Literary Britain. british literature

English literature

Nick Hornby is known not only as the author of such popular novels as "Hi-Fi", "My Boy", but also as a screenwriter. The writer's cinematic style makes him very popular in adapting books by various authors for film adaptation: "Brooklyn", "Education of the Senses", "Wild".

In the past, an ardent football fan, he even splashed out his obsession in the autobiographical novel Football Fever.

Culture is often a key theme in Hornby's books, in particular, the writer does not like it when pop culture is underestimated, considering it as narrow-minded. Also, the key themes of the works are often the relationship of the hero with himself and others, overcoming and searching for himself.

Nick Hornby now lives in Highbury, North London, within easy reach of the stadium of his favorite football team, Arsenal.

Doris Lessing (1919 - 2013)

After the second divorce in 1949, she moved with her son to London, where at first she rented an apartment for a couple with a woman of easy virtue.

The topics that worried Lessing, as often happens, changed during her life, and if in 1949-1956 she was primarily occupied with social issues and communist themes, then from 1956 to 1969 the works began to be of a psychological nature. In later works, the author was close to the postulates of the esoteric trend in Islam - Sufism. In particular, this was expressed in many of her science fiction works from the Canopus series.

In 2007, the writer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The world-wide success and love of millions of women brought the writer the novel "Bridget Jones's Diary", born from a column that Helen led in the Independent newspaper.

The plot of the "Diary" repeats in detail the plot of Jane Austen's novel "Pride and Prejudice", up to the name of the main male character - Mark Darcy.

They say that the writer was inspired by the 1995 series and especially by Colin Firth, as he migrated to the film adaptation of The Diary without any changes.

In the UK, Stephen is known as an esthete and a great original, driving around in his own cab. Stephen Fry incomparably combines two abilities: to be the standard of British style and to regularly shock the public. His bold statements about God put many into a stupor, which, however, does not affect his popularity in any way. He is openly gay - last year, 57-year-old Fry married a 27-year-old comedian.

Fry does not hide the fact that he used drugs and suffers from bipolar disorder, about which he even made a documentary.

It is not easy to define all areas of Fry's activity, he himself jokingly calls himself "a British actor, writer, king of dance, prince of swimming trunks and blogger." All of his books invariably become bestsellers, and interviews are sorted into quotes.

Stephen is considered a rare owner of a unique classic English accent, an entire book has been written about the art of "talking like Stephen Fry".

Julian Barnes has been called the "chameleon" of British literature. He perfectly knows how, without losing his individuality, to create works that are different from each other: eleven novels, four of which are detective stories written under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh, a collection of short stories, a collection of essays, a collection of articles and reviews.

The writer has been repeatedly accused of Francophonie, especially after the publication of the book "Flaubert's Parrot", a kind of mixture of a biography of the writer and a scientific treatise on the role of the author in general. The writer's craving for everything French is partly due to the fact that he grew up in the family of a French teacher.

His novel A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters became a real event in literature. Written in the genre of dystopia, the novel seeks answers to a number of philosophical questions about the essence of man, his past, present and future.

A favorite of children and adults around the world, the restless Paddington bear was "born" in 1958, when Michael Bond realized at the last moment before Christmas that he forgot to buy a gift for his wife. Out of hopelessness, the author, who had already written many plays and stories by that time, bought his wife a toy bear in a blue cloak.

In 2014, based on his books, a film was made, where London became one of the characters in the story. He appears before us as if through the eyes of a small guest from dense Peru: at first rainy and inhospitable, and then sunny and beautiful. You can recognize Notting Hill, Portobello Road, the streets near Maida Vale Station, Paddington Station and the Natural History Museum in the painting.

It is interesting that now the writer lives in London just not far from Paddington station.

Rowling went from social welfare to the author of the best-selling series of books in history in just five years, which became the basis for films, which, in turn, are recognized as the second highest-grossing franchise.

According to Rowling herself, the idea for the book came to her while traveling by train from Manchester to London in 1990. .

Neil Gaiman has been called one of today's premier storytellers. Hollywood producers are lining up for the film rights to his books.

He also wrote scripts himself more than once. His famous novel Neverwhere was born from just such a script for a mini-series filmed on the BBC in 1996. Although, of course, the opposite is more often the case.

Scary Tales of the Nile are also loved because they blur the lines between intellectual and entertainment literature.

The writer is a laureate of prestigious awards, many of Ian's works have been filmed.

The first works of the writer were distinguished by cruelty and great attention to the theme of violence, for which the author was awarded the nickname Ian Creepy (Ian Macabre). He has also been called the black wizard of modern British prose and a world-class expert on all forms of violence.

In further work, all these themes remained, but seemed to fade into the background, passing like a red thread through the fate of the characters, while they themselves did not linger in the frame.

The writer's childhood passed on the run: he was born in Czechoslovakia into an intelligent Jewish family. Because of her nationality, his mother moved to Singapore and then to India. Almost all of the writer's relatives died during the Second World War, and his mother, having married a British military man for the second time, raised her children as real Englishmen.

Stoppard's fame came with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a reimagining of Shakespeare's Hamlet, which turned into a comedy under Tom's pen.

The playwright has a lot to do with Russia. He was here in 1977, working on a report on dissidents who were kept in psychiatric hospitals. "It was cold. Moscow seemed gloomy to me, ”the author shares his memories.

The writer also visited Moscow during the staging of a performance based on his play at the RAMT Theater in 2007. The theme of the 8-hour performance is the development of Russian political thought of the 19th century with its main characters: Herzen, Chaadaev, Turgenev, Belinsky, Bakunin.

Recognized as a masterpiece of modern English prose, the book that opened the Neo-Gothic genre to the general public and made Anglo-American critics talk about the return of the golden age of the British novel, fanned by the names of Charlotte and Emily Brontë and Daphne Du Maurier. The debut novel of a modest teacher, the rights to which were bought for unprecedented money for a novice author (a million dollars for an American edition), overtook the bestsellers of recent years in sales, was instantly translated into several dozen languages ​​and was awarded the honorary name of "new" Jane Eyre by reviewers ".
██ ██ A soulful book in the style of good old England, but with a modern twist. Cozy and warm. A wonderful story from a modern English writer. An amazingly kind, touching novel that will give everyone a sense of celebration and a real New Year's mood. Five not too happy people, by the will of circumstances, find themselves in the same house in the north of Scotland. Rosamund Pilcher talks about her characters with a warm, kind smile, and the reader begins to believe that the approaching Christmas will surely bring wonderful changes to their lives. The novel by the famous English writer is distinguished by lyricism, gentle humor and unexpected plot twists.

██ ██ "A Christmas Carol" became a sensation upon its first publication, influencing our Christmas traditions. This is a story-parable about the rebirth of the miser and misanthrope Scrooge, in which the writer, with the help of fantastic images of Christmas Spirits, shows his hero the only way to salvation - to do good to people. One day, the spirit of Marley's deceased companion appeared to Scrooge. The author skillfully describes the appearance of this spirit in such a way that the blood freezes in the veins not only of the protagonist, but also of the reader.
██ ██ The long-awaited novel from David Mitchell, each book of which becomes an event in world literature. On the pages of this work, Mitchell created a whole world, plunging into which the reader, trusting the imagination and will of the author, will seem to pass through a labyrinth where a lot of interesting things await him: unexpected discoveries, unpredictable plot twists, acquaintance with the most colorful characters, many of whom Mitchell's fans know from previous novels. The plot of the story is an everyday situation: in 1984, the main character, Holly Sykes, runs away from home, having quarreled with her mother. But this is where the realistic component of the story ends. Further events will happen to Holly that cannot happen to mere mortals.

📖 Cornwall, 1933. Alice Edewijn lives in a beautiful estate with her family. Days flow in the usual sequence, and nothing threatens the ideal world, devoid of worries. But one day the irreparable happens - Theo, Alice's younger brother, mysteriously disappears. Shortly thereafter, the lifeless body of a family friend is found. What is it - suicide or a crime? And if it was suicide, could Theo's disappearance be the cause? In 2003, Detective Sadie Sparrow ends up in Cornwall. Walking through the forest, she accidentally discovers an abandoned house - the same one in which the tragedy occurred...

JOJO MOYES (1969)

Jojo Moyes is an English novelist and journalist. Born in London

██ ██ Lisa McCullin lives in a quiet town in Australia. However, Mike Dormer appears in it, who wants to turn it into a glittering fashion resort. The only thing Mike couldn't foresee was that Lisa McCullin would get in his way. And of course, he could not even think that love would flare up in his heart ...

██ ██ The old dilapidated mansion is located on the lake in a picturesque place near London. And around this mansion, which the locals call the Spanish House, passions flare up.For Isabella Delancey, a young widow with two children, this is a refuge from the storms and hardships of life that hit her after the unexpected death of her beloved husband. For Matt McCarthy, who is renovating the house while trying to keep Isabella alive by insanely high prices, this is his chance to own the Spanish House. For Nicholas Trent, a real estate developer, this is an opportunity to create a luxurious village for the elite on the site of an old house. And Byron Firth is trying to at least temporarily find a roof over his head.
██ ██ Lou Clark knows how many steps from the bus stop to her house. She knows that she really likes working in a cafe and that she most likely does not like her boyfriend Patrick. But Lou does not know that she is about to lose her job and that in the near future she will need all the strength to overcome the problems that have fallen on her.Will Traynor knows that the motorcyclist who hit him took away his will to live. And he knows exactly what needs to be done to put an end to all this. But he does not know that Lou will soon burst into his world with a riot of colors. And they both do not know that they will forever change each other's life.A sad story about a small life and big dreams that will make you cry.
██ ██ To be honest, I didn't want to add this book to the list of the worst, but it really is a complete disappointment.The first book is much stronger.. Much. MUCH. Me Before You made Jojo Moyes a very popular author and the book a real bestseller. Then other works followed, but that First Book is truly a masterpiece. I sobbed and couldn't stop after reading it. And here comes the continuation of this sensational story "Me Before You". I already lost the gift of speech. I was eager to plunge into the experiences of the main character again, I wanted to read again about the further fate of the heroes. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. No, you can read it, of course ... But the second part will be a bestseller only because everyone who read the first book, of course, wants to know - what's next ... Personally, I'm not thrilled. While reading the first book, I sobbed, while reading the sequel, I didn’t feel anything. I read and waited all the time - come on, something so emotional must already happen. No. Somehow overly sentimental and with a touch of American Happy End.And was it even necessary to write this sequel? It seems to me that no.

██ ██ An unforgettable and touching story of women of three generations, bound by indissoluble bonds. The relationship between Joy and Kate, mother and daughter, is far from ideal, and Kate, trying to arrange a personal life, runs away from home. Vowing to herself that if she ever had a daughter, she, Kate, would become her best friend and they would never be separated. But history repeats itself. Sabina, Kate's daughter, has grown up stubborn and defiant, and treats her mother with contempt due to Kate's string of love failures. And now the circumstances are such that Sabina comes to her grandmother Joy.

HELEN FIELDING (1958)

Helen Fielding - English writer. Born in Morley, West Yorkshire.

██ ██ Every woman is a bit of Bridget, even if she doesn't admit it. The continuation of the adventures of the unsinkable optimist Bridget Jones is a novel in which many women can recognize themselves as the heroine, and many men will learn invaluable information about the mysterious soul, tricks and weaknesses of the beautiful half of humanity.Continuation of the novel "Bridget Jones's Diary" about how jealousy and prison (where you just don't get foolishly!) Almost drove Bridget to madness. But just when she lost hope of marriage to the irresistible bore Mark Darcy, she had a real chance to change her life.

██ ██ Helen Fielding continues the touching story of Bridget Jones. Bridget's diary is for such troubled and tireless seekers of happiness as she herself is. In pursuit of happiness, friends and dating sites come to her aid, but the realI love waiting for Bridget in a completely different place. Have you ever allowed yourself to eat a third cake, drink too much or for no reason? Have you ever forgotten to pick up your kids from school? Haven't you promised yourself that from Monday you will quit smoking and start exercising? Have you ever looked stupid and ridiculous? And didn't tweet about the date even though it wasn't over yet? No? Then this book is not for you.

ALICE PETERSON (1974)

Alice Peterson is a contemporary English novelist. The main theme of her novels is the life of people with disabilities in Europe. Alice now lives in West London with her inspirational dog, Darcy.

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 the Romantics. Over the past century, many essential features of the romantic worldview have been outlined in English literature: ironic self-esteem, anti-rationalism, ideas about the “inexplicable”, craving for “old times”. The impetus for the emergence of English romanticism was both events from outside and from within - in England at that time there was an industrial revolution. Its consequences were not only the replacement of the spinning wheel with a loom, and muscle strength with a steam engine, but also profound social changes: the disappearance of the peasantry, the emergence of the industrial proletariat, the assertion of the bourgeoisie as "masters of life".

For about half a century, three generations of romantics have changed in English literature. The elder is represented by Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Walter Scott; middle - Byron, Shelley, Keats; younger - Carlyle. Internal divisions in English romanticism go mainly along socio-political lines, English romantics are distinguished by 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 book published in 1765. Thomas Percy (1729-1811) the collection "Monuments of Old English Poetry", which included various samples of English folk ballads. Subsequently, Percy's edition 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 Scot, gained European fame. James Macpherson (1736-1796) . MacPherson, who studied Scottish folklore, took advantage of some motifs and names in the creation of his works. Their author was declared the bard Ossian, 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 ancient mythology ordered by the classicists, McPherson introduced readers to the foggy and ghostly world of the North. The mystery and vagueness of outlines, melancholy, which form the lyrical basis of the poems, subsequently became the property of romanticism. In the 19th century, Byron would pay tribute to the Poems of Ossian.

The first striking phenomenon in English romanticism was the work of William Blake (1757-1827) . In drawings and poems, which he did not print, but, like drawings, he engraved, Blake created his own special world. From an early age, he spoke of miraculous visions in broad daylight, and in his later years he said that he talked with Christ, Socrates and Dante. Blake's goal as an artist and poet was to create an original mythology based on pagan and Christian components. The task of this particular religion was a universal synthesis. Blake wanted to unite heaven and earth, and make the deified man the crown of faith. Blake became famous for works created in the 18th century: Songs of Innocence (1789), Songs of Experience (1794), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790). "In one moment to see eternity and the sky - in a cup of a flower" is the central idea of ​​Blake's lyrics. In every grain of sand, he sought to see a reflection of the spiritual essence. Therefore, Blake's entire activity was a protest against empiricism, the leading tradition of British thinking. In his poems there is a lot that is consonant with the romantics: universalism, pantheism, the desire for an all-encompassing 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 land of the lakes) and contained a mockery of the excessive verbosity of the works of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey, ranked among the "Lakeists". Nevertheless, the "lake school" as a certain spiritual relationship existed - all English romantics were guided by it in one way or another.

The approval of the poetic reputation of Wordsworth began after the Lyric Ballads (1798) published jointly with Coleridge. The preface to the collection, written by Wordsworth, became a manifesto of romanticism in poetry. Wordsworth demanded that the language of poetry be brought closer to living colloquial speech, abandoning rhetorical embellishments and poetic conventions. Only such a poetic language could become a means of conveying emotions and spiritual moods. Wordsworth put feeling so much higher than reason that he saw the fullest expression of "natural" humanity in children and mentally handicapped people, because, in his opinion, they express feelings in the purest and most direct form.

Wordsworth believed that poetry is more capable of knowing life than science, because it penetrates deeper into the essence of nature and the human soul, since poetic art "absorbs what science gives, but all knowledge must be spiritualized, and without poetry it cannot 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 - a 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 translate the vision of the world into artistic images.

A special creative merit of Wordsworth was that he seemed to speak in verse - without visible tension and generally accepted poetic conventions. “We wanted to present ordinary things in unusual lighting,” Coleridge explained the idea. "Lyrical Ballads" opened with "The Tale of the Old Mariner" by Coleridge and "Tintern Abbey" by Wordsworth - the paramount works of poets that have become an epoch-making phenomenon. Unlike previous eras, the 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 in order to find poetry in any phenomenon. The poet depicted in his poems an unpretentious life, called from the narrowness of cities to the eternal peace of nature, which manifested a characteristic romantic denial of rationalistic "progress".

The leading poetic thought of Coleridge is about the constant presence in life of the inexplicable, mysterious, incomprehensible. The creative contribution of the poet to the development of romantic literature was psychologism. All visual means - from verbal paints to the author's commentary - are used to expressively reproduce experiences, whether they are hallucinations or purely physical sensations, while each state of mind is transmitted in dynamics. The influence of Coleridge in the development 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 creative path began with ballads dedicated to the destinies of the disadvantaged (“Complaints of the poor”, “Burial of a beggar”). Using folklore and semi-folklore plots as the basis of his works, Southey focused on the "wonderful". Thus, the protagonist of the well-known ballad “The Judgment of God over the Bishop” (1799) translated by V. A. Zhukovsky (1799) awaits the court of higher powers for his stinginess. The appeal to the "old times" did not relieve her, however, of 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 baronette Walter Scott (1771-1832) rightly considered history as 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 poetic works (among his most remarkable ballads are Smalholm Castle, 1802; Marmion, 1808; Two Lakes, 1810), 41 volumes of novels and short stories, and 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, etc.). 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 also emphasized by the author himself. For example, the epigraph for the novel "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 times” in all details and draws conclusions about it. To the best of his artistic ability, 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 the oral truth about past affairs. The writer avoided parallels between the past and the present; the past is not a parallel, but antecedent, the source of the present. Based on the experience of Shakespeare and Defoe, 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 is occupied by fictional figures. If Shakespeare followed the plot of the legend, then Scott created the event outline himself, introducing 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 "the people of past centuries acted this way and not otherwise under the pressure of circumstances and political passions." The way in which Scott's historical novels created characters and circumstances would be taken over by the historical novel of the 19th century.

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 feeling 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 particular force. Already in the first poems of the poet, the appearance of a lyrical hero appears, which is possessed by a mixed feeling of wounded pride, a thirst for life and early bitterness.

Poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (begun 1809, ed. 1812-1818), which made Byron famous, developed without a preliminary plan, so the fragmentation of the poem was at first of the most direct nature. Then, as the poem progressed, "fragmentation" became a consciously observed compositional and stylistic feature. The author acquired the possibility of a free transition from the epic plan to the lyrical and vice versa. The narration becomes unconstrained, which allows, in abundant authorial 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 simultaneously kept by the author and the main character. However, after the first stanzas, explaining the fate and state of mind of the hero, he becomes only a name. He is pushed aside by the author himself - more precisely, the distance between the author and the hero is not respected 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 introspection, which would then be cultivated by romantic poets.

Equally important for the development of both English and European romanticism were "Oriental Poems" ("Gyaur", "Bride of Abydos", "Corsair", "The Siege of Corinth" and close to them in spirit "Larra" and "Parisina"). It was in them that the image 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 loneliness, even among people (as, for example, Conrad in The Corsair). The internal 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 actions of the hero is weak - he is possessed by a spirit that does not know reconciliation and is not amenable to reason. Speaking about the "inexplicable", Byron, unlike Walter Scott, peers not into history, but into individuality. Recreating the oriental flavor, the poet pushes it aside with a stream of emotions: whether it is the Adriatic coast or Lake Geneva, the reader sees the same seething of passions, which is cramped in any time and space. Thanks to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Oriental Poems, the concept of the "Byronic type" enters world literature "with its immoral soul, / Self-loving and dry, / A dream devoted beyond measure, / With his embittered mind, / Boiling in action empty", as Pushkin described it 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 19th 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 autocommentary to "Manfred" the author emphasized that the reasons for this state must remain incomprehensible. But even this “inexplicability” is revealed as the obsoleteness of the soul.

The motive of self-destruction grows in tragedy "Cain" (1821). The rebellion of the protagonist is not only a rebellion against human laws, but against man as God's creation. The equality of evil and good - this is what Lucifer tells Cain, who appears in the poem as a disturber of consciousness, leaving the hero in a state of truly Cainian emptiness.

The hero of Byron's last work - a poem "Don Juan" (1818-1823, not completed)- emphatically faceless. Unlike its literary prototypes, Byron's Don Juan does not subdue hearts and circumstances, but obeying them, follows from Spain to Turkey, from Russia to England. Next to him relentlessly is the author, boldly invading the narrative with his comments. The brightness of the event background - no longer fantastic, but emphatically authentic - is achieved through the expressiveness of concrete everyday details and faces, thus a transition to realism of characters and circumstances is outlined. This largest work of Byron will play a significant role in world literature, echoing in many outstanding works of the era - for example, "Eugene Onegin".

Despite a 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. The pathos of his work was sublime idealism. Shelley's lyrics are “a hymn to intellectual beauty” (the title of the poem of the same name in 1817). In such poems, the poet not only spoke about the spiritual, but spiritualized the world around him with verses, referring to his beloved (“To Mary”), to friends and forces of nature (“Ode western wind"), displaying fleeting experiences ("Wanderers of the world", "Good night"). Shelley's political lyrics ("The Song of the Irish", "The Song of the People of England") are distinguished by loftiness and spirituality - it was not for nothing that the leaders of the first organized labor movement - Chartism - saw their inspirer in the poet. In his poems ("Queen Mab", 1813; "Prometheus Unchained", 1819; "The Rise of Islam", 1818), resorting to conventional allegorical images, the poet sought to show the sharpness of the conflict between the individual 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) - in his radical political views was close to Byron and Shelley. During his short life, marred by illness, Keats managed to publish almost everything he created, primarily collections of poems of 1817 and 1820, which included sonnets, odes, ballads and poems. Keats's lyrics are a depiction of states of mind and heart characteristic of romantics. 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 self-observation is sometimes directly announced as the theme of the poem (sonnet "On the occasion of the first reading of Homer in Chapman's translation"). “I believe that poetry should surprise as an elegant extreme, but not as something exceptional,” said Keats, “it should strike the reader as a verbal expression of his own most elevated thoughts, should seem like a memory.”

The winner of the Danes, for almost two centuries devastated Britain. Alfred did a lot to restore the destroyed culture, to raise education, he himself was a writer and translator (translated, among other things, into Anglo-Saxon Bede's Church History, written in Latin).

Anglo-Norman literature

In the second half of the 11th century, England was subjected to a new invasion of the Normans. It falls under the rule of the Normans, who for several centuries maintain the dominance of the Norman dialect of the French language and French literature in England. A long period begins, known in history as the period of Anglo-Norman literature.

During the first century after the Norman invasion, literature in the Anglo-Saxon language almost disappears. And only a century later, literary monuments of ecclesiastical content reappear in this language, and later secular ones, which were translations of French works. Thanks to this mixture of languages, the Latin language again assumes great importance among an educated society.

The period of French domination left an important mark on the subsequent history of English literature, which, according to some researchers, is more connected with the artistic techniques and style of French literature of the Norman period than with ancient Anglo-Saxon literature, from which it was artificially cut off.

Literature of social protest

But not only he was the founder of the new English language. Chaucer did a common thing with his famous contemporary John Wyclif (-). Wyclif adjoins accusatory literature directed against the clergy, but he, the forerunner of the Reformation, goes further, translates the Bible into English, addresses the people in his struggle against the papacy. Wyclif and Chaucer, through their literary activity, arouse interest in the earthly nature of man, in personality.

In the next century, there is 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, which have survived to our time, belong to this century. The ballads about Robin Hood were very popular.

Renaissance

Renaissance ideals in literature

Thomas More is a typical representative of English humanism. His "Utopia" is a public organization built in the spirit of the ideals of humanism. Its goal is the happiness of a person, the well-being of the entire community. He is alien to medieval spiritualism, those consolations that the Catholic Church offered after the grave in exchange for earthly suffering. He desires joy here on earth. Therefore, in his community there is no property, compulsory labor for all its members prevails, work in the city and in the country alternates, complete religious tolerance is established, thanks to the ideal organization of society there are no crimes, etc.

Bacon's work is a book from which one can lead the development of positive thought. The author proceeds from observation and experience as sources of knowledge of the truth, he believes that he does not know what lies beyond them.

The 16th century is the heyday of English humanism, which arose here later than in Italy, met with the Reformation. Classical literature and Italian poetry have a great influence on English literature.

Elizabethan era

Locke denied innate ideas and declared the impressions that our senses receive from external objects to be the only source of all knowledge. Following Milton, Locke anticipated Rousseau's theory of the social contract and the right of the people to refuse obedience to authority if it violates the law. In the era of Cromwell, the theater froze, classical traditions were maintained only among the persecuted supporters of the royal house. After the Restoration, the theater reopened, merry comedies of manners appeared with not always decent content (Wycherley, Congreve and others), gallant literature was revived, and, finally, French-type classicism arose. His representative was John Dryden (1631-1700), a typical unprincipled poet of the dissolute court restoration society, an unsuccessful imitator of Corneille and Racine, who strictly defended the three unities and, in general, all classical rules.

Augustinian era

After 1688, with the establishment of the constitution, the tone of literature was set by the bourgeoisie, whose influence is clearly felt both in novels and on the stage. The new consumer demands his literature, images of family virtues, honest merchants, sensibility, nature, etc. He is not touched by tales of classical heroes, of the exploits of the aristocratic ancestors of court society. He needs a satire on loose secular mores. There are moralizing and satirical magazines - "Chatterbox", "Spectator", "Guardian" - Style and Addison, with talented everyday essays, denouncing luxury, emptiness, vanity, ignorance and other vices of the then society. Didactic, satirical and moral is the exemplary classical poetry of Pope, the author of An Essay on Man. England gave impetus not only to the emancipatory ideas of the French Encyclopedists, but also laid the foundation for moralistic sentimental literature, that novel of morals that spread throughout Europe. Samuel Richardson, the author of "Pamela", "Clarissa" and "Grandisson", displays virtuous philistine girls and contrasts them with dissolute aristocrats, idealizes philistine virtues and forces the depraved representatives of the chewing golden youth to correct themselves.

Godwin, in his novel The Adventures of Caleb Williams and other writings, defends the most revolutionary ideas of his time not only in the field of politics, but also in the field of education and marriage, and goes ahead of the then English revolutionary thought. The so-called "Lake School" (from the place of residence around the lakes) includes a number of poets. Of these, Wordsworth was head of the school. A dreamy, nature-loving poet of small phenomena, which he knew how to make sublime and touching, he, along with his friend Coleridge, was a representative of that trend in romanticism, which, along with love for nature, introduced a simple artless language, images of patriarchal antiquity, contemplation and dreaminess. The third poet of the lake school - Southey wrote in the spirit of his friends, adding fantastic pictures of the exotic countries of Mexico, India, Arabia to the idyllic images of lake poetry. And the poets of the lake school were fond of the revolution, but not for long. Wordsworth and Coleridge traveled to Germany, where they were influenced by German romantic idealism and ended up in pure contemplation.

Next to the populist romanticism of the lake school, Byron, the greatest poet of the era, was a representative of revolutionary aristocratic romance. Despising the high-society society with which he was connected by his origin, having cut himself off from his class, not seeing anything attractive in the representatives of capital, greedy and corrupt merchants, Byron in his youth burst into a fiery speech in defense of the workers, but after that he did not return to this issue, on all his life he remained a declassed aristocrat, a rebellious individualist revolutionary, a singer of dissatisfied disappointed natures, starting with mysterious demonic wanderers and robbers (“Gyaur”, “Lara”, etc.). The same image is deepened in Childe Harold, which became the subject of wide imitation in European poetry. Byron ended with a protest against the universe and world order in his theomachic tragedies ("Manfred" and "Cain"). By the end of his life, Byron came close to political and social satire (Don Juan, The Bronze Age). Extreme individualism, a sense of dissatisfaction, an attraction to the East and exotic countries, a love of nature and loneliness, dreams of the past at ruins and monuments - all this makes Byron a poet of English romanticism, and his angry accusatory protests against all forms of violence and exploitation, his connections with the Italian Carbonari and the struggle for the liberation of Greece made him a singer of freedom in the eyes of the European intelligentsia. His friend Percy Bysshe Shelley, a brilliant lyric poet, also an aristocrat, like Byron, combines in his poetry the world of fantastic romance with a revolutionary protest against the emerging bourgeois-capitalist society. In his poem "Queen Mab", he depicts this society, where everything is "sold in the public market", where, with the help of severe hunger, the master drives his slaves under the yoke of wage labor. Shelley acts as the same revolutionary romantic in his other poems (“Laon and Cytna”, “Unchained Prometheus”, etc.). His wife Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, is a pioneer in the issue of scientist responsibility. Walter Scott shows, like two great poets, a tendency towards antiquity. He was the creator of the historical novel (“Ivanhoe”, “Rob Roy”, “Quentin Dorward”, “The Templars”, etc.), in which he knew how to combine plausibility and realism with rich romantic fiction and depict the most dramatic moments in the national history of Scotland and England.

In the first third of the XIX century. the first stage of the struggle between the nobility and the industrial bourgeoisie, which is becoming more and more master of the situation, is coming to an end. The struggle against the Corn Laws, Chartism and the actions of the working class, imperiously declaring their demands, overshadow feudal romance and patriarchal dreamy poetry. The city with its practical interests, the growing bourgeoisie, the beginning social struggle between it and the working class become the main content of English literature, and realism its predominant form. Instead of a medieval castle - a factory town, instead of distant antiquity - seething modern industrial life, instead of fantastic images of inventive imagination - an accurate, almost photographic, depiction of reality. Bulwer-Lytton, still continuing the traditions of romanticism, an aristocrat by birth, filling his novels with transformations, miracles and criminality, however, leaves us a number of literary documents of social significance, depicting the process of impoverishment and decomposition of the nobility (novels - "Pelgam", "Night and Morning " and etc.).

Realism and the turn of the century

Dickens, the most celebrated writer of this era, develops a broad picture of the life of bourgeois-capitalist society in his famous novels: Hard Times, David Copperfield, Dombey and Son, The Pickwick Club, Nicholas Nickleby, etc., creates a gallery of capitalist types. The petty-bourgeois, humane, intelligent point of view of Dickens prevents him from taking the side of the revolutionary part of the working class. He gives stunning pictures of the dryness, greed, cruelty, ignorance and selfishness of the capitalists, but he writes to instruct the exploiters and does not think about organizing the forces of the exploited. Its goal is to touch human hearts with the spectacle of suffering, and not to awaken hatred and call for rebellion. More embittered, more sarcastic and cruel in his criticism of the noble-bourgeois society Thackeray, author of the novels Vanity Fair, Pendennis. The author sees no way out. He is full of pessimism and irritation. He, like Dickens, is unable to understand the emancipatory role of the emerging revolutionary labor movement. Fluctuating as always between big capital and the working-class movement, petty-bourgeois thought sought conciliatory ways. Kingsley in his novels "Yeast" and "Alton Locke" he depicts the horrors of exploitation and want, but he sees salvation in Christian socialism, in the "Spirit of God", in repentant rich people who turned to charitable causes. Disraeli, afterwards a famous lord Beaconsfield, the leader of the Tories (the novels "Sibyl", etc.), depicting in vivid colors the vices of bourgeois-aristocratic society and the misfortunes of the peasants and workers, speaks out negatively against the revolution and sees saviors in the person of energetic and active aristocrats, who take upon themselves the task of arranging the people's well-being. Not only the novel, but also lyric poetry is inspired by social themes, and the main question put forward by the era - the question of the exploitation of the working class by capital - is resolved in the spirit of vague humanity and moral improvement. Poets like Thomas Good or Ebenezer Elliot (cm.) , in their poems depict individual moments of the difficult existence of workers and urban poverty, create songs against the Corn Laws, give images of workers driven by poverty to prostitution and suicide. But even their positive ideals are reduced to charity: to some lady who has comprehended her duty thanks to an edifying dream and who has devoted her life to alleviating the lot of the poor.

As we approach the end of the 19th century in European, in particular in English literature, the realistic and social direction begins to give way to the resurgent ideas of individualism and aestheticism. Instead of militant capitalists who make their way through struggle and energy, creating enterprises, instead of Dombey and Gradgrinds, those representatives of the bourgeoisie who have inherited their capital, have not gone through a harsh school of life, who can enjoy the legacy of their fathers, have become lovers and connoisseurs of arts, buyers of expensive paintings and elegant volumes of poetry. A literature of refined experiences, fleeting impressions is flourishing. Individualism, pure art, eroticism, the cult of moods are the hallmarks of the literature of the end of the century. True, the main theme of the era - the organization of society, the abolition of exploitation, the position of the working class - occupies a large place in literature, but the socialism of the end of the century is aesthetic socialism. John Ruskin proceeds from the ideal of a beautiful life, calls society to the old patriarchal craft forms of production and rebels against industrialism and capitalism. He inspires the school of artists known as the Pre-Raphaelites, among whom we see Rossetti and William Morris, the author of the novels - John Bol's Dream and News from Nowhere, a defender of socialism and at the same time a passionate aesthete, who, together with Rosseti, sought the ideals of beauty in past centuries, who dreamed of causing a social revolution through the aesthetic education of workers. Next to the Pre-Raphaelites - Tennyson, a poet of pure art, free from the motives of social struggle, Robert Browning and his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Swinburne, in whose poetry the ideals of eternal beauty and the protection of the exploited are not clearly intertwined. The most popular of the poets of this direction was Oscar Wilde, the “king of aesthetes”, in his “Intentions” and in the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, who created the “religion of beauty” and the cult of liberating fiction, proclaiming the only reality of the creation of art, arguing that art creates life, and not vice versa.

The continued growth of the industry introduces new themes into literature - urbanism, machinism. Literature becomes dynamic, satire against the capitalist way of life develops. Bernard Shaw is the most brilliant and paradoxical of satirical writers, a virtuoso of sophism, a witty author of mystification, a moderate socialist, who, however, intends to improve the condition of the workers with the help of the bourgeoisie. Herbert Wells is the author of science fiction novels imbued with the pathos of technology, depicting the wonders of an industry that magically transforms life, connects planets, and allows a person to move both into the past and into the future. This process of simultaneous growth of socialist tendencies and conservative-individualistic and aesthetic aspirations is accompanied by a number of diverse literary phenomena. Imperialism and chauvinism, which has its representative in the person of Chamberlain, the Boer War, the cult of Kitchener - all this finds its literary reflection in the work of Rudyard Kipling, the most talented of the nationalist writers, the author of colonial stories and poems, where the colonial policy of England is glorified, where oppression backward peoples is glorified as the fulfillment of a great civilizing mission.

Another phenomenon is the reaction against machinism, which causes a revival in literature of religious movements, impulses to the other world, theosophy, spiritualism, occultism, etc. Already Samuel Butler and George Meredith, so dissimilar to each other in other respects, however, do a common thing, laying path to spiritualism, they are trying to build a new religion on the foundations of modernity, using experience and research for this. We find features of romantic symbolism in the work of Yeats, a representative of the so-called. "Celtic revival", and another of its representatives, also an Irishman, more prone to realism and naturalism - Sing. Another form of protest against machinism was Nietzscheanism, the cult of power, and hypertrophied aestheticism, all those modernist ideas whose influence is not only easy to catch in Oscar Wilde, but also in the work of Stevenson, the refined author of exemplary adventure novels, and also George Moore, who spoke almost the language of Zarathustra. (in "Confessions of a Young Man") about his contempt for compassion and Christian morality, about the beauty of cruelty, strength and beauty of crime.

This same hostility to the industrial age gave rise to a current of pessimism in English literature among those writers who could not reconcile machinism with peace of mind. James Thomson is one of the remarkable poets, through all whose poetry the main theme runs as a leitmotif - the torment of life, the gloomy grandeur of despair. The most popular and, perhaps, the most profound of the pessimists is Thomas Hardy, the creator of the grandiose dramatic epic Dynasty and a number of novels, mainly from the life of the village and the province. According to his teachings, a dark and evil fate, an incomprehensible chance, a cruel inevitability weighs over the fate of a person. An enemy of prejudice and modern marriage, which oppresses a woman, an enemy of civilization in the spirit of Rousseau or Tolstoy, Hardy finds no way out of his tormenting thoughts. The same pessimism is imbued with George Robert Gissing, the everyday writer of the London lower classes and the starving literary bohemia, a student of Dickens, but devoid of his humor and his philanthropic faith, who did not expect anything equally "neither from the philanthropy of the rich, nor from the uprising of the poor." Pessimistic and the main tone of the work of Joseph Conrad. Konrad is one of the most powerful and complex writers of our time, striking in the richness and diversity of his language. He seeks to penetrate into the depths of human nature and use all means to convey the impression of the real to our consciousness: "the colorfulness of painting, the plasticity of sculpture and the magical effect of music." He draws all kinds of human suffering, he does not idealize a person, because he is convinced that ineradicable egoism makes a person a wolf to another person. More everyday life and healthy realism in Arnold Bennett, the depicter of the customs of the lower strata of the provincial bourgeoisie, and more true social instinct in Galsworthy, which sees the source of social conflicts in the existence of private property. Chesterton- an enemy of sagging, a preacher of activism, but the activism of medieval corporations, a zealous Catholic, convinced that the development of industry is a source of social slavery. James Barry- writer of Scottish peasants, Conan Doyle - famous author of historical and police novels, Robert Hichens- satirist and romantic Israel Zangwill- the author of "Children of the Ghetto", the writer of everyday life of the Jewish poor, and a number of others, less significant, complete the literary activity of the older group of contemporary writers. Clarence Rook- the author of works about the life of the London poor, the working class.

The paths of the new generation have not yet been clearly outlined. In most cases, they are realists, who, however, are not averse to touching on the occult forces of the soul. After a striving for clarity that originated in French traditions, English literature experienced a period of strong Russian influence, ch. arr. Dostoevsky. This influence corresponds to amorphousness in literature, a reaction against French plasticity. Hugh Walpole, one of the most fashionable novelists, easily follows fashion himself; Oliver Onions gained fame with a trilogy in which he describes bohemia, models, typists, poor artists, etc.; Gilbert Cannan , Compton Mackenzie , Laurens and a number of other young writers who are currently attracting the attention of the English reader, touch on a wide variety of topics, depict various classes of society, criticize social values, but their own worldview is most often reduced to a vague humanitarianism. They are stronger in criticism than in their positive ideas, and so far none of them has managed to surpass the great "old men" like Shaw, Wells or Hardy.

World War II period and beyond

• "Angry Young People" Angry young men)

Dystopia:

Detective:

Science fiction: