At the same time, Richard's vivid monologues would later develop into monologues in Shakespeare's later plays. All pieces mark the transition from the traditional style to the new. Throughout his further career, Shakespeare unites them, and one of the most successful examples of mixing styles can be "Romeo and Juliet "... By the mid 1590s, the time of creation Romeo and Juliet, "Richard II" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Shakespeare's style becomes more natural. Metaphors and figurative expressions are increasingly consistent with the needs of the drama.
The standard poetic form used by Shakespeare is white verse, written in iambic pentameter.
The second half of the 16th century was the Renaissance of all types of arts and sciences in England, including poetry, which still largely followed Italian patterns. Philip Sidney began to reform English versification back in the 1570s and 1580s, with his work spawning a whole galaxy of wonderful poets who were called "Elizabethan poets" in literary criticism: Edward de Vere, Fulk Greville, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, John Davis - not all of them. But the true development of English poetry was in the work of Edmund Spencer, who by his birth was intended to reflect in his brilliant works the nature of this growth of the nation's consciousness and its religious conflict during the era of Queen Elizabeth I. to respond with their creativity to all these spiritual needs of the English people, who have embarked on the path of development and prosperity. Spencer can be considered the ancestor of modern English poetry. In his creations, the English verse received a musicality that he had previously been deprived of. Spencer's lines amazes with their metric diversity, preserving sonority, flexibility and plasticity in all works. Spencer's poetry is not only figurative and sublime, it is, above all, musical. Spencer's verse flows like a mountain stream, ringing with rhymes flowing into each other, striking with its alliterations, word combinations and repetitions. Spencer's style and versification correspond to his ideal line of thought. The poet did not try to improve the English language, but old English words, combined with modern syntax and enclosed in meters inspired by Chaucer rhythm, "make an amazingly beautiful impression."
The Tragic Story of the Life and Death of Dr. Faust by Christopher Marlowe
Marlowe made great changes to English drama. Before him bloody events and vulgar buffoonery episodes were chaotically piled up here. He was the first to attempt to impart inner harmony and psychological unity to the drama. Marlowe transformed the poetic fabric of the drama by introducing white verse, which existed only in its infancy before him. He began to use stressed syllables more freely than his predecessors: trocheus, dactyl, tribrachium and spondaeus replace the iambic that dominated his predecessors. In this way, he brought the tragedy closer to the classic drama of the Seneca type, which was then popular in English universities. Contemporaries were struck by Marlowe's powerful verse, full of alliterative repetitions, which sounded fresh and unusual for the Elizabethan era. called his inspiration “ beautiful madness, which by right and should take possession of the poet"So that he could reach such heights.
The main characters of Marlowe's works are fighters with great ambition and grandiose vitality. They pour out their souls in the long monologues full of pathos, which Marlowe introduced into the arsenal of techniques of Elizabethan drama. The poet saw the true origins of the tragic not in external circumstances that determine the fate of the characters, but in internal spiritual contradictions, tearing apart a gigantic personality that had risen above everyday life and common norms:
Marlowe's characters are ambiguous, they aroused horror and admiration in the audience at the same time. He rebelled against the medieval humility of man before the forces of nature, against the humble acceptance of life's circumstances. Marlowe's plays were designed to amaze contemporaries with unexpected theatrical effects. For example, in the finale of The Jew of Malta, a giant cauldron appears on the scene, where the main character is boiled alive. "Edward II" - the tragedy of a homosexual in a heterosexual society with numerous ambiguous passages in the spirit of Ovid - ends with the king dying from a red-hot poker stuck in the anus.
Along with men, women took an active part in the literary life of Victorian England.
After the death of Dickens in 1870, the masters of the social novel with a positivist bias, led by George Eliot, came to the fore. The cycle of Thomas Hardy's novels about the passions raging in the souls of the inhabitants of semi-patriarchal Wessex is permeated with extreme pessimism. George Meredith is a master of subtly psychologized prose comedy. An even more sophisticated psychologism distinguishes the works of Henry James, who moved to England from overseas.
The earliest surviving Scottish play, written before the Reformation, dates back to 1500 and is called Plow Play; it symbolically describes death and the replacement of the old ox. This and similar plays were performed on the first Sunday after Epiphany, when the beginning of the resumption of agricultural work was celebrated. Under the influence of the Church, the content of such plays gradually began to be based on a Christian basis, and later a complete ban was issued on the celebration of the May holiday, Yule and other holidays of pagan origin, and together with them, the plays performed on them were banned.
Plays on biblical themes, however, were often performed without this prohibition. The earliest mention of such a play (its performance was timed to coincide with the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ) dates back to 1440. But the drama based on biblical subjects, which flourished in the Late Middle Ages, disappeared during the 16th century as a result of the Reformation.
Plays of other genres - allegories or adaptations of ancient works - were very popular among the people and at court; even monarchs played in them. For example, at the wedding of Mary Stuart in 1558 in Edinburgh, a play (which has not survived to this day) "Triumph and Play" (scots Triumphe and Play) was performed.
After James VI became king of England and left Scotland in 1603, drama fell into disrepair. In the period from 1603 to 1700 in the country, as far as is known, only three plays were written, of which two were staged.
Robert Burns (1759-1796; popularly known as the Bard, Ayrshire Bard and favorite son of Scotland) is considered the "national bard" of Scotland and one of the most significant figures in British pro-romanticism. In his lyrics, he used elements of ancient, biblical and English literary genres, and also continued the traditions of the Scottish Makar. He is primarily known as a Scots poet (founder of modern literary Scots), but he also knew English (mainly Scottish dialects of English): some of his works, such as Love and Liberty, were written in both languages.
In addition to his own poems, he is famous for his variations of Scottish folk songs. His poem and song "Auld Lang Syne" (Rus. Good old time) is sung at the meeting of Hogmanai (traditional Scottish New Year's holiday); and "Scots Wha Hae" (rus. The Scots who committed ...) has long been considered the unofficial anthem of Scotland.
Before the development of European romanticism, Burns was little known outside Scotland: until 1800, only three of his works were translated into European languages.
Walter Scott (1771-1832) was born in Edinburgh, but as a child spent a lot of time on a farm near the ruins later immortalized by him in the ballad "Ivan's Evening" (English The Eve of St John, 1808), in Roxburghshire, in areas where , according to legend, Thomas Lermont lived.
Scott started out as a poet and translator from German. His first major work was The House of Aspen, proposed for staging in 1800; after several rehearsals, work on the play was interrupted. So for a long time, Scott published only lyrics, mostly transcriptions of German ballads (for example, "The Fire King").
Like Burns, Scott was interested in the history of Scottish culture, collected folk ballads, in particular, he published the collection "Songs of Minstrels from the Scottish Border" (eng. The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1802) in three volumes. His first prose work, Waverly, or Sixty Years Ago (1814), is considered the first Scottish historical novel. After writing this novel, Scott almost completely switched from poetry to prose in his work.
Scott's writings, like Burns' poems, have become symbols of Scottish culture and contributed to its acquisition of fame. Scott became the first English-speaking writer to achieve worldwide fame during his lifetime.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was famous during his lifetime, but during the 20th century he was mainly considered the author of second-rate works (children's literature and horror literature). At the end of the 20th century, critics and readers alike rekindled an interest in his books.
In addition to fiction itself, Stevenson was engaged in literary theory, literary and social criticism; he was a staunch humanist. He studied the history and culture of the Pacific Islands.
Although he is better known as a novelist, his lyrics are also known to readers around the world; his poem The Requiem, which also became his gravestone inscription, was translated into Samoan and became a pathetic song that is still popular in Samoa.
Literature in the Welsh language originated quite early (probably by the 5th-6th centuries), and not only in Wales, but also in the south of Scotland, then inhabited by Britons. The earliest monuments: the poetry of Aneirin, Taliesin, Llywarch the Old (Wall. Cynfeirdd "first poets"), preserved in the Middle Wales record. In addition, the existence of poetry in Wales is evidenced by a small poem “to the staff of St. Padarna ”, referring directly to the ancient Welsh period. Among the monuments in Latin, one can note "On the Death of Britain" by Gilda the Wise, as well as numerous Lives.
The heyday of Welsh literature falls on the 12th century: it was then that the stories of the Mabinogion cycle, the authentic poems of Aneirin and Taliesin, were recorded, the Arthurian cycle was born (partly due to the influence of the Galfrid tradition), the later traditions appeared, associated with the names of the ancient bards ( the same Aneirin and Taliesin). Probably, the mythological epic and legends about national heroes such as Cadwaladr, Arthur, Tristan, etc., existed before and were common British. Probably through