1
5
3
-
http://books.altspu.ru/files/original/38/33/_[600].png
840ec84cee80cb4dc5f3af2977300774
http://books.altspu.ru/files/original/38/33/Shevchenko_History_of_English_Literature[cover].pdf
8552cb23cf430a170f9d4d26cfcc9bfa
PDF Text
Text
Contents
�Contents
Об издании
Основной титульный экран
Дополнительный титульный экран непериодического издания – 1
Дополнительный титульный экран непериодического издания – 2
�Contents
Министерство образования и науки Российской Федерации
Федеральное государственное бюджетное образовательное учреждение высшего образования
«Алтайский государственный педагогический университет»
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
(FROM ANGLO-SAXONS TO THE AGE OF REASON)
Барнаул
ФГБОУ ВО «АлтГПУ»
2015
Об издании - 1, 2, 3.
ISBN 978–5–88210–788–7
�Contents
УДК 811.111'0(075)
ББК 81.432.1-03я73
Ш379
Шевченко, Л. Л.
History of English Literature (from Anglo-Saxons to the Age of Reason) [Электронный ресурс] : учебное
пособие / Л. Л. Шевченко. – Барнаул : АлтГПУ, 2015.
ISBN 978–5–88210–788–7
Рецензенты:
Кочешкова И.Ю., кандидат филологических наук, доцент (АлтГПУ);
Лушникова Д.И., доктор филологических наук, профессор (Гуманитарно-педагогическая академия
ФГАОУ ВО «Крымский федеральный университет им. В. И. Вернадского»)
Учебное пособие предлагает материал для подготовки и проведения практических занятий по
дисциплине «История литературы страны изучаемого языка». В нем представлен теоретический
материал, охватывающий основные периоды английской литературы с V по XVIII век и включающий
сведения о направлениях в развитии литературных жанров, авторах и их произведениях. Тексты
произведений сопровождаются комментариями, вопросами и практическими заданиями,
направленными на формирование у студентов навыков интерпретации и анализа художественного
текста. В пособии даются определения изучаемых литературоведческих, культурологических и
философских понятий, а также дополнительные сведения о персоналиях и событиях изучаемых эпох,
которые позволят студентам расширить их кругозор.
Материал данного учебного пособия ориентирован на студентов факультетов иностранных языков, а
также студентов филологических факультетов, изучающих английский язык по углубленной программе.
Рекомендовано к изданию редакционно-издательским советом АлтГПУ 22.10.2015 г.
Текстовое (символьное) электронное издание.
Системные требования:
Intel Celeron 2 ГГц ; ОЗУ 512 Мб ; Windows XP/Vista/7/8 ; SVGA монитор с разрешением 1024х768.
Об издании - 1, 2, 3.
�Contents
Электронное издание создано при использовании программного обеспечения Sunrav BookOffice.
Объём издания - 16 285 КБ.
Дата подписания к использованию: 03.12.2015
Федеральное государственное бюджетное образовательное учреждение высшего образования
«Алтайский государственный педагогический университет» (ФГБОУ ВО «АлтГПУ»)
ул. Молодежная, 55, г. Барнаул, 656031
Тел. (385-2) 36-82-71, факс (385-2) 24-18-72
е-mail: rector@altspu.ru, http://www.altspu.ru
Об издании - 1, 2, 3.
�Contents
Contents
Introduction
Anglo-Saxon Literature
Historical Context
Anglo-Saxon Poetry
Beowulf
Elegiac Poetry. The Seafarer
Anglo-Saxon Riddles
Old English Christian Poetry
Anglo-Saxon Prose
English Literature in the Middle Ages
Historical Context
Literary Context
Chivalric Romances
Ballads
William Langland: Piers Plowman
Geoffrey Chaucer: Canterbury Tales
The Development of English Drama
English Literature in the Time of Renaissance
Cultural Context
Historical Context
Renaissance Poetry
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542) and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–1547)
Edmund Spenser (1552–1599)
Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)
Shakespeare's Sonnets
John Donne (1572–1631) – the Father of Metaphysical poetry
Renaissance Prose
Thomas More: Utopia
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
Renaissance Drama
The University Wits
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
Late Elizabethan Drama
English Literature in the Time of Puritan Revolution and Restoration
�Contents
Historical Context
Literary Context
Cavalier Poets
Restoration Drama
John Milton (1608–1674)
John Bunyan (1628–1688)
English Literature in the Enlightenment Period
Historical and Cultural Context
Literary Context
Daniel Defoe (1607-1731)
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
Henry Fielding (1707–1754)
Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
Reference List
�Contents
Introduction
There are as many reasons to study literature as there are to study man. Alongside with other
forms of art literature participates in the mighty task of rendering people’s lives, minds and
hearts. Human experience contained in the works of literature is a vast continuum of
information from which we can benefit in various ways. We read books for educational
purposes, intellectual training, escape and enjoyment. We also read books because they can
help us better understand what we are.
For centuries people have accumulated and verified knowledge of man, the best works of
literature being the quintessence of all intellectual and spiritual achievements of their time.
Studying History of Literature we can observe culture in progress. Referring every single
literary work to a particular epoch we can interpret its message in a broader context of human
evolution. We can observe the development of literary forms against the historical, social,
ideological, religious and all other kinds of changes.
This book was designed to highlight a complex approach to the study of history of English
literature that would give students an integrated presentation of each literary epoch and
encourage their appreciation. It covers the 1st half of the curriculum and offers an overview of
the English literature from its origin to the 18th century.
The periods of English literature are presented chronologically in the five sections of the book:
Anglo-Saxon Literature, English Literature in the Middle Ages, English Literature in the Time of
Renaissance, English Literature in the Time of Puritan Revolution and Restoration, English
Literature in the Enlightenment Period.
The general framework of each section follows a similar pattern. It includes an outline of
historical and literary context, information on authors’ life and work, texts for critical analysis,
questions and tasks. A brief account of important historical and cultural facts, as well as facts
of the authors’ biographies, is included to deepen students’ awareness of the strong
connection between literary works and the time they were created in. Literary context aims to
provide an overview of the gradual development of genres, themes and literary techniques.
The material of the book is supplied with encyclopedic entries that offer interdisciplinary links
to other fields of study. This information is introduced within the four main categories: literary
studies, philosophy, religion and general knowledge, the last one embracing a wide range of
subjects and being less specified. These categories are marked by symbolic pictures.
�Contents
Texts are followed by exercises designed with many approaches in mind: stylistic analysis,
interpretation, creative thinking and writing. They allow students to examine the way writers
shape their thoughts and give them an opportunity to experiment with some of the techniques.
Some questions and assignments project to broader literary and cultural contexts and offer an
extension activity in which students can share their responses to the issues and themes raised
by the literary works. The focus of questions and tasks is also enhanced graphically.
This book aims to provide a general manual of English Literature with the emphasis on a crosscurricular link. It presents the information in multiple perspectives showing how History of
Literature overlaps with many other fields of study. The knowledge of historical, philosophic,
religious and other cultural facts enriches students’ competence. This background knowledge
provides them with a deeper understanding of literary epochs, and consequently gives them
more satisfaction from reading, analyzing and discussing literature.
�Contents
Anglo-Saxon Literature
Historical Context
Anglo-Saxon Poetry
Beowulf
Elegiac Poetry. The Seafarer
Anglo-Saxon Riddles
Old English Christian Poetry
Anglo-Saxon Prose
�Contents
Historical Context
The history of English Literature begins sixteen hundred years ago when Anglo-Saxon tribes
came to Britain from the north of Europe. A primitive, warlike people the Anglo-Saxons
became known for their hearty feasts, skill in handicrafts and long, heroic tales. Before they
were conquered by the Normans from France, the Anglo-Saxons produced the epic poem
Beowulf and lyrics which became the foundation stone of the English literature.
England has been invaded and settled many times: by an ancient people called the Iberians, by
the Celts, by the Romans, by the Angles and Saxons, and by the Normans.
The first mention of Britain occurs in the writings of the ancient Greeks. In the fourth century
BC they found an island settled by the tall, blond Celtic warriors. Among the Celts was a
group called Brythons or Britons, who gave their name to the nation and country they
inhabited. They spoke Celtic, and had a religion to be characterized as animism. They believed
that different spirits or gods lived in the dark parts of the forest and controlled all aspects of
life. Those gods had to be constantly placated. It was the Druids, a class of priests who acted
intermediaries between gods and people. They performed ritual dances, animal sacrifices and
sometimes human sacrifices.
The Romans were the next to inhabit the British Isles. Julius Caesar crossed the English
channel in the course of one of his Gallic Wars in 55 BC. Caesar made no attempt to colonize
the island, and the development of a Roman province did not begin until nearly a century later.
Then Roman emperor Claudius, in 43 AD led a campaign which overcame the Celtic Britons
and established the Roman Rule. The Romans were practical people who had an administrative
genius. The period of their dominance was marked by stability and organization. For nearly
400 years Britain remained part of the Roman Empire. Romans and Britons intermarried, towns
grew, magnificent roads were constructed over the province, peace was maintained. Christian
missionaries came from Europe, and the old Celtic religion began to vanish.
However, when the Roman Empire began to fall apart under repeated attacks of barbarians
early in the fifth century, the Romans had to abandon the province. They left behind all the
material wealth (wall, roads, public baths), as well as some changes in language. For example,
the Latin word castra – “camp” became a suffix and was later pronounced [kester], [shester],
[chester], which is recognized in the names of many English towns: Manchester, Worcester
[Wuster], Lancaster. Other words are vallum – “wall”, strata – “street, road”, etc. The only
thing the Romans didn’t leave was central government.
All that the Romans wanted was to make Britons work for them. The result was weakness and
�Contents
a series of successful invasions. Eventually, the remnants of the Roman province were
conquered by the Germanic tribes from across the North Sea.
Among those invaders were Angles, Saxons and Jutes who lived in the northwest coast of
Germany and the Danish peninsula. The language of Anglo-Saxons became dominant. The land
took another name – Engalond, or England. The Celts put up a strong resistance before they
retreated into Wales in the far West of the country. One of the most heroic Celtic leaders was a
man called Arthur, who became the character of many national legends.
The Anglo-Saxons were agricultural people who recognized two classes of society: the earls
(ruling class) and the churls (bondmen). The warrior also occupied a preeminent position in
the Anglo-Saxon society. The prestige of a successful warrior was immense. Even the king was
essentially a warrior. Although he ruled absolutely, he was attentive to the advice of the Witan
(assembly of elders, wise men). The earls ruled, the warriors fought wars and the churls did
hard labor. The place of women was unimportant as they were regarded valuable only for
domestic duties, although wives of kings, earls and wise men were honored.
Great feasts were also part of Anglo-Saxon life. To celebrate the deeds of a hero there had
been from ancient times the professional bard, called the scop who combined the roles of chief
entertainer, antiquarian and poet, and press agent for the king and tribe.
Scop – was an Anglo-Saxon poet who was appointed by the early Germanic kings or soldiers to entertain
them by reciting poetry to the accompaniment of a harp or another stringed instrument. From the Old English
word “scieppan”, scop means to create, form or shape. The scop was also referred to as a gleeman, from the
Old English word “gleoman”, who was a musician or performer. Scops were known to travel from village to
village; however, many had permanent posts in the king’s court or mead halls. Usually, they performed for
great feasts, celebrations, or the homecoming of soldiers from war. Scops were also commissioned to write
elegies or songs for the dead. It was considered an honor to have a scop sing one's praise or mourn one’s
death. Scops were messengers of traditional morality. They used poetry to motivate their listeners to live
good and honest lives, to keep true to the values of loyalty, family, kinship, and religion. Also, because most
of the historic events were recorded in poetry, they were carried by the scops to places far and near. By
traveling with these stories, the scops helped to preserve the history of the Germanic people for generations
later. Thanks to the work of these oral historians, we can still read about their culture, achievements, and
beliefs.
The Anglo-Saxons were loyal to their kings, because they depended on him for protection,
fame, success, even survival, especially during war, and success was measured by gifts from
the king. This loyalty pattern was part of their life. It grew out of the need to protect the group
from the enemy-infested virgin wilderness, especially in winter. Anglo-Saxons tended to live
close to their animals in a single-family homesteads, wooden buildings surrounded by wooden
fences. This also contributed to the sense of security.
The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were also pagans, as the Britons. The gods of the Anglo-
�Contents
Saxons were:
Tu, or Tuesco – god of darkness,
Woden (Odin) – god of War,
Thor – the Thunderer,
Freia – goddess of Prosperity.
Names of these gods survived in the language as days of the week: Tuesday – the day of the
god Tuesco; Wednesday – Woden’s day; Thursday – Thor’s day; Friday – Freia’s day.
One of the most important Norse gods was Odin, the god who overcame death itself in order
to learn the great mysteries contained in runes (the Briton’s alphabet), or religious inscriptions.
As the god of death, poetry and magic, Odin could help humans communicate with spirits. It is
not surprising that this god of poetry and death would have been so important to a people who
produced great poetry in the elegiac and mournful mood.
The history of England from about 600 to 850 is the story of the rise and fall of Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms. First Kent became the strongest of the kingdoms. From about 650 to 750
Northumbria achieved political and cultural eminence. Then power moved to Mercia until
Wessex attained supremacy early in the ninth century.
Around 850 in the kingdom of Wessex there emerged the figure of King Alfred the Great, most
remarkable of the Anglo-Saxon kings. His enemies were Viking Danes. Beginning at the end of
the eighth century, the Vikings advanced farther and farther. To establish peace, Alfred had to
give up to the Danes the northern and central parts of England then known as the Danelagh
(Danelaw). In 878, Alfred forced the Danes out of Wessex.
Under Alfred’s reign Irish and Continental missionaries came to England and set up little
centers of Christian religion. However, the full flow of Christianity into England came straight
from Rome, when, in 597, Pope Gregory the Great sent his emissary Augustine to convert
King Ethelbert (Kent) of England. Augustine founded the cathedral of Canterbury, and became
the first Archbishop of Canterbury, or the leader of the Church of England. The conversion of
the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity widened their spiritual and intellectual outlook. However, the
core paganism of the people showed in the written records, particularly in the surviving
folklore.
The power of the West Saxon kings declined late in the tenth century, and the new waves of
Danish invaders assaulted the island. In 1014 the Danes conquered England, then the AngloSaxons returned to their rule in 1042, and in 1066, William, the Duke of Normandy, became the
last conqueror of England. That put the end to the Anglo-Saxon history of England.
�Contents
Anglo-Saxon Poetry
The poetry of the Old English period is generally grouped in two main divisions, National and
Christian. In the national, or pagan, poems the subjects are drawn from English, or rather
Germanic, tradition and history or from the customs and conditions of English life. Christian
poems deal with Biblical matter, ecclesiastical traditions and religious subjects of definitely
Christian origin. The line of demarcation, however, is not absolutely fixed. Most of the national
poems in their present form contain Christian elements, while English influence often makes
itself obvious in the presentation of Biblical or ecclesiastical subjects.
The early national poems are classified into two groups, epic and elegiac. Epics are
considerably long, while all the elegiac poems are quite short. The best example of Old English
epic poetry is Beowulf. It runs 3183 lines. The Seafarer is an example of elegiac poetry. It is a
sorrowful piece of writing running 124 lines.
�Contents
Beowulf
Beowulf is the oldest poem in the English language and one of the earliest monuments of the
Germanic literature. Like most epic poets, the author of Beowulf is unknown. The poem was
probably recited as early as the 6-th century, but the text we have today was composed in the
8-th century and written down in the 10-th. The poem was given the title “Beowulf” only in
1805 and was printed in 1815.
The origin of Beowulf manuscript is completely unknown, but it may have belonged to one of the monasteries
dissolved by Henry VIII. It came into the possession of the antiquarian Sir Robert Cotton. In the 17th century
his library, was the richest collection of Anglo-Saxon literary and historical documents. In 1700, the Cottonian
library was willed to the British nation and eventually moved to Ashburnham House at Westminster, which
was thought to be a safer location. On October 23, 1731, there was a fire. The manuscript survived but was
burnt along its edges. It has been kept in the British museum till today since the time of its foundation in 1753.
Although the action takes place in Scandinavia, the poem is English. The Angles, Saxons and
Jutes took the story to Britain during their invasions. Then the pagan story was passed on from
generation to generation until it was written down by a monk who ornamented the epic with
Christian morality. Thus Christian ideas in the poem are blended with pagan views.
Alongside with supernatural elements Beowulf contains historical facts and can be read as a
chronicle. The story is remarkable for the glimpse of Anglo-Saxon society and its values. At
the time Beowulf was composed the ideals of the Anglo-Saxons included bravery and prowess
in battle, unselfishness, dignity, the sense of justice and loyalty. The poem describes the
warriors in battle and at peace, during their feasts and amusements. Though they were warriors,
the Anglo Saxons were capable of strong emotions. This emotionality is best captured in
poetry which was recited or sung by scops. Those were skilled minstrels who devoted their
lives to this purpose.
Content
Hrothgar, King of the Danes, built a hall near the sea called Heorot. He and his men
gathered there for feasts. One night as they were all sleeping a frightful monster called
Grendel broke into the hall, killed thirty of the sleeping warriors, and carried off their bodies
to his den under the sea. For twelve winters the horrible half-human creature came night
after night.
In the nearby kingdom of Geatland there lived Beowulf who was a man of immense strength
and courage. When he heard from mariners of Grendel’s murderous attacks, he decided to
fight the monster and free the Danes. With fourteen companions he crossed the sea.
�Contents
The Danes received Beowulf with great hospitality. A big feast was held in his honour. That
night the Danes left with their king. Beowulf stayed saying proudly that he would wrestle
with Grendel bare-handed since weapons could not harm the monster. The warriors fell
asleep but Beowulf did not. Breaking into the hall, Grendel seized one of Beowulf’s sleeping
men and drank his blood. Beowulf fought the monster and managed to tear off his arm at
the shoulder. Mortally wounded, Grendel went back into the sea to die. The huge arm of the
monster was hanged over the king’s seat. The Danes rejoiced in Beowulf’s victory. Beowulf
received rich presents from the king.
The following night the Danes once more went to sleep in the hall after the feast. At
midnight Grendel’s mother came to take revenge for her son’s death. She carried off the
king’s best friend as well as Grendel’s torn off arm. Beowulf and his men followed the blood
trail left by the arm and came to the place where Grendel’s mother had hidden. Beowulf
plunged into the water and swam into a cave. He fought Grendel’s mother killing her with
the magic sword he found in the cave. Beowulf cut off Grendel’s head whose body was also
lying there and brought it back to King Hrothgar.
After the great celebration Beowulf returned to his home country, where he was made king.
After fifty years of Beowulf’s successful reign he had to face another evil creature. The fire
dragon kept watch over an enormous treasure hidden in the mountains. A golden cup was
stolen from the treasure. The dragon became furious and began to destroy the country.
Beowulf knew it was going to be his final battle. He slayed the dragon and died himself.
The body of the hero was burned on fire, according to the pagan custom.
Text
Prologue
Перевод В. Тихомирова
Old English Text
Hwæt! We Gardena
in geardagum,
þeodcyninga,
þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas
ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing
sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum,
meodosetla ofteah,
Истинно! исстари
слово мы слышим
о доблести данов,
о конунгах датских,
чья слава в битвах
была добыта!
Первый - Скильд Скевинг,
войсководитель,
не раз отрывавший
вражьи дружины
от скамей бражных.
За все, что он выстрадал
�Contents
egsode eorlas.
Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden,
he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum,
weorðmyndum þah,
oðþæt him æghwylc
þara ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade
hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan.
þæt wæs god cyning!
ðæm eafera wæs
æfter cenned,
geong in geardum,
þone god sende
folce to frofre;
fyrenðearfe ongeat
þe hie ær drugon
aldorlease
lange hwile.
Him þæs liffrea,
wuldres wealdend,
woroldare forgeaf;
Beowulf wæs breme
(blæd wide sprang),
Scyldes eafera
Scedelandum in.
The Monster Grendel
translated by Burton Raffel
. . . A powerful monster, living down
In the darkness, growled in pain, impatient
As day after day the music rang
Loud in that hall, the harp’s rejoicing
Call and the poet’s clear songs, sung
Of the ancient beginnings of us all, recalling
The Almighty making the earth, shaping
These beautiful plains marked off by oceans,
Then proudly setting the sun and moon
To glow across the land and light it;
The corners of the earth were made lovely with trees
And leaves, made quick with life, with each
Of the nations who now move on its face. And then
As now warriors sang of their pleasure:
So Hrothgar’s men lived happy in his hall
Till the monster stirred, that demon, that fiend,
Grendel, who haunted the moors, the wild
Marshes, and made his home in a hell
Not hell but earth. He was spawned in that slime,
в детстве, найденыш,
ему воздалось:
стал разрастаться
властный под небом
и, возвеличенный,
силой принудил
народы заморья
дорогой китов
дань доставить
достойному власти.
Добрый был конунг!
В недолгом времени
сын престола,
наследник родился,
посланный Богом
людям на радость
и в утешение,
ибо Он видел
их гибель и скорби
в век безначалия,от Вседержителя вознаграждение,
от Жизнеподателя благонаследие,
знатен был Беовульф,
Скильдово семя,
в датских владениях.
�Contents
Conceived by a pair of those monsters born
Of Cain, murderous creatures banished
By God, punished forever for the crime
Of Abel’s death. The Almighty drove
Those demons out, and their exile was bitter,
Shut away from men; they split
Into a thousand forms of evil—spirits
And fiends, goblins, monsters, giants,
A brood forever opposing the Lord’s
Will, and again and again defeated.
Interpret the Biblical allusion in the extract. How do the elements of Christian
morality and national colour coexist in the poem?
Beowulf Fights Grendel’s Mother
translated by Fransis B. Gummere
'MID the battle-gear saw he a blade triumphant,
old-sword of Eotens, with edge of proof,
warriors' heirloom, weapon unmatched,
– save only 'twas more than other men
to bandy-of-battle could bear at all –
as the giants had wrought it, ready and keen.
Seized then its chain-hilt the Scyldings' chieftain,
bold and battle-grim, brandished the sword,
reckless of life, and so wrathfully smote
that it gripped her neck and grasped her hard,
her bone-rings breaking: the blade pierced through
that fated-one's flesh: to floor she sank.
Bloody the blade: he was blithe of his deed.
Then blazed forth light. 'Twas bright within
as when from the sky there shines unclouded
heaven's candle. The hall he scanned.
By the wall then went he; his weapon raised
high by its hilts the Hygelac-thane,
angry and eager. That edge was not useless
to the warrior now. He wished with speed
Grendel to guerdon for grim raids many,
�Contents
for the war he waged on Western-Danes
oftener far than an only time,
when of Hrothgar's hearth-companions
he slew in slumber, in sleep devoured,
fifteen men of the folk of Danes,
and as many others outward bore,
his horrible prey. Well paid for that
the wrathful prince!
Style
Beowulf has distinctive features of Anglo-Saxon epic poetry, which generally has 4 accented
syllables and an indefinite number of unaccented syllables in each line. Each line is separated
by a pause known as a caesura, and there are generally two strong beats per part.
Caesura (Latin: “cutting off”) is an audible pause that breaks up a line of verse. In most cases, caesura
is indicated by punctuation marks which cause a pause in speech: a comma, a semicolon, a full stop, a
dash, etc. There are two types of caesurae: masculine and feminine. A masculine caesura is a pause
that follows a stressed syllable; a caesura is feminine when it is preceded by an unstressed syllable.
Another distinction is by the position of the caesura in a line. Initial caesura describes a break close to the beginning
of a line, medial denotes a pause in the middle and terminal occurs at the very end. In scansion, the "double pipe"
sign ("||") is used to denote the position of a caesura in a line.
The halves of the two-part line are linked by alliteration of two or three of the accented
syllables:
Bore it bitterly he who bided in darkness
Twelve-winters’ time torture suffered
Soul-crushing sorrow. Not seldom in private
Sat the King in his council; conference held they...
Alliteration (also known as ‘head rhyme’ or ‘initial rhyme’), the repetition of the same sounds – usually initial
consonants of words or of stressed syllables – in any sequence of neighbouring words. Now an optional and
incidental decorative effect in verse or prose, it was once a required element in the poetry of Germanic languages.
Such poetry, in which alliteration rather than rhyme is the chief principle of repetition, is known as alliterative verse.
Anglo-Saxon poetry was recited, often accompanied by music, in front of an
audience. Alliteration gave the language a musical quality. It also played the same role as rhyme
in later poetry; it helped the scop and the audience to memorise the poem.
�Contents
Find the examples of alliteration in the above given passages from the poem.
Another feature of Anglo-Saxon poetry is the kenning, a colourful, indirect way of naming
something – a battle is “spear play”, the sun is “the candle in the skies”.
A kenning is a type of literary trope, specifically circumlocution, in the form of a compound (usually two words, often
hyphenated) that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly
associated with Old Norse and later Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon poetry.
Most commonly kennings present metaphorical compound phrases:
the sea – “a whale-path”;
a ship – “sea-wood”, “wave-floater”;
a body – “bone-house”;
blood – “war-sweat”;
the king – “ring-giver”;
the dragon – “shadow-walker”;
musical instrument – “joy-wood”, “glee-wood”.
Old English beo wulf literally means "bee-wolf," "a wolf to bees", which is a kenning for
"bear."
Make up your own kennings for the following: winter, spring, the moon, sea,
love, time, mobile phone, money, car, refrigerator.
Link
Modern English literature
John Gardner’s Grendel (1971) is a retelling of Beowulf from the point of view of the
monster. In Gardner's version of the epic the central character is Grendel, a beast condemned
to the life of an outlaw. The novel deals with finding meaning in the world and the nature of
good and evil.
�Contents
John Edmund Gardner (1926 – 2007) was an English spy and thriller novelist, best known for his James Bond
continuation novels, but also for his series of Boysie Oakes books and three continuation novels containing
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional villain, Professor Moriarty. Gardner received prestigious awards for his wide
range of literary achievements, including short stories, novels, and essays.
Using Grendel’s perspective to tell at least part of the story of Beowulf in more
contemporary language allows the story to been seen in a new light not only in terms of the
point of view but also brings it into the modern era. Grendel is used as a metaphor for the
necessity for a dark side to everything, where a hero is only as great as the villain he faces.
When Grendel meets the dragon in the early chapters of the novel, the two discuss Grendel’s
role in life, and whether or not Grendel is truly capable of controlling his fate. The dragon
insists that Grendel is a monster and his sole purpose is to better mankind through fear and
violence. Grendel opposes this theory optimistically but the dragon persists. Ultimately,
Grendel stops toying with the idea of doing good and turns to a life of absolute terror and
violence as he raids the mead halls of Hrothgar’s kingdom, thus Grendel demonstrates
existentialist ‘all or nothing’ theory by leading a life of complete evil.
Existentialism is a term applied to the work of certain late 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite
profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject – not
merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual. In existentialism, the individual's
starting point is characterized by what has been called "the existential attitude", or a sense of disorientation and
confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world. Many existentialists have also regarded
traditional systematic or academic philosophies, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from
concrete human experience. The themes popularly associated with existentialism – dread, boredom, alienation,
the absurd, freedom, commitment, nothingness.
Grendel is portrayed mainly as a physical creature in the original work, here a glimpse into his
psyche is offered. Grendel lives in isolation and loneliness with his mother, who is unable to
provide any real companionship to her child. As the only being of his kind, he has no one to
relate to and feels the need to be understood or have some connection. Grendel has a complex
relationship with the humans who hate and fear him. He feels that he is somehow related to
humanity and despite his desire to eat them he can be moved by them and their works. He acts
as a witness to how human lives unfold and their behavior and logic bewilder him. He is cursed
to the eternal life of solitude, which deepens his grief and loneliness. He is only freed from his
tormented life through his encounter with Beowulf.
Grendel has become one of Gardner's best known and reviewed works. Ten years after
publication, the novel was adapted into the 1981 animated movie Grendel Grendel Grendel.
�Contents
1. Think of another ancient story that can be interpreted in a new completely
original way. Is the interpretation of a story (myth, legend, fairy-tale) the
matter of individual perception or culturally determined values and opinions?
2. Beowulf is the hero of northern European sagas. He lived in the world of
powerful and mysterious forces where nobility, fatalism, pride, loyalty, the search for glory
and death all played important parts. He lived in violent times in a violent environment
where nature was often hostile and man was constantly under the threat of death from
dreadful monsters. Who would you consider to be a modern hero? How does the hero you
have chosen reflect the time we live in?
�Contents
Elegiac Poetry.
The Seafarer
"The Seafarer" is an Old English poem recorded in the Exeter Book, one of the four
surviving manuscripts of Old English poetry. It contains 124 lines and is commonly referred to
as an elegy, a poem that mourns a loss, or more generally, a sorrowful piece of writing. It is
told from the point of view of an old seafarer, who is evaluating his life as he has lived it. This
poem begins as a narrative of a man’s life at sea, and then turns into a praise of God. The first
64 lines present a monologue by a seafarer about the hardships and dangers of his life and
about his love for the sea. The second half of the poem is a didactic discourse intended to
draw a general moral from the seafarer’s description. It tells about the transience of worldly
enjoyments and praises humble, honest living. A man can reach Heaven living a good,
honorable life. This is a reward to man for believing and having faith.
Text
The Seafarer
translated by Burton Raffel
5
10
15
20
This tale is true, and mine. It tells
How the sea took me, swept me back
And forth in sorrow and fear and pain,
Showed me suffering in a hundred ships,
In a thousand ports, and in me. It tells
Of smashing surf when I sweated in the cold
Of an anxious watch, perched in the bow
As it dashed under cliffs. My feet were cast
In icy bands, bound with frost,
With frozen chains, and hardship groaned
Around my heart. Hunger tore
At my sea-weary soul. No man sheltered
On the quiet fairness of earth can feel
How wretched I was, drifting through winter
On an ice-cold sea, whirled in sorrow,
Alone in a world blown clear of love,
Hung with icicles. The hailstorms flew.
The only sound was the roaring sea,
The freezing waves. The song of the swan
Might serve for pleasure, the cry of the sea-fowl,
The death-noise of birds instead of laughter,
The mewing of gulls instead of mead.
�Contents
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
Storms beat on the rocky cliffs and were echoed
By icy-feathered terns and the eagle’s screams;
No kinsman could offer comfort there,
To a soul left drowning in desolation.
And who could believe, knowing but
The passion of cities, swelled proud with wine
And no taste of misfortune, how often, how wearily,
I put myself back on the paths of the sea.
Night would blacken; it would snow from the north;
Frost bound the earth and hail would fall,
The coldest seeds. And how my heart
Would begin to beat, knowing once more
The salt waves tossing and the towering sea!
The time for journeys would come and my soul
Called me eagerly out, sent me over
The horizon, seeking foreigners’ homes.
But there isn’t a man on earth so proud,
So born to greatness, so bold with his youth,
Grown so brave, or so graced by God,
That he feels no fear as the sails unfurl,
Wondering what Fate has willed and will do.
No harps ring in his heart, no rewards,
No passion for women, no worldly pleasures,
Nothing, only the ocean’s heave;
But longing wraps itself around him.
Orchards blossom, the towns bloom,
Fields grow lovely as the world springs fresh,
And all these admonish that willing mind
Leaping to journeys, always set
In thoughts traveling on a quickening tide.
So summer’s sentinel, the cuckoo, sings
In his murmuring voice, and our hearts mourn
As he urges. Who could understand,
In ignorant ease, what we others suffer
As the paths of exile stretch endlessly on?
And yet my heart wanders away,
My soul roams with the sea, the whales’
Home, wandering to the widest corners
Of the world, returning ravenous with desire,
Flying solitary, screaming, exciting me
To the open ocean, breaking oaths
On the curve of a wave. Thus the joys of God
Are fervent with life, where life itself
�Contents
70
75
80
85
90
95
100
105
Fades quickly into the earth. The wealth
Of the world neither reaches to Heaven nor remains.
No man has ever faced the dawn
Certain which of Fate’s three threats
Would fall: illness, or age, or an enemy’s
Sword, snatching the life from his soul.
The praise the living pour on the dead
Flowers from reputation: plant
An earthly life of profit reaped
Even from hatred and rancor, of bravery
Flung in the devil’s face, and death
Can only bring you earthly praise
And a song to celebrate a place
With the angels, life eternally blessed
In the hosts of Heaven. The days are gone
When the kingdoms of earth flourished in glory;
Now there are no rulers, no emperors,
No givers of gold, as once there were,
When wonderful things were worked among them
And they lived in lordly magnificence.
Those powers have vanished, those pleasures are dead.
The weakest survives and the world continues,
Kept spinning by toil. All glory is tarnished.
The world’s honor ages and shrinks.
Bent like the men who mould it. Their faces
Blanch as time advances, their beards
Wither and they mourn the memory of friends.
The sons of princes, sown in the dust.
The soul stripped of its flesh knows nothing
Of sweetness or sour, feels no pain,
Bends neither its hand nor its brain. A brother
Opens his palms and pours down gold
On his kinsman’s grave, strewing his coffin
With treasures intended for Heaven, but nothing
Golden shakes the wrath of God
For a soul overflowing with sin, and nothing
Hidden on earth rises to Heaven.
We all fear God. He turns the earth,
He set it swinging firmly in space,
Gave life to the world and light to the sky.
Death leaps at the fools who forget their God.
He who lives humbly has angels from Heaven
To carry him courage and strength and belief.
�Contents
110
115
120
A man must conquer pride, not kill it,
Be firm with his fellows, chaste for himself,
Treat all the world as the world deserves,
With love or with hate but never with harm,
Though an enemy seek to scorch him in hell,
Or set the flames of a funeral pyre
Under his lord. Fate is stronger
And God mightier than any man’s mind.
Our thoughts should turn to where our home is,
Consider the ways of coming there,
Then strive for sure permission for us
To rise to that eternal joy,
That life born in the love of God
And the hope of Heaven. Praise the Holy
Grace of Him who honored us,
Eternal, unchanging creator of earth. Amen.
1. Why does the seafarer seek the severities of the sea rather than the
delights of the land?
2. How can you explain the combination of themes in the poem: seaman’s
life and religious teaching?
3. Interpret the lines: Fate is stronger And God mightier than any man’s
mind.
4. This short lyric is full of striking metaphors. Find them in the text. What
emotional effect does each metaphor create?
�Contents
Anglo-Saxon Riddles
Almost a hundred Anglo-Saxon riddles have come down to us. Riddle is an almost universal
form, found in most cultures. We can't say with any certainty who composed them, or when,
or how, or for what purpose. They may have been short pieces the bards used as fill between
parts of epics.
They were meant to be performed rather than merely read to oneself and give us a glimpse into
the life and culture of the era. Through many of the riddles we catch glimpses of Anglo-Saxon
life and beliefs that we do not find elsewhere in Old English literature or archaeology.
Like other Anglo-Saxon poems riddle express the notion that virtually everything in the world is
part of a living continuum, any segment of which can speak with its own particular voice. It is
important to note that many things described in the riddles are not seen as fixed and static
entities but as living creatures with biographies. A cross or a spear begins as a tree. A goose
begins as a barnacle. The world of the riddles lives, breathes, and speaks to man and to God.
The creatures of the riddles often have to go through a period of suffering to become what
they are and often experience a good deal of pain in their present state. A striking feature of the
riddles is that the speaker (a creature or a thing) accepts this pain and struggle as part of the
order of things either with cheerful endurance or Christian patience. Often a creature's
biography suggests that its pattern of growth gave it some of the powers it now has.
Parchment had to suffer to become a holy (and magical) Bible. A sword had to endure trials in
order to become strong and honored – not unlike its user.
Many riddles open with a formula like "I saw a wonderful thing" or "I am a marvel." This sort
of formula probably helped the riddler get started, and alerted the audience to the fact that this
was the beginning of a riddle.
Text
1. I am a lonely warrior, wounded by iron,
Stricken by sword, weary of battle-works,
Tired of blades.
Oft I see combat,
Fighting a brave foe,
I cannot expect comfort, safety to come to me in saving struggle,
Before I perish entirely among men;
But the leavings of hammers strike me,
The hard-edged, battle sharp handiwork of smiths,
Bites me in the stronghold.
�Contents
I must await a more hateful encounter.
Never a physician could I find on the battlefield,
One who with herbs might heal my wounds;
But the blows of the swords grow greater through death-strokes, by day and by night.
2. My home is not quiet but I am not loud.
The lord has meant us to journey together.
I am faster than he and sometimes stronger,
But he keeps on going for longer.
Sometimes I rest but he runs on.
For as long as I am alive I live in him.
If we part from one another
It is I who will die.
Write a riddle focused on some aspect of present-day life (a soda can, a light
bulb, a mobile-phone, etc.) in the style of the Old English ones.
�Contents
Old English Christian Poetry
Caedmon
Caedmon, the first English poet, lived in the latter half of the 7th century. His story is told by
Venerable Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People (written in Latin). It is
perhaps the most frequently quoted piece of all Bede's writings.
Venerable Bede (673–735) was a Benedictine monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter
at Monkwearmouth. He is well known as an author and scholar, and his most famous work,
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People)
gained him the title "The father of English history". In five books and 400 pages the book gives the
history of England from the time of Caesar to the date of its completion (731).
Text
from Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum,
book IV chapter xxiv
In this abbess's monastery was a certain brother particularly glorified and honoured with a divine gift, in that he fittingly
was accustomed to make songs, which pertained to religion and virtue, so that whatever thus he he learned of divine
letters from scholars, those things he after a moderate space of time he brought forth, in poetic language adorned with
the greatest sweetness and inspiration and well-made in the English language. And by his poem-songs the spirits of
many men were kindled to distain of the world and to service of a heavenly life. And likewise, many others after him
among the English people endeavoured to compose pious songs, but none however in like manner to him could do so
because he had learned not at all from men nor through man that he songcraft learned, but he was divinely aided and
through God's gift received the art of poetry. And he therefore he never could make any sort of lying or idle songs,
but just those alone which pertained to piety, and those which were fitting for his pious tongue to sing. The man was
established in worldly life until the time when he was of advanced age, and he had never learned any songs. And
consequently, often at a drinking gathering, when there was deemed to be occasion of joy, that they all must in turn
sing with a harp, when he saw the harp nearing him, he then arose for shame from that feast and went home to his
house. Then he did this on a certain occasion, that he left the banquet-hall and he was going out to the animal stables,
which herd had been assigned to him that night. When he there at a suitable time set his limbs at rest and fell asleep,
then some man stood by him in his dream and hailed and greeted him and addressed him by his name: 'Caedmon, sing
me something.' Then he answered and said: 'I do not know how to sing and for that reason I went out from this feast
and went hither, because I did not know how to sing at all.' Again he said, he who was speaking with him:
'Nevertheless, you must sing.' Then he said: 'What must I sing?' Said he: 'Sing to me of the first Creation.' When he
received this answer, then he began immediately to sing in praise of God the Creator verses and words which he had
never heard, whose order is this:
Now [we] must honour the guardian of heaven,
the might of the architect, and his purpose,
the work of the father of glory
as he, the eternal lord, established the beginning of wonders;
�Contents
he first created for the children of men
heaven as a roof, the holy creator
Then the guardian of mankind,
the eternal lord, afterwards appointed the middle earth,
the lands for men, the Lord almighty.
Then he arose from that sleep, and all of those (songs) which he sang while sleeping he had fast in his memory, and he
soon added in the same manner to those words many words of songs worthy of God. Then in the morning he came to
the town-reeve, who was his alderman. He said to him which gift did he bring, and he directly lead him to the abbess
and made it known and declared to her. Then she ordered all of the most learnèd men and scholars to assemble, and
to those who were present commanded him to tell of that dream and sing that song, so that it might be determined by
the judgement of all of them: what it was and whence it had come. Then it was seen by all even as it was, that to him
from God himself a heavenly gift had been given. Then they spoke to him and told some holy story and divine words
of knowledge; they bade him then, if he could, that he turn it into poetical rhythm. Then, when he had undertaken it in
this manner, then he went home to his house, and came again in the morning, and with the best adorned song he sang
and rendered what he was bid (to recite).
Then the abbess began to embrace and love the gift of God in that man, and she exhorted and adviced him that he
should abandon the worldly life and accept monkhood, and he readily agreed to this. And she accepted him into the
monastery, with his goods, and united him into the community of God's servants, and ordered that he be taught the
(entire) series of holy stories and narratives. And he was able to learn all that he heard, and, keeping it all in mind, just
as a clean animal chewing cud, turned (it) into the sweetest song. And his songs and his poems were so beautiful to
hear, that his teachers themselves wrote and learned at his mouth.
Cynewulf
Cynewulf is regarded as one of the preeminent figures of Old English Christian poetry. He
presumably flourished in the 9th century. We know of his name by means of his runic signature
found in the four poems: The Fates of the Apostles, Juliana, Elene, and Christ II (also
referred to as The Ascension). Unlike his literary predecessor, Caedmon, whose biography is
solely derived from Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Cynewulf's life is a mystery to scholars.
Cynewulf was undoubtedly a literate and educated man. He relied on Latin sources for
inspiration: that means he knew the Latin language and was likely a “man in holy orders”. The
deep Christian knowledge contained in his verse implies that he was well learned in religious
literature.
The Dream of the Rood is a religious poem dating back to the tenth century. It was found in a
manuscript in Northern Italy with a number of other Old English poems, although some of the
passages are also found inscribed on a stone cross in Scotland which dates back to the eighth
century.
�Contents
There are sections from The Dream of the Rood that are found on the Ruthwell Cross that
dates back to the 8th century. It was an 18 foot, free standing, Anglo-Saxon Cross, perhaps
intended as a "conversion tool". At each side of the vine-tracery the runes are carved. On the
cross there is an excerpt that was written in runes along with scenes of Jesus healing the blind, the
annunciation, and the story of Egypt. Although it was torn down and destroyed during initial Protestant revolt, it was
reconstructed as much as possible after the fear of iconography passed. Fortunately during that time of religious
unrest, those words that were in the runes were still protected in the Vercelli Book, so called because the book is
kept in Vercelli, Italy. The Vercelli Book dates back to the 10th century, and also holds 23 homilies interspersed with
six poems; The Dream of the Rood, Andreas, The Fates of the Apostles, Soul and Body, Elene, and a poetic,
homiletic fragment.
Like much of the surviving Old English poetry, no one knows who actually wrote The Dream
of the Rood, but some features of the poem resemble those of Cynewulf’s poems. That is why
it is sometimes referred to him.
The Dream of the Rood begins with the narration of the speaker of a dream he had. In his
dream he sees a tree covered with gold and surrounded by angles. While he is gazing at the
tree it starts to bleed heavily from its right side. It, then, addresses the dreamer. The tree is
the cross of the crucifixion, and it portrays the details of the story. Jesus is described as a
mighty warrior and a hero. The cross itself has been dug out after the crucifixion and now it
dwells with Jesus and has the power to heal those who pray to him.
The cross requests the dreamer to tell other people of this vision. One who knows the story of
the crucifixion will gain an after-life. After the dream the speaker dedicates his life to
contemplation and spiritual devotion so after his death he could enter the heaven kingdom
of Jesus.
�Contents
Anglo-Saxon Prose
Among the most important prose writes in England was the Venerable Bede (673–735). He
was born and educated in Northumbria, and more than any other scholar led the kingdom to its
period of literary supremacy. The title Venerable was given to Bede for his reputation of
wisdom and piety. He is the author of 40 respected and well-read (at his time) books: verses,
biographies of saints, theological commentaries and the Ecclesiastical history of English
Church and People. His other books on natural history and astronomy were a collection of all
the learning known in the Middle Ages.
Among Bede’s many works the Ecclesiastical History of the English People is still an
invaluable source book for our knowledge of the earlier period of Anglo-Saxon rule. Bede, as a
churchman and scholar, wrote in Latin. Only because the Ecclesiastical History was translated
into Old English by Alfred the Great it is considered a part of Anglo-Saxon prose.
Bede’s History contains 5 books.
The first book, beginning with a description of Britian, carries the history from the invasion of
Julius Caesar to the year 603, after the arrival of Augustine.
�Contents
The second book begins with the death of Gregory the Great, and ends in 633, when Edwin of
Northumbria was killed and Paulinus (the Christian missionary) retired to Rochester. It is in this
book that the wonderful scene is described in which Edwin of Northumbria takes counsel with
his nobles as to the acceptance or rejection of the Gospel as preached by Paulinus. Here
occurs the unforgettable simile of the sparrow flying out of the winter night into the brightlylighted hall and out again into the dark. The story ran as follows: When King Edwin and his
advisors were debating whether to be converted to Christianity during the seventh century:
“Your Majesty, when we compare the present life of man with that time of which we have no
knowledge, it seems to me like the swift flight of a lone sparrow through the banqueting hall
where you sit in the winter months to dine with your thanes and counsellors. Inside there is a
comforting fire to warm the room; outside, the wintry storms of snow and rain are raging.
This sparrow flies swiftly in through one door of the hall, and out through another. While he
is inside, he is safe from the winter storms; but after a few moments of comfort, he vanishes
from sight into the darkness whence he came. Similarly man appears on the earth for a little
while, but we know nothing of what went before this life, and what follows. Therefore, if this
new teaching can reveal any more certain knowledge, it seems only right that we should
follow it.”
In the third book proceeds as far as 664.
The fourth book, beginning with the events of 664, deals with events to the year 698. It is there
that Bede presented a marvelous story of Caedmon.
In the fifth and last book there are different stories of church people, their letters, the
description of the condition of the country in 731, and a list of the author’s works.
The popularity of the History was immense. Bede was not carried away by the Latin manner
and wrote it in a direct and simple style.
King Alfred the Great (849-901) is regarded as the greatest figure in Old English prose. The
reign of Alfred acquired its chief glory from the personality of the king. He was a great ruler
and scholar.
The beginning of the 9th century was a troubled time for England. Danish pirates called
Norsemen kept coming from overseas. Each year their number increased. When Alfred was
made King of England the year 871, England’s danger was the greatest. In 891, the Norsemen
were defeated, and Alfred decided to make peace with them.
The policy which he realised was the policy of unifying the petty Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and
�Contents
making Wessex the nucleus of English expantion. However, Alfred’s conceptions were
cosmopolitan rather than separatist. His reign is remarkable for its educational and political
progress. He never lost sight of the importance of keeping his kingdom in organic relation with
European civilisation. Alfred had contacts with cultured circles of scholars and writers from
the continent, and this has promoted a renaissance of classical study.
The books he chose for translation and dissemination, including philosophy, general
information, religion, and Bede’s history, show the wide range of his interests. It is probable
that Alfred translated these works himself, and he certainly added the material of his own to
some of them.
At the same time he increased the number of monasteries and reformed the educational side of
these institutions by the introduction of teachers, English and foreign.
King Alfred was also responsible for fostering the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a year-by-year
account of English history, which became a valuable contemporary account of life in AngloSaxon England. It was continued for 250 years after the king’s death.
The last great figure in Old English Prose is Abbot Aelfric of Eynsham, the Crammarian
(955?–1025?), like Bede a great Benedictine scholar and teacher. His works are many, but he
is best known for his homilies or sermons, his lives of the saints, and his amusing Colloquy on
the Occupations. The Colloquy differs from most Anglo-Saxon works in that it gives real
insight into the humdrum life of the ordinary man – farmer, hunter, fisherman and merchant.
Aelfric is much more the conscious stylist than Alfred. With him, Old English prose achieves
balance and rhythm.
Text
from Colloquy on the Occupations
Pupils: Master, we young men would like you to teach us
how to speak properly and with a wide vocabulary,
for we are ignorant and badly spoken
Teacher: How would you like to speak?
Pupils: We are concerned about the way we speak, as we
want to speak correctly and with meaning, and not
with meaningless base words. Would you beat us
and make us learn? For it is better for us to be
beaten to learn than to remain ignorant. However,
we know that you are a kind-hearted man who
would not wish to inflict blows on us unless we ask
for them.
Teacher: I ask you to tell me what work you do. I am a
�Contents
monk by profession. I sing seven psalms during
the day, and spend my time in reading and singing;
but, however, I should like you, in the meanwhile,
to learn to converse in the Latin language. What
skills do your work mates possess?
Pupils: Some are ploughmen, some are shepherds,others
are oxherds, hunters, fishermen, fowlers,
merchants, leather workers, salters and bakers.
Teacher: Can you tell us, ploughman, how you do your
work?
Ploughman: Master, I have to work so very hard. I go out at the
crack of dawn to drive the oxen to the field and
yoke them to the plough. For not even in the bitter
winter would I dare to stay at home for fear of my
lord; but, when I have yoked up the oxen and
fastened the plough and the ploughshare to the
plough, then I must plough a whole field or more
for the whole day.
Teacher: Have you any mates?
Ploughman: Yes, I have one boy who drives the oxen with a
goad. He is hoarse from shouting and the cold.
Teacher: Do you do anything more during the day?
Ploughman: Yes, indeed, I do very much more. I have to fill the
stable with hay for the oxen, water them and take
their dung outside. Alas, I have to endure such
hard work since I am not a free man.
Teacher: Tell us, shepherd, what work do you do?
Shepherd: Yes, my teacher, I have much work to do. As soon
as it is light, I drive the ewes to the pastures and
guard them with dogs through heat and cold, so
that the wolves do not devour them. I drive them
to the folds, where I milk them twice a day. I move
their folds and I make butter and cheese as well,
and I am faithful to my lord.
Teacher: What did you do, oxherd?
Oxherd: I work very hard for my lord. When the ploughman
has unyoked his oxen, I take them out to pasture
and stand over them all night to guard them
against thieves and again, at dawn, I give them
back to the ploughman well-fed and watered.
Teacher: Is this man, here, one of your comrades?
Oxherd: Oh, yes he is.
Teacher: Do you have any skill?
�Contents
Hunter: Yes, I have one skill.
Teacher: What is that?
Hunter: I am a hunter.
Teacher: In whose service?
Hunter: The King’s.
Teacher: How do you perform your skills?
Hunter: I take my nets with me and set them in a suitable
place, and set my hounds to pursue the beasts so
that they reach the nets unexpectedly and are
ensnared. Then, while they are still trapped in the
nets, I cut their throats.
Teacher: Do you have any other method of hunting instead
of nets?
Hunter: Yes, indeed, I hunt without using nets.
Teacher: How?
Hunter: I chase the wild beasts with very swift hounds.
Teacher: What sort of beasts do you catch mainly?
Hunter: I catch harts, bears, does, goats and some hares.
Teacher: Did you go out hunting today?
Hunter: No, I did not, because I had to spend today on my
lord’s estate, but I went out hunting yesterday.
Teacher: What did you catch?
Hunter: I caught two harts and a boar.
Teacher: How did you catch them?
Hunter: I caught the harts in the nets and I cut the boar’s
throat.
Teacher: How did you dare to cut the boar’s throat?
Hunter: My dogs drove him towards me, and I stood against
him and suddenly slew him.
Teacher: You must have been very brave indeed.
Hunter: A hunter must be very brave, since all kinds of
beasts lurk in the woods.
Teacher: What do you get from your hunting?
Hunter: Whatever I capture I give to the King, since I am his
huntsman.
Teacher: What does he give you?
Hunter: He feeds me and clothes me, and gives me a horse
and armour, so that I can perform my duties as a
hunter freely.
What does this passage tell us about life of Anglo-Saxon people and their
values?
�Contents
English Literature in the Middle Ages
�Contents
Historical Context
In the year 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, crossed the Channel and defeated the English in
a great battle at Hastings. Within five years he became the complete master of England. The
new king managed to crush the remaining Anglo-Saxon resistance and distributed the land
among his Norman nobles, organizing the country according to the new feudal system: land
was held in return for duty or service to one’s lord (military duty, as a rule). All land belonged
to the king, but he gave it to the nobles in exchange for a part of the goods and a promise to
serve him in war for a certain period each year. The nobles, in turn, gave part of their lands to
the knights or other freemen, who contributed military service or rent. Serfs who worked on
the land, but were not free to leave it, were the last link in the chain. They paid goods and
services to the lord in return for the land they farmed and were little more than slaves.
This system of organizing men into specific classes was accepted by medieval people because
they believed that full equality could not exist on earth. In this mortal life each man assumed the
place in society for which God destined him.
Feudal society was essentially a war-oriented society. Disputes arose not only between
countries, but between rival barons in the same land. National unity did not exist. A man
thought of himself as first the subject of the lord from whom he held his lands, and then as a
subject of the king.
Medieval life was softened by the institution of chivalry. The word “chivalry” evolved from
chevalier, the French word for the mounted soldier. A symbol of chivalry was the knight. The
training of a knight began in early childhood. At the age of seven the well-born boy left his
home for service first as a page, then as a squire at some lord’s castle. The lady of the castle
taught him the elaborate code of courtesy and manners that a knight must follow. With other
pages he was trained in horsemanship and the use of the shield and sword. When he became
squire, he went to battles with his lord.
The squire, who had served his term of apprenticeship, was able to become a knight. After a
ritual bath, a night’s wake, and sacramental confession, a squire was ceremonially dubbed
knight by his lord. The knight swore an oath of loyalty to his lord and pledged himself to
revere women, protect the weak, to right wrongs, and to defend the Christian faith (especially
by participation in Crusades against the advances of Muslim infidels).
�Contents
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with
the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem. The crusaders
comprised military units from all over western Europe, and were not under unified command. The
main series of Crusades occurred between 1095 and 1291. The Crusades were fought by Roman
Catholics primarily against Muslims. After some early successes, the later crusades failed and the crusaders were
defeated and forced to return home.
The chivalry brightened the life of only a relatively small number of upper-middle class, while
the mass of people –serfs and poor townsfolk – lived a different life. People worked all the
hours of sunlight and survived on a diet of cereals and vegetables. The serfs could not leave
their land without their lord’s permission.
The only link between all classes of the Anglo-Norman society was the Church. In a world of
war, plague, death, man clang to the Church teaching of eternal life, which is everything
compared to earthly life. Membership in the Church also secured a place in society. For some
serious transgression the man could be excommunicated, thus losing his status and rights.
In Norman England education was also the province of the Church. It is there that manuscripts
were copied by hand. Monks and priests passed the culture of Greek and Roman scholars to
young people who flocked to monasteries to learn. From such beginnings in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries came the formal organization of Oxford and Cambridge as universities.
The Church was also bound with political affairs. In medieval thought Church and King were
necessary instruments for maintaining order in society. The question of who was greater
caused dispute between them. The most famous quarrel between Church and King in
Medieval England was that of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry II. It was
Henry’s believed that certain rights exercised by the Church belonged to the King. He
appointed Thomas Becket, his counsellor and close friend, Archbishop of Canterbury. But
once he had become Archbishop, Becket strongly defended the rights of the Church. So, once
in a burst of anger, Henry II exclaimed to a group of his followers: “Will not one of you
avenge me of this turbulent priest?” So, the four of his knights went to Canterbury, found the
Archbishop and killed him with their daggers. The Christian world was shocked. Henry II
himself deplored the killing of his friend.
Since then the tomb of Thomas Becket became the favourite place of pilgrimage for
Englishmen of all classes. The story of pilgrimage to Becket’s shrine later became central in
Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Middle Ages witnessed a lot of tragic events in the British history.
�Contents
For many years there was hatred and resentment between the Saxon population and their new
Norman masters, who did not consider themselves as English, but as French. Political and
economic situations in the Late Middle Ages were aggravated by the epidemics of Black
Death (bubonic plague) and a long series of wars.
The plague broke out in 1348–49 and was followed by minor epidemics. Once infected, a
person barely lived 24 hours. Over the whole of the 14th century, the population fell from
about four million to less than two million. Serfs, left without masters, escaped to a freer life in
the growing towns and became vagabonds.
The overseas possessions of the English kings were the root cause of the tensions between
England and France. The kings of England were the mightiest of the king of France’s vassals,
and the inevitable friction between them repeatedly escalated into open hostilities. The
Hundred Years’ War grew out of these hostilities. It lasted from 1337 to 1453 and had many
ups and downs. The result was that England lost all its possessions in France apart from the
port of Calais.
Epidemics and wars led to the decrease in population, which favored the poor laborers. The
shortage of manpower meant that they could sell their services at a higher price. The king and
Parliament tried unsuccessfully and repeatedly to control increases in the cost of labor, and the
larger landowners were eventually forced to rent their land for longer and longer leases. By the
end of the Middle Ages the great landlords had almost disappeared, and a new class, the
yeomen, or smaller farmers, had become the backbone of the English society.
The Peasant’s Revolt in 1381 was the result of an ill-advised poll-tax to be paid by everyone
in the kingdom. The leader of the rebellion, Wat Tyler, called for better treatment of the poor:
“We are men formed in Christ’s likeness and we are kept like animals”, he said. The revolt
lasted four weeks, and peasants took control of much of London. Richard II confronted the
crowd and promised to satisfy all the demands and abolish serfdom, but as the crowd
dispersed, he changed his mind and executed the leaders, breaking all the promises he had
made.
The people were also increasingly dissatisfied with the Church, which was corrupt, greedy and
cruel. The appearance of religious works in English threatened the Church authority, since it
allowed people to think and pray independently.
A long series of struggles for power culminated in the so-called Wars of the Roses. The
conflict resulted from social and financial troubles that followed the Hundred Years' War.
�Contents
England was then ruled by King Henry VI, who was mentally ill. The nobility were divided
between those who supported the Duke of York (white rose), and those who stood for the
King, the House of Lancaster (red rose). The wars ended in the battle of Bosworth Field in
1485 when Richard III was defeated by Henry Tudor, Duke of Richmond (Lancastrian party),
who was immediately crowned King Henry VII.
�Contents
Literary Context
In the Early Middle Ages there developed a lot of new genres in the English literature.
Chivalric romances and ballads were the kind of literature that reflected the values and
manners of the upper classes. Fables and fabliaux were less noble stories admired by
townsfolk.
Fabliaux (singular: Fabliau) were funny metrical poems, full of indecent jokes, about cunning
humbugs, silly old merchants and their unfaithful wives. Together with fables fabliaux represented the
literature of the town which did not idealize characters as romances did.
Fables are usually short narratives making an edifying or cautionary point and often employing as
characters animals that speak and act like humans.
It was Geoffrey Chaucer who dominated the period and was called the Father of English
poetry. His genius enabled him to unite the various trends of medieval European literature. He
brought together the Old English and French influences and brightened them with an expressive
individual style.
The 14ht century also saw the so-called alliterative revival: the two main examples are Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight (author unknown) and Piers Plowman by William Langland.
Both are the products of a provincial, perhaps rather conservative culture, whereas Chaucer is
distinctly modern in tone and idiom.
One extremely important development was the rise of mystery and morality plays. They
originated as didactic spectacles designed to instruct the illiterate in religious matters, and their
content encompassed the whole of the Bible, from Genesis to the Day of Judgement. They
soon assumed the independent existence, revealing many original features.
Finally, the period closes with William Caxton and the first printing press in England. Caxton
strove towards the standardization of English in a refined and universal form. One of the books
he printed, Malory’s Morte D’Arthur, which is a massive prose version of the Arthurian cycle
of legends, is a fitting conclusion to the period in which the values of an aristocratic, chivalric
social systems were already in decline and new influences from Europe were beginning to take
place, culminating in the Renaissance, one of the richest periods in the history of English
literature.
�Contents
Chivalric Romances
The history of the English romances started at the beginning of the 13th century when the
French literature began to dominate the whole Europe. Troubadours, composed an abundance
of romances of chivalry, and sang them at the courts of the Norman kings of England. The
English admired those stories for their adventures: slaughter of Saracens, fights with dragons
and giants, enchanted princesses in the enchanted castles. The English writers adapted from
the French what suited them best, and what was liked and admired by the public.
Troubadours, or trouveres (English: minstrels), were a class of musicians and poets who wrote
poems and music about chivalry and love. They were medieval traveling entertainers who would
sing and recite poetry to make a living. Troubadour poetry became popular in Europe during the
twelfth century. It was most prominent between 1100 and 1350.
Chivalric romances introduced the ideas of knighthood and courtly love. Courtly love was a
medieval European conception of noble and chivalrous expression of love and admiration. It
was a parallel between the feudal service of a knight to his lord and the service of a lover to an
adored and honoured lady. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the
nobility. It was a school of thought in which courtiers could learn how to be charming and
graceful. Courtly love was also generally not practiced between husband and wife.
The French and English romances began to place a new emphasis on the dignity of a woman
who emerged as an equal partner in love, fidelity, wit, and courage. Worship and devotion to
womanhood originated in the Cult of Virgin Mary in the late Middle Ages. As the mother of
Jesus Christ, Mary has a central role in the life of the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman
Catholic veneration of her as the Blessed Virgin Mary has grown over time not only in prayer
but in art, poetry and music.
The Virgin Mary served as an ideal subject of love poetry because she was viewed as
paradoxically accessible and unattainable Mary could be sought, but never captured;
passionately loved, but never possessed. Love was always restless, always seeking, and never
fully satisfied.
According to the model of courtly love, love was important as a catalyst for growth and
transformation. The Virgin Mary came to be seen as a lady worthy of devotion, and as people
drew closer to her, they felt that their love for her made them bolder, braver, and more faithful.
Arthurian stories belong to a genre of chivalric romances. In the twelfth century Geoffrey of
Monmouth, the author of Historia Regum Britanniae, or History of Britons (1137), used
�Contents
both historical and legendary material to develop the story of King Arthur.
Content
In this narrative Arthur becomes king of Britain at the age of fifteen and wages wars against
Scots and Saxons. He conquers Scotland, Ireland, and Iceland, and many lands on the
continent. Arthur marries Guanhamara, a lady of the noble Roman family. Arthur is
summoned to pay tribute to the Emperor of Rome. Guanhamara is left in Arthur’s kingdom
in charge of his nephew Mordred. On his way to Rome Arthur slays the giant of St Michael
Mount. He is about to enter Rome when he receives a warning that Mordred has seized
Guanhamara and the kingdom. He returns to fight Mordred. Mordred and all his knights
are killed, and Arthur is mortally wounded, and taken to the island of Avalon for the healing
of his wounds. Guanhamara goes to a nunnery.
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s book was great success with readers, and made Arthur and Merlin
the romantic property of literary Europe.
The story of Arthur was developed by a Norman writer Wace, who added many details. The
Round Table around which the knights settled their disputes was first mentioned in his work.
The wounded king returns from Avalon and resumes his kingdom. Wace’s story was written in
English, in lightly rhyming verse, and was very popular. Wace’s work served as the basis of
the Brut (The Chronicle of Britain) of Layamon, the first English record of the “noble deeds
of England”, which adds many romantic and fairy details to the story. Elves are present at
Arthur’s birth to bestow on him long life, riches, and virtues. His sword and spear are magic,
after the final battle Arthur leaves for Avalon in a magic boat.
The remarkable fact about the story of King Arthur is its rapid development as the collection of
stories about Merlin, Gawain, Lancelot, Tristram, and the Grail. So Merlin, a Welsh wizardbard, and Gawain, a British knight, pass into French romances and are later transferred back to
English stories. The love of Lancelot for Guinevere is now a central episode of the Arthurian
tragedy, and Lancelot comes into the legend from a French story. The Grail story is another
complicated addition to the Arthurian cycle. The Grail is identified with the cup of the Last
Supper in which Joseph of Arimathea treasured the blood that flowed from the wounds of
Christ.
The Last Supper is the final meal that, in the Gospel accounts, Jesus shared with his Apostles in
Jerusalem before his crucifixion.
Despite the variety of Arthurian romances, none of them seriously challenges the
�Contents
remarkable poem called Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, probably written in the
fourteenth century. The authorship of the poem is unknown, and the poet goes under the name
of Gawain-poet.
The poem opens by introducing Arthur as the greatest of the line if British kings which
descended from Brutus.
Content
It is a New Year at King Arthur’s court at Camelot. There is feasting and merriment, but the
king declares that he will not eat until a marvel occurs. Suddenly a huge knight dressed all
in green enters the hall, mounted on a green horse and armed with an enormous axe. He
challenges anyone in the hall to strike him with the axe, but whoever accepts he challenge
must also accept a return blow at the Green Chapel in a year’s time. Gawain accepts and
cuts off the Green Knight’s head. The Green Knight picks up his head, bids farewell, and
rides away.
The following Christmas, Gawain sets out for the Green Chapel. Arriving at a magnificent
castle, he accepts the offer to rest there. During the next three days the lord of the castle goes
hunting, leaving Gawain alone with his wife. Gawain and the lord agree that at the end of
each day they will exchange everything the other has received hunting or otherwise. For
three days the lady has tried to seduce Gawain, but succeeds in giving him just kisses. She
also gives him a magic girdle, assuring him that it will protect him from injury. Gawain
gives the lord the kisses, but hides the girdle away. On the New Year’s Day Gawain goes to
the Green Chapel and meets the Green Knight. He is wounded, and the knight reveals that
he is the lord of the castle, and he and his wife have agreed to tempt Gawain. No harm
would have befallen Gawain if he had not hidden the girdle. Gawain is ashamed. But in the
generous knightly world of Camelot, his imperfection is excused as human folly, not as a
crime against chivalry. The Arthur’s knights agree from now on to wear green girdles. The
girdle becomes an emblem of untruth and shame, and a new badge of honour.
Sir Thomas Malory (d. 1471) was attracted by the adventurous content of the French
Arthurian material. He worked on a considerable variety of English and French sources in both
verse and prose, and translated them all into a prose epic. He summarized the popular stories
about King Arthur in his book Le Morte D’Arthur (Arthur’s Death) which he wrote in French.
Le Morte D’Arthur is divided into eight tales in 21 books, but is usually taken as a single work.
It is the greatest of the medieval prose romances. Malory felt that the aristocratic chivalry was
dying, the authority of medieval aristocracy was breaking up forever, destroyed by the
�Contents
madness of the Wars of the Roses.
In Malory’s story Arthur’s world is crashed. His faithful “brother” Lancelot becomes his rival,
because he and Arthur’s wife Guinevere fail the king and become lovers. Arthur fathers an
illegitimate son Mordred who will eventually kill Arthur in the great battle at Salisbury which will
finish off the Round Table. Mordred seizes the power and tries to make Guinevere marry him.
Lancelot desperate to rescue the queen kills by mischance Gareth, the knight who used to be
his friend.
What matters most in Le Morte D’Arthur is that the king is made to see the destruction of his
own achievements before he dies. His grief nearly overwhelms him when he considers how the
loss of Guinevere and the deaths of his knights are to be weighted.
Text
from Le Morte d'Arthur
The death of them, said Arthur, will cause the
greatest mortal war that ever was; I am sure, wist Sir
Gawaine that Sir Gareth were slain, I should never have
rest of him till I had destroyed Sir Launcelot's kin and
himself both, outher else he to destroy me. And therefore,
said the king, wit you well my heart was never so
heavy as it is now, and much more I am sorrier for my
good knights' loss than for the loss of my fair queen;
for queens I might have enow, but such a fellowship of
good knights shall never be together in no company.
And now I dare say, said King Arthur, there was never
Christian king held such a fellowship together; and alas
that ever Sir Launcelot and I should be at debate. Ah
Agravaine, Agravaine, said the king, Jesu forgive it thy soul,
for thine evil will, that thou and thy brother Sir Mordred
hadst unto Sir Launcelot, hath caused all this sorrow: and
ever among these complaints the king wept and swooned.
Link
English Literature of later periods:
• "The Faerie Queene"by Edmund Spenser (16-th century)
• "The Lady of Shalott", "Idylls of the King"by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (19-th century)
�Contents
American Literature and Cinematograph:
• "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"by Mark Twain (19-th century)
• "Merlin's Mirror"by Andre Norton (20-th century)
• “First Knight” by Jerry Zucker (20-th century)
• “King Arthur” by Antoine Fuqua (21-st century)
French Literature and Animation:
•
“Arthur and the Minimoys” by Luc Besson (21-st century)
Are you familiar with the books or films from the list?
How can you explain the unceasing interest of the public in Arthurian theme?
What inspires modern authors and audiences in the legends about Arthur?
�Contents
Ballads
Ballad (Latin: ballare – to dance) is a songlike poem that was a popular verse form which
flourished mainly on the border between England and Scotland. Ballads belonged to no
particular author, but like all folklore they were handled freely by minstrels and ballad reciters
who changed and modernized the ballad texts.
Ballads told different types of stories. There were ballads about the supernatural: stories of
ghosts and demons or people who returned from the dead to haunt the living. There were
romantic tragedies usually dealing with the separation of lovers through misunderstanding or
the opposition of family. Many ballads were about crime and punishment, and often told the
stories of convicted criminals who were about to be executed and repented for their sins.
The most popular ballads were the stories about the good outlaw Robin Hood. Robin Hood is
a national character. He had the English love for fair play, generosity, wit and quickness. He
was a mighty archer armed with the national weapon of the bow and arrows. He tricked with
the legal authority in the person of a proud Sheriff of Nottingam. Robin Hood was praised for
his adventurous spirit, his sense of humour and his concern for the poor.
Finally, there were ballads recounting historical events, such as battles between the English and
the Scots (The Border Ballads) or natural disasters such as shipwrecks and plagues.
According to the circumstances of their origin and purpose we can define three basic types of
ballads: the folk ballad; the minstrel ballad; and the coronach.
Folk ballads, the oldest of these types, were probably composed by a local singer to
commemorate some event of importance to the community. As generations of singers passed
on the song, a word was changed here and there, and differing versions of the same ballad
often appeared. Certain basic characteristics also developed. Because the listeners were most
interested in rapid and dramatic action, story is more important than characters or setting. The
introductory material is sketched in briefly, and the action moves swiftly to its climax. The
general tone is usually very tragic. The ballads often end in death by accident, murder or
suicide, or with the return of the dead. In them death is viewed impersonally. Tragedy was part
of the pattern of medieval life.
The minstrel ballad takes its name from the fact that its originators were often minstrels.
Minstrels often created their own ballads but they were also famous for memorising long
poems based on myths and legends. Although they used the same themes as the community
bards had sung in their folk ballads, they were more conscious artists in the handling of these
�Contents
themes. Often they added a description of the country-side or an account of a character’s
thoughts and feelings. Minstrel ballads are often longer and less direct than the older folk
ballads and have a more literary flavour.
The coronach, or lament is the most personal type of ballad. To the narrative tradition of the
folk ballad and the descriptive touches of the minstrel ballad it adds a lyric tone – a personal
reaction to tragedy.
Style
All English ballads are divided into four- or six-line stanzas.
Stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in
popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a verse. A stanza consists of a grouping of two
or more lines, set off by a space, that usually has a set pattern of meter and rhyme. The stanza in poetry
is analogous with the paragraph that is seen in prose, related thoughts are grouped into units. In
traditional English-language poems, stanzas can be identified and grouped together because they share a rhyme
scheme or a fixed number of lines (as in couplet, tercet, quatrain, quintain, sestet).
Most ballads are written in in quatrains of alternating lines of iambic tetrametre and iambic
trimeter. The usual rhyme is abcb. When read, the meter of ballads often seems crude and
irregular. This is because ballads were meant to be sung, and the rhythms of song differ from
speech rhythms.
Defining poetic metre
Metre is the regular arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Foot is the basic unit of metre which consists of one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed
syllables.
Iamb (adj.: iambic) – one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable (da/DUM):
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
(from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare)
Trochee (adj.: trochaic) – one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable (DUM/da):
Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odours of the forest,
�Contents
With the dew and damp of meadows,…
(from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Longfellow)
Anapest (adj.: anapestic) – two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable (da/da/DUM):
Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.
(from A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Moore)
Dactyl (adj.: dactylic) – one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables(DUM/da/da):
Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
(from Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds by The Beatles)
Amphibrach (adj.: amphibrachic) – one stressed syllable between two unstressed syllables (da/DUM/da):
How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view!
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild-wood,
And every loved spot which my infancy knew!
(from The Old Oaken Bucket by Samuel Woodworth)
The number of feet in the line determines its metrical length:
monometre – one foot
dimetre – two feet
trimetre – three feet
tetrameter – four feet
pentameter – five feet
hexameter – six feet
heptameter – seven feet
octametre – eight feet
In the folk ballad the repetition of various types adds to the melody, provides emphasis, and
heightens the emotional effect. Incremental repetition, or the repetition of the lines containing
�Contents
some small addition or increment, is used to build a climax. The repetition of a complete line
within a poem may be used regularly at the end of each stanza as a refrain.
Incremental repetition is the repetition of a line in a changed context or with minor changes in the
repeated part.
Refrain is a phrase, verse, or group of verses repeated at intervals throughout a song or poem,
especially at the end of each stanza.
Text
Edward
Why dois your brand sae drap wi bluid,
Edward, Edward,
Why dois your brand sae drap wi bluid,
And why sae sad gang yee O?
O I hae killed my hauke sae guid,
Mither, mither,
O I hae killed my hauke sae guid,
And I had пае mair bot hee O.
Your haukis bluid was nevir sae reid,
Edward, Edward,
Your haukis bluid was nevir sae reid,
My deir son I tell theee O.
O I hae killed my reid-roan steid,
Mither, mither,
O I hae killed my reid-roan steid,
That erst was sae fair and frie O.
Your steid was auld, and ye hae gat mair,
Edward, Edward.
Your steid was auld, and ye hae gat mair,
Sum other dule ye drie O.
O I hae killed my fadir deir,
Mither, mither,
O I hae killed my fadir deir,
Alas, and wae is mee O!
And whatten penance wul ye drie, for that,
Edward, Edward?
And whatten penance will ye drie for that?
My deir son, now tell me O.
I’le set my feit in yonder boat,
Mither, mither,
I’le set my feit in yonder boat,
And He fare ovir the sea O.
And what wul ye doe wi your towirs and your ha,
Edward, Edward?
And what wul ye doe wi your towirs and your ha,
That were sae fair to see O?
I’le let thame stand tul they doun fa,
Mither, mither,
I’le let thame stand tul they doun fa,
For here nevir mair maun I bee O.
And what wul ye leive to your bairns and your wife,
Edward, Edward?
And what wul ye leive to your bairns and your wife,
Whan ye gang ovir the sea O?
The warldis room, late them beg thrae life,
Mither, mither,
The warldis room, late them beg thrae life,
For thame nevir mair wul I see O.
�Contents
And what wul ye leive to your ain mither deir,
Edward, Edward?
And what wul ye leive to your ain mither deir?
My deir son, now tell me O.
The curse of hell frae me sail ye beir,
Mither, mither,
The curse of hell frae me sail ye beir,
Sic counseils ye gave to me O.
Translate the ballad into Modern English or Russian.
What effect is produced by the last lines of the ballad?
The Dae mon Love r
"O WHERE have you been, my long, long love,
This long seven years and more?"
"O I'm come to seek my former vows
Ye granted me before."
"O hold your tongue of your former vows,
For they will breed sad strife;
O hold your tongue of your former vows,
For I am become a wife."
He turn'd him right and round about,
And the tear blinded his ee;
I wad never hae trodden on Irish ground,
If it had not been for thee.
"I might hae had a king's daughter,
Far, far beyond the sea;
I might have had a king's daughter,
Had it not been for love o' thee."
"If ye might have had a king's daughter,Yer sell ye had to blame;
Ye might have taken the king's daughter,
For ye kend that I was nane."
"faulse are the vows of womankind,
But fair is their faulse bodie;
I never wad hae trodden on Irish ground,
Had it not been for love o' thee."
Демон-любовник
перевод С. Я. Маршака
– О где ты был, мой старый друг,
Семь долгих, долгих лет?
– Я вновь с тобой, моя любовь,
И помню твой обет.
– Молчи о клятвах прежних лет,
Мой старый, старый друг.
Пускай о клятвах прежних лет
Не знает мой супруг.
Он поспешил смахнуть слезу
И скрыть свои черты.
– Я б не вернулся в край родной,
Когда бы не ты, не ты.
Богаче нашей стороны
Заморская земля.
Себе там в жены мог бы взять
Я дочку короля!
– Ты взял бы дочку короля!
Зачем спешил ко мне?
Ты взял бы дочку короля
В заморской стороне.
�"If I was to leave my husband dear,
And my two babes also,
O what have you to take me to,
If with you I should go? "
"I hae seven ships upon the sea,
The eighth brought me to land;
"With four-and-twenty bold mariners,
And music on every hand."
She has taken up her two little babes,
Kiss'd them baith cheek and chin;
"fair ye weel, my ain two babes,
For I'll never see you again."
She set her foot upon the ship,
No mariners could she behold;
But the sails were o' the taffetie,
And the masts o' the beaten gold.
She had not said a league, a league,
A league but barely three,
When dismal grew his countenance,
And drumlie grew his ee.
The masts that were like the beaten gold,
Bent not on the heaving seas;
But the sails, that were o' the taffetie,
Filed not in the east land breeze.
They had not sailed a league, a league,
A league but barely three, so
Until she espied his cloven foot,
And she wept right bitterlie.
"O hold your tongue of your weeping," says he,
"Of your weeping now let me be;
I will show you how the lilies grow
On the banks of Italy."
"what hills are yon, yon pleasant hills.
That the sun shines sweetly on? "
" O yon are the hills of heaven," he said,
" Where you will never win." eo
"O whaten a mountain is yon,"she said,
"All so dreary wi' frost and snow? "
"O yon is the mountain of hell," he cried,
Contents
– О, лживы клятвы нежных дев,
Хоть вид их сердцу мил.
Я не спешил бы в край родной,
Когда бы не любил.
– Но если бросить я должна
Детей и мирный кров, –
Как убежать нам, милый друг,
От наших берегов?
– Семь кораблей есть у меня,
Восьмой приплыл к земле,
Отборных тридцать моряков
Со мной на корабле.
Двух малых деток мать взяла
И стала целовать.
Прощайте, детки! Больше вам
Не видеть вашу мать.
Корабль их ждал у берегов,
Безмолвный и пустой.
Был поднят парус из тафты
На мачте золотой.
Но только выплыли они,
Качаясь, на простор,
Сверкнул зловещим огоньком
Его угрюмый взор.
Не гнулись мачты корабля,
Качаясь на волнах,
И вольный ветер не шумел
В раскрытых парусах.
– О, что за светлые холмы
В лазури голубой?
–- Холмы небес, – ответил он, –
Где нам не быть с тобой.
– Скажи: какие там встают
Угрюмые хребты?
– То горы ада! – крикнул он, -
�Contents
"Where you and I will go."
Где буду я – и ты!
And aye when she turn'd her round about, eо
Aye taller he seem'd for to be;
Until that the tops o' that gallant ship
Nae taller were than he.
Он стал расти, расти, расти
И мачты перерос
И руку, яростно грозя,
Над мачтами занес.
The clouds grew dark, and the wind grew loud.
And the levin fill'd her ee;
And waesome waiFd the snaw-white sprites
Upon the gurlie sea.
Сверкнула молния из туч,
Слепя тревожный взор,
И бледных духов скорбный рой
Покрыл морской простор.
He strack the tap-mast wi' his hand,
The fore-mast wi' his knee;
And he brake that gallant ship in twain,
And sank her in the sea.
Две мачты сбил он кулаком,
Ногой еще одну,
Он судно надвое разбил
И все пустил ко дну.
Link
The Demon Lover (1945) by Elisabeth Bowen is perhaps her most acclaimed and widely
anthologized short story. Set in London during World War II, it revolves around the haunting
of a married middle-aged woman by the ghost of a sweetheart from her youth, a man presumed
to have been killed in the First World War twenty-five years earlier. To Bowen's credit, she
controls the language, atmosphere, and events of the story so successfully as to create a
disturbing ambiguity, leaving the reader to wonder whether the haunting is truly an instance of
the supernatural or a nightmarish delusion suffered by the protagonist.
The essential plot elements of Bowen's story derive from medieval legends about a demon
lover. Such tales often tell of a young woman who, having pledged eternal love to a soldier
departing for war, marries another when her lover does not return. However, he eventually does
come back, as a ghost or a corpse, to avenge this infidelity, usually by abducting her.
In The Demon Lover the protagonist, Mrs. Drover, returns to her London home, which had
been vacated during the bombing of the city by Germany. There Mrs. Drover discovers a
letter, dated the present day, composed by a lover from the past who was presumed to have
been killed in the previous world war. As a young woman, she had sworn to love him
forever, but eventually married another man. The letter recalls a meeting that they had
arranged long ago for this very evening. Overcome with dread at the thought of confronting
her former lover (alive or otherwise), Mrs. Drover leaves the house to hail a taxi. As the cab
�Contents
pulls away with Mrs. Drover, the driver looks her in the eye, throwing Mrs. Drover into
hysteria. Bowen does not reveal exactly what Mrs. Drover saw, but many readers are inclined
to believe it was the visage of her dead lover.
The Demon Lover conveys a simple moralistic message: no bad deed goes unpunished.
Unfaithful to her lover, Mrs. Drover suffered the consequences of her action.
Text
Lord Randal
“O where ha you been, Lord Randal, my son?
And where ha you been, my handsome young man?”
“I ha been at the greenwood; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m wearied wi hunting, and fain wad lie down.”
“An wha met ye there, Lord Randal, my son?
An wha met you there, my handsome young man?”
“O I met wi my true-love; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m wearied wi huntin, an fain wad lie down.”
“And what did she give you, Lord Randal, my son?
And what did she give you, my handsome young man?”
“Eels fried in a pan; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m wearied with huntin, and fain wad lie down.”
“And wha gat your leavins, Lord Randal, my son?
And what gat your leavins, my handsom young man?”
“My hawks and my hounds; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m wearied wi huntin, and fain wad lie down.”
“And what becam of them, Lord Randall, my son?
And what became of them, my handsome young man?”
“They stretched their legs out an died; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m wearied wi huntin, and fain wad lie down.”
“O I fear you are poisoned, Lord Randal, my son!
I fear you are poisoned, my handsome young man!”
“O yes, I am poisoned; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.”
“What d’ ye leave to your mother, Lord Randal, my son?
�Contents
What d’ye leave to your mother, my handsome young man?”
“Four and twenty milk kye; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.”
“What d’ ye leave to your sister, Lord Randal, my son?
What d’ ye leave to your sister, my handsome young man?”
“My gold and my silver; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, an I fain wad lie down.”
“What d’ ye leave to your brother, Lord Randal, my son?
What d’ ye leave to your brother, my handsome young man?”
“My house and my lands; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.”
“What d’ ye leave to your true-love, Lord Randal, my son?
What d’ ye leave to your true-love, my handsome young man?”
“I leave her hell and fire; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down.”
Find the examples of different types of repetition in the texts of ballads.
�Contents
William Langland: Piers Plowman
Another poet contemporary with Chaucer was William Langland (1330?–1400?), a figure
almost as shadowy as the Pearl Poet. He took minor orders but never became a priest. His
masterpiece is The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman is an allegorical dream
poem in unrhymed alliterative verse, regarded as the greatest Middle English poem prior to
Chaucer. The author devoted the last 25 years of his life to the book’s composition and
revision.
The work is a vast allegory of the human condition, in which Piers Plowman sets out to
discover the value of life and Christian salvation. In the book Vice and Virtue are spoken of as
if they were human beings. Truth is a young maiden, Greed is an old witch. Piers Plowman is
both a social satire and a vision of the simple Christian life.
The content runs as follows. On a fine May day the poet William went to the Malvern Hills.
After a time he fell asleep in the open. Piers the Plowman is a peasant who appears in the
dream of the poet. Piers tells him of the hard life of the people. It is the peasants alone who
work and keep the monks and the lords in comfort, and the Church is corrupt all through.
Langland’s attacks on the evils of the church are the most outspoken of his time. Before the
peasants’ Revolt of 1381, the poem was used to formulate proclamations which easily spread
among people.
The poem consists of three dream visions:
1. The poet falls asleep in the Malvern Hills and dreams that in a wilderness he comes upon the
tower of Truth (God) set on a hill, with the dungeon of Wrong (the Devil) in the deep valley
below, and a "fair field full of folk" (the world of living men) between them. Holy Church
rebukes the dreamer for sleeping and explains the meaning of all he sees. Further characters
(Conscience, Liar, Reason and so on) enter the action; Conscience finally persuades many of
the people to turn away from the Seven Deadly Sins and go in search of St. Truth, but they
need a guide.
2. A simple Plowman appears and says that because of his common sense and clean
conscience he knows the way and will show them if they help him plow his half acre. Some of
the company help, but some evade the work; and Piers tries to get men to work and find the
path of salvation.
3. The dreamer goes on a long-winded but unsuccessful summer-long quest, aided by
Thought, Wit, and Study, in search of the men who are Do-Well (the practice of virtues), Do-
�Contents
Bet (Piers becomes the Good Samaritan)and Do-Best (Piers becomes identified with Christ).
Interpret the allegory of Do-Well, Do-Bet, Do-Best. Think of other images to
represent different stages on the path of Salvation.
�Contents
Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales
In his own lifetime Chaucer was called the greatest English poet, and the centuries have not
deemed his reputation. His unfinished masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, ranks as one of the
world’s finest works of literature. It also provides the best contemporary picture we have of
14-th century England. At the time when the educated people read and spoke only NormanFrench, Chaucer wrote in English.
The Canterbury Tales is a narrative poem written in the form of a frame story, or a story that
includes, or frames, another story or stories. Chaucer borrowed this idea from Boccaccio’s
Decameron.
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) is an Italian novelist. Boccaccio shares with Petrarch the
honor of being the earliest humanist. In their time there were not a dozen men in Italy who could
read the works of the Greek authors in the original. The book with which Boccaccio's name is
inseparably linked is the Decameron. The Decameron opens with a masterly description of the
terrors of the Black Death, and we are then introduced to a gay company of seven ladies and
three young men who have come together at a villa outside Naples to while away the time and to escape the
epidemic. Each in turn presides for a day over the company and on each of the ten days each of the company tells a
story, so that at the end one hundred stories have been told. The great charm of the Decameron lies in the wonderful
richness and variety of the adventures which he relates, in the many types of character and the close analysis of all
shades of feeling and passion, from the basest to the noblest.
Black Death is the name used for the very serious infectious disease (called bubonic plague), which killed millions
of people in Europe and Asia in the 14th century.
Chaucer's frame is the pilgrimage, which he originally planned as a round trip but which remained incomplete at his death. People in medieval England sometimes made pilgrimages to
sacred shrines. One such shrine was the cathedral in Canterbury, a town near London, where
Archbishop Thomas Becket had been murdered in 1170.
Thomas Becket was a 12th century chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury whose murder
resulted in his canonisation. He was born in around 1120, the son of a prosperous London
merchant. He was well educated and quickly became an agent to Theobald, Archbishop of
Canterbury, who sent him on several missions to Rome. Becket's talents were noticed by Henry
II, who made him his chancellor and the two became close friends. When Theobald died in 1161, Henry made
Becket archbishop. Becket transformed himself from a pleasure-loving courtier into a serious, simply-dressed cleric.
The king and his archbishop's friendship was put under strain when it became clear that Becket would now stand up
for the church in its disagreements with the king. On the 29 December 1170, four knights, believing the king wanted
Becket out of the way, confronted and murdered Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. Becket was made a saint in 1173
and his shrine in Canterbury Cathedral became an important focus for pilgrimage.
�Contents
The pilgrims often travelled in groups for the sake of companionship and protection.
Chaucer’s pilgrims meet at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, a suburb of London on the south
bank of the Thames River. The inn, which stood near the southern end of London Bridge, was
a customary point at which to rest and eat before setting out on a fifty-nine-mile journey to
Canterbury. Harry Bailey, host of the Tabard, is so take with the lively company that he offers
to join their pilgrimage and to act as a guide and master of ceremonies. For entertainment along
the way he suggests a program of storytelling, the prize for the best to be a dinner, at the
expense of the group, back at his inn. The original plan was for two tales on the way to
Canterbury and two on the way back by all thirty pilgrims (including the host), instead only
twenty-four were completed.
The Canterbury Tales shows Chaucer’s absolute mastery of the storyteller’s art. Perhaps even
more impressive than the stories are the storytellers. Chaucer’s pilgrims, all of whom are
introduced briefly in his Prologue, are memorable, vividly drawn individuals whose
personalities are unique, but whose character traits are universal. The Canterbury Tales
introduces a group of "nine and twenty” pilgrims, one of whom is Chaucer himself. The
Prologue presents them to us according to their rank and social position. The Knight, the topranking member of the party, goes first as all people of a fourteenth-century audience
expected.
The Knight is followed by his son the Squire, and by his attendant Yeoman.
The Knight is duly succeeded by representatives of the Church: the fastidious Prioress with an
accompanying Nun, personal chaplain, and three other priests; the Monk who holds the office
of outrider in his monastery (and who therefore appears to enjoy extra-mural luxuries more than
the disciplined life of his order); and the equally worldly and mercenary Friar.
The third group is presented by a greater variety of figures, rich, middling, and poor, beginning
with a somewhat shifty Merchant, a bookish Oxford Clerk, a Man of Law, and a Franklin.
Further we move downwards socially to the urban guildsmen (Haberdasher, Carpenter,
Weaver, Dyer), to the skilled tradesmen (Cook, Shipman, Doctor of Physic), and to a well-off
widow with a trade of her own (the Wife of Bath).
Chaucer places a Parson, a Ploughman, a Manciple and the reprobates (the Reeve, the
Miller, the Summoner, and the Pardoner) to the end of the line (though he also modestly
includes himself, a high ranking royal official, at the end of the list). It is with this last group
that he seems to want to surprise his readers by contrasting the paragons of virtue (Parson and
Ploughman) with those who periodically fall from grace (the Reeve strikes fear into his
�Contents
master’s tenants while feathering his own nest; the Miller steals corn and overcharges his
clients; the Summoner makes a parade of his limited learning; and the Pardoner trades
profitably in false relics and pardons).
In medieval times Pardoners were people who sold pardons or indulgences as a way for people to
lessen their time in purgatory for the sins they had committed. These pardons were certificates from
the Pope, and pardoners themselves were sanctioned to sell these items. Pardoners became
unpopular because many of them were seen as little more than frauds disguised as men of God.
Chaucer’s favorites are the Knight, the Parson and the Ploughman who fit for their social
roles. If the Knight at the top of the social scale seems ‘a worthy man’, loyal to his knightly
vows and embodying the spirit chivalry, so, in their respective callings, the Parson stands for
the true mission of the Church and the Ploughman is the picture of the blessedness of holy
poverty.
Chaucer arranges stories to fit into the whole work shaped by prologues, interjections, or
disputes between characters. They are loosely fitted to their tellers’ tastes and professions. The
stories range from the courtly (the Knight’s Tale) to the downright vulgar (the Miller’s Tale),
are particularly vigorous in their telling and offer an unprecedented variety of styles and
material.
The Knight tells a romance. The Nun’s Priest offers a lively story of a wily cock caught by a
fox, a story which he rounds off with the clerical insistence that listeners grasp ‘the moralite’.
The Pardoner too tells an exemplum.
Exemplum is a short tale used as an example to illustrate a moral point, usually in a sermon or other
didactic work. The form was cultivated in the late Middle Ages, for instance in Geoffrey Chaucer's
Pardoner's Tale and Nun's Priest's Tale.
The Prioress also tells a short, devotional tale of a pious Christian child whose throat is cut by
Jews but who miraculously manages to continue singing a Marian hymn after his death.
Elsewhere in The Canterbury Tales tellers seem to have far less inclination to be moralizing.
The Merchant prompted by the Clerk’s adaptation of Boccaccio's story of the trials of patient
Griselda, offers a mischievous tale of an old husband (January) and his young bride (May), an
impatiently frisky wife who, exploiting her husband’s sudden blindness, is seduced in a pear
tree by her lover.
�Contents
Griselda (Decameron) is the character of the 10-th story of the 10-th day. The story tells about
The Marquis of Saluzzo, who was persuaded by his vassals to take a wife. Being minded to
please himself in the choice of her, takes a peasant's daughter. He has two children by her, both of
whom he makes her believe that he has put to death. Afterward, feigning to be tired of her, and to
have taken another wife, he turns her out of doors in her shirt, and brings his daughter into the
house in guise of his bride; but, finding her patient under it all, he brings her home again, and shows her her children,
now grown up, and honours her, and causes her to be honoured, as Marchioness.
When the Host proposes that the Knight’s “noble story” should be succeeded by something
equally decorous from the Monk, the Miller drunkenly intrudes himself and tells a fabliaux
about a dull-witted carpenter, his unfaithful wife, and her two suitors.
The Miller’s Tale presents a diametrically opposed view of courtship to that offered by the
Knight. It also serves to provoke the Reeve (who is a carpenter by profession) into recounting
an anecdote about a cuckolded miller. In the same manner, the Friar tells a story about a
greedy summoner who is carried off to hell by the Devil, and the enraged Summoner responds
with the history of an ingenious friar obliged to share out the unexpected legacy amongst his
brethren.
Chaucer modestly placed himself last in the list of the pilgrims presenting himself in the role of
an incompetent story-teller. He tells the story so terribly dull, that the Host stops him in the
middle of it. By diminishing himself Chaucer makes other stories shine with wit and humour.
The importance of Geoffrey Chaucer’s contribution to the development of English literature is
unquestionable. The Canterbury Tales is an overview of human nature and the encyclopedia of
medieval literary styles.
Language and Style
Geoffrey Chaucer was one of the greatest English poets during the Middle Ages. He will
forever be known as the leading author in English writing before the time of William
Shakespeare. The Canterbury Tales is written in a period when all serious writing had to be
done in Latin or French. Chaucer wrote in the East Midland dialect of English that was spoken
in London. This dialect was limited in vocabulary, so Chaucer enriched it with French
borrowings. When great changes started to take place in English pronunciation, and the final e
was no longer sounded, Chaucer’s poems were regarded as crude and primitive. They were
rewritten and polished.
Chaucer experiments with rhyme and rhythm patterns greatly affected the literature that
followed. Chaucer’s introduction of the rhymed couplet in iambic pentameter revolutionized
�Contents
rhythm in English poetry. It later would be called the heroic or closed couplet.
Couplet is a verse form with lines rhyming in pairs (aa). Each pair is usually self-contained in
grammatical structure and meaning.
Tone is a literary technique that encompasses the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience
implied in a literary work. Tone may be formal, informal, intimate, solemn, somber, playful, serious,
ironic, condescending, or many other possible attitudes.
The Prologue is the demonstration of Chaucer’s power of characterization. The author’s tone
is largely ironic. His method is to use irony to let the characters condemn themselves through
their own words and behavior. He pretends to be a mere innocent observer, supplying details
about each pilgrim in haphazard manner, yet these seemingly random details have a telling
ironic force.
There was a brave knight who loved truth, honor and generosity. He had been in armed
expeditions in the Mediterranean, had traveled in the North and had even been to Russia. His
son was a young squire with curled hair. His clothes were “as gay as a meadow with white
and red flowers” and he had long white sleeves. He had been on cavalry raids to France and
had fought well “in hope to win his Lady’s grace”. Their servant was a yeoman dressed in the
clothes of a forester.
They were followed by two nuns and three priests. One of the nuns was a prioress, the head of
the nunnery. She had a long face and a small mouth and wept easily. She could sing all that
was sung in churches and spoke French as it was spoken in England (for the French of Paris
she did not know). She had very good manners at table. She never let a crumb fall from her
lips and never dipped her fingers deep in the sauce.
There was a fat monk who loved hunting and a good dinner better than prayers. His hood and
his sleeves were decorated with fine fur and his greyhounds and horse were of the best.
Another monk, though not so rich, also likes to have a good time: “He knew the taverns well
in every town and every innkeeper and barmaid too.”
A student of Oxford in a shabby cloak rode a lean horse. He was thin and pale. He spent all his
money on books and learning.
There was another woman in the company, the wife of a merchant. She was merry and strong,
though no longer young, and a little hard of hearing. She had red cheeks and red stockings on
her fat legs, and her hat was as broad as a shield. She came from the town of Bath and was
mounted on a good horse. She liked to talk of her youth and her five husbands.
�Contents
There we see other townsfolk: a merchant with a forked beard “always talking about his
profits but telling nobody of his debts”; a man of law “who was less busy than he seemed to
be”.
Then came a poor priest and his brother, a ploughman, riding a mare. The ploughman was a
hard worker with a true heart, and the priest was one of those who never talked much and who
did all he could to help the needy and the poor. He was “the doer of the Word before he
taught it”.
A very stout fellow with red hair and a broad red beard trotted beside them. “His mighty
mouth was like a furnace door”. This disagreeable man was a miller. His language was very
rude. Dishonest in his trade, “his was a master-hand at stealing grain”.
Not far behind them rode some other servants of the Church. One of them, the Padroner , had
greedy eyes and yellow hair “that thinly fell like rat tails one by one”. He sold relics:
pigbones in small glass cases, which he said were the bones of saints. He also sold pardons,
“hot from the court of Rome”.
Text
The Monk
modern English Translation of the Prologue
перевод И. Кашкина и О. Румера
There was a Monk. Here was a rising man;
All the estates of his abbey he ran,
He loved to hunt, was forceful and well able
to be an abbot. There were in his stable
Fine horses. When he rode out you could hear
Their bridles jingling on the wind as clear
And quite as loudly as did the chapel bell
At that priory where he had charge as well.
The rules of Saints Maurus and Benedict,
Because they were quite old and somewhat strict
This modern monk he let these old things pass,
The new world held the key to true success.
He didn't give a jot for that old saw
Which said that hunting broke the holy law.
Or that a monk who ignored his first duty,
Like a fish out of water, was no beauty.
Монах был монастырский ревизор.
Наездник страстный, он любил охоту
И богомолье – только не работу.
И хоть таких монахов и корят,
Но превосходный был бы он аббат:
Его конюшню вся округа знала,
Его уздечка пряжками бренчала,
Как колокольчики часовни той,
Доход с которой тратил он, как свой.
Он не дал бы и ломаной полушки
За жизнь без дам, без псарни, без пирушки.
Веселый нравом, он терпеть не мог
Монашеский томительный острог,
Устав Маврикия и Бенедикта
И всякие прескрипты и эдикты.
А в самом деле, ведь монах-то прав,
�Contents
In other words, a monk out of his cloister.
But this saying too was not worth an oyster.
As I have shown his views were not muddy.
Why should he drive himself mad with study
Pouring over a dull book in his cell?
And as for working with his hands as well –
– Augustine's way - how would that serve the world's good?
Let Augustine do his labour if he would.
To spur his horse, to hunt, was his delight.
He had greyhounds as swift as birds in flight.
To follow a trail and hunt for the hair
Was his great love – and no cost would he spare.
I saw that his sleeves were trimmed at the hand
With soft grey fur, the finest in the land;
And to fasten his hood under his chin,
Of clever design, he had a gold pin,
With its head shaped into a lovers knot.
His bald head shone like a mirror on top.
His face did too, as though all smeared with cream.
This was a weighty man, broad in the beam.
His bulging eyes which rolled around his head,
Shone like a glowing furnace smelting lead.
His boots were supple, his horse in fine fettle
He was truly a prelate of great mettle:
Nor was he pale like a suffering ghost,
A fat swan he loved best of any roast!
His palfrey was as brown as a berry.
И устарел суровый сей устав:
Охоту запрещает он к чему-то
И поучает нас не в меру круто:
Монах без кельи – рыба без воды.
А я большой не вижу в том беды.
В конце концов монах – не рак-отшельник,
Что на спине несет свою молельню.
Он устрицы не даст за весь тот вздор,
Который проповедует приор.
Зачем корпеть средь книг иль в огороде,
Зачем тощать наперекор природе?
Труды, посты, лишения, молитвы На что они, коль есть любовь и битвы?
Пусть Августин печется о спасенье,
А братии оставит прегрешенья.
Был наш монах лихой боец, охотник.
Держал борзых на псарне он две сотни:
Без травли псовой нету в жизни смысла.
Он лебедя любил с подливкой кислой.
Был лучшей белкой плащ его подбит,
Богато вышит и отлично сшит.
Застежку он, как подобает франтам,
Украсил золотым "любовным бантом".
Зеркальным шаром лоснилась тонзура,
Свисали щеки, и его фигура
Вся оплыла; проворные глаза
Запухли, и текла из них слеза.
Вокруг его раскормленного тела
Испарина, что облако, висела.
Ему завидовал и сам аббат –
Так представителен был наш прелат.
И сам лицом упитанный, румяный,
И сапожки из лучшего сафьяна,
И конь гнедой, артачливый на вид.
What is the author’s attitude to Church people as revealed in the description of
the Monk?
The Oxford Clerk
�Contents
A Fellow of Oxford, was there also,
Who had started his studies long ago.
His horse was as thin as a rake I swear
And as for him there was little fat there.
He had a hollow, grave look about him.
His over-cloak was all threadbare and thin
Since he hadn't yet found a curacy,
And in worldly affairs was all at sea.
For he would much rather have by his bed,
Twenty good books, all bound in black or red,
Of Aristotle and his philosophy,
Than rich robes, or fiddle, or gay psaltery.
A metaphysician not alchemist,
With not much gold to be seen in his chest,
Since all that he was given by his friends
He spent on books, on paper and on pens
And then would earnestly begin to pray
For those who helped him on his learned way.
Nothing was more important than learning.
His speech was a short and elegant thing,
For he used as few words as would suffice
Being brief and pithy and always wise.
His discourse was filled with moral virtue,
He loved to study, and loved teaching too.
Прервав над логикой усердный труд,
Студент Оксфордский с нами рядом плелся.
Едва ль беднее нищий бы нашелся:
Не конь под ним, а щипаная галка,
И самого студента было жалко Такой он был обтрепанный, убогий,
Худой, измученный плохой дорогой.
Он ни прихода не сумел добыть,
Ни службы канцелярской. Выносить
Нужду и голод приучился стойко.
Полено клал он в изголовье койки.
Ему милее двадцать книг иметь,
Чем платье дорогое, лютню, снедь.
Он негу презирал сокровищ тленных,
Но Аристотель – кладезь мыслей ценных
Не мог прибавить денег ни гроша,
И клерк их клянчил, грешная душа,
У всех друзей и тратил на ученье
И ревностно молился о спасенье
Тех, щедрости которых был обязан.
К науке был он горячо привязан.
Но философия не помогала
И золота ни унца не давала.
Он слова лишнего не говорил
И слог высокий мудрости любил Короткий, быстрый, искренний, правдивый;
Он сыт был жатвой с этой тучной нивы.
И, бедняком предпочитая жить,
Хотел учиться и других учить.
Compare the given portrait with the modern stereotype of a student.
The Wife of Bath
A housewife came from Bath, from near that city,
And she was somewhat deaf, which was a pity.
But for cloth making she had such a bent,
Her skills exceeded those of Ypres and Ghent.
А с ним болтала Батская Ткачиха,
На иноходце восседая лихо;
Но и развязностью не скрыть греха Она была порядочно глуха.
�Contents
The good wives in church must always forebear
To make offerings before hers was there,
For if they did, she then became so cross
That sad to say all charity was lost.
And kerchiefs, of the finest texture found,
(Set on their frames they must have weighed ten pound)
She proudly wore each Sunday, on her head.
Her stockings were coloured bright scarlet red
Tightly bound; her shoes were supple and new.
Her face was bold and fair and red of hue.
She had always been most respectable;
In turn had married five husbands in all,
With further company in youth I fear,
Which there's no need for me to speak of here.
She had been to Jerusalem three times,
Had crossed many a stream by foreign shrines.
She had been to Boulogne and also Rome,
St. James' at Galicia and Cologne.
She knew well how to wander by the way,
And was gap-toothed, all open you might say.
She rode easily on a saddle horse
Wearing a wimple and a hat of course
As broad as a shield is from tip to tip.
A long skirt hung down from her ample hip
The spurs at her feet were sharp as a nail,
In company she loved to laugh and rail.
В тканье была большая мастерица Ткачихам гентским впору подивиться.
Благотворить ей нравилось, но в храм
Пред ней протиснись кто-нибудь из дам,
Вмиг забывала, в яростной гордыне,
О благодушии и благостыне.
Платков на голову могла навесить,
К обедне снаряжаясь, сразу десять,
И все из шелка иль из полотна;
Чулки носила красные она
И башмачки из мягкого сафьяна.
Лицом бойка, пригожа и румяна,
Жена завидная она была
И пятерых мужей пережила,
Гурьбы дружков девичьих не считая
(Вокруг нее их увивалась стая).
Булонь и в Бари, в Кельн, в Сантьяго, в Рим
И трижды в град святой - Иерусалим Ходила на поклон святым мощам,
Чтобы утешиться от горя там.
Она носила чистую косынку;
Большая шляпа, формой что корзинка,
Была парадна, как и весь наряд.
Дорожный плащ обтягивал ей зад.
На башмачках она носила шпоры,
Любила шутки, смех и разговоры
И знала все приманки и коварства
И от любви надежные лекарства.
She knew most cures for love by fortunes chance
For she was well versed, in that ancient dance.
The Miller
The Miller seemed a tough sort for our journey,
He was heavy built, strong sinewed and brawny,
As was well proved by his always throwing down
All rivals at wrestling, to bear off the crown.
He was hunch-shouldered, broad, solid all round;
He could heave any door onto the ground
Or smash clean through by ramming with his head.
И Мельник ехал с ними – ражий малый,
Костистый, узловатый и бывалый.
В кулачных схватках всех он побеждал
И приз всегда – барана – получал.
Был крепок он и коренаст, плечом
Мог ставню высадить, вломиться в дом.
Лишь подзадорь – и, разъярясь, как зверь,
Сшибить он с петель мог любую дверь.
�Contents
His beard like any sow or fox was red
And was so broad that it looked like a spade.
At the top of his nose there stood displayed
A wart, on which there grew a tuft of hairs,
As red as those bristles a sow's ear bears.
His nostrils were enormous, black and wide.
He wore a sword and shield by his side.
His mouth was huge, just like a great boiler.
Лопатой борода его росла
И рыжая, что лисий мех, была.
А на носу, из самой середины,
На бородавке вырос пук щетины
Такого цвета, как в ушах свиньи;
Чернели ноздри, будто полыньи;
Дыханьем грудь натужно раздувалась,
И пасть, как устье печки, разевалась.
Он бабник, балагур был и вояка,
Кощун, охальник, яростный гуляка.
Он слыл отчаянным лгуном и вором:
В мещок муки умел подсыпать сора
И за помол тройную плату взять.
Но мельник честный – где его сыскать?
Взял в путь он меч и щит для обороны;
В плаще был белом с синим капюшоном.
Он на волынке громко заиграл,
Когда поутру город покидал.
He was noisy and full of coarse humour,
And tales filled with lasciviousness and crimes.
He stole enough to grind the corn three times,
Yet had a gold thumb, as a good miller should.
He was dressed in a white coat and blue hood.
He blew and played the bagpipes well I'd say,
And with his piping got us underway.
Find the passages that reveal Chaucer’s irony?
Is it expressed directly or indirectly?
Content
The Miller’s Tale
An impoverished student named Nicholas, who persuades his landlord’s young wife,
Alisoun, to spend the night with him. He convinces his landlord, a carpenter named John,
that the second flood is coming, and tricks him into spending the night in a tub hanging
from the ceiling of his barn. Absolon, a young parish clerk who is also in love with Alisoun,
appears outside the window of the room where Nicholas and Alisoun lie together. When
Absolon begs Alisoun for a kiss, she sticks her rear end out the window in the dark and lets
him kiss it. Absolon runs and gets a red-hot poker, returns to the window, and asks for
another kiss; when Nicholas sticks his bottom out the window and farts, Absolon brands him
on the buttocks. Nicholas’s cries for water make the carpenter think that the flood has come,
so the carpenter cuts the rope connecting his tub to the ceiling, falls down, and breaks his
arm.
�Contents
The Man of Law’s Tale
In the tale, the Muslim sultan of Syria converts his entire sultanate (including himself) to
Christianity in order to persuade the emperor of Rome to give him his daughter, Custance,
in marriage. The sultan’s mother and her attendants remain secretly faithful to Islam. The
mother tells her son she wishes to hold a banquet for him and all the Christians. At the
banquet, she massacres her son and all the Christians except for Custance, whom she sets
adrift in a rudderless ship. After years of floating, Custance runs ashore in Northumberland,
where a constable and his wife, Hermengyld, offer her shelter. She converts them to
Christianity.
One night, Satan makes a young knight sneak into Hermengyld’s chamber and murder
Hermengyld. He places the bloody knife next to Custance, who sleeps in the same chamber.
When the constable returns home, accompanied by Alla, the king of Northumberland, he
finds his slain wife. He tells Alla the story of how Custance was found, and Alla begins to
pity the girl. He decides to look more deeply into the murder. Just as the knight who
murdered Hermengyld is swearing that Custance is the true murderer, he is struck down and
his eyes burst out of his face, proving his guilt to Alla and the crowd. The knight is executed,
Alla and many others convert to Christianity, and Custance and Alla marry.
While Alla is away in Scotland, Custance gives birth to a boy named Mauricius. Alla’s
mother, Donegild, intercepts a letter from Custance to Alla and substitutes a counterfeit one
that claims that the child is disfigured and bewitched. She then intercepts Alla’s reply, which
claims that the child should be kept and loved no matter how malformed. Donegild
substitutes a letter saying that Custance and her son are banished and should be sent away
on the same ship on which Custance arrived. Alla returns home, finds out what has
happened, and kills Donegild.
After many adventures at sea, including an attempted rape, Custance ends up back in
Rome, where she reunites with Alla, who has made a pilgrimage there to atone for killing his
mother. She also reunites with her father, the emperor. Alla and Custance return to
England, but Alla dies after a year, so Custance returns, once more, to Rome. Mauricius
becomes the next Roman emperor.
Do you recognize the plot of the Man of Law’s story?
Does any episode seem to be familiar to you?
If so, what other story contains the similar characters and setting?
Wife of Bath’s Tale
�Contents
A young knight of King Arthur’s court rapes a maiden; to atone for his crime, Arthur’s
queen sends him on a quest to discover what women want most. An ugly old woman
promises the knight that she will tell him the secret if he promises to do whatever she wants
for saving his life. He agrees, and she tells him women want control of their husbands and
their own lives. They go together to Arthur’s queen, and the old woman’s answer turns out to
be correct. The old woman then tells the knight that he must marry her. When the knight
confesses later that he is repulsed by her appearance, she gives him a choice: she can either
be ugly and faithful, or beautiful and unfaithful. The knight tells her to make the choice
herself, and she rewards him for giving her control of the marriage by rendering herself both
beautiful and faithful.
The Pardoner’s Tale
Three riotous youths go looking for Death, thinking that they can kill him. An old man tells
them that they will find Death under a tree. Instead, they find eight bushels of gold, which
they plot to sneak into town under cover of darkness. The youngest goes into town to fetch
food and drink, but brings back poison, hoping to have the gold all to himself. His
companions kill him to enrich their own shares, then drink the poison and die under the tree.
Chaucer’s characters present all the classes of English people and present a
broad panorama of the views and values of Middle Ages English society.
Imagine a similar book that could provide an illustration of our times.
Think of the representatives of modern society that could be the characters of
such a book.
Create a frame that could justify the variety of characters and serve a unifying
context for all their stories.
Chose some character and make up a story he(or she) would tell.
�Contents
The Development of English Drama
English drama has its origins in the fusion of two theatrical traditions which were popular in the
Middle Ages: street performances and religious dramatisations.
From the time of the Anglo-Saxon scop street performers had travelled around Britain
entertaining people. They included singers, dancers, mime artists, storytellers, acrobats and
clowns. They performed in market squares for the common people or in stately halls for the
nobles. Throughout the medieval period this tradition of popular drama flourished in Britain.
Meanwhile, in the church, a more formal type of theatre began to appear. The congregation of
the church in the Middle Ages was largely illiterate and had little religious education. In an
attempt to attract its followers the church added elements of drama to religious services.
Two types of religious plays developed out of these traditions: Mystery plays and Miracle
plays.
The Mystery plays were based on stories from the Bible. Each Mystery play was a single
episode such as the Fall of Lucifer, Noah's Flood or the Crucifixion and Resurrection.
Together they formed The Mystery Cycle, which told the story of Christianity from Creation to
the Last Judgement.
Miracle plays were dramatisations of the lives of the saints, and were performed to celebrate
the great Christian events of the Nativity and the Resurrection during the festivals of Christmas
and Easter.
As liturgical drama became more popular, the churches grew more crowded, and eventually
religious performances had to move outside. Latin was replaced by English and ordinary
people performed instead of priests.
With time the Miracle and Mystery plays became more elaborate and incorporated elements of
street theatre such as humour and parody. The characters and settings were typically English.
Initially the performances were supervised by the clergy but later responsibility for their
production was entrusted to guilds of Tradesmen.
It would seem that the greatest stimulus to non-liturgical religious drama was provided by the
institution of the feast of Corpus Christi in the Western Church in 1264. The new feast,
generally observed in England from 1318, required that the Blessed Sacrament be
ceremoniously carried round the streets of the parish. In greater towns the procession would
�Contents
have been accompanied by guildsmen, representative of various established trades, dressed in
livery and bearing the banners of their craft.
The Feast of Corpus Christi (Latin for Body of Christ), also known as Corpus Domini, is a
Latin Rite celebrating the tradition and belief in the body and blood of Jesus Christ and his Real
Presence in the Eucharist. It emphasizes the joy of the institution of the Eucharist, which was
observed on Holy Thursday (Thursday before Easter) in the somber atmosphere of the nearness of
Good Friday.
The Blessed Sacrament, or the Body and Blood of Christ, is a devotional name used to refer to the Host or
prosphora and Eucharistic wine after it has been consecrated in the sacrament of the Eucharist.
In England, as in other European countries, this summer feast-day also became the focus of
urban street theatre organized under the auspices of the tradeguilds. Each play was repeated
several times in different locations around town, then the company would move on to another
town.
Records survive of the annual productions of the cycles in many British cities, from Aberdeen
to Canterbury, but the complete texts of the plays exist only for York (consisting of 48 plays),
Chester (24 plays), Wakefield (42 plays), and for an unknown Midlands town (42 plays).
In some instances particular guilds would perform a play appropriate to their trade. At Chester,
for example, the scene of Noah’s Flood was presented by the Water-leaders and Drawers in
Dee (that is, those who supplied the city with water drawn from the river Dee); the Crucifixion
was re-enacted by the Ironmongers (men who sold nails) and, somewhat less appropriately,
the Harrowing of Hell was performed through the good offices of the Cooks and Innkeepers.
At York the Fishers and Mariners presented the story of Noah, the Pinners and Painters the
Crucifixion, and the Bakers the Last Supper.
The guilds added to their prestige not only by commissioning and maintaining the texts of the
plays that they engaged to perform, but also by making and storing the costumes, the stage
properties and, above all, the movable platforms which the performances required. The shows
were performed on movable 'stage carriages' called pageants which were drawn by horses.
The pageant had two rooms: a lower room where the actors got ready and an upper room,
which had no walls, where the performance took place.
The actors did not always remain on the stage. Herod could ride on horseback among the
people, boasting of his riches. The Devil could jump from the stage into the audience. The
tricks of this kind added to the excitement and the success of the performance. With the time
the plays were getting more and more artistic. The biblical episodes were made into rhymed
�Contents
dialogues with comic elements that made the audience laugh. The biblical figures were given
names and individual characters.
For example, in the story about Noah’s Ark Noah’s wife is shown as an obstinate quarrelsome
woman, who refuses to board the Ark, despite Noah’s warning that the flood is about to begin.
She wants to bring her women friends on board, too, and if Noah does not let her, she
promises, flood or no flood, she will stay with them. Noah and his sons get her on board.
Noah sarcastically says, “Welcome, wife, into the boat,” to which his wife replies, “And have
then that for thy note,” accompanying the words with a slap on his face. Then she attacks him
with blows until he calls her to stop since his back is nearly broken.
In the Bible there is an episode in which shepherds were told by the Angel to go and worship
baby Christ. This is how this story was made into a play which is known as The Second
Shepherds’ Play of the Wakefield cycle.
Content
Among the shepherds there is one, Mak by name, whose reputation for honesty isn’t very
good. When the shepherds go to sleep they make Mak lie within their circle, for fear that he
steels a sheep. But when he hears the snores Mak rises, takes a sheep and hurries home. His
wife is alarmed, because at that time the theft of a sheep was punished by death. She wraps
the animal into the blanket and puts it into a cradle. If the shepherds come to search the
house, she will pretend having a child, but she won’t let them come up to the cradle. When
the shepherds wake, they miss the sheep, suspect Mak, and hurry to his home to look for the
sheep. His wife allows them to look around, but keeps them away from the cradle. The
shepherds leave ashamed of their suspicion. In the doorway they stop and decide to give the
baby a sixpence. So they get back to the cradle, lift up the covering and discover the sheep.
Mak and his wife declare that an elf has changed their baby into a sheep, but the angry
shepherds threaten them with death sentence. They seize Mak, throw him on the canvas, and
toss him into the air until they are exhausted. When they lie down to rest, the Angel comes
and tells them to go and worship the new God.
While there are no character studies, no suspense and no great poetry in miracle plays, there is
energy, simplicity and a powerful emotional impact.
During the fourteenth century another type of play, the Morality play, became extremely
popular. Morality plays were not religious: their main purpose was to teach a moral lesson, to
instruct the people what is good and what is bad. They were allegorical tales in which the
characters were personifications of abstract concepts. Instead of characters of saints appeared
�Contents
allegorical personifications of virtues and vices: Charity, Truth, Wisdom, Flesh, Greed,
Mischief, Pleasure, Folly, Indignation, Revenge. They acted like real people in everyday life.
The most famous Morality play was written around 1500 and is called Everyman.
Content
The character Everyman, who represents mankind, angers God because he is obsessed with
material goods. God orders Death to take him. Everyman wishes to have company on his
last journey so he asks Fellowship (friendship), Kindred and Cousin (family) and Goods
(wealth) if they will go with him, but they all refuse. The only characters who help Everyman
in his hour of need are Knowledge and Good Deeds: only spiritual strength can help him in
his last hour.
Text
Fe llowship.
Whether ye have loved me or no,
By Saint John, I will not with thee go!
Kindre d.
Ah, sir, come! Ye be a merry man!
Pluck up heart and make no moan.
But one thing I warn you, by Saint Anne,
As for me, ye shall go alone!
Cousin.
No, by our Lady! I have the cramp in my toe.
Trust not to me, for, so God me speed,
I will deceive you in your utmost need.
Goods.
Nay, Everyman, I say no.
Just for a while I was lent to thee,
A season thou hast had me in prosperity.
My nature it is man’s soul to kill,
If I save one, a thousand I do spill.
Thinkest thou that I will follow thee?
Nay, from this world not, verily!
Good De e ds.
Everyman, I have understanding
That ye be summoned your account to make
Before Messias, of Jerusalem King.
If you do my counsel, that journey with you will I take.
Knowle dge .
Everyman, I will go with thee and be thy guide,
In thy utmost need to go by thy side.
Confe ssion.
I know your sorrow well, Everyman,
Because with Knowledge ye come to me.
I will you comfort as well as I can,
And a precious stone will I give thee,
�Contents
Called penance, voice-voider of adversity.
Therewith shall your body chastened be
Through abstinence and perseverance in God’s service.
Here shall you receive that scourge of me
That is penance stronge, that ye must endure,
To remember thy Saviour was scourged for thee
With sharp scourges, and suffered it patiently–
So must thou ere thou escape from that painful pilgrimage.
Knowledge, do thou sustain him on this voyage,
And by that time Good Deeds will be with thee.
But in any case be sure of mercy,
For your time draweth on fast, if ye will saved be.
Ask God mercy, and he will grant it truly.
When with the scourge of penance man doth him bind,
The oil of forgiveness then shall he find.
The final passage from the play:
Stre ngth.
Everyman, we will not from you go,
Till ye have gone this voyage long.
Discre tion.
I, Discretion, will abide by you also.
Knowle dge .
And though of this pilgrimage the hardships be never so strong,
No turning backward in me shall you know.
Everyman, I will be as sure by thee,
As ever I was by Judas Maccabee.
Eve ryman.
Alas! I am so faint I may not stand,
My limbs under me do fold.
Friends, let us not turn again to this land,
Not for all the world’s gold,
For into this cave must I creep,
And turn to the earth, and there sleep.
Be auty.
What – into this grave! Alas! Woe is me!
Eve ryman.
Yea, there shall ye consume utterly.
Be auty.
And what, – must I smother here?
Eve ryman.
Yea, by my faith, and never more appear!
In this world we shall live no more at all,
But in heaven before the highest lord of all.
Be auty.
I cross out all this! Adieu, by Saint John!
I take “my tap in my lap” and am gone.
Eve ryman.
What, Beauty! – whither go ye ?
Be auty.
Peace! I am deaf, I look not behind me,
Not if thou wouldest give me all the gold in thy chest.
[Beauty goes, followed by the others, as they speak in turn.
Eve ryman.
�Contents
Alas! in whom may I trust!
Beauty fast away from me doth hie.
She promised with me to live and die.
Stre ngth.
Everyman, I will thee also forsake and deny,
Thy game liketh me not at all!
Eve ryman.
Why, then ye will forsake me all!
Sweet Strength, tarry a little space.
Stre ngth.
Nay, Sir, by the rood of grace,
I haste me fast my way from thee to take,
Though thou weep till thy heart do break.
Eve ryman.
Ye would ever abide by me, ye said.
Stre ngth.
Yea, I have you far enough conveyed.
Ye be old enough, I understand,
Your pilgrimage to take in hand.
I repent me that I thither came.
Eve ryman.
Strength, for displeasing you I am to blame.
Will ye break “promise that is debt"?
Stre ngth.
In faith, I care not!
Thou art but a fool to complain,
You spend your speech and waste your brain.
Go, thrust thyself into the ground!
Eve ryman.
I had thought more sure I should you have found,
But I see well, who trusteth in his Strength,
She him deceiveth at length.
Both Strength and Beauty have forsaken me,
Yet they promised me fair and lovingly.
Discre tion.
Everyman, I will after Strength be gone –
As for me, I will leave you alone.
Eve ryman.
Why, Discretion, will ye forsake me!
Discre tion.
Yea, in faith, I will go from thee,
For when Strength goeth before
I follow after, evermore.
Eve ryman.
Yet, I pray thee, for love of the Trinity
Look in my grave once in pity of me.
Discre tion.
Nay, so nigh will I not come, trust me well!
Now I bid you each farewell.
Eve ryman.
Oh, all things fail save God alone –
Beauty, Strength, and Discretion!
For when Death bloweth his blast,
They all run from me full fast.
�Contents
Five Wits.
Everyman, my leave now of thee I take.
I will follow the others, for here I thee forsake.
Eve ryman.
Alas! then may I wail and weep,
For I took you for my best friend.
Five Wits.
I will thee no longer keep.
Now farewell, and here’s an end!
Eve ryman.
O Jesu, help! All have forsaken me.
Good De e ds.
Nay, Everyman, I will abide by thee,
I will not forsake thee indeed!
Thou wilt find me a good friend at need.
Eve ryman.
Gramercy, Good Deeds, now may I true friends see.
They have forsaken me everyone,
I loved them better than my Good Deeds alone.
Knowledge, will ye forsake me also?
Knowle dge .
Yea, Everyman, when ye to death shall go,
But not yet, for no manner of danger.
Eve ryman.
Gramercy, Knowledge, with all my heart!
Knowle dge .
Nay, yet will I not from hence depart,
Till whereunto ye shall come, I shall see and know.
Eve ryman.
Methinketh, alas! that I must now go
To make my reckoning, and my debts pay,
For I see my time is nigh spent away.
Take example, all ye that this do hear or see,
How they that I love best do forsake me,
Except my Good Deeds that abideth faithfully.
Good De e ds.
All earthly things are but vanity.
Beauty, Strength and Discretion do man forsake,
Foolish friends and kinsmen that fair spake,
All flee away save Good Deeds, and that am I!
Eve ryman.
Have mercy on me, God most mighty,
And stand by me, thou Mother and Maid, holy Mary!
Good De e ds.
Fear not, I will speak for thee.
Eve ryman.
Here I cry God mercy!
Good De e ds.
Shorten our end and minish our pain,
Let us go and never come again.
Eve ryman.
Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend –
Receive it, Lord, that it be not lost!
As thou didst me buy, so do thou me defend,
�Contents
And save me from the fiend’s boast
That I may appear with that blessed host
That shall be saved at the day of doom.
In manus tuas, of mights the most,
Forever commendo spiritum meum.
[Everyman goes into the grave.
Knowle dge .
Now that he hath suffered that we all shall endure,
The Good Deeds shall make all sure;
Now that he hath made ending,
Methinketh that I hear angels sing,
And make great joy and melody,
Where Everyman’s soul shall received be!
The Ange l.
Come, excellent elect spouse to Jesus!
Here above shalt thou go,
Because of thy singular virtue.
Now thy soul from thy body is taken, lo!
Thy reckoning is crystal clear.
Now shalt thou into the heavenly sphere,
Unto which ye all shall come
That live well before the day of doom.
[The Angel goes and the Doctor enters.
Doctor.
This moral men may have in mind, –
Ye hearers, take it as of worth, both young and old,
And forsake Pride, for he deceiveth you in the end, as ye will find,
And remember Beauty, Five Wits, Strength, and Discretion, all told,
They all at the last do Everyman forsake
Save that his Good Deeds there doth he take.
But beware, if they be small,
Before God he hath no help at all,
None excuse for Everyman may there then be there.
Alas, how shall he then do and fare!
For after death amends may no man make,
For then Mercy and Pity do him forsake.
If his reckoning be not clear when he doth come,
God will say, Ite, maledicti, in ignem aeternum.
And he that hath his account whole and sound,
High in heaven he shall be crowned,
Unto which place God bring us all thither
That we may live, body and soul, together!
Thereto their aid vouchsafe the Trinity –
Amen, say ye, for holy Charity!
Finis.
What is the main message of the play?
What effect do you think it could have produced upon the 15th century audience?
Is it the same as the effect produced upon the 21st century mind?
�Contents
English Literature in the Time of Renaissance
Cultural Context
Historical Context
Renaissance Poetry
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542) and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–1547)
Edmund Spenser (1552–1599)
Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)
Shakespeare's Sonnets
John Donne (1572–1631) – the Father of Metaphysical poetry
Renaissance Prose
Thomas More: Utopia
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
Renaissance Drama
The University Wits
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
Late Elizabethan Drama
�Contents
Cultural Context
In the Middle Ages, people forgot the Greek language and debased the Latin; in the time of
Renaissance people learned to read Greek once more and reformed the Latin that they read,
wrote, and spoke. The term renaissance itself is a French word meaning “rebirth,” and it refers
to renewed interest in classical learning, the writings of ancient Greece and Rome.
In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Turks. The Greek refugees who fled to Italy brought with
them masterpieces of Greek literature, science, physics, mathematics, astronomy and medicine.
From Italy, classical knowledge spread to other countries where it was embraced by great men
of learning.
The dissemination of classical knowledge was enhanced by printing which rapidly replaced the
laborious reproduction of books by hand.
The inventor of printing is a German named Johann Gutenberg (1400–1468), who was
responsible for the first printed book, an immense Latin Bible produced at Mainz in Germany.
The re-awakening of interest in classical knowledge affected all aspects of
culture. People became more curious about themselves and their world than
people in general had been in the Middle Ages. Gradually there took place a rebirth of the
human spirit. New energy seemed to be available for creating beautiful things and thinking new
thoughts.
The optimistic view of human nature was expressed by the philosopher Pico della
Mirandola, who said the following in his speech entitled On the Dignity of Humanity:
God made man and woman at the close of the creation, to know the laws of the universe, to love its beauty,
and to admire its greatness. He bound his human creatures to no fixed place, to no prescribed form of work,
and by no iron necessity, but gave them freedom to will and to love. "I have set thee,” says the Creator, "in the
midst of the world, that thou mayst the more easily behold and see all that is therein. I created thee a being
neither heavenly nor earthly, neither mortal nor immortal only, that thou mightest be free to shape and to
overcome thyself. Thou mayest sink into a beast or be born anew to the divine likeness. To thee alone is given
a growth and a development depending on thine own free will.”
Authors like Pico Della Mirandola, Petrarch, Dante are representative of an intellectual
movement known as humanism, a movement that attempted to derive from the Latin and
Greek classics answers to such questions as, “What is a human being?”, “What is a good
life?” and “How does one lead a good life?”
�Contents
The main subject of Humanism was human nature in all its manifestations and achievements.
Humanism looked forward to a rebirth of a lost human spirit and wisdom. The effect of
Humanism was to help man break free from the mental structures imposed by medieval
religious orthodoxy, according to which the earthly life was given to man as penance and
preparation for the afterlife.
Humanism was a radical departure from the principles that governed medieval art and literature.
The focus of attention was no longer God but Man. Love of this world was underlined rather
than preparation for the next. For the first time man was explored as an individual, and the idea
that a man could shape his own destiny was widely accepted.
Humanism inspired a new confidence in the possibilities of human thought and activity.
According to the new outlook man was created ideal physically and mentally. The classic
Greek statement of “A sound mind in a sound body” became popular.
The humanist outlook shaped the thinking of all great artists, writers, and scientists of the
Renaissance. Just mentioning a few of the geniuses who flourished in this period – Raphael, da
Vinci, Galileo, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Columbus—reminds us how remarkably rich this
civilization was, and how much we owe to it.
�Contents
Historical Context
The establishment of the English Church
While the Renaissance was going on in Europe, there occurred in some countries another
important series of events known as the Reformation. In England these two vast movements
were closely related. Although the exact nature of the reformation varied from country to
country, there was one feature common to all Reformers: they denied the authority of the Pope
and the Roman Catholic Church.
New religious ideas were coming into England from the Continent, especially from Germany,
where Martin Luther had founded a new kind of Christianity based on his understanding of
the Bible rather than on the authoritative teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Strong
feelings of patriotism and national identity made the English people resent the financial burdens
imposed on them by the Vatican.
Martin Luther (1483–1546) was a German friar, priest and professor of theology who was a key
figure in the Protestant Reformation. He rejected several teachings and practices of the Roman
Catholic Church and strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could
be purchased with money. His theology challenged the authority and office of the Pope by teaching
that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge from God. His translation of the Bible into the
vernacular (instead of Latin) made it more accessible, which had a tremendous impact on the church and on German
culture.
Those who support Luther’s views are called Lutherans. Today, Lutheranism constitutes a major branch of Protestant
Christianity.
Matters came to a climax when Henry VIII, the second of the Tudor Kings, asked Pope
Clement to declare that he was not properly married to his Spanish wife, Catherine of Aragon,
because she had previously been the wife of his older brother Arthur, now dead. Henry had
two motives: first, Catherine didn’t give him the male heir that he thought he must have. What
is more, he was in love with, and wanted to marry, another woman, Anne Boleyn. The Pope
did not allow Henry to divorce his wife. In 1531, upon receiving the Pope’s refusal, Henry
declared himself head of the English Church. He appointed a new Archbishop of Canterbury,
who declared Henry’s marriage to Catherine invalid.
At the very beginning many were dissatisfied with the English Church. They felt that it was not
reformed enough, that it was merely a compromise between Protestantism and Catholicism.
These dissidents, who were soon to become known as Puritans, Baptists, Presbyterians,
Dissenters, Nonconformists, and so on, wanted to get rid of many different things they called
�Contents
“Popish," such as the bishops, the prayer book, the priest’s vestments, and even the bell on
the church. Some of them said that religion was solely a matter between the individual and
God. This idea, which is still frequently expressed, is directly traceable to the teachings of
those Renaissance humanists who emphasized the freedom and self-sufficiency of all human
beings.
The Tudor Monarchs (1485–1603)
The five Tudor rulers are easy to remember: they consist of a grandfather, a father, and three
children. The grandfather was Henry VII, a Welsh nobleman named Henry Tudor who seized
the throne after England was totally exhausted by the long and bloody struggle of the Wars of
the Roses. Henry VII was a shrewd, patient, and stingy man who restored peace and order to
the kingdom.
His son Henry VIII (1509–1547) had six wives: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane
Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr. Their fates are summarized
in a jingle: “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.” Despite his messy
home life, Henry VIII was very important. He created the Royal Navy, which effectively put a
stop to foreign invasions and allowed to spread English political power, language, and literature
all over the globe. Henry VIII himself deserves the title “Renaissance man.” He wrote poetry,
performed well on many different musical instruments, was a champion athlete and a mighty
hunter.
Henry VIII had three children: Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon; Elizabeth, daughter of
Anne Boleyn; and Edward, son of Jane Seymour. According to the laws of succession the son
had to be crowned first, and so at age nine he became Edward VI (1547–1553). An intelligent
but sickly boy, he ruled in name only while his relatives had the actual power. He died and was
followed by his half-sister Mary (1553–1558), a strong-willed woman determined to avenge
her mother and restore the Pope’s power in England. Bloody Mary burned at the stake about
three hundred of her subjects, and then lost the support of her people entirely when she
married Philip II, king of Spain, the country England was beginning to fear and hate. When
Mary was overthrown, Elizabeth came to the throne.
Mary Tudor was given the title Bloody Mary by her opponents for her brutal persecution of
Protestants. She had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake.
Elizabeth I (1558–1603) was one of the most brilliant and successful
monarchs in history. She inherited a kingdom torn by fierce religious feuds,
and her first task was to restore law and order. She reestablished the Church of England and
�Contents
again renounced the Pope, who promptly excommunicated her. To keep Spain pacified, she
pretended that she just might marry her widowed brother-in-law King Philip, who was the first
of a long procession of eligible noblemen, both foreign and English, who wanted to marry her.
But she resisted marriage her whole life (thereby giving the American colony Virginia its name)
because she knew that her strength lay in her independence and her ability to play one suitor
off against another.
A truly heroic person, Elizabeth survived many plots against her. Several of them were in
support of her cousin, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Mary was Elizabeth’s heir because she
also was a direct descendant of Henry VII. She was deposed from her throne in Scotland and
lived as an exile in England. Elizabeth beheaded Mary. King Philip used this act as an excuse to
invade England. In 1588, the Royal Navy, assisted greatly by the weather, destroyed the
Invincible Armada. It was a great turning point in history and the brightest period of Elizabeth's
reign.
After the defeat of the Armada, Elizabeth became a beloved symbol of peace, security and
prosperity to her people. Many English authors represented her mythologically in poetry,
drama, and fiction. Literary works that did not directly represent her were dedicated to her
because authors knew that she was a connoisseur of literature and a person of remarkably wide
learning. She was fluent in Latin, Spanish, French and Italian. Like her father, she was skilled in
music, dancing, and religious argument, and also vain, headstrong, and clever. But her reign far
surpassed her father’s in the production of literary works.
Under the reign of Elizabeth I the Renaissance flourished. That was a period of unprecedented
prosperity, and both the court and the emerging middle classes dedicated a lot of time to art
and literature.
�Contents
Renaissance Poetry
�Contents
Most poetry and other literature in the Renaissance tended to be aristocratic in tone. Poets
were themselves aristocrats, who did not publish their works but gave them to their friends,
who circulated them in manuscript. Unless they also wrote plays, English poets could not
expect to make much money from their writings. So they asked aristocratic patrons for
support and dedicated their books to them.
In the Renaissance people wrote poetry in figurative language fitted into formal patterns. The
poets of Renaissance England were very conscious of their predecessors, who wrote not only
in English but in Italian and Latin, Spanish, French and Greek. English poets depended on
tradition. They wrote a particular kind of poem. There were epithalamia (wedding songs),
epigrams (brief poems sometimes praising but more often making fun of either real or
fictitious people), epitaphs (brief poems on dead people), and songs (lyrics suitable for setting
to music). Poems were often set to music and sung to the accompaniment of an instrument.
These songs expressed a great variety of moods and covered a great variety of subjects, from
love to religion.
The most popular genre of poetry was the sonnet. The English sonneteers followed the Italian
poet Petrarch who had used the sonnet to address a woman identified only as Laura, a proud
woman of ideal virtue and beauty who remains totally indifferent to the poet. The poet-lover is
a humble figure, who burns with desire for the lady and freezes from her disdain of him.
Francesco Petrarca, known in English as Francis Petrarch (1304— 1374) was a scholar and
poet in Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's sonnets were admired and
imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry.
The language of Renaissance poetry was elaborate and stylised. Some of the
metaphors seem inconceivable to us: as when two lovers were called a geometer’s compass.
Extended metaphors of this kind, bringing together things totally unlike each other, are called
conceits, and they may distract us because we have been taught to visualize the images in
poetry.
Conceit is an extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs a poetic passage or entire poem. By
juxtaposing, usurping and manipulating images and ideas in surprising ways, a conceit invites the reader
into a more sophisticated understanding of an object of comparison. Extended conceits in English are
part of the poetic idiom of Mannerism, during the later sixteenth and early seventeenth century.
Renaissance readers apparently did not try to picture conceits in their minds; instead, they
admired them for their boldness and ingenuity. As time passed, the practice of writing conceits
intensified and reached a peak in the followers of John Donne.
�Contents
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542) and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–
1547)
Wyatt and Surrey have much in common: they were courtiers of Henry VIII, they admired and
imitated foreign – especially Italian – poetry, and they were literary innovators. Wyatt spent
much of his life traveling abroad as an ambassador for King Henry. Twice Henry had him
imprisoned on charges that were probably false, and twice Wyatt managed to regain his favor.
Surrey was not so lucky. He was a brilliant soldier and both his parents were descended from
English kings. Thus he had two qualifications for being a king himself. Henry didn’t like it and
had Surrey executed when he was only thirty years old.
Both Wyatt and Surrey helped to change the nature of English poetry, which up to their time
was still essentially medieval in matter and manner, subject and form. Wyatt brought a new kind
of poem, the love sonnet, to England from Italy. His English sonnets are adaptations of Italian
sonnets.
Wyatt's sonnets were mainly translations or imitations of those of Petrarch. He changed the
structure of Petrarchan sonnet to create what became known as the Elizabethan sonnet.
In the original Italian sonnet the first eight lines – the octave – introduced the problem, while
the last six lines – the sextet – provided an answer or comment and expressed the personal
feelings of the poet. The rhyming scheme was usually ABBA-ABBA-CDC-DCD. Wyatt
changed the rhyming scheme of the sestet to CDDC-EE thus creating a quatrain (four lines)
and a couplet (two lines). The Earl of Surrey developed the sestet even further, separating the
couplet from the quatrain and using it to comment on the previous twelve lines. The final
pattern for the Elizabethan sonnet comprised therefore three quatrains (twelve lines) and a
couplet (two lines) with the scheme ABAB-CDCD-EFEF-GG.
Wyatt and Surrey introduced a new method of writing sonnets in the form of sonnet sequence,
a collection of sonnets telling a story of love, like that of Petrarch for his Laura.
Surrey was the first to use the blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) in English poetry.
Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and many other later poets used blank verse, and this
poetic form now seems the most natural of all English meters.
Aside from their sonnets and Surrey’s blank verse, both poets produced a variety of other
kinds of works. But neither of these poets had any of his works printed and publicly
distributed, except for one poem that Surrey wrote on Wyatt’s death. They had no ambition to
be known as “clerks,” or men of letters, the sort of people who published books. As courtiers
�Contents
they were expected to compose songs and verses, just as they were expected to do battle for
their king, compete in tournaments, dance, and carry on intrigues with the ladies. And so they
circulated their poems privately, in handwritten copies, amongst their friends. Not until ten
years after Surrey’s death did most of their poems appear in print. In 1557 an anthology called
Songs and Sonnets was published. It contained ninety-seven of Wyatt’s poems and forty of
Surrey’s.
The book Wyatt’s and Surrey’s poems is commonly known as Tottel’s Miscellany (after the
name of the printer Richard Tottel). It has a rather bad reputation today because Tottel
“improved” the poems by changing their words so that they seemed smoother to his ears.To make
certain that we read Wyatt’s and Surrey’s words scholars have searched out the handwritten
copies of the poems that predate their publication.
Text
According to traditional gossip, this poem by Wyatt is about the attraction he felt for Anne Boleyn, a beautiful
young woman at court. When he noticed that no less a person than King Henry was also attracted to Anne, he
gave up the pursuit (as he says in line 1) to whoever else wanted to “hunt” her. No one knows whether this
story is true or not, but Henry did make Anne the second of his six queens.
Whoso List to Hunt
перевод Е. Фельдман
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, alas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I, by no means, my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore,
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Whoso list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I, may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about,
“Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.”
Добычи ищешь? Я скажу, где лань!
Увы, моя закончена охота.
Измучен, как чумой, пустой работой,
Плетусь я позади, чуть жив от ран.
Порыв ловца я сдерживал, как мог,
Но лишь промчалось нежное виденье –
Я ринулся в погоню вслед за тенью,
А в сети только лёгкий ветер лёг.
Не верь тому, что говорит молва, Охота эта страстная напрасна.
На шее горделивой и атласной
Горят алмазной россыпью слова:
«Не тронь меня, сетей не ставь упорно!
Я одному лишь Цезарю покорна».
�Contents
Who is referred to as Caesar in the poem?
Why does the poet refuse to “hunt”?
What does the poem reveal about the position of women in Wyatt’s time?
In the poem love is described in terms of “hunting”.
Make up your own metaphors that could reveal the nature of “love”.
�Contents
Edmund Spenser (1552–1599)
Edmund Spenser, unlike such gentlemanly writers as Wyatt, Surrey and Sidney, regarded
himself primarily as a poet. Indeed, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries he became known
as “the poet’s poet” because so many young writers learned the art and craft of poetry by
studying him. Spenser began publishing poetry about the time he graduated from the Merchant
Taylors’ School and went to Cambridge University, from which he received the B.A. and M.A.
degrees. Upon leaving the university, he served as a personal secretary to the Earl of Leicester,
Queen Elizabeth’s favorite.
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, (1532 or 1533–1588) was an English nobleman and
the favourite and close friend of Elizabeth I from her first year on the throne until his death. The
Queen giving him reason to hope, he was a suitor for her hand for many years.
Leicester, a great patron of scholars and writers, surrounded himself with
brilliant people, and in his household Spenser became acquainted with many poets, among
them Sir Philip Sidney. He dedicated to Sidney his first book, The Shepherds’ Calendar
(1579). This is a set of twelve pastoral poems, one for each month, written in a variety of
meter. Some of them are experimental, and all of them are original and interesting. Literary
historians have long recognized 1579 as the date when the great age of Elizabethan literature
began.
Pastoral, as an adjective, refers to the lifestyle of shepherds and pastoralists, moving livestock around
larger areas of land according to seasons and availability of water and feed. "Pastoral" also describes
literature, art and music which depicts the life of shepherds, often in a highly idealised manner. It may
also be used as a noun (a pastoral) to describe a single work of pastoral poetry, music or drama. An
alternative name for the literary "pastoral" (both as an adjective and a noun) is "bucolic", from the Greek βουκóλος,
meaning a "cowherd". This reflects the Greek origin of the pastoral tradition.
In 1580, Spenser and his wife went to Ireland in the service of the Lord Deputy of Ireland.
Except for two or three visits to England, he was to spend the rest of his life in that war-torn
country. English troops had invaded and conquered Ireland, but the Irish did not regard
themselves as conquered. They particularly resented people like Spenser, who was given an
Irish castle and a vast estate.
The conditions remained very unsettled and dangerous, but Spenser managed to work on The
Faerie Queene and other poems. After the death of his first wife he courted and married
Elizabeth Boyle, an Anglo-Irish lady living in Cork. His sonnet sequence Amoretti (1595) and
his marriage hymn Epithalamion (1595) reveal Spencer’s intense devotion to his wife.
�Contents
The Irish intensified their efforts to expel the English from their land. During one of their raids,
Spenser’s castle was burned and his infant son killed. Spenser himself took refuge in Cork
City, and from there he went over to London, carrying messages to the government and some
poems in manuscript. He died suddenly, in 1599, and was given a splendid funeral and burial in
the Poet's Corner. He lies near Chaucer, a poet who provided much of his inspiration.
Spenser's masterpiece The Faerie Queene was published in 1590. It was dedicated to the
Queen: “To the Most Mighty and Magnificent Empress Elizabeth, by the Grace of God
Queen of England, France, and Ireland.” The Queen, notoriously stingy, rewarded him with
the unusually large pension of fifty pounds annually, and Spenser was generally recognized as
the leading poet of the day.
The Faerie Queene is a religious and political allegory that despite its unfinished state runs
about 33,000 lines. It has an open form, with many characters and many different plots
developing in all directions. Their knights, ladies, battles, tournaments, enchantments, dragons,
giants, dwarfs, and demons are derived from the medieval romances of chivalry.
Spencer intended to write twelve books, but only half of the work was completed. Each book
recounts the adventures of a knight, who represents one of the twelve virtues that make a
perfect gentleman. The first six books have heroes or heroines who embody holiness,
temperance, chastity, friendship, justice, and courtesy.
The main theme of the work is the glorification of Queen Elizabeth and her court. At the end of
the story, Prince Arthur, the most important knight, is to marry the Faerie Queene Gloriana,
who represented Queen Elizabeth.
Style
The Faerie Queene shows Spenser's great gift for creating refined and vivid poetry. He
introduced a new metre into English poetry called the Spenserian stanza. Each stanza
contains nine lines in total: eight lines in iambic pentameter followed by a single 'alexandrine'
line in iambic hexameter. The rhyme scheme of these lines is ABABBCBCC:
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught, in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose prayses hauing slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
�Contents
Fierce warres and faithfull loues shall moralize my song.
(From Faerie Queene)
Spenser's belief that poetry should deal with subjects far removed from everyday life and
should be written in refined language became the basic principle for Elizabethan.
Text
SONNET XXX from Amoretty
Перевод Д. Смирнова
My love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How come it then that this her cold is so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which is congealed with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.
Любимая, как лёд, а я, как пламя –
какой мороз ей сердце остудил,
что не расплавить жаркими кострами? –
оно твердеет – тщетно я молил.
Какой пожар мне сердце распалил
таким огнём, что не боится льда,
а только пуще пламенеет пыл,
и страсть моя вскипает, как руда?
Но чудо совершится лишь тогда,
когда огонь пылающий поймёт,
что растопить он может холода,
cам превратившись в безразличный лёд.
Сильна любовь, и может в час тревожный
cменить свой курс на противоположный.
What feelings stand behind the images of “fire” and “ice”?
What determines the temperature in a lover’s heart?
�Contents
Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)
Sir Philip Sidney was a soldier and a statesman. He was connected with many important
people. His father was Sir Henry Sidney, for many years Lord Governor of Ireland, his uncle
was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a handsome and talented courtier whom Queen
Elizabeth loved passionately but never married. As a boy Sidney first met Queen Elizabeth
when his uncle Leicester put on a spectacular entertainment for her at Kenilworth. Elizabeth
later made Sidney her cupbearer.
In 1585 Queen Elizabeth appointed Sidney governor of Flushing, an important English fortress
in the Netherlands. He had long sympathized with the Dutch in their struggle to remain independent of Spain. In November of 1586 Sidney was wounded and died. His body was brought
back to England and given a hero’s burial in St. Paul’s Cathedral.
The English idolized Sidney, and held him up as the embodiment of perfect knighthood. As a
writer and poet Sidney is best remembered for his three works. The long chivalric pastoral
romance called The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (1590, 1593) is full of adventure and
moralizing. Many literary historians regard it as the most important piece of English prose
fiction before the eighteenth century. A collection of poems entitled Astrophel and Stella
(1591) consisting of 108 sonnets and 11 songs is the first of many Elizabethan sonnet
sequences. Finally, An Apology for Poetry (1595), also known as The Defense of Poesy, is the
first substantial critical essay in the English literature. It is a defense of imaginative literature
against its detractors, who were saying that poets lie. Sidney replied that poets can't lie because
they don't pretend to be giving factual information. “The poet nothing affirmeth,” he argued.
Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella has two purposes: to praise Stella (“Star”) and to explore and
express the feelings of Astrophel (“Star Lover”). Sidney pays much more attention to the
second purpose than to the first. Compared with Petrarch’s Laura, Stella is a rather dim figure.
Text
In the following sonnet, Astrophel plans to express his love for Stella in poems that will make her love him in
return.
"Loving in truth..."
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That the dear she might take some pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe:
�Contents
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay;
Invention, Nature's child, fled stepdame Study's blows;
And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write."
How does the lover try to impress his beloved?
Are his attempts effective?
What is the message of the poem?
�Contents
Shakespeare's Sonnets
The first examples of sonnets in English were written by Sir Thomas Wyatt, and the form was
then developed by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. If these poets had not lived, Shakespeare
might never have written any sonnets at all.
The rhyme scheme of most sonnets in English, including Shakespeare's is generally
ababcdcdefefgg – this is called the Elizabethan scheme, and is different from the original
Petrarchan scheme.
While his contemporaries were dealing exclusively with love Shakespeare used the sonnet form
not only for the description of the beauty of the woman and of his passions, but also for the
expression of his ideas. Shakespeare's 154 sonnets cover a wide range of subjects: they are
poems of love and loss, of loneliness, infidelity, "devouring time", death, and ruthless age. But
there are two major themes: the force of love, and the battle between the power of time and the
timelessness of poetry. The sonnets reveal that their writer was a playwright. They often have
the structure of a little drama. The octave introduces some kind of conflict. In the following
quatrain the conflict is developed in some way: it can be disputed or accepted, denied or
affirmed. In the last two lines a solution is presented that is often clever and unexpected. This
final couplet works like the last scene in a play in which all the difficulties of the plot are
resolved.
Sometimes Shakespeare expressed the same idea through several sonnets. Shakespeare's
sequence of sonnets suggests "a story", though the story itself is elusive and mysterious.
The sequence of his sonnets is traditionally divided into two parts. The first part (sonnets 1 –
126) is dedicated to a young man, the second part (127 – 154) – to a lady.
There are many opinions about the connection of addressees of the sonnets with
Shakespeare's life. The most accepted view is that the young man is Shakespeare's friend Sir
William Herbert, “Mr. W.H.”. Lord Herbert possessed all the external characteristics
mentioned in the sonnets. Physically the young man is the embodiment of beauty. But
Shakespeare is concerned not only with the physical but also with the moral beauty of his hero.
He describes not only merits, but also shortcomings and vices of the man's character, though
in his time it was fashionable to speak about the coincidence of moral and physical beauty.
Shakespeare hints at his friend's arrogance, selfishness and egoism. The young man has no
love for anybody, and therefore remains single. Shakespeare's strong advice is to get married
and have children who will inherit his beauty and justify his existence.
�Contents
The woman to whom the second part of the sequence is dedicated to is not identified by the
biographers. She is known under the name of the Dark Lady. The character of the Dark Lady
is an innovation in Elizabethan literature, because the image in pre-shakespearean love poetry is
blond. The sonnets reveal the story of the Dark Lady as well as the story of Shakespeare's love
for her. She is in her early twenties, married, faithless to her husband in her love for other men.
Shakespeare admires her beauty, suffers from his passionate love for her, and at the same time
despises himself for loving such a worthless woman. He stresses the darkness of her hair,
eyes, and heart.
Text
XVIII.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
XIX.
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
�Contents
Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
LXVI.
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And guilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly doctor-like controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.
CXXIX.
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
CXXX.
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
�Contents
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Learn one of Shakespeare’s sonnets by heart.
�Contents
John Donne (1572–1631) – the Father of Metaphysical poetry
The term "metaphysical," as applied to English and continental European poets of the
seventeenth century, was used by the literary critic Samuel Johnson in the eighteenth century to
reprove those poets for their “unnaturalness.” Therefore it may be considered misleading
because metaphysical poetry did not deal with philosophical speculation but with the themes of
religion and love. The metaphysical poets were not widely appreciated in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries by romantic and Victorian poets, but their reputation grew at the beginning
of the twentieth century with the rise of the interest in dramatic and passionate poetry.
John Donne, along with similar but distinct poets such as George Herbert, Andrew Marvell,
and Henry Vaughn, developed a poetic style in which philosophical and spiritual subjects were
approached with reason and often concluded in paradox. This group of writers established
meditation as a poetic mode.
John Donne (1572–1631) was the most influential metaphysical poet. He was born into a
Roman Catholic family at a time when members of that faith were under increasing pressure to
conform to the teaching of the newly established Church of England. Donne was not allowed
to take a degree at Oxford because of his religion. Throughout his youth he was tormented by
the question of his religion. If he remained loyal to the Roman Catholic faith, he would have to
give up any hope of a successful career. Finally in 1593 Donne decided to convert to the
Protestant faith. He became a diplomat and in 1601 was elected Member of Parliament. By the
secret marriage to his patron’s young niece Donne destroyed his bright prospects. After some
unsuccessful attempts to regain his career in politics and diplomacy, Donne turned his attention
to the Church. In 1615 he was ordained into the Church of England. When he was elected the
Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral he made a series of memorable sermons which earned him the
reputation of being the greatest preacher of his generation.
While his sermons won him public acclaim, Donne wrote poetry exclusively for personal
pleasure. During his lifetime his poems were read only by his circle of friends in manuscript
form. It was not until two years after his death that they were published. His literary production
includes:
Satires written in his early years and targeted to the social evils of the day;
Songs and Sonnets, a collection of love poems;
Holy Sonnets, a collection of religious poetry;
�Contents
Sermons and meditations, which include Donne’s weekly sermons.
Style
Much of the poetry written in the period in which he lived was musical, ornate and respectful:
he rejected these standards and wrote poems which were original, striking and irreverent. His
use of religious imagery in love poems and images of physical love in religious poetry shocked
his contemporaries.
In Songs and Sonnets Donne deals with the theme of love in a way that strongly contrasts with
the Elizabethan tradition. Love is presented as an intensely intimate and physical experience.
The poems are addressed to a very real lover, often the poet’s wife. The rhythm of the poem is
the rhythm of natural speech and the language is dramatic. The poet often tries to persuade his
lover to share his point of view through poetry which appeals both to the intellect and the
emotion.
His Holy Sonnets, which contains many of Donne’s most enduring poems, was released
shortly after his wife died in childbirth. The poet addresses God in a tone that often borders on
the irreverent, and uses the language of physical suffering and love to describe his spiritual
crises and devotion.
Donne was a great literary innovator. The literary techniques he used in his poetry became the
features of metaphysical poetry:
the dramatic quality of the language, which often seems to be one side of a dialogue
between the poet and his lover, or God, or himself;
the wide range of areas from which the poet draws his images (science, travel,
medicine, alchemy and philosophy);
the use of wit in paradoxes, epigrams, puns and conceits.
A paradox is an argument that produces an inconsistency, typically within logic or common sense.
An epigram is a concise, clever, often paradoxical statement.
Pun is a play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar
sense or sound of different words.
Text
�Contents
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
Прощание, запрещающее печаль
перевод С. Козлова
AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers' love
– Whose soul is sense – cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assuredиd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.
Как праведники, отходя,
Неслышно шепчутся с душой,
Друзей в сомнение вводя:
"Уже не дышит". – "Нет, живой".
Так распадемся мы сейчас:
Без бури вздохов, ливня слез;
Спасем от нечестивых глаз
То, что изведать довелось.
Сдвиг почвы - бедствия пример:
Он порождает страх и крик;
Но тихий сдвиг небесных сфер
Всегда невинен, хоть велик.
Любовь земная оттого
Разлук не терпит, что они
Разъединяют вещество,
Составившее суть любви.
Но мы, кто чувством утончен
До несказуемых границ,
Легко снесем такой урон,
Как расставанье тел и лиц.
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
Ведь наши две души – одна;
Ей страх разъятья незнаком;
Уйду – растянется она,
Как золото под молотком.
А если две – то две их так,
Как две у циркуля ноги:
Вращенье той, что в центре - знак
Единства с той, что вьет круги.
Центральная, наклонена,
Следит за странствием другой
И выпрямляется она,
Лишь если та пришла домой.
Мы как они: ведь ты тверда,
И путь мой станет образцом
Окружности: у нас всегда
Начало совпадет с концом.
Analyze the image used in the poem to describe two lovers.
What is the message of the poem?
�Contents
from Holy Sonne ts
DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
Compare Elizabethan sonnets with metaphysical poetry of John Donne.
Which of them appeal to you most and why?
A Lecture Upon the Shadow
Лекция о тени
перевод Г. М. Кружкова
Stand still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, Love, in Love's philosophy.
These three hours that we have spent,
Walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produced.
But, now the sun is just above our head,
We do those shadows tread,
And to brave clearness all things are reduced.
So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Постой – и краткой лекции внемли,
Любовь моя, о логике любви.
Вообрази: пока мы тут, гуляя,
С тобой беседовали, дорогая,
За нашею спиной
Ползли две тени, вроде привидений;
Но полдень воссиял над головой Мы попираем эти тени!
Вот так, пока любовь еще росла,
�Contents
Disguises did, and shadows, flow
From us and our cares ; but now 'tis not so.
Она невольно за собой влекла
Оглядку, страх; а ныне – тень ушла.
That love hath not attain'd the highest degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see.
То чувство не достигло апогея,
Что кроется, чужих очей робея.
Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to blind
Others, these which come behind
Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.
If our loves faint, and westerwardly decline,
To me thou, falsely, thine
And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day ;
But O ! love's day is short, if love decay.
Но если вдруг любовь с таких высот,
Не удержавшись, к западу сойдет,
От нас потянутся иные тени,
Склоняющие душу к перемене.
Те, прежние, других
Морочили, а эти, как туманом
Сгустившимся, нас облекут самих
Взаимной ложью и обманом.
Когда любовь клонится на закат,
Все дальше тени от нее скользят И скоро, слишком скоро день затмят.
Love is a growing, or full constant light,
And his short minute, after noon, is night.
Любовь растет, пока в зенит не станет,
Но минет полдень - сразу ночь нагрянет.
How does the poet present different stages of love?
What do shadows represent at the beginning and at the end of the poem?
�Contents
Renaissance Prose
Thomas More: Utopia
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
�Contents
Thomas More: Utopia
Thomas More (1477–1535) was born in London in 1478 and followed his father's profession
as a lawyer, eventually becoming an MP. Then in 1529 he became Lord Chancellor to Henry
VIII. However, his firm allegiance to Church tradition made him oppose his king's attempts to
obtain a divorce and to reform the church. By December 1533 Moore had been forbidden to
publish his writings and the next year found him imprisoned in the Tower of London. On July
6th 1535 he was beheaded and in 1935 More was canonized by Pope Pius XI.
More published Utopia in 1516 and since that time the word has become the name for a whole
genre of speculative writing and ideology, also being retrospectively applied to works like
Plato's Republic, upon which Utopia is largely based.
A utopia (/juːˈtoʊpiə/) is a community or society possessing highly desirable or near perfect
qualities. The word was coined by Sir Thomas More in Greek for his 1516 book Utopia (in
Latin), describing a fictional island society in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to
describe both intentional communities that attempt to create an ideal society, and imagined
societies portrayed in fiction. It has produced other concepts, most prominently dystopia.
The word Utopia is constructed from two Greek words: TOPOS meaning PLACE and OU
meaning NO. Thus Utopia is “nowhere”, or an imaginary place. It is also a pun on the word
EU meaning good or perfect. So Utopia can also be a perfect place that is non-existent. Some
commentators interpret Moore's Utopia as a proposal for an ideal society that would be
desirable to achieve. Others think it is simply an indirect criticism of contemporary European
society.
Content
Book I
More tells how, when he was in the Low Countries on government business, he was
introduced by his friend Peter Giles to Raphael Hythloday, a veteran traveler. The long
day's conversation among the three men constitutes the substance of the book.
When More and Giles discover how widely Hythloday has traveled and realize the depth of
his understanding of the governments of many nations, they propose that his knowledge is
too valuable to waste and that he ought to enter the service of some monarch as a councilor
in order to employ his knowledge in the service of mankind. Hythloday is reluctant to
undertake such employment. First, he does not believe that, his advice would be accepted.
The people sitting in royal councils practice a system of flattery toward their superiors. They
�Contents
would surely outweigh his idealistic and philosophical proposals. In support of these views,
he relates experiences during an earlier visit to England.
In pursuit of the argument, Hythloday proceeds to a critical analysis of the patterns of law,
government, economics among European nations and, most particularly, in England. His
criticism is directed specifically at the severity of the laws, the unjust distribution of wealth,
the unequal participation in productive labor, and the appropriation of farm lands for sheep
grazing.
Book I represents the negative side of the picture which More intends to create, the statement
of what is wrong with "civilization"in his time. A few incidental references comparing the state
of affairs in contemporary Europe with the manners and government of a nation on a remote
island called Utopia leads into the discussion in the second book.
Book II
Hythloday gives an account of the whole life pattern of the Utopians.
Utopia is an Island and so has no problems with borders.
Utopians have no interest in territorial expansion and make no alliances with other nations.
They are basically pacifist but they will fight in defensive conflicts if necessary.
Utopia is a rationally structured society. It is peaceful and harmonious.
Towns are well planned and there are no slums. Everyone has an adequate housing with a
garden in which to grow vegetables for the family. And everyone is well trained in farming.
Utopian society is well-ordered with traditional family structure and elders, who are much
respected heads of households. The family is the unit of their society, and the oldest member
is the governor of the family. Thirty families band together about a great hall where they eat
together, their food being well prepared by women well qualified for that work.
Divorce is permissible, but only under special circumstances.
Women do not marry before 18 and men marry at 22. Pre-marital sex is severely punished.
All children are given a good education and adults give up spare time to assist in education.
Government is done by delegates being elected to represent local communities.
�Contents
All Utopians work willingly and only need to work 6 hours a day. Everyone does some
farming and so is a food producer. They have no interest in luxury, fashion, gold or jewels
and no interest in accumulating wealth. Greed is not known among them.
The country has slaves but these are either condemned criminals or hostages from other
lands.
The economy of the Utopians is of particular interest. Their markets are nothing more than
supply houses where everyone is free to go and take what he needs without payment. They
are able to produce an abundance of food, so that they can export their surplus to foreign
countries.
There is no private property among the Utopians and they have no money. The wealth which
they acquire by foreign trade is used only in time of war. The citizens are educated to despise
jewels and precious metals.
Utopians define virtue as life according to nature and they condemn hunting as a pastime.
Pre-marital sex, prostitution, adultery, gambling, theft and drunkenness, are outlawed and
severely punished.
The sick are well looked-after but if someone is terminally ill the priests advise suicide.
However, while suicide in the context of illness is acceptable, euthanasia by the doctors is
not.
There is not a single religion throughout the nation, but a considerable variety of doctrines is
permitted. Some Utopians worship the sun, some the moon or some worship virtuous men –
but all believe that there is one God and that the soul is immortal. However, there is no
compulsion in belief. Citizens are free in matters of religion. They have persons whose
dedication to a life of service and sacrifice corresponds to the religious orders in the
Christian church. Their priests are men of exceptional character and dignity. Their churches
are large and very beautiful. The services are interdenominational in character. When
Hythloday and his companions instructed the Utopians in the teachings of Christianity,
many of them became converts and were baptized.
In a short passage, Hythloday sums up his views on the Utopian system, declaring it to be
the best and only true commonwealth. It insures justice for all of its citizens, and because
there is no private property, everybody owns a share in everything. The result is a nation of
happy people.
�Contents
At the conclusion of Hythloday's discourse, More offers some remarks of his own indicating
that he was not wholly converted to the Utopian system but that he regarded some of its
features as commendable and wished they might be adopted in Europe.
Link
The word Utopia overtook More's short work and has been used ever since to describe this
kind of imaginary society with many unusual ideas being contemplated. Although he may not
have founded the genre of Utopian and dystopian fiction, More certainly popularised it and
some of the early works which owe something to Utopia include:
The City of the Sun by Tommaso Campanella, Description of the Republic of
Christianopolis by Johannes Valentinus Andreae, New Atlantis by Francis Bacon and
Candide by Voltaire.
Chronologically, the first recorded utopian proposal is Plato's Republic, written by Plato around
380 BC. It concerns the definition of justice and the order and character of the just city-state and
the just man.
The 20th century witnessed the rise of dystopian, or anti-utopian novel.
A dystopia, or anti-utopia, is a community or society, usually fictional, that is in some important
way undesirable or frightening. It is the opposite of a utopia. Such societies appear in many
works of fiction, particularly in stories set in a speculative future. Dystopias are often characterized
by dehumanization, totalitarian governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics
associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Elements of dystopias may vary from
environmental to political and social issues. Dystopian societies have culminated in a broad series of sub-genres of
fiction and are often used to raise real-world issues regarding society, environment, politics, religion, psychology,
spirituality, or technology that may become present in the future. For this reason, dystopias have taken the form of a
multitude of speculations, such as pollution, poverty, societal collapse, political repression, or totalitarianism.
The 1921 novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin predicts a post-apocalyptic future in which society
is entirely based on logic and modeled after mechanical systems.
Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World is a more subtle and more threatening dystopia
because he projected into the year 2540 industrial and social changes he perceived in 1931,
leading to a fascist hierarchy of society, industrially successful by exploiting a slave class
conditioned and drugged to obey and enjoy their servitude.
George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel about a coercive and
impoverished totalitarian society, conditioning its population through propaganda rather than
�Contents
drugs.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury describes a hedonistic future America devoid of critical
thinking or literature.
Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale describes a future North America governed by
strict religious rules which only the privileged dare defy.
Are you familiar with any of these novels?
How can you explain the change of philosophic and literary focus: from utopian
to anti-utopian?
Do you think there is a possibility for any future utopian project for humanity?
�Contents
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
In the 17 century people’s taste changed from being emotional to philosophical and scientific.
The reasons for these changes were great scientific discoveries as the theory of Galileo or
Gabriel Harvey, who stated the circulation of blood, or the invention of telescopes. As for the
developments in literature, the 17 century becomes the time for essay to establish itself as a
popular genre. It was borrowed from the French essay writer Michel de Montaigne. Francis
Bacon was the one who brought it to English literature and got the central role in developing
English essay and prose. He actually influenced the intellectual history of the early 17 century
because he emphasized learning through experience.
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) was an influential French Renaissance writer, generally
considered to be the inventor of the personal essay.
Bacon's great claim to fame is not that he entered Trinity College, Cambridge,
at the age of 12, not that he was Lord Chancellor of England under James I,
nor even that he has been reputed the real writer of Shakespeare's plays, but that he was a
philosopher of the first rank and the effective founder of the modern, experimental, scientific,
approach to understanding. Before Bacon, 'learning' largely meant memorizing the classics,
especially Aristotle, and acceding to every dictate of established religion.
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of
Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry,
theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together
with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in
Western philosophy.
In The Advancement of Learning (1605), he argued that the only knowledge of importance
was that which could be discovered by observation – 'empirical' knowledge rooted in the
natural world. Empiricism itself emphasizes that experience, evidence, especially sensory
perception are important in the formation of ideas. In scientific method it is necessary that all
hypothesis and theories be tested against the observations of natural world. Therefore,
according to this scientific view science should be empirical in nature.
Bacon championed the idea of state funding for experimental science and the creation of an
encyclopedia. In New Organon (1620), he redefined the task of natural science, as a way of
increasing human power over nature, and in The New Atlantis(1626), describing a Utopian
state exploiting scientific knowledge. The expression "Knowledge is power" is his. In 1621
Bacon was evicted from office for taking a bribe and died four years later after catching a cold
while stuffing a chicken with snow in an early experiment in refrigeration.
�Contents
Text
Of Studies
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for
ornament is in discourse; and for ability is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute,
and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come
best, from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is
affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected
by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning, by study; and studies themselves, do give
forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men condemn studies, simple men
admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above
them, won by observation.
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh
and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that
is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and
with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that
would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common
distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And
therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit:
and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not. Histories make men wise;
poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt
studia in mores [“practices zealously pursued pass into habits”].
Nay, there is no ston[e] or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body,
may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle
walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the
mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to
distinguish or find differences, let him study the Schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores ["splitters of hairs”]. If he be
not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers’ cases.
So every defect of the mind, may have a special receipt.
Об учении
Науками занимаются ради удовольствия, ради украшения и ради умения. Удовольствие обнаруживается
всего более в уединении, украшение – в беседе, а умение – в распоряжениях и руководстве делом. Ибо
людям опыта можно поручить выполнение да еще, пожалуй, суждение об отдельных подробностях; но
общего руководства и совета лучше искать у людей ученых. Отдавать наукам все время означает
неумение применить их к делу; превращать их целиком в украшение – жеманство; а всецело полагаться
на них в суждениях – ученое чудачество. Наука совершенствует природу, но сама совершенствуется
опытом, ибо прирожденные дарования подобны диким растениям и нуждаются в выращивании с
помощью ученых занятий, а ученость сама по себе дает указания чересчур общие, если их не уточнить
�Contents
опытом. Люди хитроумные презирают ученость, простодушные дивятся ей, мудрые ею пользуются.
Ибо сама по себе ученость не научает, как применять ее: на то есть мудрость особая, высшая, которую
приобрести можно только опытом.
Читай не затем, чтобы противоречить и опровергать; не затем, чтобы принимать на веру, и не затем,
чтобы найти предмет для беседы; но чтобы мыслить и рассуждать. Есть книги, которые надо только
отведать, есть такие, которые лучше всего проглотить, и лишь немногие стоит разжевать и переварить.
Иначе говоря, одни книги следует прочесть лишь частично, другие – без особого прилежания и лишь
немногие – целиком и внимательно. Есть и такие, которые можно поручить прочесть другому и
воспользоваться сделанными им извлечениями; но так можно поступать лишь с маловажными
предметами и посредственными авторами, ибо перегонка книг, как перегонка воды, убивает всякий
вкус. Чтение делает человека знающим, беседа – находчивым, а привычка записывать – точным.
Поэтому, кто мало пишет, тому нужна хорошая память; кто мало упражняется в беседе, должен быть
находчив; а кто мало читает, должен быть весьма хитер, чтобы казаться более знающим, чем есть на
самом деле.
В истории черпаем мы мудрость; в поэзии – остроумие; в математике – проницательность; в
естественной философии – глубину; в нравственной философии – серьезность; в логике и риторике –
умение спорить. "Abeunt studia in mores" («занятия налагают отпечаток на характер»). Скажем более: нет
такого умственного изъяна, который не мог бы быть исправлен надлежащими занятиями, подобно
тому как недостатки телесные устраняются соответствующими упражнениями. Так, игра в шары
полезна при каменной болезни и для почек; стрельба – для легких и груди; ходьба – для желудка;
верховая езда – для головы и так далее. А кто рассеян, тот пусть займется математикой, ибо при
доказательстве теорем малейшая рассеянность вынуждает все начинать сызнова. Кто неспособен
усматривать различия, пусть изучает схоластиков, ибо они "cymini sectores" («расщепляющие тминные
зёрна» (о вдающихся в излишние тонкости). Кто не умеет быстро осваиваться с предметом и быстро
припоминать все нужное для доказательства, пусть изучает судебные дела. И такие средства имеются
против каждого умственного изъяна.
Find interesting ideas expressed in the essay.Do you agree with Bacon’s recipe for
the treatment of various defects of mind?
�Contents
Renaissance Drama
The medieval tradition of Mystery and Miracle plays continued under the reign of Henry VII.
However, after the Reformation, Henry VIII put an end to medieval religious drama. Humanism
revived interest in classical drama and the plays of Plautus, Terence and Seneca were
translated into English.
Titus Maccius Plautus (254?–184 BC), commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman
playwright of the Old Latin period.
Publius Terentius Afer (195/185–159 BC), better known in English as Terence, was a
playwright of the Roman Republic, of North African descent. His comedies were performed for
the first time around 170–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave,
educated him and later on, impressed by his abilities, freed him. All of the six plays Terence wrote have survived. One
famous quotation by Terence reads: "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto", or "I am a human being, I
consider nothing that is human alien to me."
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (often known simply as Seneca; 4? BC – AD 65) was a Roman Stoic philosopher,
statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to
emperor Nero.
Senecan tragedies were very popular and created a taste for horror and bloodshed. An
example of Seneca's influence on English drama can be seen in the works of Thomas Kyd
(1558–1594). His highly popular play about bloody revenge called The Spanish Tragedy
(1587) has many Senecan elements including horror, villains, corruption, intrigue and the
supernatural.
Content
Don Andrea, a Spanish nobleman, has been killed in battle with the Portuguese. After his
soul arrives in the underworld, Pluto sends it and the Spirit of Revenge back to the world of
the living to learn what happened after Don Andrea’s death. At the Spanish court, Don
Andrea’s ghost hears that the Portuguese have been defeated in war and that Balthazar,
prince of Portugal, has been taken prisoner. Balthazar, Don Andrea learns, is the man who
killed him. A quarrel has developed between Lorenzo and Horatio, each claiming the honor
of capturing Balthazar.
Balthazar, while a prisoner, falls in love with Bel-Imperia, who had been the fiancé of Don
Andrea. The king of Spain plans to make diplomatic use of Bel-Imperia, who is his niece, by
marrying her to the Portuguese prince, Balthazar, thus cementing the friendship of the two
countries. The king warns her that she must do as he commands. However, Bel-Imperia falls
�Contents
in love with Horatio.
Balthazar, aided by Lorenzo, plans to win the love of Bel-Imperia. Lorenzo and Balthazar
plot Horatio’s death. One night, when Bel-Imperia and Horatio meet in the garden, Horatio
is set upon by Balthazar and Lorenzo. They kill Horatio by hanging and then take BelImperia away.
When Horatio’s body is discovered, Hieronimo, Horatio’s father, goes mad, as does his wife.
Seeing these events, Don Andrea’s ghost becomes angry, but the Spirit of Revenge tells him
to be patient.
The marriage between Bel-Imperia and Balthazar is set. Hieronimo is given responsibility
over the entertainment for the marriage ceremony, and he uses it to take revenge. He devises
a play, a tragedy, to be performed at the ceremonies, and convinces Lorenzo and Balthazar
to act in it. Bel-Imperia, by now an associate in Hieronimo's plot for revenge, also acts in the
play.
The plot of the tragedy mirrors the plot of the play as a whole. Hieronimo casts himself in the
role of the hired murderer. During the action of the play, Hieronimo's character stabs
Lorenzo's character and Bel-Imperia's character stabs Balthazar's character, before killing
herself. But after the play is over, Hieronimo reveals to the horrified wedding guests that all
the stabbings in the play were done with real knives, and that Lorenzo, Balthazar, and BelImperia are now all dead. He then tries to kill himself, but the King and Duke of Castile stop
him. In order to keep himself from talking, he bites out his own tongue. Tricking the Duke
into giving him a knife, he then stabs the Duke and himself and then dies.
Revenge and Andrea then have the final words of the play. Andrea assigns each of the play's
"good" characters (Hieronimo, Bel-Imperia, Horatio) to happy eternities. The rest of the
characters are assigned to the various tortures and punishments of Hell.
The main concern of the tragedy was to tell a story and to emphasize its moral significance.
The religious and moral themes of medieval drama, under the influence of Renaissance humanism, began to give way to closer attention to ordinary human characters. During the earliest
part of the sixteenth century the abstract characters in the plays were substituted by characters
of real human beings. It was realized that a man with a name and a real human nature could
more easily win the attention of the public than a symbolic allegorical character.
Down to the sixteenth century there were neither theatres nor professional actors in England.
The nobility kept their own players, their servants, to perform at great celebrations. They
�Contents
staged magnificent masques – spectacular entertainments which combined music, song,
dance, and splendid costuming. Masques were written by professional playwrights. The
scenery and stage machinery were designed by the best architects of the time. The plot
introduced mythological and allegorical elements. The play ended with a dance when players
removed their masks and took members of the audience as partners.
Other plays that became fashionable in the sixteenth century were interludes, short one-act
plays usually performed as part of an evening’s entertainment at a rich man’s house.
In towns players were looking for the protection of a rich man because after a performance the
bailiff of the town could arrest them. The authorities passed the law in 1572, which made
actors punishable for vagrancy. Actors who were allowed to perform were those belonging to
a nobleman's company.
In 1574 the Earl of Leicester was the first to give his protection to a group of actors, and since
then they were called the Earl of Leicester's Men. After that two other great companies of
actors were formed: Lord Chamberlain's Men, and Lord Admiral's.
From time to time the actors went touring the country. They moved from town to town
spending nights in the inns. In the morning they set up their stages in the inn yards, took money
after their performances, and, finding that the audiences in the inns shifted frequently,
considered giving daily performances in the same place instead of moving on to new places
and fresh audiences. New audiences came to see their performances in the same inns. The rich
people usually sat in verandas, leading into inn bedrooms and overlooking the inn yard, while
the common people used to stand in the yard itself.
When acting was a recognized profession it was necessary to build permanent houses for
dramatic performances. The first playhouse in London, called the Theatre, was built by James
Burbage, the chief man of Leicester's company in 1576. It was built outside London, because
the City Council had banned the construction of theatres within the City of London itself.
Soon came another playhouse – the Curtain, in 1587 the Rose was built, which was followed
by the Swan in 1594. Shakespeare's Globe was built in 1598, out of the timbers of the old
Theatre.
Elizabethan theatres were built with the inn yard model in mind. They were open polygonal or
circular three-storied constructions. The stage in the theatre was elevated. There was a room
under the stage called cellar or hell. Actors in 'hell', who played the parts of ghosts, demons or
fairies, would make dramatic appearances through trap doors onto the stage. The back wall
�Contents
had two doors over which was a gallery. The gallery was used for seating as well as for
musicians or as a balcony if it was needed by the play. Between the two doors was a space
that could be closed off by a curtain. Part of the stage was covered by a roof, called the
heavens because from there the gods or angels could be lowered on the stage. There were two
rows of seats on the stage, and the actors were playing between them.
As acting was considered immoral, there were no women in the companies: female parts were
played by boys whose voices had not yet changed.
Many special effects were used in the theatre. Death scenes were violent and realistic, animal
organs and blood were often used to make battle scenes more impressive. The audiences
became very involved in the play, particularly the spectators in the yard, who were very close
to the action.
Theatres had entrances for admission. The price was low for the people who were prepared to
stand in the open air near the stage. For a higher price people could get a seat in one of the
galleries. The theatres were large: they could hold as many as three thousand spectators. The
plays lasted for hours.
The structure of the Elizabethan theatre had a great influence on form and technique in plays. In
contrast to the modern theatre, where there is a curtain separating the actor from the audience,
the Elizabethan actor was in much closer contact with the spectators. It was quite natural for
the actors to exchange words with the spectators. The immediate contact between the audience
and the players in Elizabethan theatres was lost a century later, in the Restoration period, after a
great reformation of the playhouses.
�Contents
The University Wits
The wits, or as they are usually called the University Wits were university graduates, the men
with learning and talent, but with no money. They led bohemian life, and were often seen in
pubs and taverns.
Before the time of Henry VIII penniless scholars used to live in monasteries where they
devoted themselves to reading manuscripts, learning and writing. After the foundation of the
Anglican Church, Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, and the scholars had to look for the
places to earn their living. The most popular occupations were those of a tutor or a secretary.
But the most gifted men turned to more creative professions, like writing poems and plays for
the new London theatres.
The most famous University Wits were John Lyly (1554?–1606), Robert Greene (1558–
1592), Thomas Kyd (1558–1594), George Peele (1558?–1597), and Christopher Marlowe
(1564–1593). Each of them gave something to the dramatic literature of the time. Lyly
produced wonderful dialogues, Greene wrote comedies with charm and humour, Peele made
the first attempt at a dramatic satire. The man who rose above his contemporaries in dramatic
gift and was considered to be almost equal to Shakespeare was Christopher Marlowe.
�Contents
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)
Christopher Marlowe was the son of a prosperous shoemaker. He was an exceptional student
and when he was fifteen he was awarded a scholarship to King's School in Canterbury, one of
the oldest schools in Britain. He continued his studies at Cambridge University, where he took
his Bachelor of Arts in 1583. Three years later he received his Master of Arts degree in spite of
the opposition by the University authorities. They suspected him of converting to Roman
Catholicism during a secret journey to France. Marlowe at this time was probably working for
the government in Her Majesty's Secret Service, spying on Catholic conspirators. Thus the
government authorities intervened on his behalf and the degree was granted.
He moved to London, where he met other graduates who were involved in the literary life of
London. Together they formed a circle of young writers known as the University Wits. Like all
of the members of the University Wits, Marlowe had a wild reputation – he was believed to be
an atheist who kept mistresses and fought the police. Yet his reputation might have been a
disguise for a man who was not at all wild and irresponsible. At the age of twenty-nine,
Marlowe was stabbed to death in a tavern. It is widely believed that he was deliberately
assassinated for political reasons.
Marlowe’s works were highly successful and had a major influence on other playwrights of the
period including Shakespeare.
During his short life Marlowe wrote eight plays. The most popular are Tamburlaine, The Jew
of Malta, Edward II, Doctor Faustus. His tragedies are extravagant and full of imagination.
Each of his plays revolves around a protagonist who is obsessed by a ruling passion:
Tamburlaine wishes to conquer the world; the Jew of Malta is obsessed by his love for gold;
Doctor Faustus aspires to unlimited knowledge. However, his works are far more sophisticated
than the medieval morality plays which told simple tales of wickedness and well-deserved
punishment. Marlowe created tragedies in which men make difficult decisions being aware of
the potentially catastrophic consequences.
The play that shows all the greatness of Marlowe's genius is The Tragic History of Doctor
Faustus.
Content
Faustus becomes dissatisfied with his studies of medicine, law, logic and theology; therefore,
he decides to turn to the dangerous practice of necromancy, or magic.
�Contents
Faustus begins experimenting with magical incantations, and suddenly Mephistophilis
appears, in the form of an ugly devil. Faustus sends Mephistophilis back to hell with the
bargain that if Faustus is given twenty-four years of absolute power, he will then sell his
soul to Lucifer.
Later, in his study, when Faustus begins to despair, a Good Angel and a Bad Angel appear
to him; each encourages Faustus to follow his advice. Mephistophilis appears and Faust
agrees to sign a contract in blood with the devil even though several omens appear which
warn him not to make this bond. Faustus begins to repent of his bargain as the voice of the
Good Angel continues to urge him to repent. To divert Faustus, Mephistophilis and Lucifer
both appear and parade the seven deadly sins before Faustus. After this, Mephistophilis
takes Faustus to Rome and leads him into the pope's private chambers, where the two
become invisible and play pranks on the Pope and some unsuspecting friars.
Faustus and Mephistophilis go to the German emperor's court, where they conjure up
Alexander the Great. At this time, Faustus makes a pair of horns suddenly appear on one of
the knights who had been skeptical about Faustus' powers.
Faustus is next seen selling his horse to a horse-courser with the advice that the man must
not ride the horse into the water. Later, the horse-courser enters Faustus' study and accuses
Faustus of false dealings because the horse had turned into a bundle of hay in the middle of
a pond.
After performing other magical tricks such as bringing forth fresh grapes in the dead of
winter, Faustus returns to his study, where at the request of his fellow scholars, he conjures
up the apparition of Helen of Troy. An old man appears and tries to get Faustus to hope for
salvation and yet Faustus cannot. He knows it is now too late to turn away from the evil and
ask for forgiveness. When the scholars leave, the clock strikes eleven and Faustus realizes
that he must give up his soul within an hour.
As the clock marks each passing segment of time, Faustus sinks deeper and deeper into
despair. When the clock strikes twelve, devils appear amid thunder and lightning and carry
Faustus off to his eternal damnation.
Text
Act V, Scene 2
перевод Н. Н. Амосовой
[The clock strikes eleven.]
(Часы бьют одиннадцать)
�Contents
Фауст
Faustus
Ах, Фауст!
Ah, Faustus,
Один лишь час тебе осталось жизни.
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
Он истечет - и будешь ввергнут в ад!
And then thou must be damn'd perpetually!
О, станьте же недвижны, звезды неба,
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
Чтоб навсегда остановилось время.
That time may cease, and midnight never come;
Чтоб никогда не наступала полночь!
Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make
Взойди опять, златое око мира.
Perpetual day; or let this hour be but
Заставь сиять здесь вековечный день!
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
Иль пусть мой час последний длится год.
Иль месяц хоть, неделю или сутки,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
Чтоб вымолил себе прощенье Фауст!
O lente, lente curite, noctis equi!
О,
lente, lente currite noctis equi *!
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
[О, медленно, медленно бегите, кони ночи!
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd.
(лат.; Овидий, Amores, I, 13).]
O, I'll leap up to my God! – Who pulls me down? –
Но вечное движенье звезд все то же...
See, see where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!
Мгновения бегут, часы пробьют,
One drop would save my soul--half a drop: O my
И дьяволы придут, и сгинет Фауст!
Christ! –
Я дотянусь до бога! Кто-то тянет,
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ;
Неведомый, меня упорно вниз...
Yet will I call on him: O, spare me, Lucifer! –
Вон кровь Христа, смотри, струится в небе!
Лишь капля, нет, хотя б всего полкапли
Where is it now? 'Tis gone; and see where God
Мне душу бы спасли, о мой Христос!..
Strecheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows!
За то, что я зову Христа, мне сердце
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
Не
раздирай, о сжалься, Люцифер!..
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!
Взывать к нему я все не перестану!
No! no!
Где он теперь? Исчез!.. О, вон, смотри,
Then will I headlong run into the earth:
Бог в вышине десницу простирает
Earth gape! O, no, it will not harbour me!
И гневный лик склоняет надо мной.
You stars that reign'd at my nativity,
Громады гор, обрушьтесь на меня,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Укройте же меня от гнева бога!
Нет? Нет?
Now draw up Faustus, like a foggy mist,
Тогда стремглав я кинусь в глубь земли.
Into the entrails of yon labouring clouds,
Разверзнись же, земля! Она не хочет
That, when you vomit forth into the air,
Мне дать приют, о нет!.. Вы, звезды неба,
My limbs may issue from their smoky mouths;
Что над моим царили гороскопом,
So that my soul may but ascend to heaven!
[The clock strikes the half hour.]
Ah, half the hour is past! 'twill all be past anon!
O God!
If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul,
Yet for Christ's sake whose blood hath ransom'd me,
Impose some end to my incessant pain;
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd!
Чья власть дала мне в долю смерть и ад,
Втяните же меня туманной дымкой
В плывущую далеко в небе тучу!
Когда ж меня извергнете вы снова,
Пусть упадет на землю только тело
Из вашего курящегося зева,
Но пусть душа взлетит на небеса!..
(Бьют часы).
Ах, полчаса прошло... Вмиг минет час...
О боже!
�Contents
O, no end is limited to damned souls.
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?
Or why is this immortal that thou hast?
Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true,
This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd
Into some brutish beast! all beasts are happy,
For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;
But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell.
Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me!
No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer
That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven.
[The clock striketh twelve.]
O, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air,
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell!
[Thunder and lightning.]
O soul, be chang'd into little water-drops,
And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found!
My God, my God! look not so fierce on me!
[Enter DEVILS.]
Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while!
Ugly hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer!
I'll burn my books!--Ah Mephistophilis!
[Exeunt DEVILS with Faustus.]
Коль надо мной не смилуешься ты,
Хоть ради всех святых страстей Христа,
Чья кровь мой грех когда-то искупила,
Назначь конец моим страданьям вечным!
Пусть тысячу в аду томлюсь я лет,
Сто тысяч лет, но наконец спасусь!..
Но нет конца мученьям грешных душ!
Зачем же ты бездушной тварью не был?
Иль почему душа твоя бессмертна?
Ах, если б прав был мудрый Пифагор
И если бы метампсихоз был правдой,
Душа моя могла б переселиться
В животное! Животные блаженны!
Их души смерть бесследно растворяет.
Моя ж должна для муки адской жить.
Будь прокляты родители мои!..
Нет, самого себя кляни, о Фауст!
Кляни, кляни убийцу Люцифера,
Лишившего тебя блаженства рая!
(Часы бьют полночь).
Бьют, бьют часы! Стань воздухом ты, тело,
Иль Люцифер тебя утащит в ад!
(Гром и молния).
Душа моя, стань каплей водяною
И, в океан упав, в нем затеряйся!
Мой бог, мой бог, так гневно не взирай!
(Появляются дьяволы).
О, дайте мне вздохнуть, ехидны, змеи!
О, не зияй так страшно, черный ад!
Не подходи же, Люцифер! Я книги
Свои сожгу! Прочь, прочь! О, Мефистофель!
(Дьяволы увлекают его).
(Входит Хор).
Хор
Обломана жестоко эта ветвь.
Которая расти могла б так пышно.
Сожжен побег лавровый Аполлона,
Что некогда в сем муже мудром цвел.
Нет Фауста. Его конец ужасный
Пускай вас всех заставит убедиться,
Как смелый ум бывает побежден,
Когда небес преступит он закон.
�Contents
Develop the last lines of the Russian translation into your own story illustrating
the massages of the play: the limits of human nature, the cost for extraordinary
powers, the ambition punished, the victory of morality over human passions, etc.
Style
Perhaps Marlowe's main contribution to the English drama was the elaboration of blank verse
(non-rhyming lines of iambic pentameter). Marlowe established blank verse as the principal
verse form of Elizabethan drama. It had been used before, but he made it more flexible by
varying the length of sentences. For instance, he wrote sentences longer than one line; these
"run-on" lines sound like the rhythm of natural speech. Marlowe avoided monotony by varying
stresses and breaking up the lines with pauses, exclamations and shortened sentences, and the
use of syntax to reflect the state of the character’s mind. Marlowe’s early death undoubtedly
deprived literature of even greater and more developed works.
Link
The Faust legend first flourished in medieval Europe and is thought to have its earliest roots in
the New Testament story of the magician Simon Magus (Acts 8:9-24). During the superstitious
Middle Ages, the story of the man who sold his soul to the devil to obtain supernatural powers
captured the popular imagination and spread rapidly. At some point the name of Faust was
definitely attached to this figure. A cycle of legends, including some from ancient and medieval
sources that were originally told about other magicians, began to collect around him. One of
the most widely-read magic texts of the period was attributed to Faust and many others
referred to him as an authority.
A famous German sage and adventurer born in 1480 was thought by many of his
contemporaries to be a magician and probably did practice some sort of black magic. Few
details of his life are certain, but it is known that he exploited the situation by calling himself
Faust the Younger, thus acquiring the reputation of the legendary character.
After a sensational career, this Faust died during a mysterious demonstration of flying which he
put on for a royal audience in 1525. It was generally believed that he had been carried away by
the devil. One of the scenes of Goethe's tragedy is set in Auerbach's Cellar in Leipzig, the city
of this fatal exhibition, because the walls of the old tavern were decorated with representations
of Faust's exploits, and the place was traditionally connected with him.
A biography of Faust, the Historia von D. Johann Fausten, based upon the shadowy life of
�Contents
Faust the Younger, but including many legendary stories, was published in Frankfurt in 1587.
That same year it was translated into English as The Historie of the damnable life and
deserved death of Doctor John Faustus. In both these popular editions of the "Faust-Book,"
the magician's deeds, his pact with the devil and final damnation are depicted. In this version
the legend took a permanent form.
When the Renaissance came to northern Europe, Faust was made into a symbol of free
thought and the opposition to the Church doctrine.
Marlowe used the English translation of the 1587 Faust-Book as his main source, but
transformed the legendary magician into a tragic figure and made his story a powerful
expression of the main subject of the Renaissance thought.
In the seventeenth century English strolling actors brought Marlowe's Faustus to Germany
where the play was translated and transformed into a puppet play. Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe saw its performance, and was inspired to write his version of Doctor Faustus.
Goethe's "Faust" is a tragic play. It was published in two parts. The play is meant to be read
rather than performed. It is Goethe's most famous work and considered by many to be one of
the greatest works of German literature.
Content
" aust Part One"is a complex story. It takes place in multiple settings, the first of which is
F
heaven. Mephistopheles makes a bet with God: he says that he can deflect God's favorite
human being (Faust), who is striving to learn everything that can be known, away from
righteous pursuits. The next scene takes place in Faust's study where Faust, despairing at
the vanity of scientific, humanitarian and religious learning, turns to magic for the
showering of infinite knowledge. He suspects, however, that his attempts are failing.
Frustrated, he ponders suicide, but rejects it as he hears the echo of nearby Easter
celebrations begin. He goes for a walk with his assistant Wagner and is followed home by a
stray poodle.
In Faust’s study, the poodle transforms into the devil (Mephistopheles). Faust makes an
arrangement with the devil: the devil will do everything that Faust wants while he is here on
earth, and in exchange Faust will serve the devil in hell. Faust's arrangement is that if
during the time while Mephistopheles is serving Faust, Faust is so pleased with anything the
devil gives him that he wants to stay in that moment forever, he will die in that instant.
�Contents
After the Devil wants Faust to sign the pact with blood, Faust complains that the devil does
not trust Faust's word of honor. In the end, Mephisto wins the argument, and Faust signs
the contract with a drop of his own blood. Faust has a few excursions and then meets
Margaret (also known as Gretchen). He is attracted to her and with jewelry and help from a
neighbor, Martha, the devil draws Gretchen into Faust's arms. Faust seduces Gretchen and
they sleep together. Gretchen’s mother dies from a sleeping potion, administered by Gretchen
to obtain privacy so that Faust could visit her. Gretchen discovers she is pregnant.
Gretchen’s brother condemns Faust, challenges him and falls dead at the hands of Faust
and the devil. Gretchen drowns her illegitimate child and is convicted of the murder. Faust
tries to save Gretchen from death by attempting to free her from prison. Finding that they
cannot free her, Faust and the devil flee the dungeon, while voices from heaven announce
that Gretchen shall be saved.
The first part represents the "small world"and takes place in Faust's own local, temporal
milieu. In contrast, P
" art Two"takes place in the w
" ide world"or "macrocosmos".Rich in classical
allusion, in "Faust Part Two", the romantic story of the first Faust is forgotten, and Faust
wakes in a field of fairies to initiate a new cycle of adventures and purpose.
The piece consists of five acts – relatively isolated episodes – each representing a different
theme. Ultimately, Faust goes to heaven, for he loses only half of the bet. Angels, who arrive
as messengers of divine mercy, declare at the end of Act V, "He who strives on and lives to
strive/ Can earn redemption still".
Goethe's great tragedy reinforced the new interest in the Faust story. Since his time it has
stimulated many creative thinkers and has been the central theme of notable works in all fields
of expression. In art, for instance, the Faust legend has provided fruitful subjects for such
painters as Ferdinand Delacroix (1798–1863). Musical works based on the Faust story
include Hector Berlioz's cantata, The Damnation of Faust (1846), Charles Gounod's
opera, Faust (1859), Arrigo Boito's opera, Mefistofele (1868), and the Faust Symphony
(1857) of Franz Lizt. Even the newest of art forms, the motion picture, has made use of the
ancient story, for a film version of Goethe's Faust was produced in Germany in 1925. But
most important, the legend has continued to be the subject of many poems, novels, and
dramatic works. Among the more recent of these are the novel, Doctor Faustus (1948) by
Thomas Mann and the poetic morality play, An Irish Faustus (1964) by Lawrence Durrell.
Each succeeding artist has modified the legend according to of his own time, and over the past
few centuries this tale has grown into an archetypal myth of man's aspirations and the dilemmas
he faces in the effort to understand his place in the universe. The history of the legend's
�Contents
development and its expansion into broader moral and philosophical spheres is also an
intellectual history of mankind.
Although today many of the classical and Central European themes may be hard for the
modern reader to grasp, the work remains a resonant parable on scientific learning and religion,
passion and seduction, independence and love, as well as other subjects.
Think of the books or films that present super-characters, scientists, or
extraordinary people who defy commonsense and demonstrate abilities beyond
human limit.
What is the outcome of such a challenge? Is it always punished by God?
�Contents
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
Shakespeare is the author of more than three dozen remarkable plays and more than 150
poems. Over the centuries, these literary works have made such a deep impression on the
human race that all sorts of legends and theories have been invented about their author. There
are even those who say that somebody other than Shakespeare wrote the works that bear his
name. Such speculation is based on the wrong assumption that little is known about
Shakespeare's life; in fact, Shakespeare's life is better documented than the life of any other
dramatist of the time except perhaps for Ben Jonson, a writer who seems almost modern in the
way he publicized himself. Jonson was an honest, blunt, and outspoken man who knew
Shakespeare well; for a time the two dramatists wrote for the same theatrical company, and
Shakespeare even acted in Jonson's plays. Jonson published a poem praising Shakespeare,
asserting that he was superior to all Greek, Roman, and English dramatists, and predicting that
he would be "not of an age, but for all time."Jonson's judgment is now commonly accepted,
and his prophecy has come true.
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, probably on April 23rd. He
was christened in the parish church there on April 26th. His father, a glover by trade, was a
prominent local figure who held important positions in the government of the town. His mother
came from a prosperous local family.
William Shakespeare probably attended Stratford grammar school, but he did not go on to
study at university. After leaving school, he may have been apprenticed to a butcher, but
because he shows in his plays very detailed knowledge of many different crafts and trades,
speculators have proposed a number of different occupations that he could have followed.
When he was eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years his senior, and six
months later his first child Susanna was born, followed three years later by twins Hamnet and
Judith. We don't know how the young Shakespeare supported his family, but according to
tradition he taught school for a few years. The two daughters grew up and married; the son
died when he was eleven. It is commonly believed that Shakespeare left Stratford to avoid
being arrested for poaching.
He went to London where he did a series of jobs, including holding theatre-goers' horses
outside playhouses. He eventually became an actor, and by 1592 he was sufficiently wellknown as a dramatist to be the subject of an attack by the playwright Robert Greene (1558–
1592). Greene wrote a pamphlet in which he complained that uneducated dramatists were
becoming more popular than university men like himself. In it he called Shakespeare “an
upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers”.
�Contents
In 1595 Shakespeare joined an important company of actors called The Lord Chamberlain's
Men (later changed to The King's Men) and performed at court. His success as a dramatist
grew. He mixed in high social circles and the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his
sonnets, became his patron and friend. By 1596 Shakespeare was beginning to prosper. His
improved financial standing allowed him to invest in the building of the Globe Theatre and in
1597 he bought New Place, the finest house in Stratford. He had his father apply to the
Heralds' College for a coat of arms that the family could display, signifying that they were
"gentlefolks." On Shakespeare's family crest a falcon is shown, shaking a spear. To support
this claim to gentility, Shakespeare bought New Place, a handsome house and grounds in
Stratford, a place so commodious and elegant that the Queen of England once stayed there
after Shakespeare's daughter Susanna inherited it.
By 1600 Shakespeare was regularly associating with members of the aristocracy, and six of his
plays had been given command performances at the court of Queen Elizabeth.
Shakespeare indeed prospered under Queen Elizabeth; according to an old tradition, she asked
him to write The Merry Wives of Windsor (1600–1601) because she wanted to see the merry,
fat old knight Sir John Falstaff (of the "Henry plays") in love.
Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. In
the two Henry IV plays, he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vain,
boastful, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and
is ultimately repudiated after Hal becomes king. Falstaff does at times seem to be mainly a funmaker, a character whom we both laugh with and laugh at, and almost in the same breath. Even
his name invites humor, as it is a sort of pun on impotence, brought on by the character's excessive consumption of
alcohol.
He prospered even more under Elizabeth's successor, King James of Scotland. Fortunately for
Shakespeare's company, as it turned out, James's royal entry into London in 1603 had to be
postponed for several months because the plague was raging in the city. While waiting for the
epidemic to subside, the royal court stayed in various palaces outside London. Shakespeare's
company took advantage of this situation and, since the city theaters were closed, performed
several plays for the court and the new king. Shakespeare's plays delighted James, for he loved
literature and was starved for pleasure after the grim experience of ruling Scotland for many
years. He immediately took the company under his patronage, renamed them the King's Men,
gave them patents to perform anywhere in the realm, provided them with special clothing for
state occasions, increased their salaries, and appointed their chief members, including
Shakespeare, to be Grooms of the Royal Chamber. All this patronage brought such prosperity
to Shakespeare that he was able to make some very profitable real estate investments in
�Contents
Stratford and London.
Shakespeare retired to his hometown in 1611, where he died on April 23rd 1616.
Works
Shakespeare wrote thirty-seven plays in a period of about twenty years, from 1591 to 1611.
The plots of his plays are not original. Shakespeare took the material from old chronicles of
English history, Italian novels, pastoral romances and older plays and adapted them to his
needs. The stories of Hamlet, Macbeth and Lear may be found in the chronicles of England,
Scotland, and Ireland. But when a comparison is made between Shakespeare's masterpieces
and the old chronicles and tales one can see how Shakespeare's philosophy, imagination, and
artistic expression transformed the plays. Every theme and character got a deeper meaning and
value in his hands.
Shakespeare introduced scenes and characters belonging to Egypt, Rome, and the
Renaissance Italy as though he depicted them from real life. His fairies, ghosts and strange
monsters are lifelike and convincing.
Shakespeare did not publish his plays. Some of his works were put together from notes taken
in the theatres or reconstructed from memory by actors. They are referred to as Bad Quartos.
Quartos are large-sized books made of sheets of folded paper. They are called 'Bad' because
they are full of gaps and mistakes.
In 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, two former actors and friends of
Shakespeare's, Heminge and Condell, decided to publish the first collection of his plays. The
so-called First Folio included thirty-five plays that were divided into 'Comedies, Histories and
Tragedies'.
The plays were not dated. However, approximate dates have subsequently been given to them
based on: references to contemporary events in the play; references to the works of other
writers which are dated; style, plot, characterisation and metre used in the play. Shakespeare's
plays are usually divided into four periods.
The first period covers the years from 1590 to 1595 and was a period of learning and
experimentation. In these years Shakespeare wrote very different types of plays: chronicle
plays dealing with the history of England, such as Henry VI and Richard III; comedies which
include A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Taming of the Shrew; tragedies Titus
Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet.
�Contents
During the second period, from 1596 to the turn of the century, Shakespeare focused on
chronicle plays and comedies and it is generally agreed that it was during these years that he
wrote his best comedies, including The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor,
Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and Twelfth Night, which base their comedy on a
wide range of themes such as the pain and pleasure of love, mistaken identity and the
degrading of materialistic and humourless people.
During the third period, from 1600 to 1608, Shakespeare wrote his great tragedies. These
plays have given world theatre unforgettable characters such as Hamlet, King Lear, Othello
and Macbeth. The comedies that were written in this period no longer have the bright,
optimistic appeal of earlier works. The darker elements that are found in works such as
Measure for Measure seem to suggest that Shakespeare was experiencing difficulties in his
personal life which made his outlook rather pessimistic.
A return to a happier state of mind is reflected in the plays of the fourth period from 1609 to
1612. The Tempest, for example, is set in the ideal world of an enchanted island where an
atmosphere of magic, music, romance and harmony prevails.
Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of the greatest dramatists in world literature. The
universal appeal of his work is based on its timeless themes, unforgettable characters and
powerful language. His ability to engage the audience's attention has remained unsurpassed to
the present day. The variety of timeless themes in Shakespeare's works is unsurpassed: the
appeal of an unsophisticated life in harmony with nature (As You Like It); ambition and
jealousy, deception and crime (Macbeth, Othello); greed, corruption and ingratitude (King
Lear); love and politics (Antony and Cleopatra); crime, guilt and punishment (Macbeth,
Richard III); the all-conquering power of love (Much Ado About Nothing); the impatience of
youth (Romeo and Juliet); the pains and pleasures of love (The Merry Wives of Windsor,
Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It).
Shakespeare portrayed an unforgettable gallery of characters: kings, queens, princes, courtiers,
merchants, merchants, sailors, soldiers. They all possess individuality. Shakespeare managed
to create sympathy for his heroes, making them understandable, complex and recognizable.
Comedies
Shakespeare's romantic comedies mostly date from the early period of his life. Light-hearted
plays, mostly on themes relating to love, they feature stock theatrical devices such as mistaken
identity (The Comedy of Errors) and disguise/cross-dressing (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)
�Contents
– where the comedy was accentuated by the fact that women's parts were acted by men or
boys. These plays, generally with extremely complicated plots, use situational comedy and
farcical effects (The Taming of the Shrew) as well as wordplay and wit.
The Taming of the Shrew is a well-balanced comedy with brilliant dialogues.
Petruchio, a gentleman of Verona, of shrewd wit and hot temper, decides to marry Katarina,
the notorious elder daughter of Baptista, a rich gentleman of Padua. The taming begins.
Katarina is mad, but Petruchio says that he finds her courteous and gentle. In the end
Katarina agrees to marry Petruchio. On the wedding day he humiliates Katarina by keeping her waiting before the wedding ceremony. He refuses to attend the bridal feast, and takes
Katarina to his home. He doesn't let her sleep or eat and distresses her with his mad
behaviour. This treatment makes Katarina tamed, and when she comes to see her father she
surprises everyone with her sweet temper and shyness:
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Shakespeare's later comedies, written after 1598, (Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It,
Twelfth Night) display a shift in tone to a greater seriousness. The rollicking heroes still remain
(as for example Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Belch and Aguecheek in Twelfth
Night), but, in keeping with the spirit of the times, there is a growing presence of meditation
and melancholy, as well as romance. The treatment of themes such as the unreliability of love,
and of illusion and self-deception anticipate the great tragedies. In particular, the use of the
clown or fool (Touchstone in As You Like It, Feste in Twelfth Night) and their bitter-sweet
attitude to life looks forward to their use in King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra, where their
seemingly childish words usually conceal a macabre wisdom which the saner characters in the
plays fail to recognize. Some of the plays are so weighty as to hardly seem comedies at all: for
example, The Merchant of Venice, whose plot runs much deeper and treats more complex
themes such as anti-Semitism and greed.
The Merchant of Venice presents a story which is nonsense. A Jewish moneylender Shylock
agrees to lend money to a merchant Antonio who needs the money to help his friend
Bassanio. Bassanio is going to marry beautiful Portia. The money is lent on condition that
Antonio shall pay a pound of his flesh if he fails to repay the debt at the right time. Antonio's
�Contents
ships are wrecked, and he fails to repay the money. The case is taken to the court, and
Antonio has no hope. Portia, dressed as a lawyer, makes a speech at the court. She says that
Shylock may take his flesh, but without a drop of blood. There is nothing about blood in the
agreement. Shylock cannot do it, and Antonio is saved.
The play seems to have a happy ending, but it is not what it seems, since it depends on the
tricks of the characters, rather than on natural humanity. Shylock is usually called the first tragic
character in Shakespeare's plays. Shylock addresses the audience and other characters with the
words showing that he is a man just like them. "Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,
organs, dimensions, senses, passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same
winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed?"
There is a rather dark atmosphere in Measure for Measure , which is preoccupied with the
themes of justice and mercy. Finally, A Midsummer Night's Dream, within the context of a
comedy about love and marriage, raises questions regarding the nature of reality in general.
Content
Hermia is ordered by her father to marry Demetrius, but she loves Lysander. Her friend
Helena loves Demetrius and wants to marry him. Under the law of Athens, Hermia is given
four days in which to obey her father. In case she doesn't, she must suffer death or enter a
nunnery. Hermia and Lysander escape from Athens and find themselves in the wood
haunted by fairies. Helena knows about the project and tells Demetrius who decides to
follow the couple Helena goes after him, and soon all four meet in the wood, and are
enchanted by the fairies. The mortal and the supernatural characters are mixed. Hermia's
father appears on the scene, the runaways are forgiven and the couples marry.
In Shakespeare's comedies there is no central figure, but in his tragedies the attention of the
author is concentrated upon a single character. The difference is evident even in the titles of the
tragedies. They take their titles from the names of the heroes, the comedies never do this.
Histories
Shakespeare began his career with a history play (Henry VI) and the last play attributed to him
is also a history (Henry VIII), but most of this category of plays belong to the middle part of
his career, between 1595 and 1600. Writing histories Shakespeare took from chronicles, often
transforming historical events to suit the political climate and tastes of the Elizabethan age. He
produced topical plays dealing with themes of rebellion and kingship at a time when there was
�Contents
a real fear of an overthrow. Shakespeare, like the other dramatists of his time, was very
favourably disposed towards the authority of the monarchy. The main examples of the genre
(Richard II, Richard III, Henry IV, and Henry V) are a cycle setting out the story of the kings
immediately preceding the Tudor dynasty. One of the greatest of Shakespeare's creations is
undoubtedly the comic character Falstaff, the “man-mountain” whose interests are strictly
limited to eating, drinking and womanizing. He appears in the two parts of Henry IV, and his
hilarious adventures often seem to dominate the historical action of the plays.
The so-called Roman plays (Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra), although not
really belonging to the category of histories, all show a preoccupation with the same themes of
order, rebellion and authority.
Tragedies
Tragedy is a kind of play in which human actions have their inevitable consequences, in which
the characters' bad deeds, errors, mistakes, and crimes are never forgiven or corrected. The
characters in a comedy do not live under this iron law of cause and effect. They can do
whatever they please so long as they amuse their audience, and at the end of the play the funny
mess they have made is easily cleaned up. But in tragedy, a careless action will inevitably lead
to a catastrophe, usually a death or some deaths.
The first of Shakespeare's most well-known tragedies is Romeo and Juliet, known to all parts
of civilized world as the most famous tragedy of love. The plot is based on an old Italian
romance, translated into English.
Content
The Montegues and the Capulets are the two chief families of Verona, and they are bitter
enemies. Romeo, the son of Lord Montegue, and Juliet, the daughter of Capulet, fall in love
with each other and marry secretly with the help of Friar Laurence. During a street battle
Romeo kills Juliet's brother Tybalt and as a punishment is banished from the city. Romeo
goes to Mantua.
Juliet's parents want her to marry count Paris. On the night before the wedding Friar
Laurence gives Juliet a drink which must render her lifeless for forty hours. Romeo is
supposed to take her from the family vault and bring her to Mantua. But the message sent by
Friar Laurence doesn't reach Romeo, and Romeo hears that Juliet is dead. He gets to the
vault, drinks the poison, kisses Juliet and dies. When Juliet awakens she sees the body of
Romeo with a cup in his hands, guesses what's happened and stabs herself.
�Contents
Why do you think Shakespeare suggests that real love is tragic?
Shakespeare's tragedies, written after the death of Queen Elizabeth are more philosophic. They
mark the author's disillusion, hopelessness and disappointment. This period is often called
Shakespeare's black period. In his tragedies, again and again the characters ask, "What is a
man?". This was the question of the age.
Shakespeare's tragedies of this time are the stories of revenge, jealousy, and ambition. They
have in common the idea that mankind is constantly trying to go beyond its limits in order to
achieve perfection and harmony in the world. But mankind itself is not perfect, and so must fail
in these attempts.
The tragic flaw which the main heroes display takes the form of a powerful passion (jealousy in
Othello, ambition in Macbeth, revenge in Hamlet). Darker forces often seem to be at work:
storms or supernatural phenomena in Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear, as well as the frequent
madness (Lady Macbeth, Ophelia, King Lear). They are indications of the struggle between a
man and his destiny. Shakespeare uses exceptionally vivid images to represent the depths of
the human soul. The great tragedies create their own individual world where normal moral laws
are overturned.
The only way the balance and order must be restored is through the destruction of the hero.
Hamlet is a play, as Anthony Burgess says, "of all the plays ever written, that the world least
willingly be without".
John Anthony Burgess Wilson (1917–1993), published under the pen name Anthony
Burgess, was an English writer and composer. His best known novel is a dystopian satire A
Clockwork Orange.
The plot of Hamlet was borrowed by Shakespeare from Thomas Kyd's The
Spanish Tragedy, but Shakespeare changed the time of Hamlet from the Middle Ages to the
Renaissance, providing the play with the setting of a contemporary Renaissance court.
Content
Prince Hamlet suspects that his dead father, King of Denmark, was murdered by his uncle
Claudius, who has married his mother and become king. The Ghost of his father informs
�Contents
him about the murder and tells him to revenge. Hamlet promises to revenge, but on second
thought decides to check the words of the Ghost. So it takes him a long time before he
revenges:
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
Hamlet is a thinker, whose hesitation and inability to act cause the tragic development of the
play. He kills Claudius, but is badly wounded himself. The queen, his mother, is poisoned by
the drink intended for Hamlet. His love Ophelia is drawn, her brother Laertes and her father
Polonius are killed by Hamlet.
Shakespeare depicts Hamlet in the struggle of one against many:
The time is out of joint;
О cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Macbeth is the gloomiest of Shakespeare's plays. It creates a very bitter, pessimistic and
hopeless vision of life. Macbeth is the only play of Shakespeare that is related to the
contemporary historical situation. Its subject was regicide, commonly regarded as the supreme
crime. The public had been moved by an attempted regicide in November 1605 – the famous
Gunpowder Plot – which the English people, even after three and a half centuries still have not
forgotten.
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or
the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I of England and VI of
Scotland by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby. The plan was to blow
up the House of Lords during the State Opening of England's Parliament on 5 November 1605.
The plot was revealed to the authorities in an anonymous letter. Most of the conspirators fled from London as they
learnt of the plot's discovery. At their trial on 27 January 1606, eight of the survivors were convicted and sentenced to
be hanged, drawn and quartered.
Content
The ambitious Scottish general Macbeth is told by the witches that he will become thane,
and later king. Immediately comes the news that Macbeth is made thane. King Duncan is
staying in Macbeth's castle, and Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth kill the king. But
Duncan's sons Malcolm and Donalbain escape. Malcolm brings an army against Macbeth,
�Contents
who is killed. Lady Macbeth is already dead. Shakespeare has humanized the two
murderers, by making them husband and wife. To add to it the play is highly poetic. Here
are the words of Macbeth when he hears of his wife's death:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth fascinates the readers because it shows, more clearly than any of Shakespeare's other
tragedies, how a character can change as a result of what he does. Macbeth is trapped as soon
as he understands what the witches in Act I, Scene 3 are saying to him, and his punishment, in
the form of mental anguish, begins even before he commits any crimes. At the start of the play,
the mere thought of committing a murder terrifies Macbeth, makes his hair stand on end and
his heart knock at his ribs, although he is a veteran of many battles and no novice at carving up
men with a sword. But it is one thing to fight openly, quite another thing is to kill stealthily.
Lady Macbeth's deterioration is different from her husband's but just as dramatic. Legally she
is not an actual murderer. But she is the first to decide that Duncan must die. Macbeth hesitates
right up to the last moment. After the first murders, she exerts immense self-control over
herself, while he surrenders to his nerves. But it would be incorrect to think of her as an
unfeminine monster or she-devil, because she does eventually crack under the strain. Both
Macbeth and his wife are moral beings who excite our pity rather than our contempt or disgust.
We see what they do to their king and their country, but more than that, we see what they do to
themselves. Why do they commit their crimes? The customary answer to this question – that
they are ambitious – is a superficial one because it leads only to another question: "Why are
they so ambitious that they are willing to commit such crimes?" These questions are
unanswerable because evil is just as mysterious as it is real. Shakespeare makes no attempt to
solve the mystery of evil. Instead he uses language to make it even more mysterious and
repulsive.
Romances
�Contents
This category embraces the later plays written after Shakespeare retired to Stratford, around
1608, and includes Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. The last plays of
Shakespeare Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest express the idea of forgiveness.
The violence and pessimism of his great tragedies are gone. The world is wicked, but the
spectators are given hope.
The Tempest is Shakespeare's magical “swan-song”.
Content
Prospero, duke of Milan, is ousted from the throne by his brother Antonio, and with his
daughter Miranda put into a boat and sent into the open sea. They reach an island
inhabited by spirits who serve the witch Sycorax. Prospero with the help of the knowledge of
magic releases Ariel, the good spirit, and enslaves the witch's son Caliban, a misshapen
monster, whose character may be interpreted as that of a natural man, instinctively poetic
and brutal, longing for independence and better life.
After Prospero and Miranda have lived in the island for twelve years, a ship earring Antonio
and his son Ferdinand is brought by the magic of Prospero close to the island and wrecked.
Prospero is planning the unity of Naples and Milan through the marriage of his daughter
Miranda and Naples king's son Ferdinand. He makes Ariel bring them together and
watches them fall in love. At the same time Ariel makes Antonio repent his cruelty and restore
relations with Prospero. The ship is magically restored, and all the heroes leave the island.
Caliban is left, as before, the island's sole inhabitant. Miranda and Ferdinand are going to
marry and restore peace between Naples and Milan.
The play may be considered as symbolic. Prospero is an allegory of reason and knowledge,
Caliban is the personification of human nature, Ariel is the symbol of the good spirit. The
happy end of the play contrasts the sins and shortcomings of an older generation with
humanist ideas of the young.
The character of Prospero is often identified with Shakespeare himself. Prospero’s attempts to
bring the events to a happy conclusion are likened to Shakespeare’s aspirations as a dramatist.
In the most important speeches of the play Prospero convinces Miranda and Ferdinand that
what they have been watching is only a play, an illusion that keeps with the nature of everything
in the world:
Like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
�Contents
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
The reality of our ordinary life and everyday experience is shown as illusory and shadowy.
Shakespeare balances the "untrue" images of art against the uncertain "truths" of reality. His
last plays deal with the age-old debate on the relations between art and reality:
Our revels now are ended.
These our actors
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air...
Late romances are more lyrical in comparison with the earlier plays and seem to represent a
newly found peace of mind in Shakespeare's art. There is a common thread linking some of the
plays. All of them somehow deal with reconciliation and justice. Through a series of conflicts
they move from a starting point of loss or injustice to a happy and forgiving conclusion. They
expose the corruption of civilization and reassert the value of mercy and love. They also have a
strong supernatural presence and the qualities of a fairy tale. Their tranquility constitutes a
fitting conclusion to Shakespeare's career: the aging playwright, after the great inner conflict
which resulted in the production of the tragedies, finds peace and reconciliation in his own
heart at last.
Text
from As You Like It
All the world's a stage
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
�Contents
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
“Life is theatre” is the most famous metaphor that translates the concept of
human life. What do you think about the illusory, theatrical character of human
existence? Do you agree with Shakespeare?
Think of other metaphors that interpret man’s life.
�Contents
Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
Benjamin Jonson was born in London and educated at Westminster School. On leaving school,
he became a bricklayer, following his stepfather's trade until 1597, apart from a short period of
military service in the Netherlands. He was then employed by Philip Henslowe as an actorwriter. The following year disaster struck: he killed the actor Gabriel Spencer, and was
sentenced to death, avoiding execution only on technicality. He was sent to prison, where he
was converted to Roman Catholicism. On his release he began to write plays for various
companies, including the one Shakespeare belonged to. In the Jacobean period he was a
prolific writer of court masques for almost thirty years.
The Jacobean era succeeds the Elizabethan era and refers to the period in English and Scottish
history that coincides with the reign of James VI of Scotland (1567–1625), who also inherited the
crown of England in 1603 as James I.
He was certainly the greatest exponent of the masque: a court entertainment
with music and drama of a mythological nature. His poems which are written in a smooth,
classical style influenced the course of poetry in the seventeenth century. In 1619 he was
awarded an honorary degree by Oxford University, and began to teach rhetoric at Gresham
College in London. In 1628 he was paralyzed by a stroke and remained confined to bed for the
last nine years of his life.
Jonson is a fine writer of Renaissance satirical comedy, in plays such as Volpone (1606), The
Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614).
He is often called Shakespeare's antipode. Jonson disliked Shakespeare’s fantastic comedies,
wide-ranging chronicles, and highly emotional and dramatic tragedies. Jonson was a dramatist
of realism. All his comedies are made out of the situations of his own time, and he was always
contemporary in his themes and settings.
Every Man in his Humour (1598) is a kind of revolt from Shakespearean comedy in matter as
well as in style. Jonson wanted ordinary facts expressed in ordinary speech, nothing unusual.
Jonson's dramatic works begin a new chapter in the history of English drama. While
Shakespeare saw people as strange mixtures of the good and the evil, always surprising, and
full of contradictions, Jonson saw them as simple and almost mechanical combinations of four
elements. He used the medieval idea that the human soul was made of humours – sanguine,
choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic – which, mixed in different proportions, gave different
human types. In each character one quality predominates: amorousness, cowardice,
boastfulness, etc. They know no change or complexity. Once established, they remain as they
�Contents
are.
“Some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his affects, his spirits, and his powers,
In their confluctions, all to run one way.”
Content
Volpone, or the Fox
Volpone, whose name means ‘Great Fox’, gained his wealth through frauds and deception.
He pretends to be fatally ill to induce people to offer him gold and gifts out of their own free
will. People took wealth to Volpone thinking themselves as the future heirs of Volpone.
The Three Birds of Prey are Voltore, Corbaccio, Corvino
The first to make his appearance is Voltore. The lawyer brings a gold plate for Volpone.
Corbaccio is an elderly man who is the next to hope to outlive Volpone and inherit his
money. He gives a vial of medicine for Volpone, which he refuses fearing it is some sort of
poison to speed up Volpone’s death. Corvino, the merchant, gives Volpone a pearl and a
diamond.
Volpone’s servant Mosca, the fly, manages to convince Corbaccio to make Volpone his sole
heir. Corbaccio disinherits his son Bonario.
Volpone fired by his lust for Corvino’s wife, Celia, enlists Mosca to work on his behalf to woo
Celia. Mosca arranges for Volpone to seduce Celia by telling Corvino that Volpone would
surely choose him as his sole heir if he allows his wife Celia to sleep with him as a
“restorative” for his failing health. Corvino’s desire for material possession is stronger than
his sexual jealousy and he agrees to sacrifice his wife.
Volpone must abandon his disguise to show Celia that he is a far more worthy lover than her
husband. Celia is unmoved and Volpone enraged by her refusal threatens her that if she will
not make love to him wittingly, he will have to take her by force. Celia is rescued by Bonario
and Volpone’s lie is exposed: “I am unmasked, unspirited, undone”.
In the Final Act, Volpone expresses his wish to disclose his lie but not before he indulges
himself in one final prank on his “birds of prey” by pretending he died and left all his
wealth to his servant, Mosca. Volpone has now become totally dependent on Mosca and
Mosca tells the audience: “now I have the keys, and am possessed”.
�Contents
With Mosca's betrayal, the cheating is finally revealed and Volpone himself asks for the
punishment that is due to him and Mosca as well as to Corvino, Corbaccio and Voltore.
At the end justice is executed to all. Once the lie is discovered, not only are Cecilia and
Bonario declared innocent, but the “birds of prey” along with Mosca and Volpone are
punished in a way that reflects their vices. Volpone must confiscate his ill-gained wealth and
is to be sent to prison:
“Thou are to lie in prison, cramped with irons,
Till thou be’st sick, and lame indeed”.
�Contents
Late Elizabethan Drama
There is clearly no sudden change in literary production when a new king or queen comes to
the throne. However, under the early Stuart monarchs, James I and Charles I there was a
definite shift in moral view; Elizabethan confidence began to waver and a rather more cynical
(and realistic!) view of human nature and corruption began to hold sway. The dramatists of the
day began to produce plays with a sharper satirical edge.
Classical settings such as Venice or Rome gave way to portraits of the corruption and
hypocrisy of contemporary London society, as exemplified in the plays of Thomas
Middleton (1580–1627). This desperate world-view culminates in the tragedies of John
Webster (1578–1634) which are unequalled in their gloomy vision of human nature. Gradually
the audience was also changing: Shakespeare's move to the inside and more exclusive
Blackfriars Theatre in 1609 was a sign that the theatre was losing its appeal to the masses, and
despite popular successes by Thomas Dekker (1572–1632), Thomas Heywood (1570–
1641), John Ford (1586-1640), Francis Beaumont (1584–1616) and John Fletcher (1579–
1625), who wrote some very popular comedies together in the period 1608–1613, and Philip
Massinger (1583–1640); by the time the Puritans closed the theatres in 1642 drama was in
serious decline.
�Contents
English Literature in the Time of Puritan Revolution and
Restoration
Historical Context
Literary Context
Cavalier Poets
Restoration Drama
John Milton (1608–1674)
John Bunyan (1628–1688)
�Contents
Historical Context
James' son, Charles I (1600–1649) stubbornly pursued his father's policy asserting that the
king’s power is absolute. When the Parliament refused his request for funds, Charles dissolved
it. After 11 years during the war with France and Spain and the rebellion in Scotland, Charles
had to summon the Parliament again. In 1628 the Commons put forward the Petition of Rights
in order to limit the power of the king, according to which there should be no imprisonment
without cause shown, no forced taxes imposed without parliamentary agreement, no martial
law. This policy brought about an open conflict between the Parliament and the king.
The supporters of the king were the members of the House of Lords, royal officers, and
landlords. They were known as Royalists or Cavaliers. The supporters of the king's
opposition were the members of the House of Commons, townsmen and small landlords.
They were known as Roundheads. Their hair was cut close, their dresses were plain and dull in
colouring, unlike curled hair and brightly coloured clothes of the Cavaliers.
In 1642 the Civil War began. At the beginning of the war the Royalists won quickly, but with
the time it became clear that the Roundheads would defeat the king. The king's army was
unpaid, got disorganized, and the soldiers started to run away. The Roundheads got the money
from the rich merchants. The army was headed by Oliver Cromwell, a gifted commander
who made the Parliament army well-trained and disciplined. In 1645 in a decisive battle at
Naseby the Royalists were completely defeated. Charles I was arrested and imprisoned. In
1649 Charles I was brought to the trial, found guilty for treason, and executed. Charles
accepted his death with such dignity and courage that at the time when the monarchy was
restored in England, he was regarded as a martyr.
Most of the king's enemies were Puritans. Therefore the Civil War of 1642–49 is traditionally
called the Puritan Revolution.
After the victory, Oliver Cromwell proclaimed himself to be Lord Protector and started to rule
as a dictator. Cromwell's rule (1653–58) was hard on the people. The Puritans wanted church
and state to become one body and established the government of saints. The Bible became the
book of the law. The church service was made simpler and shorter; confession and music
were eliminated and the architecture of the churches was changed completely: no stain glass,
statues, or beautifully decorated altars. Pleasure was regarded sinful. The Puritans closed
theatres, banned sports and amusements, forbade Christmas and Easter celebrations.
Cromwell's son, Richard Cromwell, tried to carry on his father's regime, but within a year he
was forced to resign. The Houses of Parliament resumed their activity, and in 1660 invited
�Contents
Charles II (1630–1685), the son of Charles, from the exile to be their monarch. This
important event marked the beginning of the period of Restoration.
The date 1660 is one of the most significant in the history of English politics. After two
decades of the Civil War and Cromwell dictatorship, on May 29, 1660, Charles II was
triumphantly restored to the throne from which his father had been driven. When Charles was
making his way from Dover to London, he was greeted by the ringing bells and the flying flags
and joyful cries of the crowds, chanting "Long live the king!".
Charles II believed in the divine right of the king and admired the absolute power of Louis
XIV. However, he wanted stability and order for his exhausted country and all his life tried to
avoid an open break with the Parliament.
Louis XIV (1638–1715), known as Louis the Great (Louis le Grand) or the Sun King (le RoiSoleil), was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1643 until his
death. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monarch of a major country in
European history.
Charles was tolerant to different religious groups, and made attempts to unite Catholics,
Puritans and members of the Anglican Church. The fact that Charles had spent a long time in
Catholic France gave rise to rumours that the king wanted to restore Catholicism in England. In
1673 the Parliamentarians, who were mostly Anglican, passed the Test Act which did not allow
Catholics to take positions of authority in the government. The Act developed the
confrontation between the king and Parliament. The Parliamentarians did all they could to
weaken the monarchy in England. The result was the creation of two political parties, the
Whigs and the Tories.
The Whigs (a rude name for cattle drivers) were merchants, businessmen, and certain lords
who feared the power of the king. The Whigs believed that Parliament should be stronger than
the king, and that he should be guided by the House of Commons. They also believed in religious freedom. Many of the Whigs were Dissenters, Protestants who did not agree with the
doctrines of the Church of England.
A dissenter (from the Latin dissentire, “to disagree”), is one who disagrees in matters of opinion,
belief, etc. In the social and religious history of England it refers to a member of a religious body
who has, for one reason or another, separated from the Established Church. Dissenters were
Protestants who refused to recognise the supremacy of the Established Church (Anglican).
�Contents
The Whigs were more democratic than the opposition party nicknamed the Tories (an Irish
name for thieves). The Tories believed in the king's power, but limited by the decisions of
Parliament. They also favoured the authority of the Anglican Church. Many of the Tories came
from the Cavaliers and shared the views of their ancestors. The Tories were favoured by
Charles II and were often given high positions in the Anglican Church and the court.
The restoration brought the change in lifestyle, philosophy, art and literature as well as in
government. The Cromwell dictatorship had been exhausting and difficult. The ideals of
Puritans could appeal to comparatively few. Puritan morality had failed. The sober dresses and
solemn faces of the Puritans had become ridiculous and ugly. The mass of English nation
turned with relief and pleasure to the new mode of life. People of all classes of society were
seeking amusements and entertainments. The May poles were set up again, Christmas and
Easter were celebrated, sports, hunting and gambling were revived. Theatres that had been
closed by the Puritans were opened again.
Charles II had lived at the splendid court of Louis XIV, the Sun King, and brought from
Versailles French fashions and styles. Charles, who was called the merry monarch, believed in
exuberant life and extravagances for himself and the court. He was little concerned about how
others managed their lives. His motto was "Live and let others live". The court, following the
example set by the monarch, corrupted the English society. The upper classes lacked such
principles as patriotism, honour and the sense of duty. Bribery became customary in the
government, drunkenness turned into a national vice, crimes were regularly committed in badly
lit London streets. The most obvious characteristic of the period of Restoration is its lowered
moral tone.
By 1660 the population of London had risen up to 500,000. The city was restless and alive.
There were gay boating parties on the Thames, picnics in the beautiful gardens, music and
fireworks at night. On London streets the silks, powdered headdresses, gold coaches of the
rich moved against a background of rags, filth, and general despair. Beaus and belles attended
plays at Drury Lane Theatre, heard Italian operas, sipped wine, watched fireworks and looked
down on the country site with muddy roads and routine life of squires. The smells of the farms
and the wilderness of the woods were considered to be dead and behind the time.
�Contents
Literary Context
The great political and social turmoil of the first half of the 17th century was reflected in the
prose writing of the time. The burning issues of religion, education, politics and philosophy
were the subjects of pamphlets, essays and treatises.
A pamphlet is an unbound booklet (that is, without a hard cover or binding). It may consist of a single
sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths (called a leaflet), or
it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and stapled at the crease to make a simple book. In
the centuries when books were expensive and newspapers virtually nonexistent, pamphlets and
broadsheets played an important role as a means of mass communication. During the period of the Reformation
religious dogma and political issues were publicly debated in the form of pamphlets.
An essay is generally a short piece of writing written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a
number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections
prose, but works in verse have been named essays (e.g. Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism and An Essay on
Man).
Treatise is a formal and systematic exposition in writing of the principles of a subject, generally longer and more
detailed than an essay.
Robert Burton (1577–1640) wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), a huge treatise of
over half a million words. It is an analysis of the causes, symptoms and cures for melancholy,
which was considered an illness.
The genius of John Milton (1608–1674) dominates the age. Although he preferred poetry (he
described writing prose as writing with his left hand), John Milton also produced some
excellent pamphlets, including Areopagitica (1644), a defence of free speech and writing, and
Of Education (1664) in which he expresses his idea of how young people should be educated.
Milton was an adamant supporter of Cromwell and Parliament, and when King Charles I was
executed he wrote a pamphlet in which he voiced his approval, saying it was the people’s right
to kill a Tyrant or Wicket King.
Milton was a very prolific pamphleteer but his masterpiece is the greatest of the 17th century
poems – Paradise Lost.
The writer who most successfully captured the Puritan spirit is undoubtedly John Bunyan
(1628–1688). A firm believer in Parliament, he joined Cromwell’s army at the age of sixteen.
During the Restoration he was imprisoned for twelve years for preaching without a license. He
started writing his great masterpiece The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) during one of his periods in
prison. It is a powerful allegory of man’s quest for salvation that is widely considered to be
�Contents
one of the greatest works of religious literature of all time and a forerunner to the 18th century
novel.
It cannot be denied that poetry was in decline after the Restoration. The great Renaissance
works were succeeded by imitations of older models and official verse, celebrating public
figures, which can seem rather affected to modern ears.
�Contents
Cavalier Poets
The group of English gentlemen poets who supported Charles I during the English Civil Wars
are known as Cavalier Poets. They were associated with Royalist cause in one way or
another, in contrast to the Metaphysical poets who were mostly attracted to the rational and
intellectual atmosphere of Puritanism. They wrote on classical themes and in classical metres,
and their poetry has a sophisticated charm. The best known are Robert Herrick (1591–1674),
whose celebrated To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time is justly famous, Sir John Suckling
(1609–42) and Richard Lovelace (1618–1657). However, the distinction between Cavaliers
and Metaphysicals is essentially an artificial one and several poets, in particular Andrew
Marvell (1621–1678) and Thomas Carew (1595–1640), combine features of both schools.
Marvell’s style has the elegant sophistication of the Cavaliers while his use of intense imagery
and paradox is reminiscent of the metaphysicals.
Accomplished as soldiers, courtiers, gallants, and wits, Cavalier poets wrote elegant lyrics,
typically on love and flirtation and sometimes on war, honour, and duty to the king. 'Cavalier'
implies more than just 'Royalist'. It implies, for instance, a particular class of man: courtly,
well-educated, genteel. In many ways, these are the cultural heirs of Sir Philip Sydney, moving
in something like the same circles.
In fact the common factor that binds the cavaliers together is their use of direct and colloquial
language expressive of a highly individual personality, and their enjoyment of the casual, the
amateur, the affectionate poem written by the way. They avoid the subject of religion, and
attempt no comprehension of the depths of the soul. The poems must be written in the
intervals of living, and are celebratory of things that are much livelier than mere philosophy or
art. Poetry need not be a matter of earnest emotion or public concern.
The Cavaliers made one great contribution to the English Lyrical Tradition. They showed us
that it was possible for poetry to celebrate the minor pleasures and sadnesses of life in such a
way as to impress us with a sense of ordinary day-to-day humanity.
Text
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
by Robert Herrick
Gather the rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a flying,
And this same flower that smiles to-day
Tomorrow will be dying.
�Contents
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun.
The higher he’s a getting,
The schooner will his race be run
And nearer he’s to setting
That age is best which is the first
When youth and blood are warmer;
Bet being spent, the worst and worst
Times still succeed the former
Then be not coy, but use your time
And, while ye may go marry;
For having lost but once your prime
Ye may forever tarry.
The poem is an expression of carpe diem attitude to the world and life.
Do you agree with Robert Herrick’s message?
Carpe diem is a Latin aphorism, usually translated "seize the day", taken from the Roman poet
Horace's Odes.
�Contents
Restoration Drama
No great dramatists emerged in the immediate post-Shakespearean period. Playwrights
continued to write in the Shakespearean style but did not reach the same literary heights or
introduce innovations of any great importance. In 1642 the Puritans closed theatres, declaring
them improper places for decent people. Theatres remained closed for eighteen years and were
not reopened until Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660. After the Restoration the
frugal, sober and sombre society created by the Puritans was replaced by a more pleasureseeking attitude to life. The immoral behaviour of the Court set an example that was readily
followed by the upper classes.
Charles II, nicknamed 'the Merry Monarch', was a patron of the theatre and during his reign
new theatres were built: Drury Lane (1674) and the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (1732).
Restoration theatres were very different from Elizabethan playhouses. They were smaller and
indoor. The audience no longer surrounded the stage but sat facing the actors, who did not
enter the stage through doors at the back as they had in Elizabethan times, but from the sides.
The personal contact between actors and audience, typical for the Elizabethan theatres was lost
and replaced by the effect of the fourth imaginary wall, and the illusion that the spectators were
looking at the stage through the keyhole. One can say that the modern stage began in this
period. Plays were also made more attractive by music between the acts and songs and dance
during the performance. Famous composers wrote for the theatre. By the end of the century
the musical part of a performance was sometimes more important than the play itself.
Painted scenery was used to reproduce settings. Performances took place at night: the
audience sat in the dark while the stage was illuminated by candles and torches. Another
Restoration innovation was the introduction of women players, which at the beginning was
shocking for the public. Love scenes in the Elizabethan theatre had only the poetic meaning
because the spectators knew that the female parts were played by boys. Two sexes in amorous
scenes were an exciting novelty. What we take for granted now was sensational for the
Restoration audience.
The middle and lower classes, who still lived by strict Puritan moral laws, considered theatregoing to be immoral, so drama became a form of entertainment for the upper classes, and
theatres became meeting places where people displayed their fashionable clothes and
discussed the latest gossip. Restoration audiences favoured spectacular productions.
Shakespeare's works continued to be performed but changes were often made to the original
texts to make the productions more extravagant and sensational. The Court had spent almost
twenty years in France, and the French influence can be seen in a new type of drama called
�Contents
heroic drama, which became popular for a while. Heroic tragedies tried to compete with epic
poetry. They were mainly about love and valour, the main character was generally a hero
whose passionate love conflicted with his patriotic duty. The plays were written in rhyming
couplets and in an elevated style, both of which made the language extremely artificial.
The term "heroic drama" was invented by John Dryden. He argued that the drama was a species of
epic poetry for the stage. Consequently, Dryden derived a series of rules for this type of play. First, the
play should be composed in heroic verse (closed couplets in iambic pentameter). Second, the play must
focus on a subject that relates to national foundations, mythological events, or important and grand
matters. Third, the hero of the heroic drama must be powerful, decisive and dominating even if he is wrong.
Dryden's All for Love (1678), based on Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, is a good
example of this type of drama.
John Dryden (1631–1700) was the prominent man of letters of the Restoration. The son of a
wealthy Puritan family, he received a classical education and had a thorough knowledge of
Greek and Latin literature. He was inspired by the Latin poets Virgil, Horace, Ovid and tried to
reproduce the balance and clarity of their work in his poetry. He became a master of the heroic
couplet (two rhyming lines of iambic pentameters) parallelism, antithesis and repetition.
Antithesis (Greek for "setting opposite ") is a figure of speech in which two opposite ideas are put
together in a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect. The antagonistic features of the two objects or
phenomena are more easily perceived when they stand out in similar structures. Antithesis is generally
formed in parallel construction. Parallelism of expression serves to emphasize opposition of ideas.
Dryden wrote in almost every
widely regarded as the father
theatre, and tried to establish
influence on the poets of the
1744).
literary genre: comedy, heroic tragedy, verse, satire. But he is
of literary criticism. He wrote several essays on poetry and
guidelines for good taste in literature. He exercised a major
early eighteenth century, in particular Alexander Pope (1688–
The Restoration drama found its peculiar excellence in a type of play called the Comedy of
Manners. Restoration dramatists learned how to develop characters from the French
playwright Moliere, whose elegant style became a model to be imitated.
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, (1622–1673) was a French
playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western
literature. Among Molière's best-known works are Le Misanthrope (The Misanthrope), L'École
des Femmes (The School for Wives), Tartuffe ou L'Imposteur (Tartuffe or the Imposter),
L'Avare (The Miser), Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), and Le Bourgeois
�Contents
Gentilhomme (The Bourgeois Gentleman).
Comedy of Manners reflected the life of the Court, which was portrayed as being immoral,
corrupt, shameless but also elegant, witty and intelligent. Its main targets of criticism were
middle-class values and ideals, conventions, hypocrisy and above all the institution of
marriage. The comic effect was achieved primarily through the witty dialogue, which was often
in the form of repartee, a kind of verbal fencing match of witty comments and replies. In
Elizabethan drama comic characters were usually low and humble in origin. In the Comedy of
Manners they were aristocratic ladies and gentlemen who were easily recognised by the
audience as fashionable members of society. Two new male character types were created: the
gallant and the fop. The gallant was usually the hero of the play. He was a witty, elegant,
sophisticated yet cynical lover. The fop was a figure of fun, ridiculed for his stupidity and
pompous pretentiousness. The leading female characters generally had no feelings or morals.
Their only interests were fashion and infidelity. The characters usually had names that captured
some aspects of their personality: Scandal, Lady Fidget, Petulant, Mrs Squeamish, Sir
Fopling Flutter and Tattle.
It is important to note that the Comedy of Manners had no moral didactic purpose. These
plays were written purely to entertain theatre audiences.
As the 17th century came to an end the public objected to the quality of restoration comedy.
William Wycherley's (1640-1716) The Country Wife (1675) was accused of immorality. The
protests against the manners shown on the stage led to the publication of a pamphlet by Jeremy
Collier called A Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage in 1698.
Many playwrights spoke against Collier, just as strongly as he criticized them. Among them
was William Congreve (1670–1729), the major dramatist of the 1690s.
His comedies deal with the world of fashion, courtship, seduction, but they are all witty, and
well-composed. His masterpiece The Way of the World (1700) is still staged in English theatres.
Here Congreve shows himself the supreme master of the comedy of manners, displaying the
narrow world of fashion and gallantry.
The Comedy of Manners has continued to be a popular form of theatre. In the 18th century
playwrights eliminated the indecency but maintained the wit and fun. In the early 19th century
under Queen Victoria it declined, to be revived by Oscar Wilde at the turn of the century.
�Contents
John Milton (1608–1674)
John Milton's Paradise Lost is one of the most brilliant achievements in English poetry and one
of the most beautiful poems in the world.
Early in his life John Milton resolved to be a great poet. He was born in London in 1608 into a
wealthy, well-educated family. His father, who had been disinherited by his family for
becoming a Protestant, instilled in his son a love of learning and strong religious beliefs. By the
age of sixteen he could write in Latin and Greek and had a good knowledge of Philosophy. He
attended Christ's College, Cambridge, where he took his Master of Arts degree and
distinguished himself as an outstanding student. For a period of time he considered taking
religious orders, but finally decided to move back home, where he continued his studies and
wrote. He had a period of long six years of solitary study and preparation for future life.
He firmly believed that a poet must be a person of learning, familiar with ancient and
contemporary philosophy, history, languages and literatures. In 1638 he visited France and
Italy. Milton had long admired Italian language and culture, and there he visited many interesting
people. In Florence he met Galileo, blind, aged, and imprisoned.
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and
philosopher. Galileo's championing of heliocentrism (astronomical model in which the Earth and
planets revolve around a relatively stationary Sun at the center of the Solar System) was
controversial within his lifetime. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615,
and Galileo was tried, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", forced to recant, and spent the rest
of his life under house arrest.
Milton intended to go to Greece, but he had to interrupt his trip, when he got to know that his
countrymen were fighting for freedom at home. "I considered it wrong," he wrote, "to be
travelling for amusement abroad in foreign lands while my countrymen were fighting for
liberty at home."
When Milton got home from his tour, he took part in the struggle for the Puritan cause. He
became a publicist, and gave himself to prose propaganda. Milton served in the government of
England under Oliver Cromwell. As Latin Secretary to the Council of State, Milton was
responsible for all correspondence with foreign countries. Milton, who had always had weak
eyesight, was going blind, and doctors warned him not to take the job as it involved translating
into Latin all the government's foreign correspondence. Milton replied that he had to do his
duty for the Commonwealth and accepted the position. He eventually went totally blind.
As King Charles II came to the throne Milton was arrested as a traitor. His influential friends
�Contents
helped Milton to escape the scaffold. He spent the last years of his life in retirement dedicating
himself to the writing of his masterpieces. He died in 1674.
Works
John Milton's literary works can be divided into three periods.
Period I covers his years as a student. Milton was fascinated by Italian culture. He studied
writers like Petrarch and Dante, and their works influenced his early poems L’Allegro ("The
Cheerful Man") and Il Penseroso ("The Melancholy Man"), both written in 1632. In the first the
poet describes the joys of life in the country in spring, outside in the fields in the morning, but
at home in the evening, with music and books. In the second poem, which is set in the autumn,
he studies during the day and goes to church in the evening to listen to music.
His masque Comus was first performed in 1634. Comus (1634) presents the traditional moral
theme where virtue triumphs over vice.
Content
Comus is a story of a noble lady and her two brothers who are travelling through a forest,
and have to spend the night there. The lady is separated from her companions and attracted
by Comus, an evil pagan god, invented by Milton. He is known by his habit to waylay
travellers and make them drink a magic liquor which turns them into beasts. Comus,
disguised as a shepherd, offers to lodge the lady in his cottage. The brothers are warned of
the magic power of Comus by a good spirit. They make their way to his cottage where
Comus is pressing their sister to drink from a glass, but she, strong in her purity, refuses. The
lady is released, and the three travellers continue their way.
In 1637 Milton published his poem Lycidas, a pastoral elegy written in remembrance of the
death of a fellow student. The elegy is called pastoral because it imitates certain ancient elegies
in using imagery of shepherds and their flocks. Milton and Edward King (renamed Lycidas) are
the young shepherds feeding their flock. The word pastor (clergymen) literally means
"shepherd". As students, both Milton and King were preparing themselves for the Church, but
Milton changed his mind and King died.
In Period II Milton focused on prose writing. In 1643 he published The Doctrine and
Discipline of Divorce, claiming the right of a husband or wife to break a marriage on the
grounds of incompatibility. In 1642Milton married a seventeen-year-old girl from a Royalist
family. She left him after just a few weeks because of their religious differences. They
�Contents
reconciled, but Milton never fully forgave his wife and became a strong supporter of divorce.
One of his greatest prose works, Areopagitica, published in 1644, is Milton's passionate
demand for freedom of speech and the press.
The Areopagus (the Greek name Areios Pagos, translated as "Ares Rock") is a hill in Athens
where a respected council met to take important decisions.
In the same year he wrote the pamphlet Of Education which promoted
schooling for the formation of humanistic leaders.
Period III. After the Restoration in 1660 Milton retired from public life and dedicated himself
to the writing of his great poetic masterpieces. He had always wanted to write an epic poem in
English in the classical style. Initially he had considered the legend of King Arthur as a suitable
subject matter. However, he eventually chose the Fall of Man as his theme and set to work on
Paradise Lost. Paradise Lost (1667) tells the story of Satan's banishment from Heaven and
his attempt to take revenge on God through the temptation of Adam and Eve.
Paradise Regained (1671) is written in the same epic style as Paradise Lost. It tells the story
of Christ's temptation by Satan in the desert. Milton needed to complete Paradise Lost by
showing how Christ, at the very beginning of his mission on Earth, defeated Satan. Paradise
Regained is based on an incident in the New Testament in which Christ resists the temptations
of Satan.
Samson Agonistes (1671) is Milton’s play depicting the events leading up to the killing of
Samson by the Philistines.
According to the biblical account, Samson was given supernatural strength by God in order to
combat his enemies and perform heroic feats such as killing a lion and destroying a pagan temple.
Samson had two vulnerabilities, however: his attraction to deceitful women and his hair, without
which he was powerless. These weaknesses ultimately proved fatal for him. Samson lost his
strength when Delilah allowed the Philistines to shave his hair during his sleep.
The play is modelled on Greek tragedies with its choruses, messengers and long monologues.
The play, focusing around the betrayal of Samson at the hands of Dalila, his wife, produces a
negative portrayal of love and love's effects. Women, and men's desire for women, are
connected to worship against God, and the idea that there is no possibility for the sacred
within love in a marriage. Samson, who is both holy and desirous of Delila, is seduced into
betraying God and losing the source of his strength, and thus betrays God. He is blinded
because of his sexual desires. The Chorus, after Delila attempts to seduce Samson again,
�Contents
criticises women for being deceptive.
The blinded Samson is Milton himself, blind and betrayed by his wife. Milton divorced his wife
who, like Delilah, came from the enemy's camp. The play is the reflection of Milton’s grief
over his fall, humiliation and his blindness.
Paradise Lost
Being a poet, in Milton's view, was not a matter of writing short lyrics that expressed his
private feelings and insights; being a poet meant competing with the great authors of antiquity,
the epic poets Homer and Virgil.
Homer is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest of ancient Greek
epic poets. The Iliad is set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium) by
a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between
King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. The Odyssey is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad. It is the
second oldest extant work of Western literature, the Iliad being the oldest. It is believed to have
been composed near the end of the 8th century BC. The poem mainly centers on the Greek hero Odysseus (known
as Ulysses in Roman myths) and his journey home after the fall of Troy.
Publius Vergilius Maro (70 BC – 19 BC), usually called Virgil in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the
Augustan period. His Aeneid has been considered the national epic of ancient Rome from the time of its composition
to the present day. Modeled after Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid follows the Trojan refugee Aeneas as he
struggles to fulfill his destiny and arrive on the shores of Italy—in Roman mythology the founding act of Rome.
Milton first considered various English subjects for his works, especially King Arthur and the
knights of the Round Table. But finally, after years of thinking and reading he chose the biblical
story of the Fall of Man.
Milton worked on his epic all his life. According to one of the plans he wanted to write a
tragedy with Satan as its protagonist. Many readers have regarded Satan as the secret hero of
the poem. "Milton was of the Devil's party without knowing it," asserted William Blake, the
poet and artist of the Romantic Age. In literary works evil frequently seems more interesting
than good.
In Paradise Lost Milton took a few verses from the Bible and developed them into a 10,565line poem. Although the poem ranges back and forth between Hell and Heaven, the most
important action takes place on Earth, where the first human beings, Adam and Eve, are given
the choice to obey or disobey God. They chose, as everybody knows, to disobey, and having
done so accepted their punishment and made the best of the life that was left to them.
�Contents
Content
The initial lines of the poem state its general subject. This is the poem:
Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death onto the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden...
The angels, led by Lucifer (the former name of Satan) by the command of God are driven
away from heaven into the great deep. Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, rises out of the
deep. Sitting on the throne decorated with precious stones Satan addresses his speech to the
fallen angels, and comforts them with hope of regaining heaven. When Satan gets the news
about the creation of man, he decides to go to heaven alone. He passes through the hell
gates, guarded by sin and death, and goes upward through chaos.
God, sitting on the throne, sees Satan flying towards the newly created world. God foretells
his success and the fall and punishment of man. He declares that man must die unless
someone agrees to undergo his punishment.
The Son of God offers himself as ransom for man and is accepted.
Should man finally be lost, should man
Thy creature late so loved, thy youngest son?
God answers:
О Son, in whom my soul hath chief delight,
Son of my bosom, son who act alone
My word, my wisdom...
Man shall not quite be lost, but saved who will
Freely vouchsafed once more I will renew his life.
Satan enters the Garden of Eden, where he first sees Adam and Eve and overhears their
conversation concerning the Tree of Knowledge, of which they are forbidden to eat. Satan
starts tempting Eve in a dream, but the angels of Paradise discover him at Eve's ear, and
throw him away. In the morning Eve tells Adam about her troublesome dream. Archangel
Raphael, sent by God, comes to Paradise and warns Adam of his enemy. Adam promises to
be obedient to God. Satan, accompanied by the fallen angels appears in the garden, and
starts to battle against God's angels. The Son of God appears to drive the hosts of Satan to
the edge of heaven and forces them to fall down into the deep.
Raphael relates to Adam how God created the world within six days.
�Contents
Satan enters into the serpent, and in this form finds Eve alone. He persuades her to eat from
the Tree of Knowledge. Eve relates Adam of what has happened, and brings him the fruit.
Adam, thinking that Eve is lost, from extreme love for her, decides to perish with her, and
eats the fruit. Thus they are robbed of their innocence. They cover nakedness and try to hide
from God.
Soon man's sin is known. Death and sin come into the world, and Adam and Eve are to
leave the Paradise. They approach Son of God with repentance, and the Son of God asks his
Father not to let Adam and Eve die completely. God decides on their expulsion from
Paradise. Archangel Michael leads them to a high hill and shows the future misery of man
and what shall happen till the Flood, the future coming of Christ, his incarnation, death,
resurrection, and ascension, and foretells the corrupt state of the church till his second
coming. Adam and Eve, submissive, are led out of Paradise.
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain, then disappeared.
They looking back, so late their happy seat
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon.
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
Milton is attempting to resolve an interesting dilemma that has puzzled many
people throughout the ages. 0n the one hand, we are told that through His
Providence God takes loving care of creation; on the other hand, we know that
there are many very bad things in the world, such as war, crime poverty,
disease, oppression, injustice, death – the list is endless. Milton asserts that God
is not responsible for these evils; instead, Adam's and Eve's disobedience to God's command
"Brought death into the world, and all our woe". God gave Adam and Eve the freedom to
choose between good and evil, and the strength to resist evil; yet they chose evil, and their
offering, including all of us, have suffered the effects of their choice ever since. This
explanation of course is not original to Milton, most Christians have accepted it for many
centuries.
How do you interpret the biblical story? Do you agree that eating from the tree of knowledge
Adam and Eve chose evil? Is the free will a loss or a gain?
�Contents
John Bunyan (1628–1688)
Unlike most of the other writers of his period Bunyan came from a low social class. He
worked with his hands as a brazier or tinker, a maker and mender of cooking pots and pans.
Yet he was the author of a book that, next to the Bible, has been the most widely read of all
English books: The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come (1678),
commonly called The Pilgrim's Progress.
What we know about Bunyan comes mainly from his autobiographical work Grace Abounding
to the Chief of Sinners (1666), the "Chief of Sinner" being himself. In this book he describes
his childhood poverty, his service in the army fighting against King Charles I, and his marriage
when he was still a teen-ager. He and his wife, he says, were "as poor as poor might be, with
not so much household stuff as a dish or spoon betwixt us both." Grace Abounding is
concerned with the state of Bunyan's soul and his relationship with God. To Bunyan, these
were the only really important thing in life.
Although he had never been formally educated or ordained as a minister, Bunyan felt entitled to
preach to his people. He began holding services in private houses and then, as his eloquence
and piety attracted many people, in the woods outside his home town of Bedford. Such
Puritan sects as the Baptists flourished during the years when England was without a king
(1649–1660), but with the Restoration of Charles II, the government soon reestablished the
Church of England and outlawed all other forms of religion. In 1660 he was arrested and jailed
for preaching without a license. The magistrate didn’t want to sentence him. He would gladly
have released him had he promised to give up public preaching. Moreover, there were strong
personal reasons why Bunyan should have been eager to leave the jail and resume support of
his family. Conditions at home were not ideal: about a year earlier, his first wife had died,
leaving a number of small children, one of them blind, to be taken care of. His second wife was
pregnant, and the news of her husband's arrest caused her to miscarry. He was desperately
needed at home. Yet his principles did not permit him to obey the law.
During his confinement, he wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, which was such a great success that
he published a second part. Both parts have been translated into many languages and
republished countless times.
As the laws against nonconformists were relaxed Bunyan became famous as a preacher, even
in London, where an audience of several thousand would go to hear him on a Sunday. When
told about Bunyan, King Charles expressed astonishment that a tinker could draw such
crowds.
�Contents
Bunyan spoke to, and wrote for, people who believed that every individual human being is
engaged in a continuous battle against the forces of evil. Bunyan and his listeners believed that
the whole aim of life is to win this battle. Although, in this belief, the evil forces are powerful,
they are not so powerful as God. With God's help, the battle can be won and eternal life
attained. Bunyan told his readers how they could defeat evil and how God could save them. He
expressed his message in the language familiar to his readers, taken from their daily experience
and from the Bible, folk tales and popular literature. In Bunyan's books his readers recognized
their own lives, made surprising and interesting.
The Pilgrim's Progress
The Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory, a story developed out of a metaphor. Bunyan's allegory
(often regarded as the best example of this kind of writing in English) grows out of the
metaphor "Life is a journey."
Allegory is a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms;
figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another.
Christian and Christiana, Bunyan's heroes, are ordinary human beings who
suddenly feel the need for a closer relationship with God. Bunyan to portrays their spiritual
experiences as though they were physical. Instead of real places, Christian travels through such
allegorical places as the Valley of Humiliation, where he learns the value of being humble.
Christiana climbs the Hill Lucre, where she learns that money cannot save her soul.
Far from being realistic, the proper names in an allegory are direct clues to meaning. Mr.
Talkative is a man who speaks much but says little, Madam Bubble is always playful, Valiant
is always brave and strong, Atheist is always unbelieving, and Hypocrisy is always two-faced.
The characters are aspects of Christian's own consciousness, they never change, and they
disappear from the story after they have helped or hindered him on his journey.
Allegory thus enables Bunyan to tell two stories at the same time. One, the surface story,
involves a journey through a fantastic landscape. This story is an adventure story. The other
story involves the spiritual development of typical human beings who do not go anywhere, but
try to lead religious lives, avoiding the obstacles and temptations that get in the way. This
second story might be called a psychological story, since it is concerned with mental and
emotions processes. Yet, in the experience of reading, the two stories become one.
In the nineteenth century, The Pilgrim's Progress could be found in nearly every literate
household in England. Most children read it along with the Bible and the great plays of
�Contents
Shakespeare. In the twentieth century, its popularity has declined, mainly because of changes in
contemporary views of religion.
The doctrine that is at the heart of The Pilgrim's Progress comes directly from the New
Testament's Sermon on the Mount where Christ encourages his followers to seek "first the
kingdom of God, and his righteousness"and to avoid the broad path that leads to destruction.
In The Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan describes what it means to follow the narrow path to
Christian salvation, resisting all temptation and all worldly cares and diversions along the way.
Content
The dreamer sees a man, Christian, clothed in rags, with a burden on his back, leaving his
house behind in the knowledge that it will burn down. The book he holds in his hands has
told him so. He has to flee his family who think he has gone mad and escape the City of
Destruction. On the advice of Evangelist he begins a journey through a series of allegorical
places. He effectively maneuvers his way through the Slough of Despond, passes under the
Wicket Gate (the gate through which the elect must pass, beginning their journey to
Heaven) and soon comes to the Interpreter's House, where he learns to think
metaphorically. After leaving this enlightening place, Christian sheds his burden and
receives the garb and certificate of the elect from some angels. His next stop is the Beautiful
Palace.
After leaving the palace, Christian slips down into the Valley of Humiliation, where he
battles and defeats Apollyon, the notorious fiend. After transversing the Valley of the
Shadow of Death in the dark, he catches up to his friend Faithful. Christian and Faithful
arrive in Vanity-Fair together, where they are arrested under the false charge of inciting a
riot. Faithful is tried and burnt at the stake, even though Christian is miraculously
delivered. Hopeful, inspired by Faithful's faith, becomes Christian's new traveling
companion.
The pair of pilgrims soon come to the Doubting Castle, owned by the Giant Despair, who
traps them inside and intends to kill them. Fortunately, their faith allows them to escape
from the dungeon and make their way to the Delectable Mountains. The shepherds in the
foothills warn Christian and Hopeful about the Flatterer and other potential threats in the
last leg of their journey. Unfortunately, the Flatterer manages to fool Christian and Hopeful
anyway. An angel rescues them, but punishes them for being so blind when they had been
warned. In the final stretch of the journey, they encounter Ignorance, who has not entered
the path through the Wicket Gate.
�Contents
In Beulah, which abuts heaven, Christian and Hopeful arrive at the river. To cross the river
is to die, but the must cross it in order to enter into heaven. When they arrive at the gates to
the Celestial City, they are welcomed graciously with a trumpet fanfares, and they take their
place alongside the rest of the elect. Ignorance gets to the gate, but because he doesn't have
a certificate of election, he is sent to hell. The pilgrim's progress to heaven completed, the
author awakes from his dream.
The second part concerns the Christiana, Christian's wife, who is inspired to follow on a
similar pilgrimage.
Text
Vanity Fair
Then I saw in my dream, that when they were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them, and
the name of that town is "Vanity"; and at the town there is a fair kept, called "Vanity Fair"; it is kept all the year long. It
bears the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where 'tis kept is lighter than vanity; and also because all that is there
sold, or that comes thither is vanity. As is the saying of the wise, "All that comes is vanity."
This fair is no new erected business; but a thing of ancient standing. I will show you the original of it.
Almost five thousand years agone, there were pilgrims walking to the Celestial City, as these two honest persons are;
and BEELZEBUB, APOLLYON, and LEGION, with their companions, perceiving by the path that the pilgrims
made, that their way to the City lay through this town of Vanity, they contrived here to set up a fair; a fair wherein
should be sold of all sorts of vanity, and that it should last all the year long. Therefore at this fair are all such
merchandise sold: as houses, lands, trades, places, honours, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms; lusts, pleasures,
and delights of all sorts – as whores, bawds, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls,
silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not.
And moreover, at this fair there is at all times to be deceivers, cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues
and that of every kind.
Here are to be seen, too – and that for nothing – thefts, murders, adulteries, false-swearers, and that of a blood red
colour.
And as in other fairs of less moment, there are the several rows and streets, under their proper names, where such
and such wares are vended; so here likewise you have the proper places, rows, streets (viz., countries and
kingdoms), where the wares of this fair are soonest to be found: here is the Britain row; the French row; the Italian
row; the Spanish row; the German row – where several sorts of vanities are to be sold. But as in other fairs, some
one commodity is as the chief of all the fair, so the ware of Rome and her merchandise is greatly promoted in this fair:
only our English nation, with some others, have taken a dislike thereat.
Now, as I said, the way to the Celestial City lies just through this town, where the lusty fair is kept; and he that will go
to the City, and yet not go through this town, must needs go out of the world. The Prince of princes himself, when
�Contents
here, went through this town to his own country, and that upon a fair day too; and as I think, it was BEELZEBUB, the
chief lord of this fair, that invited him to buy of his vanities; yea, would have made him lord of the fair, would he but
have done him reverence as he went through the town. Yea, because he was such a person of honour, BEELZEBUB
had him from street to street, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a little time, that he might, if possible,
allure that Blessed One to cheapen and buy some of his vanities. But he had no mind to the merchandise; and
therefore left the town without laying out so much as one farthing upon these vanities.
This fair, therefore, is an ancient thing, of long standing, and a very great fair.
Now these pilgrims, as I said, must needs go through this fair: well, so they did; but behold, even as they entered into
the fair, all the people in the fair were moved, and the town itself as it were in a hubbub about them; and that for
several reasons. For – First, the pilgrims were clothed with such kind of raiment as was diverse from the raiment of
any that traded in that fair. The people, therefore, of the fair made a great gazing upon them: some said they were
fools; some they were lunatics; and some they are outlandish men.
Secondly: and as they wondered at their apparel, so they did likewise at their speech; for few could understand what
they said. They naturally spoke the language of Canaan; but they that kept the fair were the men of this world: so that
from one end of the fair to the other, they seemed barbarians each to the other.
Thirdly: but that which did not a little amuse the merchandisers was, that these pilgrims set very light by all their wares
– they cared not so much as to look upon them; and if they called upon them to buy, they would put their fingers in
their ears, and cry, "Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity;" and look upwards, signifying that their trade and
traffic was in heaven.
One chanced mockingly, beholding the carriages of the men, to say unto them, "What will ye, buy?" but they, looking
gravely upon him, said, "We buy the truth".
At that there was an occasion taken to despise the men the more: some mocking; some taunting; some speaking
reproachfully; and some calling upon others to smite them. At last, things came to a hubbub and great stir in the fair,
insomuch that all order was confounded. Now was word presently brought to the great one of the fair, who quickly
came down, and deputed some of his most trusty friends to take these men into examination, about whom the fair was
almost overturned. So the men were brought to examination: and they that sat upon them, asked them whence they
came; whither they went; and what they did there in such an unusual garb?
The men told them that they were pilgrims and strangers in the world; and that they were going to their own country,
which was the heavenly Jerusalem; and that they had given none occasion to the men of the town, nor yet to the
merchandisers, thus to abuse them, and to let them in their journey. Except it was, for that when one asked them what
they would buy, they said they would buy the truth. But they that were appointed to examine them did not believe
them to be any other than lunatics and mad, or else such as came to put all things into a confusion in the fair. Therefore
they took them and beat them, and besmeared them with dirt; and then put them into the cage, that they might be
made a spectacle to all the men of the fair. There, therefore, they lay for some time, and were made the objects of any
man's sport, or malice, or revenge; the great one of the fair laughing still at all that befell them.
But the men being patient, and not rendering railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing, and giving good words for
bad, and kindness for injuries done, some men in the fair that were more observing and less prejudiced than the rest,
�Contents
began to check and blame the baser sort for their continual abuses done by them to the men. They, therefore, in angry
manner, let fly at them again: counting them as bad as the men in the cage, and telling them that they seemed
confederates, and should be made partakers of their misfortunes. The other replied, that for aught they could see, the
men were quiet and sober, and intended nobody any harm; and that there were many that traded in their fair that were
more worthy to be put into the cage, yea, and pillory too, than were the men that they had abused. Thus after divers
words had passed on both sides – the men behaving themselves all the while very wisely and soberly before them, –
they fell to some blows among themselves, and did harm one to another.
Then were these two poor men brought before their examiners again, and there charged as being guilty of the late
hubbub that had been in the fair. So they beat them pitifully, and hanged irons upon them, and led them in chains up
and down the fair for an example and a terror to others, lest any should further speak in their behalf, or join
themselves unto them. But CHRISTIAN and FAITHFUL behaved themselves yet more wisely; and received the
ignominy and shame that was cast upon them with so much meekness and patience, that it won to their side – though
but few in comparison of the rest – several of the men in the fair. This put the other party yet into a greater rage;
insomuch that they concluded the death of these two men. Wherefore they threatened that the cage nor irons should
serve their turn; but that they should die for the abuse they had done, and for deluding the men of the fair.
Then were they remanded to the cage again, until further order should be taken with them. So they put them in, and
made their feet fast in the stocks.
Here therefore they called again to mind what they had heard from their faithful friend, EVANGELIST; and were the
more confirmed in their way and sufferings by what he told them would happen to them. They also now comforted
each other, that whose lot it was to suffer, even he should have the best of it; therefore each man secretly wished that
he might have that preferment; but committing themselves to the all wise disposal of him that rules all things, with much
content they abode in the condition in which they were, until they should be otherwise disposed of.
What does vanity fair symbolize in the context of spiritual pilgrimage that the
whole book represents?
How do the people treat the pilgrims who ask for no other good but truth?
Can you bring any example from life that could correspond to the metaphorical
picture given in the book?
What is the message of the episode?
Link
William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero, first published in 1847–48,
satirizes society in early 19th-century Britain. The book's title comes from John Bunyan's
allegorical story which was still widely read at the time of Thackeray's novel. In Bunyan’s
work, "Vanity Fair" refers to a stop along the pilgrim's progress: a never-ending fair held in a
town called Vanity, which is meant to represent man's sinful attachment to worldly things.
Thackeray interprets the allegory in his own way. In the preface to his book he writes:
�Contents
BEFORE THE CURTAIN
As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain
on the boards and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound
melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place.
There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love
and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating,
fighting, dancing and fiddling; there are bullies pushing about,
bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets, policemen
on the look-out, quacks (OTHER quacks, plague take them!)
bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at
the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the
light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind.
Yes, this is VANITY FAIR; not a moral place certainly; nor a
merry one, though very noisy. Look at the faces of the actors
and buffoons when they come off from their business; and
Tom Fool washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits down
to dinner with his wife and the little Jack Puddings behind
the canvas. The curtain will be up presently, and he will be
turning over head and heels, and crying, "How are you?"
A man with a reflective turn of mind, walking through an
exhibition of this sort, will not be oppressed, I take it, by his
own or other people's hilarity. An episode of humour or kindness
touches and amuses him here and there--a pretty child
looking at a gingerbread stall; a pretty girl blushing whilst her
lover talks to her and chooses her fairing; poor Tom Fool,
yonder behind the waggon, mumbling his bone with the honest
family which lives by his tumbling; but the general impression
is one more melancholy than mirthful. When you come home
you sit down in a sober, contemplative, not uncharitable frame
of mind, and apply yourself to your books or your business.
I have no other moral than this to tag to the present story
of "Vanity Fair." Some people consider Fairs immoral altogether,
and eschew such, with their servants and families: very
likely they are right. But persons who think otherwise, and are
of a lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic mood, may perhaps
like to step in for half an hour, and look at the performances.
There are scenes of all sorts; some dreadful combats, some
grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life, and
some of very middling indeed; some love-making for the
sentimental, and some light comic business; the whole
accompanied by appropriate scenery and brilliantly illuminated
�Contents
with the Author's own candles.
What more has the Manager of the Performance to say? –
To acknowledge the kindness with which it has been received
in all the principal towns of England through which the Show
has passed, and where it has been most favourably noticed by
the respected conductors of the public Press, and by the Nobility
and Gentry. He is proud to think that his Puppets have given
satisfaction to the very best company in this empire. The
famous little Becky Puppet has been pronounced to be uncommonly
flexible in the joints, and lively on the wire; the Amelia
Doll, though it has had a smaller circle of admirers, has yet
been carved and dressed with the greatest care by the artist; the
Dobbin Figure, though apparently clumsy, yet dances in a very
amusing and natural manner; the Little Boys' Dance has been
liked by some; and please to remark the richly dressed figure
of the Wicked Nobleman, on which no expense has been
spared, and which Old Nick will fetch away at the end of this
singular performance.
And with this, and a profound bow to his patrons, the
Manager retires, and the curtain rises.
What is Thackeray’s interpretation of Vanity Fair?
The concept is widely employed in modern times. For example, the well-known
magazine has the same name.
How far has it (concept) gone from the original meaning offered by Bunyan?
�Contents
English Literature in the Enlightenment Period
Historical and Cultural Context
Literary Context
Daniel Defoe (1607-1731)
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
Henry Fielding (1707–1754)
Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
�Contents
Historical and Cultural Context
Literary historians have applied several names to the long period that runs from 1660 to 1800:
The Enlightenment, The Age of Reason, The Augustan Age, and The Neoclassical
Period. Each of them applies to some characteristics of the period, but none applies to all.
"The Age of Reason" and "The Enlightenment" reveal now people were gradually
changing their view of themselves and the world. In 1662 the Royal Society was opened in
London. It was a meeting place of all kinds of scientists and philosophers. Its first president
became King Charles II. Isaac Newton (1642–1727) was the president of the Royal Society
from 1703 to 1727.
Isaac Newton contributed to the development of science by his profound studies in
mathematics and physics. He was the founder of the modern science of optics. His discovery
of the law of gravitation made him the founder of science of gravitational astronomy. Joseph
Addison called him "a miracle of the present age".
Joseph Addison (1672–1719) was an English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician. His name
is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend, Richard Steele, an Irish writer
and politician, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine.
Newton's works suggested that there were indeed intelligible laws in nature
which could be demonstrated by physics and mathematics, and moreover that the universe
exhibited a magnificent symmetry and a mechanical certainty. This universe, according to
Newton, could not have risen out of a chaos by the mere laws of nature: "a wonderful
Uniformity in the Planetary System had to be the handiwork of an intelligent and benevolent
Creator". Newton's declaration demonstrates his belief that there was order and design in
creation, and therefore religious mystery could be challenged, and sometimes even replaced by
reason. The scientific discoveries of the time proved that the universe is controlled by natural
laws that men could discover and understand.
The model of the world didn't seem chaotic and unpredictable any more, but symmetrical,
balanced, and logic. The ideal of universal law, order, and tidiness which could be concluded
from Newton's physics was echoed in the arguments of contemporary scholars.
John Locke (1632–1704) declared that reason, experience and observation were the
unquestionable guides to universal truth. For Locke the mind was a tabula rasa at birth, "a
white paper, void of all characters, without any ideals". When he rhetorically demanded how
the mind acquired "all the materials of reason and knowledge", he answered, "from experience."
�Contents
The contact between scientists, philosophers and men of letters initiated the development of
rational attitude in Restoration literature. Scientific experiments gave no place for feelings and
intuition. It seemed that everything had a natural explanation and the unlimited power of human
reason could challenge God.
The two terms Augustan and Neoclassical refer to real and imagined similarities between
England and its literature in this period and ancient Rome and its literature, especially in the
reign of the Roman Emperor Octavius.
Octavius (63 в.с – 14 a.d.) was the Roman Emperor who took the high-sounding title Augustus,
meaning "the magnificent, grand, and exalted one."Augustus restored peace and order to Rome
after the tumult and civil wars that followed Julius Caesar's assassination.
The Stuart monarchs of England restored peace and order to England after the
civil wars that led up to the execution of King Charles I in 1649. The people of both Rome and
England were tired of their quarrels and ready to settle down, make money, and enjoy life. The
Roman Senate had hailed Augustus as the second founder of Rome, the English people
brought back the son of Charles I from his exile in France, crowned him as Charles II and
called him their savior.
�Contents
Literary Context
There were literary similarities as well as political ones. In this age many English writers
consciously modeled their works on the Latin classics, which they had studied in school and in
the universities. The classics, it was generally agreed, were valuable because they represented
what was permanent and universal in human experience. All educated people knew the classics
better than they knew English literature, and one of their pleasures in reading a new work in
English was recognizing its similarities to the works in Latin and Greek. These new works were
called neoclassical.
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts,
literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture
of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome. The main Neoclassical movement coincided with the 18th
century Age of Enlightenment..
The earlier part of the century was a golden age of prose. In line with the general reaction
against the complexities, decorations and rhetorical extravagances of late European
Renaissance literature, the new prose was characterized by a certain restraint. It was simpler,
clearer and more precise than the previous prose. The rationalist tendencies of the age led to a
more reasonable and empirical world view. The new writers of both prose and poetry were
more concerned with balance, clarity and coherence. It was a reflection of the desire for peace
and order in a society emerging from a period of revolution and civil war.
It is also important to take into consideration the changes in the reading public. Female
readers became increasingly numerous. Another market was made up of the huge number of
household servants who had access to their masters' books.
A rising middle class, hungry for literary representations of a changing social reality, wanted
new forms of entertainment and intellectual encouragement. Those were provided by the
proliferation of the press and coffee houses. The first coffee houses appeared in London in
the middle of the seventeenth century and became the centers of intellectual and social life.
They served as the meeting places of people of different social status and occupation. There
were coffee houses for statesmen, merchants, writers, and poets. Men (women were not
admitted into the coffee houses) came to enjoy a cup of newly-imported Turkish coffee, which
cost only a penny, smoke a pipe, read a newspaper, discuss political events or gossip. Coffee
was being imported in large quantities, and it afforded a refreshment for a wide variety of club
activities, ranging from games of checkers to the buying and selling of goods and the
formulation of political policy. The most famous of the coffee houses in London were the
Will's – where men of letters and poets met, and the Button's – the place of journalists.
�Contents
The Will's boasted of the patronage of such people as John Dryden, Joseph Addison, and
Alexander Pope. It was there that the considerable number of neoclassical rules and
regulations were formulated.
The main characteristic of the new literature was "From the head, not the heart". Feelings and
emotions were mistrusted. Poems, singing pastoral love, nature and passions were considered
to be ridiculous. Following the fashions of the day people began to place reason and common
sense above Elizabethan enthusiasm and Puritan rigid faith. Imagination of the Elizabethan Age
was gradually replaced by logical analytical approach.
Shakespeare's tragedies and Milton's Paradise Lost were ridiculed. There was a feeling that
Shakespeare and Milton should be reformed, their wild imagination restrained, and their literary
form made more "correct". Shakespeare's characters were thought as monstrous and unreal,
the mixture of tragic and comic elements was regarded as a sin against good taste. Hamlet was
criticized because the Prince of Denmark fought a duel with Laertes, who was beneath his rank,
and because such vulgar creatures as grave diggers were permitted to appear on the same
platform with a prince of blood.
Imagination was declining in poetry. Blank verse, so much loved by Elizabethans, was
replaced by rhymed couplets, inspired by ancient Greek and Roman authors. The works of
Homer, Horace and Virgil were considered to be the best models for literature.
As for drama, the eighteenth century is a particularly unfruitful period. The tone of plays was
frequently moralizing and there was often a strong didactic element to them. The theatre
became a place where the moral standards of a well-ordered society should be upheld.
Essays, journalism and the novel were the most important aspects of literary production.
The abolition of the Licensing Act in 1694 marked the end of censorship and heralded a new
period of freedom for the press. Many accomplished writers of the age were encouraged to
write articles or essays for the growing number of newspapers and periodicals. Journalism
became a new trade. Depending on the periodical the subjects were current affairs, politics,
literature, fashion, gossip, entertainment and contemporary manners and morals. It was a prose
characterized by simplicity and conversational tone. Its main concern was to reach the largest
number of readers possible.
The eighteenth century novel represented a new departure from previous canons. It was a
prose dealing with a world of actual human experience.
�Contents
The novel took individual experience as its most important criterion. The plots taken from
history, legend, mythology and previous literature were largely abandoned by the new
novelists.
The rejection of classical literary conventions meant that the readers were presented with
original plots acted out by highly individual characters in singular circumstances. The fact
that characters were often given contemporary names and surnames was something new
and served to reinforce the realistic impression.
The eighteenth-century novel revealed a much greater concern with the exactness of time.
References were made to particular times of the year or even to days, and characters and
events developed against a temporal background which had not been systematically present
in fiction.
Greater attention was paid to the setting. In previous fiction (for example, in Sidney or in
Bunyan) the idea of place had usually been vague and fragmentary. More detailed
descriptions and specific references to the names of streets or towns helped to make the
narrative all the more 'realistic'.
There was a general movement away from rhetorical and figurative language towards its
more descriptive and denotative form.
�Contents
Daniel Defoe (1607-1731)
Daniel Foe added the gentlemanly prefix De to his name when he was about thirty-five. His
father was a London candle manufacturer. Defoe's family were Dissenters and so he was
barred from attending either of the two English universities.
The term dissenter (from the Latin dissentire, “to disagree”), labels one who disagrees in matters
of opinion, belief, etc. In the social and religious history of England and Wales, and, by extension,
Ireland, however, it refers particularly to a member of a religious body who has, for one reason or
another, separated from the Established Church or any other kind of Protestant who refuses to
recognise the supremacy of the Established Church in areas where the established Church is or was Anglican.
Instead, Daniel had a sound education at the highly reputable Presbyterian Academy of
Newington Green, where the Bible and John Bunyan were a prominent part of the curriculum.
In the academy Defoe also studied history, law, economics, geography and natural science,
rather than the Latin and Greek classics offered by Cambridge and Oxford. As Defoe left the
Academy he was fluent in five languages (which did not include Latin or Greek). He first
intended to be a Presbyterian minister but thought better of it and followed a career of a
merchant, trading in a variety of commodities, including haberdashery, brandy, wool, real
estate, and eventually civet cats. He married when he was twenty-four. Meanwhile, he became a
political activist and a journalist. His practical interests extended to politics and the theory of
commerce. His early work An Essay Upon Projects contains a wide range of radical
proposals for a new kind of state, and pre-dates by two centuries ideas of a similar kind.
Defoe’s dissenting spirit led him to take part in the rebellion against the Roman Catholic king
James II, in 1685, but, luckily, he escaped punishment. In 1688, a true Protestant king in the
shape of William III was crowned, but Defoe's commercial prosperity and personal delight
were short lived. He went bankrupt in 1692 and spent much of his time hiding from his
creditors.
By 1702 he was notorious as the author of a pamphlet called The Shortest Way with the
Dissenters. At first, the Church of England party applauded and admired the pamphlet, then
they discovered that it was ironic, meaning exactly the opposite of what it said. The
government had Defoe arrested, exposed in the pillory for three days, and then jailed. He was
released on the condition that he would become a spy and a writer for the very government
which had locked him up because of his satire.
Defoe got out of prison with the help of a Tory politician, Robert Harley. Defoe repaid Harley
by agreeing to edit and write almost single-handedly his periodical The Review from 1704–
1713. The Review proved to be an ideal vehicle for his prodigious journalistic talents, and had
�Contents
a considerable influence over future periodicals of the century. Defoe also carried out
intelligence work as a spy and government agent during this period, adapting himself to the
views of whichever party was in power. When George I came to the throne in 1714, the Tories
fell out of favour, but Defoe continued working for the government.
Defoe was a prolific journalist. Most of his works are pamphlets and books of advice offered
for the improvement of people and their lives. He touched on every conceivable subject: the
choice of a wife, the history of the Devil, the manufacture of glass. A great many of his works
are political. Defoe wrote propaganda for both of the major political parties, sometimes
defending both sides of a particular public issue. Some of his works are written in verse. The
True-Born Englishman (1701) is a long poem that scolds the English people for their
antipathy to King William because he was Dutch. Defoe argues that all the English are, in a
sense, foreigners. In 1719, at the age of fifty-nine, Defoe turned from journalism to a new form
of prose fiction.
Defoe's innumerable writings can be roughly classified into four groups.
A large number of them, like The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, are concerned with the
political and religious controversies of the time.
The works in a second group advise people on how to become virtuous as well as rich: The
Family Instructor (1715, 1728), for example, and The Complete English Tradesman (1725,
1727).
A third group is made up of journalistic accounts of sensational events, such as A Journal of
the Plague Year (1722).
The fourth group contains Defoe's fiction. Robinson Crusoe (1719) is generally considered
the first novel written in English. Defoe followed it with several other novels, including
Captain Singleton (1720), Moll Flanders (1722), Colonel Jack (1722) and Lady Roxana
(1724).
Though his fiction sold especially well, Defoe had to confront one financial crisis after another
during his later years. He and his wife, Mary, had a large family to support, and Defoe had a
talent for getting into disastrous business deals. Late in 1730 he went into hiding to avoid
debtor's prison. After several months he secretly returned to London, where he died, aged
sixty, early in 1731.
In spite of his enormous contribution to literature, Defoe is usually remembered as the author
�Contents
of only one book, the popular Robinson Crusoe.
The basic story of Robinson Crusoe is well known: a sailor is shipwrecked on a tropical island
and for many years manages to lead a more or less civilized life there, without human
companionship, until a young "cannibal" whom he named Friday arrived. This classic book,
which has been filmed many times and often re-written and simplified for very young readers,
has an almost universal appeal because it portrays a single strong individual who, all alone,
triumphs over hostile surroundings. Readers of the book are bound to ask themselves such a
question as "Could I survive if I were cast away on an island by myself?"
The appeal of Robinson Crusoe is also great because Defoe presents Crusoe's story as a true
account of what happened to a real person. Many people believe that Defoe modeled
Robinson Crusoe on an actual man, a Scottish sailor named Alexander Selkirk. Selkirk
quarreled with his commanding officer and, at his own request, was abandoned on an
uninhabited Pacific island. There he stayed for almost five years (1704–1709), and after his
rescue and return to England he was interviewed by journalists, including Sir Richard Steele
and possibly Defoe himself.
But it was only the idea of an isolated man that Defoe used. The events in the book have
nothing to do with Selkirk or with anyone else. It is a tribute to Defoe's skill that many readers
have assumed the tale to be true.
Defoe's other novel Moll Flanders is written in the genre of picaresque.
The picaresque novel (Spanish: "picaresca," from "pícaro," for "rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose
fiction which depicts the adventures of a low social class hero, often criminal or dishonest, who lives by
his wits in a corrupt society. Picaresque novels typically adopt a realistic style, with elements of comedy
and satire. This style of novel originated in 16th-century Spain and flourished throughout Europe in the
17th and 18th centuries. It continues to influence modern literature.
Its full title is The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c. Who was
Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her
Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother),
Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd
Honest, and died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums.
Content
Moll was born in Newgate Prison to a mother who was transported to Virginia shortly
afterwards for theft. Around the age of three a parish took her in and she was given to the
�Contents
care of a nurse. When her nurse died, Moll became a maid-servant in the household of the
Mayor, and learned the same lessons as the daughters of the house. The older son of the
house seduced her. Then the younger one fell in love with her also, and wanted to marry
her, not being aware of her relationship with his brother. The older one convinced the
unwilling girl to marry the younger one, and she lived as his wife until his death a few years
later. His parents took charge of the two children from the marriage.
Moll then married a gentleman-draper who spent her money and soon went bankrupt. He
broke out of jail and left the country, leaving Moll free to marry again, though perhaps not
legally.
After a period of time she married again and went to Virginia to her husban's mother.
Unhappily the woman turned out to be her mother as well. This discovery made Moll leave
her brother/husband and children and return to England. Her goods were lost in a storm
and she moved to Bath.
In Bath she became acquainted with a very modest and very friendly gentleman, whose wife
was insane. They lived as lovers for several years, until he fell gravely ill. After he recovered
he repented his sinful ways and did not want to see Moll anymore, but took care of the son
she had born him.
Moll wanted to get married, but did not see any likely prospects. She wanted to go to the
north. Before the trip Moll met an honest, sober gentleman who agreed to take care of her
money. He decided to divorce his unfaithful wife and marry Moll when she returned.
In Lancashire Moll met someone she thought to be a wealthy Irish gentleman. They married.
Then it turned out that he had married her for her money and she had married him for his.
They liked each other very well, but decided that it was only practical to part, and consider
the marriage nonexistent.
Back in London Moll married the man who had been taking care of her money, and had
successfully obtained a divorce. They lived together soberly and happily for five years until
he went bankrupt and died.
Being no longer young, Moll eventually took to crime, stealing things. Moll became an
excellent and successful thief, and had many adventures until at last she was caught stealing
some silk. In Newgate Moll met her Lancashire husband being brought in for highway
robbery. They reasserted their love and together were transported to Virginia.
�Contents
In Virginia they settled in Virginia quite far from the place where her brother and son lived,
and began a tobacco plantation. After a year Moll returned to see her son. He gave her the
income from some land her mother had left her. Soon afterwards her brother died.
Moll and her husband became quite rich and ultimately moved back to England (incognito)
to end their days there.
The main features of Defoe's novels are the following:
they are presented as memoirs or autobiographies;
their protagonist is presented in a series of episodes (no real plot);
they have contemporary and realistic setting;
in them primacy of the economic motive (characters have the reader informed of their
stocks of money and commodities) diminishes the importance of personal relations;
their characters overcome misfortune through self-reliance, hard work and belief in God.
Text
On The Education of Wome n
I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and a
Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women. We reproach the sex every day with folly and
impertinence; while I am confident, had they the advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than
ourselves. One would wonder, indeed, how it should happen that women are conversible at all; since they are only
beholden to natural parts, for all their knowledge. Their youth is spent to teach them to stitch and sew or make
baubles. They are taught to read, indeed, and perhaps to write their names, or so; and that is the height of a woman`s
education. And I would but ask any who slight the sex for their understanding, what is a man (a gentleman, I mean)
good for, that is taught no more? I need not give instances, or examine the character of a gentleman, with a good
estate, or a good family, and with tolerable parts; and examine what figure he makes for want of education. The soul
is placed in the body like a rough diamond; and must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear. And `tis
manifest, that as the rational soul distinguishes us from brutes; so education carries on the distinction, and makes some
less brutish than others. This is too evident to need any demonstration. But why then should women be denied the
benefit of instruction? If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God Almighty would
never have given them capacities; for he made nothing needless. Besides, I would ask such, What they can see in
ignorance, that they should think it a necessary ornament to a woman? or how much worse is a wise woman than a
fool? or what has the woman done to forfeit the privilege of being taught? Does she plague us with her pride and
impertinence? Why did we not let her learn, that she might have had more wit? Shall we upbraid women with folly,
when `tis only the error of this inhuman custom, that hindered them from being made wiser? The capacities of women
are supposed to be greater, and their senses quicker than those of the men; and what they might be capable of being
bred to, is plain from some instances of female wit, which this age is not without. Which upbraids us with Injustice,
�Contents
and looks as if we denied women the advantages of education, for fear they should vie with the men in their
improvements. . . . [They] should be taught all sorts of breeding suitable both to their genius and quality. And in
particular, Music and Dancing; which it would be cruelty to bar the sex of, because they are their darlings. But besides
this, they should be taught languages, as particularly French and Italian: and I would venture the injury of giving a
woman more tongues than one. They should, as a particular study, be taught all the graces of speech, and all the
necessary air of conversation; which our common education is so defective in, that I need not expose it. They should
be brought to read books, and especially history; and so to read as to make them understand the world, and be able
to know and judge of things when they hear of them. To such whose genius would lead them to it, I would deny no
sort of learning; but the chief thing, in general, is to cultivate the understandings of the sex, that they may be capable of
all sorts of conversation; that their parts and judgements being improved, they may be as profitable in their
conversation as they are pleasant. Women, in my observation, have little or no difference in them, but as they are or
are not distinguished by education. Tempers, indeed, may in some degree influence them, but the main distinguishing
part is their Breeding. The whole sex are generally quick and sharp. I believe, I may be allowed to say, generally so:
for you rarely see them lumpish and heavy, when they are children; as boys will often be. If a woman be well bred,
and taught the proper management of her natural wit, she proves generally very sensible and retentive. And, without
partiality, a woman of sense and manners is the finest and most delicate part of God`s Creation, the glory of Her
Maker, and the great instance of His singular regard to man, His darling creature: to whom He gave the best gift either
God could bestow or man receive. And `tis the sordidest piece of folly and ingratitude in the world, to withhold from
the sex the due lustre which the advantages of education gives to the natural beauty of their minds. A woman well bred
and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without
comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly.
She is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish, and
the man that has such a one to his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful. On the other hand,
Suppose her to be the very same woman, and rob her of the benefit of education, and it follows – If her temper be
good, want of education makes her soft and easy. Her wit, for want of teaching, makes her impertinent and talkative.
Her knowledge, for want of judgement and experience, makes her fanciful and whimsical. If her temper be bad, want
of breeding makes her worse; and she grows haughty, insolent, and loud. If she be passionate, want of manners
makes her a termagant and a scold, which is much at one with Lunatic. If she be proud, want of discretion (which still
is breeding) makes her conceited, fantastic, and ridiculous. And from these she degenerates to be turbulent,
clamorous, noisy, nasty, the devil! . . . The great distinguishing difference, which is seen in the world between men and
women, is in their education; and this is manifested by comparing it with the difference between one man or woman,
and another. And herein it is that I take upon me to make such a bold assertion, That all the world are mistaken in
their practice about women. For I cannot think that God Almighty ever made them so delicate, so glorious creatures;
and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable and so delightful to mankind; with souls capable of the same
accomplishments with men: and all, to be only Stewards of our Houses, Cooks, and Slaves. Not that I am for exalting
the female government in the least: but, in short, I would have men take women for companions, and educate them to
be fit for it. A woman of sense and breeding will scorn as much to encroach upon the prerogative of man, as a man of
sense will scorn to oppress the weakness of the woman. But if the women`s souls were refined and improved by
teaching, that word would be lost. To say, the weakness of the sex, as to judgment, would be nonsense; for ignorance
and folly would be no more to be found among women than men. I remember a passage, which I heard from a very
fine woman. She had wit and capacity enough, an extraordinary shape and face, and a great fortune: but had been
cloistered up all her time; and for fear of being stolen, had not had the liberty of being taught the common necessary
knowledge of women`s affairs. And when she came to converse in the world, her natural wit made her so sensible of
�Contents
the want of education, that she gave this short reflection on herself: "I am ashamed to talk with my very maids," says
she, "for I don`t know when they do right or wrong. I had more need go to school, than be married." I need not
enlarge on the loss the defect of education is to the sex; nor argue the benefit of the contrary practice. `Tis a thing will
be more easily granted than remedied. This chapter is but an Essay at the thing: and I refer the Practice to those
Happy Days (if ever they shall be) when men shall be wise enough to mend it.
What are the advantages of a woman’s education? What is the author’s attitude to women in
general?
Does Defoe present a woman’s education as a benefit of a man, or a woman, or both?
�Contents
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
Jonathan Swift is one of the main prose writers of the early eighteenth century and England's
greatest satirist. Swift was born in Dublin, of English parents, seven months after the death of
his father. He had prosperous Anglo-Irish uncles who paid for his education, first at an
excellent private grammar school at Kilkenny, Ireland, and then at Trinity College, Dublin. After
that he went to England and became secretary to Sir William Temple, a distant relative. Temple
was a writer, a wealthy country gentleman, a statesman and diplomat. At Moor Park, his
handsome estate near London, he maintained a large household of interesting people.
The job gave Swift the opportunity to mingle with public figures, read, and look for a more
important and permanent position. Unfortunately, noting came up, and after several years of
disappointment Swift had to take his life into his own hands. He obtained a Master's degree
from Oxford University, and was ordained a priest in the Church of Ireland, although he
desperately wanted a career in England.
Swift was assigned to remote parishes in the Irish countryside. To Swift, Ireland seemed a
cultural desert, and he escaped to England whenever it was possible. His longest period of
absence from Ireland was from 1710 to 1713, when he was in London writing pamphlets defending the Tories. Swift hoped to be made an English bishop as a reward, but his political
friends fell from power, and the only appointment he could obtain was the Dean of St.
Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. Swift went back to Ireland and held that office for the remaining
thirty years of his life.
Swift has always been a controversial figure to his biographers, who have attacked him,
defended him, and eagerly speculated about his life. Some biographers say that his biggest
personal attachment was to Esther Johnson, a friend whom Swift always called Stella.
Fourteen years younger than he, Stella was just a child when Swift first met her at Sir William
Temple's house and began to supervise her education. Eventually they became deeply
committed to each other. There is no evidence at all that Swift and Stella ever married.
However, many letters, journals, and poems exist to prove that it was a very satisfactory
relationship for both.
As the years passed, Swift made fewer and fewer visits to London, though he continued to
correspond with Alexander Pope and with many other literary friends. In his last days he
suffered from a disease of the inner ear which made him dizzy, deaf, and disoriented. He was
buried in his cathedral in Dublin, where tourists come every day to read his epitaph:
Text
�Contents
Here is placed the body
Of Jonathan Swift
Dean of this cathedral church
Where angry rage
Cannot cut through his heart
Go away, traveller
And imitate, if you can
a valiant for manly freedom
Laying claim.
Здесь покоится тело Джонатана
Свифта, декана этого собора, и
суровое негодование уже не
раздирает его сердце. Ступай,
путник, и подражай, если
можешь, тому, кто мужественно
боролся за дело свободы.
An epitaph may be an actual inscription on a gravestone or a short literary work, written as if for a
gravestone, appearing in a collection of poetry. In European literature the epitaph developed as a
variation of the classical epigram. A popular genre in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the age of
classicism, the epitaph subsequently came to be little used.
Works
Swift produced a great amount of journalism defending his religious and political beliefs. His
first important book, The Tale of a Tub (1704), is a satirical allegory about the three major
religious groups in the 18th century Britain: Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Dissenters
(Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Mennonites, etc.). The narrator tells the story of a father
who leaves each of his three sons a coat (the Christian Religion) with a strict instruction that
they shouldn’t change it. Peter (St Peter – the Roman Catholic Church), Martin (Martin Luther
– the Anglican Church) and Jack (John Calvin – the Dissenters) disobeyed their father by
altering their coats to make them more fashionable.
Saint Peter (died AD 64 or 67), also known as Simon Peter, was an early Christian leader, one
of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ according to the New Testament and Christian tradition,
and the first bishop of Rome.
Martin Luther (1483 –1546) was a German monk, Catholic priest, professor of theology and seminal figure of a
reform movement in 16th century Christianity, subsequently known as the Protestant Reformation. He strongly
disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. Luther taught that
salvation is not earned by good deeds but received only as a free gift of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ as
redeemer from sin and subsequently hell. His theology challenged the authority of the Pope of the Roman Catholic
Church by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge. Luther's efforts to reform the
theology and practice of the Roman Catholic Church launched the Protestant Reformation.
John Calvin (1509–1564) was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He
was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Calvinists broke
�Contents
with the Roman Catholic church but differed with Lutherans on the real presence of Christ in the Lord's supper,
theories of worship, and the use of God's law for believers, among other things. Calvinism can be a misleading term
because the religious tradition it denotes is and has always been diverse, with a wide range of influences rather than a
single founder. The movement was first called "Calvinism" by Lutherans who opposed it.
Peter furnished his coat with gold lace and other beautiful accessories. Martin removed the
false decoration from his coat without tearing the cloth. Jack fanatically ripped his garment to
shreds to get rid of all ornaments.
Swift was deeply committed to the ideals of justice and humanity. In the series of pamphlets,
The Drapier's Letters (1724–1725), Swift became an Irish patriot defending the Irish rights
against the oppressive policies of their English rulers.
The most famous of his pamphlets, A Modest Proposal (1729), satirizes the British by
proposing an outrageous solution to the "Irish problem." To revive Ireland's industries and
bring the country out of its current financial collapse Swift offers to sell infant children for
meat. The author states that Ireland needs a cheap and simple solution to help its impoverished
population. The Irish streets are full of woman beggars and many of them have children, which
they fail to feed properly. Children mostly grow up to become thieves. Swift argues that among
the 1.5 million people in the country, approximately 120,000 are children who are useless to
society.
Gulliver's Travels (1726) is Swift’s most famous book. The book was an immediate success.
It has been interpreted at many different levels: as a travel book for children, a sharp political
satire and an accusation of a society that accepts war and corruption and rejects altruism and
reason.
Content
Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput
The book begins with a short introduction in which Lemuel Gulliver, in the style of books of
the time, gives a brief outline of his life and history before his voyages.
During his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and finds himself a
prisoner of a race of tiny people, less than 6 inches tall, who are inhabitants of the island
country of Lilliput. He is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favourite of the court.
From there, the book follows Gulliver's observations on the Court of Lilliput. He is also given
the permission to wander around the city on a condition that he must not harm anybody.
Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to win their neighbours, the Blefuscudians, by stealing their
�Contents
fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the island nation of Blefuscu to a province of Lilliput,
displeasing the King and the court. Gulliver is charged with treason for, among other
"crimes", m
" aking water"in the capital (even though he was putting out a fire and saving
countless lives). He is sentenced to be blinded, but with the assistance of a kind friend, he
escapes to Blefuscu. He finds an abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a passing
ship, which safely takes him back home.
Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag
When the sailing ship Adventure is forced to land for want of fresh water, Gulliver is
abandoned by his companions and found by a farmer who is 72 feet (22 m) tall (the scale
of Brobdingnag is about 12:1, compared to Lilliput's 1:12). He brings Gulliver home and
his daughter cares for Gulliver. The farmer treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for
money. Since Gulliver is too small to use their huge chairs, beds, knives and forks, the queen
orders a small house to be built for him so that he can be carried around in it. The house is
referred to as his 'travelling box'. Between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps
and being carried to the roof by a monkey, he discusses the state of Europe with the King.
The King is not happy with Gulliver's accounts of Europe, especially upon learning of the
use of guns and cannons. On a trip to the seaside, his travelling box is seized by a giant
eagle which drops Gulliver and his box into the sea, where he is picked up by some sailors,
who return him to England.
Part III: A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan
After Gulliver's ship was attacked by pirates, he is marooned close to a desolate rocky island
near India. Fortunately, he is rescued by the flying island of Laputa, a kingdom devoted to
the arts of music and mathematics but unable to use them for practical purposes. Gulliver
sees the ruin brought about by the blind pursuit of science. Great resources and manpower
are employed on researching absurd schemes such as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers,
softening marble for use in pillows, learning how to mix paint by smell, and uncovering
political conspiracies by examining the excrement of suspicious persons.
Gulliver is then taken to Balnibarbi to await a trader who can take him on to Japan. While
waiting for a passage, Gulliver takes a short side-trip to the island of Glubbdubdrib, where
he visits a magician's dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures. In
Luggnagg he encounters the struldbrugs, unfortunates who are immortal. They do not have
the gift of eternal youth, but suffer the disabilities and illnesses of old age and are considered
legally dead at the age of eighty. After his visit to Japan, Gulliver returns home, determined
�Contents
to stay there for the rest of his days.
Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms
Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to the sea as the captain
of a trader as he is bored with his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage his crew mutiny
and leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue as pirates. Gulliver
comes upon a race of hideous, deformed and savage humanoid creatures to which he
conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly afterwards he meets a race of horses who call
themselves Houyhnhnms (which in their language means "the perfection of nature"). They are
the rulers, while the deformed creatures called Yahoos are human beings in their dreadful
form.
Gulliver becomes a member of a horse's household, and comes to admire the Houyhnhnms
and their lifestyle, rejecting his fellow humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some
semblance of reason which they only use to aggravate the vices Nature gave them. However,
an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms decide that Gulliver, a Yahoo, is a danger to their
civilisation, and expel him.
He is then rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship, and is surprised to see that
Captain Pedro de Mendez, a Yahoo, is a wise, courteous and generous person. He returns to
his home in England, but he is unable to reconcile himself to living among 'Yahoos' and
becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, largely avoiding his family and his wife, and
spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables, basically becoming
insane.
Style
Swift’s contemporaries immediately understood that Swift was doing several things in
Gulliver’s Travels. Under the pretense of describing politics in Lilliput, he was indirectly
referring to politicians and political events in his own country. For instance, in the imaginary
Lilliput there are two major parties, distinguished by a trivial detail: the height of the heels on the
shoes they wear. Another characteristic is the way they eat eggs. The Big-Endians always cut
open the big end of a boiled egg, and the Little-Endians always cut open the little end. These
parties have had a long and bitter history: one emperor has lost his life, another – his throne,
and many Lilliputians have had to go live in another country, Blefuscu. All these details suggest
that Swift was thinking of specific events in English history. It is possible to identify the
parallels between Swift’s fictions and historical fact. Lilliput, for example, represents England
and Blefuscu represents France, where some English Catholics lived in exile. The Big-Endians
�Contents
are people loyal to Catholicism, and the Little-Endians are those loyal to Anglicanism. The
emperor who lost his life is Charles I, the one who lost his throne is James II.
In Gulliver's Travels different peoples that Gulliver visits metaphorically represent different
aspects of humanity.
Gulliver represents an everyman, a middle-class Englishman who is fundamentally decent and
benevolent. In the course of his travels, he becomes less tolerant and more judgmental of the
nations he visits and of his fellow human beings.
The Lilliputians, a tiny race of people, represent much of what is petty and small-minded
about the English and humankind in general. They are physically and morally smaller than
Gulliver. They are arrogant, selfish, hypocritical, and surprisingly dangerous and cruel in spite
of their small size.
The Brobingnagians, the race of giants, are physically and morally bigger than Gulliver.
While vice does exist in their country, unlike humans, they have not built vice into their
government and institutions. Therefore, they represent much of what is good in humankind.
The Brobdingnagian king is shocked at Gulliver's account of English politics and society, and
refuses his offer of gunpowder as he cannot think of any good coming from it. However, the
great size of the Brobingnagians means that Gulliver can never feel safe or equal in their
society. They treat him kindly, but as a plaything or an exhibit. Gulliver was large and strong in
Lilliput, and absolutely powerless in Brobdingnag. Swift means this as a warning to nations,
such as the English of his time, that the arrival of a larger or more powerful force can easily put
an end to their dominance on the world stage.
The Laputans represent the dangers and limitations of abstract and theoretical knowledge.
This field was growing in Swift's time, under the influence of what became known as the
Enlightenment. When Swift wrote this section of the novel, many of the impracticable
experiments and theories resembling those described in the book had actually been carried out
or proposed by the scientists of the Royal Society of London. The Laputan people's addiction
to abstract knowledge makes them indifferent to each other and to all human concerns. The
fact that the King of Laputa inhabits an island that floats above his domain is symbolic of his
ungrounded thinking and his separation from his people and their practical concerns.
The Houyhnhnms represent reason and virtue. They operate their society according to these
principles and as a result, have no crime, disease or other problems. They subordinate their
own individual lives and concerns to the good of their society as a whole. So deep-rooted is
�Contents
this tendency that they have no distinguishing characteristics or names, and they do not seem
to possess an emotional life beyond treating everyone with respect and kindness. While they
represent the rational faculty that man possesses, they do not seem fully human and, indeed,
expel Gulliver from their society because they see him as a Yahoo. This suggests that Swift
does not intend their nation to be seen as a complete and self-contained model for an ideal
human society. Their way of life only exemplifies much what is admirable in human beings.
The humanoid Yahoos, on the contrary, represent all that is bestial, low and despicable in
human behavior. Gulliver is ashamed to recognize the similarities between them and human
beings. They are dirty, greedy, violent and destructive of themselves and others. While they are
constantly likened to human beings by Gulliver and the Houyhnhnms, an important distinction
is drawn: human beings are endowed with reason, and Yahoos are not. The conclusion is not,
however, that humans are better than Yahoos, because they (unlike Yahoos) have the ability to
choose good or evil, and frequently choose evil. The Yahoos are therefore not identical to
humans, but symbolize humans at their worst.
Swift’s approach to the analysis of human nature is complex.
Does he view a man as a representative of a particular time and society or
human race in general?
What is his conclusion about this man?
Do you think evil or good prevails in human nature?
�Contents
Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
Samuel Richardson received little formal education. His family hoped that he would become a
priest, however, due to the lack of means he was apprenticed to a printer in London. Thirteen
years later he set up his own shop as a stationer and printer and became one of the leading
figures in the London trade.
Richardson married his employer's daughter, Martha Wilde, and they had six children. Sadly,
she and all their children died. He married again, and had six children with Elizabeth Leake, and
although two of them also died of childhood illness, four survived.
Richardson's literary career began after he was in his fifties and well-established as a printer,
when two booksellers proposed that he should compile a volume of model letters for unskilled
letter writers. While preparing this, Richardson became fascinated by the project, and a small
sequence of letters from a daughter in service, asking her father's advice when threatened by
her master's advances, formed the beginning of Pamela: or Virtue Rewarded (1740–41).
Pamela was a huge success and became something of a cult novel.
Content
Pamela Andrews is a beautiful 15-year old maidservant. Her master, Mr. B, makes
unwanted advances towards her after the death of his mother. His high rank hinders him
from proposing marriage. Mr. B locks Pamela up in one of his estates, and attempts to
seduce her. She rejects him, but is falling in love. He intercepts her letters and becomes even
more enamored by her innocence and intelligence.
Finally Mr. B sincerely proposes to Pamela. Pamela attempts to build a successful
relationship with him and to acclimatise to upperclass society.
Richardson's other most popular epistolary novel, also regarded today as his masterpiece, is
Clarissa or, the History of a Young Lady (1747–8). Clarissa is one of the longest novels in
the English language. It is a tragic story of a girl who runs off with her seducer, but is later
abandoned.
Content
Clarissa Harlowe receives a substantial fortune from her grandfather. The family attempts to
force Clarissa to marry Roger Solmes, who is willing to trade properties with James,
�Contents
Clarissa’s brother. Robert Lovelace (the family’s enemy) tricks Clarissa into eloping with
him. Clarissa becomes Lovelace’s prisoner for many months. She refuses to marry him even
after he rapes her.
Clarissa escapes to find sanctuary at the house of a shopkeeper and his wife. She becomes
dangerously ill due to the mental pressure. Eventually Clarissa dies in the full consciousness
of her virtue and trusting in a better life after death. Lovelace dies in a duel with Clarissa’s
cousin.
Style
Richardson believed that letters could be used to accurately portray character traits. He quickly
adopted the epistolary novel form, which granted him "the tools, the space, and the freedom to
develop distinctly different characters speaking directly to the reader".
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary
entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic "documents"
such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use. The epistolary form can add
greater realism to a story.
In his first novel, Pamela, he explored the various complexities of the title character's life, and
the letters allow the reader to witness her develop and progress over time. The novel was an
experiment, but it allowed Richardson to create a complex heroine through a series of her
letters. When Richardson wrote Clarissa, he had more experience in the form and expanded
the letter writing to four different correspondents, which created a complex system of
characters encouraging each other to grow and develop over time.
Richardson’s novels were enormously popular in their day. Although he has been accused of
being a verbose and sentimental storyteller, his emphasis on detail, his psychological insights
into women, and his dramatic technique have earned him a prominent place among English
novelists.
His last novel is The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753–4). By the time Richardson
writes Grandison, he transforms the letter writing from telling of personal insights and
explaining feelings into a means for people to communicate their thoughts on the actions of
others and for the public to celebrate virtue. The letters are no longer written for a few people,
but are passed along in order for all to see.
In the London literary world, Richardson was a rival of Henry Fielding, and the two responded
to each other's literary styles in their own novels.
�Contents
Henry Fielding (1707–1754)
Henry Fielding was an 18th century English writer and magistrate. He attended Eton College,
where he studied classical authors and began to challenge the literary world. Fielding wrote his
first play in 1728. He then enrolled at the University of Leiden in Holland, but left to return to
London in 1729. Fielding wrote masques, farces, comedies, burlesques and political satires
which so exasperated the Whig government that all London theaters, except two protected by
royal patent, were ordered closed by the Licensing Act of 1737. Fielding's career as a
playwright was at an end.
Unable to find meaningful work, Fielding began studying law at Middle Temple and became a
barrister. In the meantime, he married Charlotte Craddock and edited The Champion; or,
British Mercury, a satirical political publication.
In 1740, Samuel Richardson published Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded, which was an instant
success. The tale of a young woman, who becomes a great lady and finds true happiness by
defending her chastity, was the London sensation of the season, an early bestseller.
Pamela was read as a lesson in morality by all young ladies. However, Fielding found the work
objectionable and set out to write a parody of it, which he called An Apology for the Life of
Mrs. Shamela Andrews (1741). In Shamela the virtuous heroine is hilariously exposed as a
crafty schemer. Although the book was published anonymously, Fielding was generally
accepted as the author.
He followed with Joseph Andrews (1742), another parody published anonymously, and The
History of the Life of Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great (1743).
Despite his productivity, Fielding endured significant personal loss in these years. His father
passed away in 1741, followed by one of his daughters in 1742 and his wife in 1744. He
married his wife's maid in 1747 after the two grew close during a period of mourning.
Fielding's legal training was at last put to good use in the late 1740s, when he was appointed
justice of the peace for Westminster and then magistrate of Middlesex. Together with his halfbrother Sir John Fielding, he established a new tradition of justice and suppression of crime in
London. They helped to found what is known as London's first police force, the Bow Street
Runners, in 1749 and did a great deal to improve prison conditions.
Although he devoted significant energy to struggle with crime, Fielding managed to complete
his celebrated novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749), a work considered one
�Contents
of the English language's great early novels.
Fielding’s final novel was sentimental Amelia (1751). It describes the hardships suffered by a
young couple newly married.
Fielding's health was in serious decline by this point. He traveled by sea to Portugal with his
wife and daughter in the summer of 1754, but never returned to England, as he passed away in
Lisbon on October 8.
Tom Jones
Fielding’s best-plotted novel, his great mock epic, romance and picaresque, The History of
Tom Jones, a Foundling, was begun in 1746. When the novel finally appeared, it was
enthusiastically received by the general public. However, the Tory journalists, who strongly
disliked Fielding for supporting the House of Hanover, and Richardson and his group, who
saw Fielding as a “filthy and immoral writer,” disapproved of the book as well as of Fielding
himself, particularly for “marrying his cook.”
The plot of Tom Jones is among the most perfectly planned plots in literature. It is very
complicated for a simple summary. Its basis is Tom's alienation from his foster father, Squire
Allworthy, and his sweetheart, Sophia Western, and his reconciliation with them after lively and
dangerous adventures on the road and in London.
The triumph of the book is its presentation of English life and character in the mid18th century. Every social type is represented, and through them every shade of
moral behavior. Fielding himself called Tom Jones a “comic epic poem in prose,”
though others say it is essentially a comic romance.
Fielding used the term ‘comic epic poem in prose’ in the “Preface to Joseph Andrews”. Fielding claimed that he was
founding a new genre of writing but this was not entirely accurate. There was a long tradition of such writing before
him, though it was not completely developed or established. Homer’s Odyssey is often referred to as a ‘comic epic in
verse’. Fielding tried to combine ‘comic epic poem’ and ‘prose epic’ to produce what he termed as ‘comic epic
poem in prose’.
Fielding does include some parts that parody heroic poetry, particularly, the digressions. Like
other eighteenth century writers, Fielding felt it was his duty to try to change his society. Thus,
he headed each of the eighteen books of Tom Jones with an introductory essay, each of which
enlarges on an idea that he wished to promote, much like the Greek chorus in a tragedy.
Content
�Contents
The structure of Tom Jones shows three major parts, each six books in length.
The first third of the novel is set in the Paradise Hall of Squire Allworthy in Somersetshire. In
this part Tom Jones grows from infant foundling into a teenager who falls in love with the
beautiful daughter of Squire Western. Tom’s infancy and early years to age twenty need only
the first three books to be told; the beginning of his twenty-first year and his break with the
squire highlight the next three books.
The second third, books 7 through 12, take but weeks to complete, recounting Tom’s
adventures on the road to London. In this section, the protagonist experiences many episodic
adventures involving a diverse cast of characters that include a woman in distress, soldiers
on the march, gypsies, untrustworthy lawyers, puppeteers, women admirers of the title
character, and an impoverished robber.
The third part, books 13 through 18, is set in London, taking only days to complete. Yet the
tone is grimmer, not the comical rowdy, farcical adventures Tom has hitherto met on the road
but ugly involvements: prostitution, incest, and the like, similar to what Fielding had seen of
London himself. In the third part Tom searches for his beloved, fights a duel, has encounters
with a possessive seductress, goes to jail, gains his freedom, and reunites with his beloved.
This section ends when the principal characters return to Somersetshire.
Style
One of the novel’s innovations is the narrative persona.
Narrative point of view or narrative perspective describes the position of the narrator (the character of
the storyteller) in relation to the story being told.
In the first-person narration, the story is revealed through a narrator who is also a character within the story, so that
the narrator reveals the plot by referring to this viewpoint character with forms of "I" or, when plural, "we".
The second-person narration is less common in fiction. The narrator refers to him- or herself as 'you' in a way that
suggests alienation from the events described, or emotional/ironic distance.
The third-person narration provides the greatest flexibility to the author and thus is the most commonly used
narrative mode in literature. Every character is referred to by the narrator as "he", "she", "it", or "they", but never as "I"
or "we" (first-person), or "you" (second-person). The third-person "subjective", or limited, narrator describes one
or more character's feelings and thoughts. He may know absolutely everything about a single character and every
piece of knowledge in that character's mind, but the narrator's knowledge is "limited" to that character. The thirdperson "objective", or omniscient, narrator has knowledge of all times, people, places, and events, including all
characters' thoughts. An omniscient third-person narrator who interrupts the narrative and speaks directly to the
�Contents
readers is called obtrusive. He may use these intrusions to summarise, philosophise, moralise or guide the reader’s
interpretation of events. If the narrator does not address the reader directly he is referred to as non-obtrusive.
When telling the story, the narrator generally uses third-person omniscient point of view that
enables him to reveal the thoughts of the characters. When commenting on the story, the
narrator uses first-person point of view, sometimes in the singular and sometimes in the plural.
Text
from Tom Jones. Book 9, Chapter 3
It hath been observed, by wise men or women, I forget which, that all persons are doomed to be in love once in their
lives. No particular season is, as I remember, assigned for this; but the age at which Miss Bridget was arrived, seems
to me as proper a period as any to be fixed on for this purpose: it often, indeed, happens much earlier; but when it
doth not, I have observed it seldom or never fails about this time. Moreover, we may remark that at this season love
is of a more serious and steady nature than what sometimes shows itself in the younger parts of life. The love of girls is
uncertain, capricious, and so foolish that we cannot always discover what the young lady would be at; nay, it may
almost be doubted whether she always knows this herself.
What is the purpose of Fielding’s digressions in the book?
Do they help or obstruct the process of reading?
�Contents
Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
The greatest poet of the period who modeled himself after the great poets of classical antiquity
is Alexander Pope (1688–1744). He first attracted public attention in 1709 when he wrote
Pastorals, the bookish poems that were largely an imitation of Virgil. Still, the poems were a
success, and went from hand to hand before they were published. Pope became really famous
as the author of Essay on Criticism (1711), a brilliant poem written in rhymed couplets, in
which he sets out his principles for writing poetry. As a true classicist, Pope was more
interested in form and correctness than in imagination and feelings. He praised the ideals of
truth, reason, and polished order in poetry and prose:
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
Pope's later poems were published in The Spectator, the newspaper edited by Steele and
Addison. His most famous poem was The Rape of the Lock (1714). It concerns the quarrel
between two families caused by Lord Petre's cutting a lovelock from the head of Arabella
Fermor, Belinda in the poem. The poem is a bitter satire on the mode of life of fashionable
people of his day. The joke is in the disparity between the high style of the poem and the
triviality of the subject. The poem was published with the permission of Miss Fermor. Pope
described the matter in a mock-heroic poem. It is a playful poem full of paradoxes, witty
observations and humorous epic allusions.
Mock-heroic, mock-epic or heroic-comic works are typically satires or parodies that mock
common Classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature. Typically, mock-heroic works
either put a fool in the role of the hero or exaggerate the heroic qualities to such a point that
they become absurd.
In 1715 Pope issued the first volume of his translation in heroic couplets of Homer's Iliad. The
poem was completed in 1720. It was followed by a translation of the Odyssey.
The publication of his works gave Pope a financial independence. In 1717 Pope moved to a
villa in Twickenham, on the River Thames, west of London, where he lived till the end of his
life. The most celebrated people of the day came to see him there. He became friends with
Jonathan Swift and, together with some other leading literary figures, they formed the
Scriblerus Club to discuss topics of contemporary interest and to ridicule all false tastes in
learning.
�Contents
In Essay on Man (1733- 34) Pope revealed his philosophic ideas on the world and the man
living in it. According to Pope the universe is a smoothly running machine, set in motion by
God. The aim of man is to learn to master this machine. Man can rise high and fall very low,
but he is fundamentally good and generally attempts to perfection.
Pope's success made the heroic couplet the dominant poetic form of the century. His poems
were translated into many foreign languages, making him famous throughout the European
continent.
In the second half of the century, however, he fell out of favour, as tastes began to change and
his sophisticated poetry was considered to lack feeling. He did not appeal to readers again until
the beginning of the twentieth century, when once more his wit and technical ability found an
appreciative public.
The Augustan poet was a social being whose private feelings were considered inappropriate for
public confession. The influence of ancient Rome dominated in the first half of the eighteenth
century. Locked into well balanced forms, poets obediently produced estimable satire and
mock heroic verse. However, by the middle 1700s, it was evident that the 'conflict' between the
intellect and the emotions was coming to a climax and that the neoclassical canons were
challenged by a more personal and melancholic kind of poetry.
Text
from The Essay on Man
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little or too much;
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall:
�Contents
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
What contrasted features does Pope describe to illustrate “a middle state” in a
man?
�Contents
Reference List
Reference List
Selected Bibliography:
1. Elements of Literature, Literature of England. – Holt : Reinhart & Winston. – 1989.
2. Kenneth Broadey. Focus on English and American Literature / Kenneth Broadey, Fabio Malgaretti. – Москва :
Айрис-пресс. – 2003.
3. The Wordsworth Companion to Literature in English. – Wordsworth Edition Ltd. – 1994.
4. Denis Delaney. Fields of Vision. Literature in the English language. Volumes I, II / Denis Delaney, Ciaran Ward,
Carla Rho Fiorina. – Pearson Education Limited. Longman. – 2007.
5. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Third Edition. – Oxford University Press. – 2004.
6. English Literature. Английская литература: Сред. века – XVIII век : учебное пособие для 10-11 кл. шк. с
углубл. изучением англ. яз. / сост. В.Р. Трусова. – Москва : Просвещение. – 2002.
7. English and American Literature: A course of Lectures. Английская и американская литература : Курс
лекций для школьников старших классов и студентов. – Санкт-Петербург : КОРОНА принт. – 2002.
8. What is the English We Read. Универсальная хрестоматия текстов на английском языке / сост. Т.Н.
Шишкина, Т.В. Леденева, М.А. Юрченко. – Москва : Проспект. – 2006.
9. Тумбина, О.В. Lectures on English Literature. Лекции по английской литературе V–XX веков /
О.В. Тумбина. – Санкт-Петербург : КАРО. – 2003.
10. Teachers & Students’ Guide to the British Literature : методическое пособие по истории британской
литературы для учителей и учащихся / сост. Н.Н. Часовая. – Москва : Айрис-пресс. – 2002.
11. Guide to English and American Literature : учебное пособие по английской и американской литературе /
сост. О.В. Зубанова. – Москва : Менеджер. – 2004.
Internet Resources:
1. Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://
www.luminarium.org
2. About.com. Classic Literature. A History of English Literature by Robert Huntington Fletcher [Электронный
ресурс]. – Режим доступа:
3. http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/rfletcher/bl-rfletcher-history-table.htm
4. A brief history of English literature [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа:
http://
www.universalteacher.org.uk/lit/history.htm
5. History World. HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://
historyworld.net/wrldhis/plaintexthistories.asp?historyid=aa08
6. Literarism. The Republic of Letters. English literature [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://
literarism.blogspot.ru
7. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://en.wikipedia.org
8. Wikisource, the free library [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://en.wikisource.org
9. Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://en.academic.ru
10. Bartleby.com: Great Books Online [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://bartleby.com
�Contents
11. Encyclopedia.com. Free Online Encyclopedia [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа:
http://
www.encyclopedia.com
12. Internet Encyclopedia of Philisophy [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://www.iep.utm.edu
13. GradeSaver. Study Guide and essay Editing [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://
www.gradesaver.com
14. Dictionary.com [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://dictionary.reference.com
15. Study Guides, Lesson Plans, Homework Help, Answers & More [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа:
http://www.enotes.com
16. Free Essays, Term Paper, Research Paper, and Book Report [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа:
http://www.123helpme.com
17. Answers. The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life’s Questions [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа:
http://www.answers.com
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Шевченко, Людмила Леонидовна
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
History of English Literature (from Anglo-Saxons to the Age of Reason)
Subject
The topic of the resource
1. Литературоведение. 2. Литература Европы — Англия — 5 в. — 6 в. — 7 в. — 8 в. — 9 в. — 10 в. — 11 в. — 12 в. — 13 в. — 14 в. — 15 в. — 16 в. — 17 в. — 18 в. 3. Языкознание. 4. Германские языки. 5. английская литература. 6. история литературы. 7. литературные жанры. 8. литературные тексты. 9. комментарии. 10. анализ художественного текста. 11. английский язык. 12. английские писатели.
Description
An account of the resource
History of English Literature (from Anglo-Saxons to the Age of Reason) [Электронный ресурс] : [учебное пособие] / Л. Л. Шевченко ; Алтайский государственный педагогический университет. — 1 компьютерный файл (pdf; 28.2 MB). — Барнаул : АлтГПУ, 2015. — 198 с.
Учебное пособие предлагает материал для подготовки и проведения практических занятий по дисциплине «История литературы страны изучаемого языка». В нем представлен теоретический материал, охватывающий основные периоды английской литературы с V по XVIII век и включающий сведения о направлениях в развитии литературных жанров, авторах и их произведениях. Тексты произведений сопровождаются комментариями, вопросами и практическими заданиями, направленными на формирование у студентов навыков интерпретации и анализа художественного текста. В пособии даются определения изучаемых литературоведческих, культурологических и философских понятий, а также дополнительные сведения о персоналиях и событиях изучаемых эпох, которые позволят студентам расширить их кругозор. Материал данного учебного пособия ориентирован на студентов факультетов иностранных языков, а также студентов филологических факультетов, изучающих английский язык по углубленной программе.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Шевченко, Людмила Леонидовна
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Алтайский государственный педагогический университет, 2015
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Алтайский государственный педагогический университет
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
03.12.2015
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
©Алтайский государственный педагогический университет, 2015
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf, exe
Language
A language of the resource
русский
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Учебное пособие
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
<a href="http://library.altspu.ru/dc/exe/shevchenko.exe">http://library.altspu.ru/dc/exe/shevchenko.exe</a><br /><a href="http://library.altspu.ru/dc/pdf/shevchenko.pdf">http://library.altspu.ru/dc/pdf/shevchenko.pdf</a>
английская литература
английские писатели
английский язык
Англия
Германские языки
история литературы
комментарии10анализ художественного текста
Литература Европы
литературные жанры
литературные тексты
Литературоведение
Языкознание
-
http://books.altspu.ru/files/original/38/61/_[650].png
5f8fd0276d21899b1c94a0a4b8170c91
http://books.altspu.ru/files/original/38/61/shevchenko1.1.pdf
0028a9608566a8b8703e58320c32e55e
PDF Text
Text
Content
�Content
Об издании
Основной титульный экран
Дополнительный титульный экран непериодического издания – 1
Дополнительный титульный экран непериодического издания – 2
�Content
Министерство образования и науки Российской Федерации
Федеральное государственное бюджетное образовательное учреждение
высшего образования
«Алтайский государственный педагогический университет»
Л.Л. Шевченко
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
(FROM ROMANTICISM TO MODERN PERIOD)
Учебное пособие
Барнаул
ФГБОУ ВО "АлтГПУ"
2016
Об издании - 1, 2, 3.
ISBN 978–5–88210–828–0
�Content
УДК 821.111(091)(075)
ББК 83.3(4Вел)я73
Ш379
Шевченко, Л.Л.
History of English Literature (from Romanticism to Modern Period) [Электронный
ресурс] : учебное пособие / Л.Л. Шевченко. – Барнаул : АлтГПУ, 2016. – Систем.
требования: PC не ниже класса Intel Celeron 2 ГГц ; 512 Мb RAM ; Windows XP/
Vista/7/8/10 ; Adobe Acrobat Reader ; SVGA монитор с разрешением 1024х768 ; мышь.
ISBN 978–5–88210–828–0
Рецензенты:
Добричев С.А., доктор филологических наук, профессор (АлтГПУ);
Илинская А.С., кандидат филологических наук, доцент (АлтГТУ им. И.И. Ползунова)
Учебное пособие предлагает материал для подготовки и проведения практических
занятий по дисциплине «История литературы страны изучаемого языка». В нем
представлен теоретический материал, охватывающий основные периоды английской
литературы с конца 18 века по 20 век и включающий сведения о направлениях в
развитии литературных жанров, авторах и их произведениях. В пособие включены
тексты произведений, которые
сопровождаются комментариями, вопросами и
практическими заданиями, направленными на формирование у студентов навыков
интерпретации и анализа художественного текста. В пособии даются определения
изучаемых литературоведческих, культурологических и философских понятий, а также
дополнительные сведения о персоналиях и событиях изучаемых эпох, которые
позволят студентам расширить их кругозор.
Материал данного учебного пособия может быть использован студентами при
подготовке к экзамену по изучаемой дисциплине.
Рекомендовано к изданию редакционно-издательским советом АлтГПУ 26.05.2016 г.
Текстовое (символьное) электронное издание.
Системные требования:
PC не ниже класса Intel Celeron 2 ГГц ; 512 Мb RAM ; Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10 ; Adobe
Acrobat Reader ; SVGA монитор с разрешением 1024х768 ; мышь.
Об издании - 1, 2, 3.
�Content
Электронное издание создано при использовании программного обеспечения Sunrav
BookOffice.
Объём издания - 31 912 КБ.
Дата подписания к использованию: 30.05.2016
Федеральное государственное бюджетное образовательное учреждение высшего
образования «Алтайский государственный педагогический университет» (ФГБОУ ВО
«АлтГПУ»)
ул. Молодежная, 55, г. Барнаул, 656031
Тел. (385-2) 36-82-71, факс (385-2) 24-18-72
е-mail: rector@altspu.ru, http://www.altspu.ru
Об издании - 1, 2, 3.
�Content
Introduction
There are as many reasons to study literature as there are to study man. Alongside with other
forms of art literature participates in the mighty task of rendering people’s lives, minds and
hearts. Human experience contained in the works of literature is a vast continuum of
information from which we can benefit in various ways. We read books for educational
purposes, intellectual training, escape and enjoyment. We also read books because they can
help us better understand what we are.
For centuries people have accumulated and verified knowledge of man, the best works of
literature being the quintessence of all intellectual and spiritual achievements of their time.
Studying History of Literature we can observe culture in progress. Referring every single
literary work to a particular epoch we can interpret its message in a broader context of human
evolution. We can observe the development of literary forms against the historical, social,
ideological, religious and all other kinds of changes.
This book was designed to highlight a complex approach to the study of history of English
literature that would give students of each literary epoch and encourage their appreciation. It
covers the 2nd half of the curriculum and offers an overview of the English literature from the
end of the 18th century till the end of the 20th century.
The periods of English literature are presented chronologically. The general framework of each
section follows a similar pattern. It includes an outline of historical and literary context,
information on authors’ life and work, texts for critical analysis, questions and tasks.
The material of the book is supplied with encyclopedic entries that provide interdisciplinary
link to other fields of study. This information is introduced in the four main categories: literary
terms, philosophy, religion and general knowledge, that embraces a wide range of subjects and
is less specified. These categories are marked by symbolic pictures.
Texts are followed by activities designed with many approaches in mind: stylistic analysis,
interpretation, creative thinking and writing. They allow students to examine the way writers
shape their thoughts and give them an opportunity to experiment with some of the techniques.
Some questions and assignments project to broader literary and cultural contexts and offer an
extension activity in which students can share their responses to the issues and themes raised
by the literary works. The focus of questions and tasks is also enhanced graphically.
�Content
This book aims to provide a general manual of English Literature with the emphasis on a
cross-curricular link. It presents the information in multiple perspectives showing how History
of Literature overlaps with many other fields of study. The knowledge of historical,
philosophic, religious and other cultural facts enriches students’ competence. This background
knowledge provides them with a deeper understanding of literary epochs, and consequently
gives them more satisfaction from reading, analyzing and discussing literature.
�Content
Content
Introduction
Pre-Romanticism in English Literature
Graveyard School of Poetry
Robert Burns
Gothic Novels
English Romanticism
Historical Context
Cultural Context
English Romantic Poetry
William Blake
William Wordsworth
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
George Gordon Lord Byron
Percy Bysshe Shelley
John Keats
English Prose in the Romantic Period
Walter Scott
Jane Austen
Mary Shelley
English Literature in the Victorian Period
Historical and Social Context
Literary Context
Charles Dickens
Bronte Sisters
George Eliot
Thomas Hardy
Oscar Wilde
Alfred Tennyson
Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
English Literature in the First Half of the 20th Century
Historical Context
Cultural Context
Literary Context
Henry James
Virginia Woolf
James Joyce
David Herbert Lawrence
Aldous Huxley
�Content
George Orwell
Thomas Stearns Eliot
George Bernard Shaw
English Literature in the Second Half of the 20th Century
Historical Context
Development of Fiction
Development of Poetry
Development of Drama
Reference List
�Content
Pre-Romanticism in English Literature
The upheaval in English literature at the turn of the 19th century should not be viewed as a
sudden explosion, but rather as the culmination of a process which began during the Age of
Sensibility in the middle of the 18th century. The novels of Samuel Richardson with their
sentimentalism and a fashionable vogue for the Gothic were the early indication of a shift in
taste. The expression of feelings and emotions was no longer inappropriate.
A significant number of poets started to reject the rational rules and artificial conventions of
neo-classical verse. There was the so-called Graveyard School of Poetry that suggested a
greater concern with individual feeling and emotions.
New sources of inspiration were found in the mysterious pagan traditions of Nordic and Celtic
culture, and there was a great interest in the Middle Ages.
The success of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect by Robert Burns (1759–1796) was yet
another indication of how literary taste was changing. Written mostly in simple Ayrshire dialect,
these beautiful lyrics followed the oral tradition and represented a challenge to the established
norm.
�Content
Graveyard School of Poetry
Thomas Parnell (1679– 1718), Edward Young (1683– 1765), James Thomson
(1700– 1748), Thomas Gray (1716– 1771), the representatives of the so-called Graveyard
School of Poetry, wrote a kind of meditative poetry describing moral reflections on human
condition.
In the case of the Graveyard School of Poetry, the focus shifted from the neoclassical
didacticism to the expression of the poet’s own emotions. Also as a reaction against the
Augustan principle of decorum and the rational approach to subjects, a number of poets
started writing a type of sentimental, melancholic and personal poetry with the emphasis on
brevity of life. The poets combined description with meditation on human existence and
attempted to correlate in the literary texts emotionalism with philosophy.
Edward Young is considered the most representative poet of the Graveyard School. His poem
Night Thoughts (1742–1745) is an enormous work in blank verse, about 10 000 lines long.
The full title of the poem is The Complaint: or Night-Thoughts on Life, Death & Immortality.
It describes the poet’s reflections on death over a series of nine "nights" in which he ponders
the loss of his wife and friends, and human frailties in general. The best-known line in the
poem is the axiom "procrastination is the thief of time", which is part of a passage in which the
poet discusses how quickly life and opportunities can slip away. "Night Thoughts" had a very
high reputation for many years after its publication, but is now best known for the fact that
William Blake (1757–1827) made a series if illustrations for it.
�Content
Text
From Night Thoughts, Night I.
BE wise to-day; ’t is madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
5
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That ’t is so frequent, this is stranger still.
Of man’s miraculous mistakes this bears
10
The palm, "That all men are about to live,"
Forever on the brink of being born.
All pay themselves the compliment to think
They one day shall not drivel: and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;
15
At least, their own; their future selves applaud:
How excellent that life they ne’er will lead!
Read the extract from the poem and speak about its message.
Comment on lines 11-12.
Is this the first time you come upon the idea of evanescence of human life?
Remember other poems, stories, films, in which the same idea was expressed.
Another leading figure among the poets of pre-romanticism was Thomas Gray, whose most
famous poem is Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751). The poem presents a
meditation on death and remembrance after death. The narrator finds comfort in contemplating
the lives of the obscure country men buried in the churchyard.
Text
From Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea;
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
�Content
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
Перевод В.А. Жуковского
Уже бледнеет день, скрываясь за горою;
Шумящие стада толпятся над рекой;
Усталый селянин медлительной стопою
Идет, задумавшись, в шалаш спокойный свой,
В туманном сумраке окрестность исчезает...
Повсюду тишина; повсюду мертвый сон;
Лишь изредка, жужжа, вечерний жук мелькает,
Лишь слышится вдали рогов унылый звон.
Лишь дикая сова, таясь под древним сводом
Той башни, сетует, внимаема луной,
На возмутившего полуночным приходом
Ее безмолвного владычества покой.
Под кровом черных сосн и вязов наклоненных,
Которые окрест, развесившись, стоят,
Здесь праотцы села, в гробах уединенных
Навеки затворясь, сном непробудным спят.
�Content
Robert Burns
Robert Burns (1759–1796) is also known as Bobbie Burns, Rabbie Burns, Scotland's Favorite
Son, the Ploughman Poet, the Heaven-Taught Ploughman, and the Bard of Ayrshire. In
Scotland he has no possible rivals for the title of Scotland's national poet.
Burns Night, a second national day (after St. Andrew’s Day) in Scotland, is
celebrated on Burns's birthday, 25 January, with Burns suppers around the
world.
He wrote in three languages: Scots, English and the Scots-English dialect for which he is best
known today. Burns collected Folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting
them. His poem and song, Auld Lang Syne is often sung at Hogmanay.
Hogmanay [ˌhɔɡməˈneː] is the Scots word for the last day of the year and is
synonymous with the celebration of the New Year.
Other poems and songs that remain well-known today, include A Red, Red
Rose, A Man's A Man for A' That, To a Louse, To a Mouse, The Battle of Sherramuir, and Ae
Fond Kiss.
His themes included republicanism and Radicalism, Scottish patriotism, anticlericalism, class
inequalities, gender roles, Scottish cultural identity, poverty, sexuality, and the beneficial
aspects of popular socialising (carousing, Scotch whisky, folk songs).
Burns is generally regarded as a pre-Romantic poet, who influenced William Wordsworth,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Percy Bysshe Shelley greatly. He also became a source of
inspiration to the founders of democratic, liberal and socialist movements around the world.
Robert Burns was born in Alloway, South Ayrshire. The eldest of the seven children of William
Burness (1721–1784) Robert Burns spelled his surname Burness until 1786. He grew up in
poverty and hardship, and the severe manual labour on the farm left its traces in a premature
stoop and a weakened constitution.
Burns’s first collection of verse, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786), created a
sensation and was recognized as a significant literary event. The success of the work was
immediate, and soon Robert Burns was known across the country.
In Edinburgh he was received as an equal by the city's brilliant men of letters and was recieved
at aristocratic gatherings. Here he encountered, and made a lasting impression on the
16-year-old Walter Scott (1771–1832): "His person was strong and robust; his manners rustic,
not clownish, a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity which received part of its effect
perhaps from knowledge of his extraordinary talents."
In Edinburgh in early 1787 Burns met James Johnson, a historian and engraver with a love of
�Content
old Scots songs and a determination to preserve them. Burns shared this interest and became
an enthusiastic contributor to The Scots Musical Museum, the collection of Scottish
folksongs and music, which eventually ran to six volumes. The collection included the
world-famous Auld Lang Syne (Old Times Past) and the poem A Red, Red rose.
Fame did not bring a reliable income to Burns. The farming continued to prove unsuccessful
and Burns eventually gave it up to become a tax collector.
As his health began to weaken, Burns began to age prematurely and fell into fits of
despondency. The habits of intemperance are said to have aggravated his long-standing
possible rheumatic heart condition. In fact, his death was caused by an infection reaching his
blood after a dental extraction in winter 1795. The funeral took place on 25 July 1796, the day
his son Maxwell was born. A memorial edition of his poems was published to raise money for
his wife and children, and within a short time of his death, money started pouring in from all
over Scotland to support them.
Text
Ae Fond Kiss
Расставание перевод С. Маршака
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae farewell, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee!
Поцелуй – и до могилы
Мы простимся, друг мой милый.
Ропот сердца отовсюду
Посылать к тебе я буду.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me,
Dark despair around benights me.
В ком надежды искра тлеет,
На судьбу роптать не смеет.
Но ни зги передо мною.
Окружен я тьмой ночною.
I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy;
Naething could resist my Nancy;
But to see her was to love her,
Love but her, and love for ever.
Не кляну своей я страсти.
Кто твоей не сдастся власти?
Кто видал тебя, тот любит,
Кто полюбит, не разлюбит.
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met--or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.
Не любить бы нам так нежно,
Безрассудно, безнадежно,
Не сходиться, не прощаться,
Нам бы с горем не встречаться!
Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!
Будь же ты благословенна,
Друг мой первый, друг бесценный.
Да сияет над тобою
Солнце счастья и покоя.
�Content
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae farewell, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee!
Поцелуй – и до могилы
Мы простимся, друг мой милый.
Ропот сердца отовсюду
Посылать к тебе я буду.
Read the poem and find the features of the medieval ballad in it.
Compare the mood of the poem Ae Fond Kiss with that of The Parting Kiss.
How does the author describe the parting of lovers in the first and the second
poem?
The Parting Kiss
Поцелуй перевод С. Маршака
Humid seal of soft affections,
Tenderest pledge of future bliss,
Dearest tie of young connections,
Love's first snowdrop, virgin kiss!
Влажная печать признаний,
Обещанье тайных нег –
Поцелуй, подснежник ранний,
Свежий, чистый, точно снег.
Speaking silence, dumb confession,
Passion's birth, and infant's play,
Dove-like fondness, chaste concession,
Glowing dawn of future day!
Молчаливая уступка,
Страсти детская игра,
Дружба голубя с голубкой,
Счастья первая пора.
Sorrowing joy, Adieu's last action,
(Lingering lips must now disjoin),
What words can ever speak affection
So thrilling and sincere as thine!
Радость в грустном расставанье
И вопрос: когда ж опять?..
Где слова, чтобы названье
Этим чувствам отыскать?
Link
Poems by Burns inspired the titles of two classic novels: John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men
and J .D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.
Coming Thro’the Rye
Пробираясь до калитки
перевод С. Маршака
O, Jenny's a' weet, poor body,
Jenny's seldom dry:
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!
Пробираясь до калитки
Полем вдоль межи,
Дженни вымокла до нитки
Вечером во ржи.
�Content
Comin thro' the rye, poor body,
Comin thro' the rye,
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!
Очень холодно девчонке,
Бьет девчонку дрожь:
Замочила все юбчонки,
Идя через рожь.
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?
Если кто-то звал кого-то
Сквозь густую рожь
И кого-то обнял кто-то,
Что с него возьмешь?
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the glen
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the warl' ken?
И какая, нам забота,
Если у межи
Целовался с кем-то кто-то
Вечером во ржи!...
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the grain;
Gin a body kiss a body,
The thing's a body's ain.
Ilka lassie has her laddie,
Nane, they say, ha’e I
Yet all the lads they smile on me,
When comin' thro' the rye.
To A Mouse
Полевой мыши, гнездо
On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The разорено моим плугом
Plough
перевод С. Маршака
которой
Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I was be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
Зверек проворный, юркий, гладкий,
Куда бежишь ты без оглядки,
Зачем дрожишь, как в лихорадке,
За жизнь свою?
Не трусь – тебя своей лопаткой
Я не убью.
I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion
An' fellow-mortal!
Я понимаю и не спорю,
Что человек с природой в ссоре,
И всем живым несет он горе,
Внушает страх,
Хоть все мы смертные и вскоре
Вернемся в прах.
�Content
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
And never miss't!
Пусть говорят: ты жнешь, не сея.
Но я винить тебя не смею.
Ведь надо жить!.. И ты скромнее,
Чем все, крадешь.
А я ничуть не обеднею –
Была бы рожь!
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!
Тебя оставил я без крова
Порой ненастной и суровой,
Когда уж не из чего снова
Построить дом,
Чтобы от ветра ледяного
Укрыться в нем...
Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.
Все голо, все мертво вокруг.
Пустынно поле, скошен луг.
И ты убежище от вьюг
Найти мечтал,
Когда вломился тяжкий плуг
К тебе в подвал.
That wee bit heap o' leaves an stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!
Травы, листвы увядшей ком Вот чем он стал, твой теплый дом,
Тобой построенный с трудом.
А дни идут...
Где ты в полях, покрытых льдом,
Найдешь приют?
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
Ах, милый, ты не одинок:
И нас обманывает рок,
И рушится сквозь потолок
На нас нужда.
Мы счастья ждем, а на порог
Валит беда...
Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I cannot see,
I guess an' fear!
Но ты, дружок, счастливей нас...
Ты видишь то, что есть сейчас.
А мы не сводим скорбных глаз
С былых невзгод
И в тайном страхе каждый раз
Глядим вперед.
�Content
Gothic Novels
th
The Gothic Novel emerged in the literary context of the middle 18 century. The word
"Gothic" was used to describe novels dealing with macabre or mysterious events in a medieval
setting. This type of fiction is characterized by horror, violence, supernatural effects, and
medieval elements, representing the atmosphere of terror found in graveyards. Usually the story
is set against the background of gothic architecture, especially gloomy, isolated and haunted
castles, with mysterious underground passages and trapdoors. It may include insanity, often in
the form of a mad relative kept locked in a room in the castle, as well as ghosts and spirits.
In 1764 Horace Walpole (1717– 1797) published The Castle of Otranto. The book created a
sensation and paved the way for many other writers – Clara Reeve (1729– 1807) with The
Old English Baron, (1777), Mathew Gregory Lewis (1775– 1818) with The Monk (1796),
Ann Radcliffe (1764– 1823) with The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) – who explored the
mysterious and terrible, and discussed the topics of death, creation and destruction, darkness,
horror, madness, terror, evil and sometimes weird sexuality.
Horace Walpole’s novel was so full of fantastic elements (caves, animate statues, ghosts,
appearances and disappearances) that the author was afraid of ridicule on publication and
decided to publish it anonymously and pretend that the novel was a translation of a
16th-century Italian manuscript.
Content
Manfred is the lord of the castle of Otranto, whose sickly son Conrad is going to marry
princess Isabella. As the ceremony is due to begin, Conrad is crushed to death by a gigantic
helmet, which echoes the eerie prophecy that t"he castle and lordship of Otranto should pass
from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it".
As Conrad was Manfred’s only son, the family name is in danger. With no heir, Manfred
desperately claims that he will divorce his wife, Hippolita, and marry Isabella himself.
Terrified, Isabella flees from the castle to the neighbouring church through an underground
passage, where she is aided by a peasant named Theodore.
When Manfred discovers Theodore’s role in the escape, he imprisons the young man in the
tower, where Manfred’s daughter, Matilda, comes to rescue him. Isabella runs away from
the church, Manfred and this army of knights race after her. Theodore also goes in search of
Isabella, and finds her hidden in a cave, and when their safety becomes threatened by a
knight, he seriously wounds him, only to discover that it is actually Isabella’s father.
Distraught about her father’s injury, Isabella returns to the castle with him and Theodore
retreats to the church. Manfred has the idea of a double wedding: he and Isabella, and
Isabella’s father, Frederic, and Matilda. The two fathers consent to this idea, but Manfred is
convinced that Isabella is secretly meeting Theodore. He goes to the church armed with a
knife and stabs the woman he sees talking with Theodore, only to discover that it is his own
�Content
daughter, Matilda.
Manfred repents and Theodore’s true lineage is revealed, making him the true Prince of
Otranto. Matilda dies and pleads that Theodore and Isabella should be united, meanwhile
Manfred leaves the castle in disgrace and Theodore takes over the title.
This novel already suggests a number of typical to the Gothic fiction components: bad
weather, dark and cold forests, ancient, dark castles full of closed halls, secret passages,
corridors and doors, frightening apparitions, virtuous and pure ladies, wicked tyrants desperate
for fertile women.
The Castle of Otranto, as Walpole himself declared, was written to divert fiction from the
domesticity of the realistic concern, to transport it from the sphere of close observation to that
of free invention, from the interest in the present to that in the past, from the world of
experience to that of the mysterious and the supernatural.
The Gothic fictional form drew many of its intense images from the graveyard poets,
intermingling an eccentric setting and a forlorn melancholic character. The development of the
Gothic Novel had a profound impact on the emergent Romantic literature. Modern critics have
indeed come to consider Gothic fiction as one phase of the Romantic Movement in the English
literature.
�Content
English Romanticism
Historical Context
Cultural Context
�Content
Historical Context
The second half of the 18th century witnessed the rise of political, economic and social forces
that produced some of the most radical changes ever known in history. The age of revolution
began in America and swept across Western Europe. The thirteen American colonies broke
from the British Empire and formed the independent nation, the United States of America.
The American Revolution was a political upheaval that started in 1765 as
the Americans rejected the authority of Parliament to tax them without elected
representation. The protests culminated in the Boston Tea Party of 1773,
when the entire supply of tea sent by the East India Company was destroyed
by the demonstrators in Boston Harbor. In 1774 the Patriots suppressed the
Loyalists and expelled all royal officials. Each colony now had a new government that took
control. The British responded by sending combat troops to re-establish royal control.
Through the Second Continental Congress (a convention of delegates from the 13 colonies
that started meeting in the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) the Thirteen
Colonies fought the British in the American Revolutionary War, or the American War of
Independence, 1775–83. As a result European powers recognized the independence of the
United States.
The French Revolution started on July 14, 1789, with the storming of the Bastille.
The Bastille was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille
Saint-Antoine. It was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was
stormed by a crowd on 14 July 1789 in the French Revolution, becoming an
important symbol for the French Republican movement, and was later
demolished and replaced by the Place de la Bastille (a square in Paris)
It was a mass uprising against the absolute power of the king and the privileges of the upper
classes. The rebellion was carried out in the name of liberty, equality and fraternity. In reality
it led to the loss of liberty, dictatorship and nationalism. To crush the resistance to the new
order thousands of people were executed. France was governed under a dozen of different
constitutions as a republic, a dictatorship, a constitutional monarchy, and two different
empires. Subsequent events caused by the revolution included the Napoleonic wars and the
restoration of the monarchy.
Britain waged the war against Napoleon. Napoleon’s navy was defeated by England at the
Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. In 1815 Napoleon’s armies were beaten by British forces at
Waterloo, Belgium.
Many changes in the English life were caused by the Industrial Revolution.
By 1800 Britain was the most industrialised country in the world. Various factors contributed
to this success: cheap raw materials were brought from the colonies; the Bank of England
started to operate around the country; the transport system was developed; coal provided a
cheap source of energy. Factories sprang up all over the country. Different cities specialised in
certain goods - Manchester produced cotton, Sheffield concentrated on steel cutlery and
�Content
Birmingham became the centre of light engineering.
The cities became overcrowded. Despite the economic improvements most people continued
to live and work in dreadful conditions. The majority of workers, including women and
children, slaved for long hours on miserable pay. They lived in overcrowded slums where
sanitation was poor or non-existent. Diseases and epidemics became a common feature of
everyday life.
The social and economic difficulties were neglected by the government. Those who were
troubled by the exploitation of workers and the degradation of the cities sympathized with the
ideals of the American and French Revolutions. They oftern supported the workers’ protests.
From 1811 to 1817, textile artisans came together to destroy the machines which were
threatening their livelihood in what were known as the ‘Luddite’ riots.
An agricultural variant of Luddism, centering on the breaking of threshing machines, occurred
during the widespread Swing Riots of 1830 in southern and eastern England.
Although the origin of the name Luddite (
is uncertain, a popular
theory is that the movement was named after Ned Ludd, a youth who
allegedly smashed two stocking frames in 1779, and whose name had
become emblematic of machine destroyers. The name evolved into the
imaginary General Ludd or King Ludd, a figure who, like Robin Hood, was
reputed to live in Sherwood Forest.
A high point in the protest movement was a demonstration at St Peter's Field, Manchester,
1819, against the rise in the price of bread, caused by a ban on the import of foreign corn.
Eleven people were killed by the army in what is now known as the Peterloo Massacre (or the
Battle of Peterloo to rhyme with 'Waterloo').
The ruling classes of England were afraid that the revolution would spread across the Channel.
Any attempts on the part of the poor to protest were suppressed by repressive measures. The
army had sometimes to be called in to keep law and order. Usually the protests took the form
of ‘mob’ violence and were never sufficiently well organized to present a real threat. The
conservatives in England felt they had saved their country from chaos, and the supporters of
the Revolution felt betrayed and disappointed.
�Content
Cultural Context
Revolutions represented a challenge to the 18th century political, social, religious, philosophical
and artistic ideals that were no longer considered adequate. The balance and symmetry of the
early 18th century society was in danger of collapsing under the weight of new ideas about man
and nature, freedom and democracy, art and literature.
By the end of the century, many poets and artists had started reacting against the suppression
of human nature. They refused to treat man as a "social animal" and believed in the importance
of the individual and his creative potential. These artists were called Romantics.
The word "romantic" comes from the French word "roman", the name for
medieval tales written in Romanic (Venacular French) dialect. The term was
initially used in the middle of the 17th century in a derogatory way to mean
"exaggerated, unconvincing". Later, it took on a positive meaning and
described the expression of personal feelings and emotions.
Romanticism was a European cultural movement which involved writers, artists and
philosophers in Germany, France, Italy and England.
In France, Rousseau called into question the influence of civilization upon man and placed
man’s emotional capacities over "reason".
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer,
composer, and one of the main architects of the Romantic movement in
Europe. He argued that private property was the start of civilization,
inequality, murders and wars. A central theme in his work is the belief that
society ruins man and that happiness is to be found by living in a simple way
without the trappings of civilization.
German philosophers gave a new importance to the imaginative power of the individual human
mind. The mind, or "ego", was seen to be the actual creator of the world it perceived.
The theories of German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)
questioned the validity of scientific empiricism. In 1781 he published his
Critique of Pure Reason, in which he attempted to determine what we can
and cannot know through the use of reason independent of all experience.
Briefly, he came to the conclusion that we could come to know an external
world through experience, but our knowledge about it was limited by the limited terms in which
the mind can think: if we can only comprehend things in terms of cause and effect, then we can
only know causes and effects. It follows from this that we can never know the world from the
"standpoint of nowhere" and therefore we can never know the world in its entirety, neither via
reason nor experience.
Since the publication of his Critique, Immanuel Kant has been considered one of the greatest
influences in all of western philosophy. In the late 18th and early 19th century, one direct line of
influence from Kant is German Idealism.
�Content
German idealism is the name of a movement in German philosophy that began in the 1780s and
lasted until the 1840s. Kant’s transcendental idealism was a modest philosophical doctrine
about the difference between appearances and things in themselves, which claimed that the
objects of human cognition are appearances and not things in themselves. Fichte (1762–1814),
Schelling (1775–1854), and Hegel (1770–1831) radicalized this view, transforming Kant’s
transcendental idealism into absolute idealism, which holds that things in themselves are a
contradiction in terms, because a thing must be an object of our consciousness if it is to be an
object at all.
English writers kept pace with the shifts in philosophical mood. In the beginning of the 19th
century the spirit of intellectual rebellion continued to persist in the literary works. The most
significant changes took place in the field of poetry.
�Content
English Romantic Poetry
English Romantic poets rebelled against the accepted conventions of the Neo-classical
literature of the first half of the 18th century. Although some of the Romantics adapted the
classical forms (for example, ode) and included the elements of Greek mythology in their
works, they rejected the idea of imitation as too restrictive of creative imagination.
�Content
Ode is an elaborately structured poem praising or glorifying an event or
individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. There are
two distinctive features of the ode: it uses heightened, impassioned language;
and addresses some object. The ode may speak to objects (an urn),
creatures (a skylark, a nightingale), and presences or powers (beauty,
autumn, the west wind). The speaker first invokes the object and then creates a relationship
with it, either through praise or prayer.
Unlike the early 18th century authors, who looked outwards to society for general truths to
communicate to common readers, Romantic writers looked inwards to their soul and
imagination to find private truths for special readers.
The poet was considered to be a supremely individual creator, who gave freedom to his
creative spirit. In 1759 Edward Young published Conjectures on Original Composition, where
he introduced the idea of organic, as opposed to mechanical, nature of composition.
Coleridge wrote: "An original may be said to be of a vegetable nature; it rises spontaneously
from the vital root of genius; it grows, it is not made; Imitations are often a sort of
manufacture, wrought up by those mechanics, art and labour, out of pre-existent materials,
not their own."Keats wrote: "If poetry comes not as naturally as leaves to a tree, it had better
not come at all".
The idea of poetry as a series of strictly defined rules diminished the figure of a poet to a
skilled craftsman. In the beginning of the 19th century it was rejected in favour of the idea that
creative process is regulated by the laws of its own nature.
In 1798 William Wordsworth (1770– 1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772– 1834)
published the Lyrical Ballads . The book became a landmark in English literature, indicating
the beginning of a new era. The preface, written by Wordsworth for the second edition (1800),
is often considered to be a manifesto for the Romantic movement. In it Wordsworth stated
that:
the poet's imagination can reveal the inner truth of ordinary things, to which the mind is
habitually blind;
•
poetry is not simply the unrestrained, spontaneous expression of emotions. It takes its
origin "from emotion recollected in tranquility". The initial emotion is recalled and reproduced in
the poet's mind, and when it has been processed through thought, the creative act of
composing begins;
•
the poet is "a man speaking to men"; he uses his special gift to show other men the essence
of things.
•
The six of the most important Romantic poets were William Blake, William Wordsworth,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John
Keats.
�Content
Although many of these poets were conscious of a new "spirit of the age", they didn’t refer
themselves to a movement as a unity of purpose and aim. Only towards the middle of the 19th
century they were conveniently grouped together under the term "Romantic" on the basis of
some common features: imagination, individualism, irrationalism, childhood, escapism,
nature, etc.
Romantic poets attached much importance to the role of the imagination in the creative
processes. They believed the imagination was an ability of the mind to apprehend a kind of
truth and reality which lay beyond sensory impressions, reason and rational intellect. The
imagination is an almost divine activity through which a poet gets the access to the supernatural
order of things. He recreates and reinterprets the world becoming a prophet to all men.
This new, subjective vision of reality went hand in hand with a much stronger emphasis on
individual thought and feeling. Poetry became more introspective and meditative.
Autobiographical element and first person point of view, which for many years had been
unpopular, became very common and most appropriate fot the expression of emotions and
feelings.
Some of the Romantics lived in isolation and believed that poetry should be created in solitude.
In this they anticipated the idea of the artist as a non-conformist. This feeling of alienation later
was shared by many writers of the modernist age.
Together with the new emphasis on imagination, Romantic poets turned their attention to the
irrational aspects of human life – the subconscious, the mysterious and the supernatural. As
a result poetry became more symbolic and metaphorical.
Childhood provided another source of interest. Some poets celebrated an uncorrupted,
instinctive, or childlike, view of the world. In its innocence untouched by civilisation, this view
gave a freshness and clarity of vision which the poet himself aspired to.
Some poets felt themselves attracted to the exotic. Distant times and places became a sort of
refuge from the unpleasant reality. The Middle Ages in particular served as a source of
inspiration in both form (ballad, for example, became a popular verse form once again) and
subject matter.
Nature provided another stimulus for imagination and creativity. It reflected a poet’s moods
and thoughts. It was interpreted as the real home of man, a beneficial source of comfort and
morality, the embodiment of the life force, the expression of God’s presence in the universe.
The Romantic poets are traditionally grouped into two generations. The poets of the first
generation, William Blake, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, were greatly
influenced by the French Revolution, which physically represented a deliverance from the
restrictive patterns of the past.
Poets of the second generation lived through the disillusionment of the post-revolutionary
period. George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats, all had intense but short
lives.
�Content
William Blake
William Blake (1757–1827) was born on November 28, 1757, in the family of a London
haberdasher. He received little formal education and spent his youth as an apprentice to a
famous engraver. At the age of twenty-four he married the illegitimate daughter of a market
gardener, Catherine Boucher, whom he taught to read, write and help with his engravings. The
couple remained childless.
Blake stayed a religious, political, and artistic radical throughout his life. He protested against
the rationalist philosophy of the 18th century and its restrictive influence on man’s life and
work. In his childhood he professed to have seen God’s head at his window and a tree filled
with angels. During his mature artistic life he claimed to have had conversations with the Virgin
Mary and the Archangel Gabriel. These visions preditermined his strong belief in the vital role
of imagination in his life and works. Blake insisted that he had been granted visions by God.
As an artist he transformed those visions into special designs which combined picture and
word.
Blake transferred the written text of a poem to an etched copper plate, accompanying it with
appropriate illustration or decoration. When printed, the page was elaborately hand-coloured
or, in some cases, actually printed in colour by a unique method of illuminated printing
invented by Blake himself.
To make a living Blake taught drawing and illustrated books. A one-man show of his poems
and drawings in 1809 was a failure. The Examiner magazine labelled him ‘an unfortunate
lunatic’. Blake persisted in his unconventional poetry and drawing becoming increasingly
obscure and odd.
William Blake achieved little recognition during his lifetime. When he was in his late fifties he
began to attract a small group of admirers, the general opinion being that he was gifted but
insane.
In the twentieth century Blake came to be recognised as a poetic genius. He is often regarded
as the first Romantic poet who revolutionized the concept of creative process. "One Power
alone", he wrote in Proverbs of Hell, m
" akes a Poet: Imagination, the Divine Vision". By
cleansing what Blake defined as the "doors of perception"the individual sees beyond the surface
reality of everyday objects into the infinite and eternal, discerning within the physical world
symbols of a greater and infinitely more meaningful spiritual reality. "A fool", wrote Blake, "sees
not the same tree a wise man sees". For Blake, imagination was God operating in the human
soul.
Proverbs of Hell is a part from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
(1790–1793) is a series of texts written in imitation of biblical prophecy but
expressing Blake's own intensely personal Romantic and revolutionary
beliefs. Like his other books, it was published as printed sheets from etched
plates containing prose, poetry and illustrations. The plates were then
coloured by Blake and his wife Catherine. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is probably the
�Content
most influential of Blake's works. Its vision of a dynamic relationship between a stable
"Heaven" and an energized "Hell" has fascinated theologians, aestheticians and psychologists.
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) – an English writer – took the name of one of his most famous
works, The Doors of Perception (1954), from this work, which in turn also inspired the name
of the American rock band The Doors.
Blake was fasci-nated with the idea of ‘contraries’. He understood Heaven as a part of a
structure which must become one with the creative energy of Hell rather than stand in
opposition to it. The ‘doors of perception’ are cleansed only by a transformation of categories
so that contraries meet in newly energetic formations. Thus the tigers and horses, the lions and
lambs, the children and adults, the innocent and the experienced of Blake’s symbol-ism should
be regarded as integral elements of creation.
A characteristic feature of Blake's poetry to see the world in terms of opposites is highlighted
in the collections Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794).
Accompanied by Blake’s magnificent hand-decorated drawings, the two volumes were printed
together for the first time in 1794 (with the title Songs of Innocence and of Experience).
The book describe-s contrary states of feeling and seeing. "Innocence" is a state of genuine
love and naïve trust to all mankind, accompanied by unquestioned Christian belief. Blake was
an true believer, but he recognized that Christian doctrines were used by the English Church as
a form of social manipulation to encourage among the people passive obedience and
acceptance of oppression, poverty and inequality. The state of "Experience" is described as a
profound disillusionment with human nature and society. One entering the state of
"Experience" sees cruelty and hypocrisy clearly, but is unable to find a way out.
The Songs of Innocence frequently suggest challenges to the innocent state: children are afraid
of the dark, brute beasts threaten lambs, dreadful trade kills a little chimney-sweeper. Satirical
and sarcastic poems from the Songs of Experience represent the "wisdom" of the old as
oppression. Parents, nurses, priests, and human reason serve to limit and restrain what once
was innocent.
Blake said that innocent conceptions of reality change in the face of experience, but he didn’t
deny the role of experience in the development of human soul. Blake pointed out a third, higher
state of consciousness he called "Organized Innocence", which is expressed in his later works.
In this state, one’s idea of the divinity of humanity coexists with the idea of injustice. One
recognizes both and assumes an active position to them. "Without contraries", Blake wrote,
"there is no Progression. If Man is to grow he must come to terms with the more sorrowful
aspects of life".
Blake’s work is rich in symbols and images. He tried to create an alternative reality to that
which dissatisfied him. "I must create a system", he wrote, "or be enslaved by another man’s".
This system of personal myths and visions became increasingly complex and elusive as time
progressed. Much of his later poetry possesses an almost biblical ‘prophetic’ quality.
�Content
Text
from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Without contraries there’s no Progression. If Man is to grow he must come to terms with
the more sorrowful aspects of life.
•
•
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
•
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.
•
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.
•
A fool sees not the same tree as a wise man sees.
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.
•
Agree or disagree with the statements. Give your commentary.
What do the images of tiger and lamb symbolize in the following poems? In
what way are the animals opposed? How does the author "neutralise"the
opposition?
�Content
The Lamb
From Songs of Innocence
Агнец
Перевод С.Я. Маршака
Little Lamb, who made thee
Does thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing woolly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice.
Making all the vales rejoice:
Little Lamb who made thee
Does thou know who made thee
Агнец, агнец белый!
Как ты, агнец, сделан?
Кто пастись тебя привёл
В наш зёленый вешний дол,
Дал тебе волнистый пух,
Голосок, что нежит слух?
Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee;
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by His name,
Little Lamb God bless thee,
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Слушай, агнец кроткий,
Мой рассказ короткий.
Был, как ты, он слаб и мал.
Он себя ягненком звал.
Ты – ягненок, я – дитя.
Он такой, как ты и я.
The Tyger
From Songs of Experience
Тигр
Перевод С.Я. Маршака
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Тигр, о тигр! кровавый сполох,
Быстрый блеск в полночных долах,
Устрашительная стать,
Кто посмел тебя создать?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
В преисподней иль в эдеме
Некто в царской диадеме
Огнь в очах твоих зажег?
Как он вытерпел ожог?
And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?
Кто качнул рукою властной
Сердца маятник ужасный
И, услышав грозный стук,
Не убрал смятенных рук?
Кто он, агнец милый?
Кто он, агнец милый?
Агнец, агнец милый,
Бог тебя помилуй!
�Content
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
Кто хребет крепил и прочил?
В кузне кто тебя ворочал?
В чьих клещах твой мозг пылал?
Чьею злобой закипал?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
А когда ты в ночь умчался,
Неужели улыбался
Твой создатель - возлюбя
И ягненка, и - тебя?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
The Chimney Sweeper
From Songs of Innocence
Маленький трубочист
Перевод С.Я. Маршака
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue,
Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep.
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.
Когда я еще начинал лепетать,
Ушла навсегда моя бедная мать
Отец меня продал, - я сажу скребу
И черную вам прочищаю трубу.
Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curi'd like a lambs back, was shav'd, so I said,
Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.
Заплакал обстриженный наголо Том.
Его я утешил: "Не плачь, ведь зато,
Покуда кудрями опять не оброс,
Не сможет и сажа испачкать волос".
And so he was quiet, & that very night,
As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight,
That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned & Jack
Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black,
Затих и уснул он, приткнувшись к стене,
И ночью привиделись Тому во сне
Гробы на поляне - и их миллион,
А в них трубочисты - такие, как он.
And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open'd the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.
Но Ангел явился в сиянии крыл
И лучиком света гробы отворил.
И к речке помчалась ватага детей,
Чтоб сажу в воде оттереть поскорей.
Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.
Мешки побросав и резвясь на ветру,
Затеяли в облаке белом, игру.
Сказал Тому Ангел: "Будь чистым душой!
И Бог, как отец, встанет рядом с тобой".
And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm.
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
Со всеми во тьме пробудился наш Том,
Со всеми за щетку с тяжелым мешком И утром промозглым согрет трубочист:
Трудящийся честно пред Господом чист.
�Content
The Chimney Sweeper
From Songs of Experience
Маленький трубочист
Перевод С.Я. Маршака
A little black thing among the snow:
Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe!
Where are thy father & mother? say?
They are both gone up to the church to pray.
Весь в саже на белом снегу он маячит.
"Почищу! Почищу!" - кричит, словно плачет.
"Куда подевались отец твой и мать?"
"Ушли они в церковь псалмы распевать.
Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smil'd among the winters snow;
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
Затем, что я пел по весне, словно птица,
И был даже в зимнюю пору счастлив,
Заставили в саван меня обрядиться
И петь научили на грустный мотив.
And because I am happy, & dance & sing,
They think they have done me no injury:
And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King
Who make up a heaven of our misery.
Затем, что я снова пляшу и пою,
Спокойно родители в церковь ушли
И молятся Богу, Святым, Королю,
Что Небо на наших слезах возвели".
What was the author’s purpose in writing two poems with the same title?
Compare i"nnocent"and "experienced"opinions about the chimney sweeper’s life.
�Content
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (1770–1850), born on April 7, 1770, was the second of five children of an
estate manager. He lost his mother when he was eight and his father died five years later. The
children were separated and raised by guardian uncles. The boys were sent to a village in the
heart of the Lake District. Wordsworth received a good education in classics, literature, and
mathematics, but the chief advantage to him there was a beautiful countryside and boyhood
pleasures of living and playing in the outdoors.
In 1787 Wordsworth entered Cambridge. While still a university student he went on a
three-month walking tour of France, the Swiss Alps and Italy. When he finished his degree he
returned to France for a year and became a passionate supporter of the democratic ideals of
the French Revolution. During his stay in France Wordsworth had a love affair with Annette
Vallon who bore him a daughter, Caroline. Financial problems forced him to return to
England. Wordsworth was unable to rejoin Annette and his daughter due to the outbreak of
hostilities between England and France. He was sickened by the war between France and
England and gradually became deeply disillu-sioned about his hopes for change.
When Wordsworth returned from France in 1793, he was reu-nited with his sister Dorothy,
who became his con-stant companion. They lived in a small village in Dorset. The col-lapse of
his radical hope of perfecting society drove Wordworth to poetry. He published his first two
books of verse, which received little notice from either the critics or the public.
Two events then changed his life forever: he inherited a sum of money which covered his daily
necessities and, in 1795, he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a poet with similar political and
literary views. Wordsworth and Dorothy moved to a comfortable country house four miles
from the village where Coleridge lived, and Coleridge suddenly burst upon their lives.
This friendship had a lasting impact on both poets. Together they read, wrote, discussed
political issues, exchanged theories on poetry and commented on each other's work. Coleridge
had a broad philo-sophic mind, and Wordsworth the steady diligence of a writer. Lyrical
Ballads (1798) was the fruit of their friendship and mutual influence. Coleridge contributed
four poems and Wordsworth nineteen to the collection. Later that year Wordsworth, his sister
Dorothy and Coleridge travelled to Germany. Coleridge continued his studies in philosophy,
while Wordsworth wrote several of his finest lyrical poems and started to work on The
Prelude (1850), an autobiographical poem which he continued to revise throughout the rest of
his life. The poem describes the crucial experiences and stages of the poet's life and is an
introspective account of his emotional and spiritual development. Many critics consider the
long poem The Prelude, published posthumously in twenty-four books, to be Wordsworth’s
greatest achievement.
In 1800 a second edition of the Lyrical Ballads appeared with Wordsworth’s new poems and
a prose Preface illustrating his principles of poetry.
The Lyrical Ballads was one of the most wonderful literary collaborations, but it could not
survive the real differences between the two men. Wordsworth’s ability eventually provoked
�Content
Coleridge’s envy, and Wordsworth could not endure watching Cole-ridge waste his talents in
indecision and become a drug addict. Coleridge was experiencing serious health problems and
the two became estranged and never fully reconciled.
William and Dorothy moved to Grasmere, one of the loveliest villages in the Lake District, a
region which Wordsworth immortalised in his poetry. In 1802 Wordsworth married a
childhood friend and together they had five children. During this period he produced Poems,
in Two Volumes (1807), a collection which includes some of his finest verse and most
famous sonnets. His reputation began to grow and his work became increasingly popular.
As his fame as a poet grew, Wordsworth became more conservative in his political views. He
was given a well-paid government job and openly campaigned for the conservative Tory party.
As Wordsworth advanced in age his poetic vision grew weaker and his output was largely
uninspired and written in the elevated and artificial style against which he had once rebelled.
The younger generation of Romantic poets criticised him for abandoning the idealism and
passion of his youth.
In 1840 Wordsworth was awarded a government pension and the title of Poet Laureate, in
recognition of his contribution to English literature. He died in 1850, a few days after his
eightieth birthday.
Wordsworth is frequently thought of as a nature poet. He believed nature
could elevate the human soul and exert a positive moral influence on human
thoughts and feelings. Wordsworth’s poetry celebrates the lives of simple
rural people, whom he sees as being more sincere than people living in cities.
Pantheistic philosophy led Wordsworth to believe that men should enter into communion with
nature. Since nature was an expression of God and was charged with his presence, he believed
it constituted a potential moral guide for man.
Pantheism is the belief that the Universe (or nature as the totality of
everything) is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an
all-encompassing, immanent god. Pantheists thus do not believe in a distinct
personal or anthropomorphic god. In the West, Pantheism was formalized as
a separate theology and philosophy based on the work of the 17th-century
philosopher Baruch Spinoza, whose book Ethics was an answer to Descartes' famous
dualist theory that the body and spirit are separate. Although the term pantheism was not
coined until after his death, Spinoza is regarded as its most celebrated advocate.
This reverence for nature went hand in hand with a sympathy for childhood. Like Blake,
Wordsworth understands childhood as a quality of imagination which has not been spoilt by
the rational world of adults. The child possesses an instinctive superior wisdom which is lost in
adulthood.
Wordsworth believed that intuition, not reason, should guide the poet. Inspiration should come
from the direct experience of the senses. Poetry, he wrote in the Preface, originates from "the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings"which is filtered through the "emotion recollected in
�Content
tranquility". For Wordsworth the memory was a key element in poetic composition. The
"spontaneous overflow" occurs at the moment of composition, but the feelings are newly
contemplated and organized in the poet’s mind through the subjective experience of memory.
The poet, Wordsworth says, is "a man speaking to men", but he is also, "a man, it is true,
endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater
knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be
common among mankind". The poet is a prophet-like figure whose task is not simply to
embellish everyday life, but to show other men the essence of things.
Wordsworth was a great innovator. His ideas concerning the task of the poet and the nature of
poetical composition have become a landmark in the history of English literature and much of
his earlier verse is among the finest of the Romantic period.
�Content
Text
The Daffodils
Нарциссы
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Я летним облачком блуждал
В холмах и долах, одинок,
И на прибрежье увидал
Златых нарциссов табунок.
В тени деревьев, над волной
Качал их ветер озорной.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
То звездный рой, устав мерцать,
Со Млечного Пути сошел,
И узкий берег озерца
Каймой сияющей обвел;
Несметно их – и, как живой,
Кивал мне каждый головой.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not be but gay
In such a jocund company!
I gazed – and gazed – but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
Искреньем не могла волна
Оспорить золото земли;
Иная радость не нужна –
Возьми, прими и раздели;
Дарованному благу рад,
Смотрю, не отрывая взгляд.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Когда я в мысли ухожу,
Когда блаженствую в тиши –
Я взором внутренним гляжу
На златоцвет моей души;
И сердцем я принять готов
Круженье золотых цветов.
Wordsworth defines a poet as a man "who rejoices more than other men in the
spirit of life that is in him", who has "an ability of conjuring up in himself
passions, which are indeed far from being the same as those produced by real
events". Explain how this poem supports this definition of a poet.
�Content
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), born on October 21, 1772, was the youngest child of a
village parson. When his father died he was sent to a London charity school for children of the
clergy. He was a bright student. In 1791 Coleridge went to Cambridge. At Cambridge he
became a radical and won a prize for an ode in Greek on the abolition of slavery. In Cambridge
Coleridge met Robert Southey (1774– 1843). Both poets had sympathetic views on the
French Revolution. Together they planned the foundation of an egalitarian utopian community
in New England. Coleridge left Cambridge without a degree and almost on impulse, married the
sister of Southey's fiancée. This marriage was a failure. The couple had four children but lived
apart for most of their lives. The community project never materialized.
In 1795 Coleridge met William Wordsworth, a poet with similar political and literary views. The
encounter produced one of the most creative partnerships in English literature. The result of
their collaboration was the Lyrical Ballads (1798). The contribution to the collection by the
two poets was very different. While Wordsworth wrote poetry inspired by the simple things of
everyday life, Coleridge turned to the past for the unknown and mysterious and took the
readers into the fantastic world of imagination. Wordsworth asked the readers to enjoy his
natural descriptions. Coleridge, on the other hand, led them into supernatural worlds using
striking symbols and images. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is Coleridge’s best work in
the collection.
In 1798 Coleridge travelled to Germany with Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy. He had
become disillusioned with the political radicalism inspired by the French Revolution and turned
his attention to German philosophy, especially the ideas of the philosopher Immanuel Kant. He
learned German, studied philosophy at Gottingen University and translated some works by the
romantic poet Friedrich von Schiller into English.
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805) was a German
poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years
of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive friendship with
already famous and influential writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749–1832), who was an early participant in the Sturm und Drang("Storm
and Stress") literary movement in which individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of
emotion were given free expression. Sturm und Drang is a proto-Romantic movement in
German literature and music. The period is named for Friedrich Maximilian Klinger's play
Sturm und Drang, which was first performed in 1777. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and
Friedrich von Schiller ended their period of association with Sturm und Drang movement by
initiating what would become Weimar Classicism, a cultural and literary movement of Europe,
which attempted to establish a new humanism by synthesizing Romantic, classical and
Enlightenment ideas.
By this time he had become addicted to opium, which was the only available relief for the pain
he suffered due to various health problems. In 1804 he left for Malta, hoping to overcome his
addiction and improve his health in a warmer climate. He worked as secretary to the governor
�Content
of Malta for two years and then returned to England.
In 1808 he moved back to the Lake District, close to the Wordsworths and Southey. Together
they became known as the "Lake Poets". He fell in love with Wordsworth’s sister-in-law.
This love was a source of great suffering all through his life.
Lake Poets are the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, and
William Wordsworth, who lived in and were inspired by the Lake District;
they are also known as The Lake School, or The Lakists. Both terms are
first recorded in the Edinburgh Review of 1816; the pejorative Lakers, used
by Lord Byron, however, antedates them by two years. Now the term does
not bear any derogatory meaning whatsoever.
In 1810 his friendship with Wordsworth came to a bitter end. His addiction to opium got
worse, making him unable to work productively. Following a serious quarrel with Wordsworth,
he left the Lake District and moved to London, where he stayed with a certain Doctor Gillman,
who provided hospitality and comfort for Coleridge at his home in Highgate.
In the following years Coleridge slowly regained his health, worked as a journalist and gave
lectures that established his reputation as a distinguished literary critic. Highgate home became
a centre of pilgrimage for a number of friends who admired Coleridge’s conversations. Hazlitt
described him as "the most impressive talker of his age".
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) was an English writer, drama and literary critic,
painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of
the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language. During
his lifetime he made friends with many men of letters including Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and John Keats.
The publication of the poems Christabel (1816) and Kubla Khan (1816), both unfinished,
consolidated Coleridge’s fame. Kubla Khan was inspired by a dream in an opium sleep.
Coleridge woke up with a clear image of the poem, but lost the vision, except for a few lines,
when a visitor disturbed him. The poem describes ancient magic rites. Its most striking features
are its suggestive imagery and musical rhythm. Christabel is a medieval romance of the
supernatural, which includes many Gothic elements.
Though he is best known today for his poetry, Coleridge wrote articles and dissertations on
philosophy, political analysis and theology. His treatises and lectures made him the most
influential English literary critic of the nineteenth century. In his Biographia Literaria (1817),
considered his greatest critical work, Coleridge developed theories that laid the foundations of
twentieth-century literary theory.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The Rime, or story, is told by the Ancient Mariner to a man who is on his way to a wed-ding.
The Mariner was working as a sailor on a ship that was blocked in by ice near the South
�Content
Pole. Suddenly an albatross appears out of the fog and is welcomed as a sign of good luck
by the crew. Not long after, the ice splits and the bird flies alongside the ship as it continues
its voyage. Then, one day, for no apparent reason, the Mariner shoots and kills the
albatross. The ship is blown north to the Equator into a horrible sea where there is no wind.
The sailors say it is the Mariner's fault for bringing about their bad luck, and hang the
albatross around his neck so that he will never forget what a terrible thing he has done. All
the sailors die and he sees no way out of a hopeless situation until, one night, he is so struck
by the beauty of the watersnakes that are swimming around the ship, that he blesses them.
The albatross falls from his neck and the ship sails home. He is saved, but as a penance he
has to travel around the world forever telling his story and conveying what effectively is the
moral message of the poem:
He prayeth well who loveth well
All things great and small:
Both man and bird and beast.
For the dear God, who loveth us,
He prayeth best who loveth best,
He made and loveth all.
The combination of the supernatural and the commonplace, dreamlike elements and
astonishing visual realism, help create an atmosphere of irresistible mystery in the poem. Many
of the features traditionally associated with ballads – the combination of dialogue and narration,
the four-line stanza, frequent repetition, alliteration and internal rhyme – are present in this
work. While frequently simple and direct, the language is also permeated with archaisms which
help create the atmosphere of medieval ballads.
Text
from Part I
The Mariner speaks to The Wedding-Guest
Часть первая
Перевод Н. Гумилева
"And now the storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.
«Но вот настиг нас шторм, он был
Властителен и зол,
Он ветры встречные крутил
И к югу нас повел.
With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And foward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.
Без мачты, под водою нос,
Как бы спасаясь от угроз
За ним спешащего врага,
Подпрыгивая вдруг,
Корабль летел, а гром гремел,
И плыли мы на юг.
And now there came both mist and snow,
И встретил нас туман и снег
�Content
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
И злые холода,
Как изумруд, на нас плывут
Кругом громады льда.
And through the drifts the snowy cliffs
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken –
The ice was all between.
Меж снежных трещин иногда
Угрюмый свет блеснет:
Ни человека, ни зверей, –
Повсюду только лед.
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!
Отсюда лед, оттуда лед,
Вверху и в глубине,
Трещит, ломается, гремит,
Как звуки в тяжком сне.
At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.
И напоследок Альбатрос
К нам прилетел из тьмы;
Как, если б был он человек,
С ним обходились мы.
It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!
Он пищу брал у нас из рук.
Кружил над головой.
И с громом треснул лед, и вот
Нас вывел рулевой.
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!
И добрый южный ветр нас мчал,
Был с нами Альбатрос,
Он поиграть, поесть слетал
На корабельный нос.
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moonshine."
В сырой туман на мачте он
Спал девять вечеров,
И белый месяц нам сиял
Из белых облаков».
`God save thee, ancient Mariner,
From the fiends that plague thee thus! –
Why look'st thou so?' – "With my crossbow
I shot the Albatross."
– Господь с тобой, Моряк седой,
Дрожишь ты, как в мороз!
Как смотришь ты? – «Моей стрелой
Убит был Альбатрос».
from Part II
"The sun now rose upon the right:
Out of the sea came he,
Часть вторая
«Вот солнце справа из волны
Восходит в вышину
�Content
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.
Во мгле, и с левой стороны
Уходит в глубину.
And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariners' hollo!
И добрый южный ветр нас мчит,
Но умер Альбатрос,
Он не летит играть иль есть
На корабельный нос.
And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!
Я дело адское свершил,
То было дело зла.
Я слышал: «птицу ты убил,
Что ветер принесла;
Несчастный, птицу ты убил,
Что ветер принесла».
Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
The glorious sun uprist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.
Когда же солнечным лучом
Зажегся океан,
Я слышал: «птицу ты убил,
Пославшую туман,
Ты прав был, птицу умертвив,
Пославшую туман».
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
Белеет пена, дует ветр,
За нами рябь растет;
Вошли мы первыми в простор
Тех молчаливых вод.
Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped down,
'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!
Стих ветр, и парус наш повис,
И горе к нам идет,
Лишь голос наш звучит в тиши
Тех молчаливых вод.
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the moon.
В горячих, медных небесах
Полдневною порой
Над мачтой Солнце, точно кровь,
С Луну величиной.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
За днями дни, за днями дни
Мы ждем, корабль наш спит,
Как в нарисованной воде,
Рисованный стоит.
Water, water, every where,
Вода, вода, одна вода.
�Content
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
Но чан лежит вверх дном;
Вода, вода, одна вода,
Мы ничего не пьем.
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.
Как пахнет гнилью – о, Христос! –
Как пахнет от волны,
И твари слизкие ползут
Из вязкой глубины.
About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.
В ночи сплетают хоровод
Блудящие огни.
Как свечи ведьмы, зелены,
Красны, белы они.
And some in dreams assured were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.
И многим снился страшный дух,
Для нас страшней чумы,
Он плыл за нами под водой
Из стран снегов и тьмы.
And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.
В гортани каждого из нас
Засох язык, и вот,
Молчали мы, как будто все
Набили сажей рот.
Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung."
Со злобой глядя на меня,
И стар и млад бродил;
И мне на шею Альбатрос
Повешен ими был».
The albatross is an important symbol in the poem. The killing of the bird can be
interpreted in several different ways: man’s indifference towards nature; man’s
lack of Christian values; the crucifixion of Jesus Christ; the betrayal of basic
human values and instincts; the suppression of the creative drive and
imagination in man.
Do you agree with any of these interpretations or do you have your own personal view?
from Part IV
"…Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
Часть четвертая
"…Один, один, всегда один,
Один среди зыбей!
И нет святых, чтоб о душе
Припомнили моей.
�Content
The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie;
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.
Так много молодых людей
Лишились бытия:
А слизких тварей миллион
Живет; а с ними я.
I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.
Гляжу на гниль кишащих вод
И отвожу мой взгляд;
Гляжу на палубу потом,
Там мертвецы лежат.
I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came and made
My heart as dry as dust.
Гляжу на небо и мольбу
Пытаюсь возносить,
Но раздается страшный звук,
Чтоб сердце мне сушить.
I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat;
Forthe sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky,
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.
Когда же веки я сомкну,
Зрачков ужасен бой,
Небес и вод, небес и вод
Лежит на них тяжелый гнет,
И трупы под ногой.
The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they:
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.
Холодный пот с лица их льет,
Но тленье чуждо им,
И взгляд, каким они глядят,
Навек неотвратим.
An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.
Сирот проклятье с высоты
Свергает духа в ад;
Но, ах! Проклятье мертвых глаз
Ужасней во сто крат!
Семь дней и семь ночей пред ним
Я умереть был рад.
The moving moon went up the sky,
And no where did abide:
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside –
Подвижный месяц поднялся
И поплыл в синеве:
Он тихо плыл, а рядом с ним
Одна звезда, иль две.
Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charmed water burnt alway
Была в лучах его бела,
Как иней, глубина;
Но там, где тень от корабля
Легла, там искрилась струя
�Content
A still and awful red.
Убийственно-красна.
Beyond the shadow of the ship
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
Где тени не бросал корабль,
Я видел змей морских:
Они неслись лучам вослед,
Вставали на дыбы, и свет
Был в клочьях снеговых.
Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
Где тени не бросал корабль,
Наряд их видел я, –
Зеленый, красный, голубой.
Они скользили над водой,
Там искрилась струя.
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.
Они живыми были! Как
Их прелесть описать!
Весна любви вошла в меня,
Я стал благословлять:
Святой мой пожалел меня,
Я стал благословлять.
The selfsame moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea."
Я в этот миг молиться мог:
И с шеи, наконец,
Сорвавшись, канул Альбатрос
В пучину, как свинец".
What helped the mariner get rid of his burden?
Why did the albatross fall from his neck?
Does this episode give any key to the message of the poem?
�Content
George Gordon Lord Byron
Lord Byron (1788–1824), born on January 22, 1788, was the son of Captain John "Mad Jack"
Byron and his second wife, Lady Catherine Gordon, heiress of Gight, Aberdeenshire. He was
christened as George Gordon after his grandfather, a descendant of James I. When his
grandfather committed suicide in 1779, Gordon's mother sold her land and title to pay for her
father's debts. Soon John Byron married Catherine for her money. The two separated before
their son was born.
Lord Byron received his education at Harrow and then at Cambridge where he became
fascinated with history, fiction and extravagant life. Byron was born lame. This deformity,
known as club-foot, left him self-conscious most of his life. During his university time, he
found diversion in boxing, horse riding and gambling.
In 1807, Byron's first collection of sentimental poems, Hours of Idleness (1807), was
published. After receiving a critical review Byron retaliated with the satirical poem English
Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809). The witty and satirical poem attacked the literary
community and gained Byron his first literary recognition.
In the meantime his great uncle died, and the young man inherited the title (Baron Byron of
Rochdale), some money and the Byron’s ancestral home, Newstead Abbey. Byron took his
seat at the House of Lords and soon engaged the hatred of the Conservative Party for his
outspoken political views.
After graduation Byron had a grand tour through the Mediterranean Sea (Greece, Turkey,
Albania) and began writing Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), a poem of a young
man's reflections on travel in foreign lands.
In the 13th and 14th centuries, child appears to have been a term applied to a
young noble awaiting knighthood. Byron uses it to mean a youth of gentle
birth.
In 1812, upon his return Byron published the first two cantos of Child Harold.
One of the principal divisions of a long poem, cantos (Italian: "songs") are
usually reserved for epic poems. But the term "canto" wasn't around for
Homer and Virgil. It was popularized by Italian poet Dante Alighieri who
used them to divide his Divine Comedy. Edmund Spenser was the first
person to use the word in English to divide his The Faerie Queene.
The poem met with instant success and established Byron as one of England’s leading
Romantic poets. He was just twenty four years old when he "awoke one day to find himself
famous". The pilgrim, called Childe Harold, became the prototype for the moody, handsome
character type, who would eventually be labeled "the Byronic hero".
�Content
Byron then became the most popular person in Regency London. Gossip regarding his private
life added to the aura of intrigue surrounding the remarkably handsome man, and his success
with women became legendary. A rumour began to circulate that Byron was involved with
Lady Caroline, the wife of future Prime Minister, William Lamb. Besides, Byron’s incestuous
relationship with his half-sister Augusta Leigh led to the birth of a child. It outraged society.
In September 1814, seeking to harsh up scandal, Byron proposed to Annabella Milbanke,
cousin of Lady Caroline. They married in January 1815, and in December of that year, their
daughter Augusta Ada was born. Later she became better known as Ada Lovelace.
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (1815–1852), born Augusta
Ada Byron and now commonly known as Ada Lovelace, was an English
mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's
early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her
notes on the engine include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended
to be carried out by a machine. Because of this, she is often described as the world's first
computer programmer.
The marriage was an unhappy one. Anabella left Byron and took Ada with her. They were
legally separated. Byron became a social outcast. He left England never to return.
Byron traveled with his personal physician John William Polidori. In Switzerland they made
friends with Percy Bysshe Shelley and his soon-to-be wife, Mary Godwin. The Shelleys were
accompanied by Mary's step-sister, Claire Clairmont, with whom Byron had a daughter,
Allegra.
Meanwhile Byron wrote the third canto of Childe Harold and started Manfred (1817). He
wrote this "metaphysical drama", after his marriage failed in scandal and he was ostracised by
London society. Some critics consider Manfred to be autobiographical, or even confessional,
because the main character is also tortured by the sense of guilt for an unmentionable offence.
In 1816 Byron moved to Italy where he wrote the fourth canto of Childe Harold. In Italy
Byron met 19-year-old Teresa Guiccioli, a married countess, with whom he settled down into a
relatively long relationship. Byron soon won the admiration of Teresa's father, who had him
initiated into the secret Carbonari society dedicated to freeing Italy from Austrian rule.
Between 1818 and 1820, Byron wrote the five cantos of Don Juan (1821). The poem was
very different from the melancholic Childe Harold. Don Juan is a picaresque verse satire with
many autobiographical references. The hero’s travels, adventures, love affairs are very close
reflections of what Byron did, felt and thought. Byron wrote 16 cantos of Don Juan before his
death and left the poem unfinished. Many critics consider this poem to be his masterpiece.
�Content
The word picaresque (Spanish: "picaresca," from "pícaro," for "rogue" or
"rascal") is used to describe a literary work that depicts, in realistic and often
humorous detail, the adventures of a roguish hero who lives by his wits in a
corrupt society. This style originated in sixteenth-century Spain and
flourished throughout Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Byron continued living in Italy until 1823 when he accepted an invitation to support Greek
independence from the Turks. He spent much of his money on the Greek rebellion and took
personal command of a unit of elite fighters.
In February 1824 Byron fell ill. The cold became a violent fever, and on April 19, 1824, Byron
died at the age of 36. He was deeply mourned in England and became a hero in Greece. His
body was brought back to England to be buried in the family vault near Newstead. The clergy
refused to bury him at Westminster Abbey.
The most notorious of the major Romantics, George Gordon, Lord Byron, was also the most
fashionable poet of the day. To this day he remains a legend. He was the hero of all his poems,
but his real life was far more exciting than anything that he wrote. He was a man possessed by
self-pity, self-consciousness and self-love. He created an immensely popular character –
defiant social outcast, brooding and mysterious, haunted by secret guilt, yet charming and
courageous – for which he was the model. Byron created a romantic archetype which was to
last well into the 19th century. The love of liberty and freedom, coupled with a melancholy
disposition rooted in solitude, became an expression of what many people of the time
interpreted as the Romantic hero.
Text
She Walks in Beauty
This is one of the most famous descriptions of womanly beauty in English poetry. The poem
written to be set to music was inspired by Byron’s first meeting with Lady Wilmot Horton, his
cousin by marriage, who wore a black mourning gown with spangles. Byron wrote this lyric for
Lady Horton as soon as he had returned to his room following a dance at which he saw her.
The poem was published in Byron’s Hebrew Melodies (1815), which was written to be set to
adaptations of traditional Jewish times.
Перевод С. Я. Маршака
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
Она идет во всей красе –
Светла, как ночь её страны.
Вся глубь небес и звёзды все
В её очах заключены.
Как солнце в утренней росе,
Но только мраком смягчены.
�Content
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
Прибавить луч иль тень отнять –
И будет уж совсем не та
Волос агатовая прядь,
Не те глаза, не те уста
И лоб, где помыслов печать
так безупречна, так чиста.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
А этот взгляд, и цвет ланит,
И лёгкий смех, как всплеск морской, –
Всё в ней о мире говорит.
Она в душе хранит покой.
И если счастье подарит,
То самой щедрою рукой.
Does Byron’s description emphasize the physical or the spiritual image of the
lady? Compare: S" he walks in beauty"and "She is beautiful".
from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto IV
Apostrophe to the Ocean
Apostrophe is a figure of speech in which a writer directly addresses an absent
person, a personified inanimate object, or an abstract idea.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean – roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
�Content
Man marks the earth with ruin – his control
Stops with the shore; – upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.
His steps are not upon thy paths, – thy fields
Are not a spoil for him, – thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth: – there let him lay.
What does Byron’s love to the ocean tell about the author’s personality?
What natural object or phenomenon can reveal some feature of your character?
Content
Don Juan
The poem opens with scenes from the hero’s childhood which passes in an aristocratic
Spanish family. Little Juan is described as:
A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing,
And mischief-making monkey from his birth.
Juan, the youth, falls in love with Dona Julia, the beautiful wife of the old and respectable
Don Alfonso. The young woman returns Juan’s feelings, but his mother finds out about the
love-affair and sends her son abroad, t"o mend his former morals".
The ship is caught in a storm and sinks several days after its departure. Juan escapes in a
boat with thirty other passengers. The unfortunate are tossed about the boundless sea for
days and days and, one by one, die of hunger and thirst. Juan alone survives and swims to
the shore of an island where a famous smuggler and pirate Lambro lives. Juan is found by
the only daughter of Lambro – Haidee. She takes care of him. The young people fall in love.
Suddenly Lambro returns to the island. The lovers are discovered and forcibly separated.
Juan is sold into slavery to Turkey and Haidee dies of a broken heart. Juan is bought in a
slave market by the Turkish sultana. He is sent to the harem in the guise of a woman. He
�Content
lives through many adventures there. At last he escapes from Turkey and gets to the Russian
camp near Ismail, a Turkish fortress sieged by land and water by Suvorov’s armies. Byron
gives realistic pictures of the storming of Ismail under the command of the great Suvorov.
On Ismail’s surrender Juan is sent to St. Petersburg with the news of the victory and is
received at the court of Empress Catherine. Soon he leaves Russia, travels through Europe,
and finally lands in England. After staying in the country for some time, Juan understands
that the policy of England does not follow the principles of freedom. But many lines of the
poem, on the other hand, show the author’s love for his native country, for its people, nature
and art.
In the last part of the poem, Juan, accompanied by a group of guests, visits the country seat
of a Lord Amundeville to take part in a foxhunt. Juan is a success with the ladies.
Here the narrative breaks off. Canto 17 of Don Juan remains unfinished. Byron wanted his
hero to take part in the French Revolution and die for freedom. There are practically two
heroes in the poem. One is the literary hero of Don Juan. The other one is the poet himself.
"Almost all Don Juan", Byron wrote in one of his letters, "is real life, either my own, or from
people I knew". As Juan’s adventures cover a considerable part of Europe it gives his author an
opportunity to describe different countries, to comment on politics and relations between men
and to give a satirical portrait of his contemporary society, its customs and hypocrisies.
Manfred
Manfred is set in the Alps where the title character lives in a Gothic castle. Tortured by his
own sense of guilt for an unnamed offense, Manfred invokes six spirits associated with earth
and the elements, and a seventh who determines Manfred's personal destiny. None of the
spirits are able to grant him what he wishes; they offer K
" ingdom, and sway, and strength,
and length of days," but not the forgetfulness and oblivion he seeks. The seventh spirit
assumes the form of his dead lover Astarte but vanishes when Manfred tries to touch her.
Manfred falls into a state of unconsciousness during which an unidentified voice delivers a
lengthy incantation full of accusations and predictions of doom. Variously attributed to
Astarte, to an unspecified external force, or most commonly to the voice of Manfred's own
conscience, the incantation tells Manfred that he will be governed by a spell or curse and
will be tortured – not by external agents but by his own nature. Although he will seek death,
his wish will be denied.
In the next scene, Manfred attempts to plunge to his death from the high cliffs of the
Jungfrau, but he is rescued by an elderly Chamois Hunter who takes him back to his cabin
and offers him a cup of wine. Manfred imagines that the cup has blood on its brim,
specifically Astarte's blood, which is also his own blood. This passage, along with Manfred's
admission that he and Astarte had loved as they should not have loved, suggests that the two
engaged in an incestuous relationship.
Manfred next invokes the Witch of the Alps, a beautiful spirit who offers to help him on
condition that he swears an oath of obedience to her. Manfred refuses to be her slave and
similarly rejects submission to the various forces of evil led by Arimanes. Unlike Faust,
�Content
Manfred is unwilling to submit to any external authority – natural or supernatural, good or
evil. Astarte appears to him again and Manfred begs her forgiveness. She refuses to answer
and then predicts that his e"arthly ills"will soon come to an end.
Manfred returns to his castle feeling peaceful, if only for a short time. He is visited by the
Abbot of St. Maurice who offers comfort through religion. Manfred refuses, although he takes
the hand of the Abbott at the moment of death, possibly accepting the human contact he had
disdained during life.
Manfred was inspired by the frustration induced by the thoughts about the man being "half
dust, half deity, alike unfit to sink or soar". In Manfred Byron voiced his most profound
opinions on the fate of the human creature. Manfred as a rebel, like Satan, Cain, and
Prometheus, embodies Romantic self-assertion. Unable to find consolation for his guilt in this
world or in the supernatural, at the moment of death Manfred absolutely denies the authority of
any spiritual system over individual will.
Text
– Back to thy hell!
Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel;
Thou never shalt possess me, that I know:
What I have done is done; I bear within
A torture which could nothing gain from thine:
The mind which is immortal makes itself
Requital for its good or evil thoughts, –
Is its own origin of ill and end
And its own place and time: its innate sense,
When stripped of this mortality, derives
No colour from the fleeting things without,
But is absorb'd in sufferance or in joy,
Born from the knowledge of its own desert.
Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not tempt me;
I have not been thy dupe, nor am I thy prey –
But was my own destroyer, and will be
My own hereafter – Back, ye baffled fiends!
The hand of Death is on me – but not yours!
Перевод И. Бунина
Не ты судья грехам!
Карает ли преступника преступник?
Убийцу тать? Сгинь, адский дух! Я знаю,
Что никогда ты мной не овладеешь,
Я чувствую бессилие твое.
�Content
Что сделал я, то сделал; ты не можешь
Усилить мук, в моей груди сокрытых:
Бессмертный дух сам суд себе творит
За добрые и злые помышленья.
Меня не искушал ты и не мог
Ни искушать, ни обольщать, – я жертвой
Твоей доныне не был – и не буду.
Сгубив себя, я сам и покараю
Себя за грех. Исчадья тьмы, рассейтесь!
Я покоряюсь смерти, а не вам!
Do you support the idea of absolute freedom and self-sufficiency of human
mind? Interpret the lines:
The mind which is immortal makes itself
Requital for its good or evil thoughts, –
�Content
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) was born on August 4, 1792, into a prosperous aristocratic
family. He attended Eton College, and then went on to Oxford University. After less than a
year's enrollment Shelly wrote a pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism and got expelled. He
could have been reinstated with the help of his father, but the young man refused to renounce
the pamphlet and declare himself Christian. It caused Shelly financial difficulties and a
complete break with his father.
That same year, at the age of nineteen, Shelley eloped to Scotland with a sixteen-year-old
Harriet Westbrook, whose father owned a coffee house. Two years later Shelley published his
first long serious work, a philosophical poem Queen Mab (1813). In it he attacked such
social "evils" as commerce, monarchy, marriage, religion. In place of these vices he proposed
republicanisms, free love and atheism. The poem emerged from Shelley's friendship with the
British philosopher and radical William Godwin. Shelley also fell in love with Godwin’s
daughter, Mary. He left his wife, Harriet, who had just had their first child and was expecting
the second.
William Godwin (1756–1836) was an English journalist, political
philosopher and novelist. He is considered the first modern proponent of
anarchism, political philosophy that advocates stateless societies often
defined as self-governed voluntary institutions. He was married to the
pioneering feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft (1759– 1797).
The death of Shelley’s grandfather temporarily solved financial problems and allowed him and
Mary to elope to Europe. In November 1814 Harriet bore a son, and in February 1815 Mary
Godwin gave birth prematurely to a child who died two weeks later. The following January,
Mary bore another son, named William after her father. In May the couple went to Lake
Geneva, where Shelley spent a great deal of time with George Gordon, Lord Byron, sailing on
Lake Geneva and discussing poetry.
In December 1816 Harriet Shelley committed suicide. Three weeks after her body was found in
a lake in Hyde Park, London, Shelley and Mary Godwin officially were married. Shelley lost
custody of his two children by Harriet.
In 1817 Shelley wrote a long narrative poem Laon and Cythna that was withdrawn after only a
few copies were published, because it attacked religion and contained blasphemy. It was later
edited and published as The Revolt of Islam (1818). It is a long allegoric poem which
transposes the French Revolution into an Oriental setting.
Early in 1818, Shelley and his new wife left England for the last time. During the remaining four
years of his life, Shelley produced all his major works, including the sonnet Ozymandias
(1818), the lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound (1820) and his best-loved poems To a
Skylark, The Cloud and Ode to the West Wind (1820).
�Content
In antiquity, Ozymandias was a Greek name for the Egyptian pharaoh
Ramesses II. Shelley began writing his poem in 1817, soon after the
announcement of the British Museum's acquisition of a large fragment of a
statue of Ramesses II from the thirteenth century BC. Shelley wrote the
poem in friendly competition with his friend and fellow poet Horace Smith
(1779–1849), who also wrote a sonnet on the same topic with the very same title. Both poems
explore the fate of history and the ravages of time: that all prominent figures and the empires
that they build are impermanent and their legacies fated to decay and oblivion.
In Prometheus Unbound Shelley gives the Greek myth his own interpretation. He sings of the
struggle against tyranny. The sharp conflict between Prometheus and Jupiter is in the centre of
the drama. Prometheus is bound to a rock by Jupiter for stealing fire from the gods and
giving it to mankind. The huge spirit Demogorgon, representing the Creative Power, defeats
Jupiter and casts him down. Prometheus is set free and reunited with his wife Asia. The fact
that Jupiter is deposed symbolizes change and revolution.
In Greek mythology, Prometheus (Greek: "foresight") is a Titan, culture
hero, and trickster figure who is credited with the creation of man from clay,
and who defies the gods and gives fire to humanity, an act that enabled
progress and civilization. Prometheus is known for his intelligence and as a
champion of mankind. The punishment of Prometheus as a consequence of
the theft is a major theme of his mythology, and is a popular subject of both ancient and
modern art. Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, sentenced the Titan to eternal torment for his
transgression. The immortal Prometheus was bound to a rock, where each day an eagle, the
emblem of Zeus, was sent to feed on his liver, which would then grow back to be eaten again
the next day. (In ancient Greece, the liver was thought to be the seat of human emotions.) In
some stories, Prometheus is freed at last by Heracles.
On July 8, 1822, in Italy, shortly before his thirtieth birthday, Shelley was drowned in a sudden
storm as he was sailing in his boat, the Don Juan.
More than any other Romantic poet Shelley embodied the spirit of the rebel and would-be
reformer. His refusal to accept social conventions, political oppression and any form of
tyranny manifested itself in his verse. Shelley believed strongly in the principles of freedom and
love as a means to overcome the shortcomings and evils of society. Shelley’s rejection of
conventional modes of thinking led to the search for new ideals, and he became greatly
interested in the theories of Plato. Later he rejected his atheism in favour of a pantheistic belief
in some kind of universal spiritual force.
Plato (428/427 or 424/423 BC – 348/347 BC) was a philosopher in Classical
Greece. He was also a mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of
philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first
institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor,
Socrates, and his most-famous student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the
foundations of Western philosophy and science. Plato’s Theory of Forms (or Theory of
�Content
Ideas) typically refers to the belief that the material world as it seems to us is not the real
world, but only an "image" or "copy" of the real world.
Shelley believed that the world of sense-experience is only a reflection of the perfect world of
eternal forms. The only important reality for the poet is that of the spirit.
Text
Ode to the West Wind
Перевод Б. Л. Пастернака
O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's beingThou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes!-O thou
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hillWild Spirit, which art moving everywhereDestroyer and Preserver-hear, O hear!
О буйный ветер запада осенний!
Перед тобой толпой бегут листы,
Как перед чародеем привиденья,
То бурей желтизны и красноты,
То пестрым вихрем всех оттенков гнили;
То голых пашен черные пласты
Засыпал семенами в изобилье.
Весной трубы пронзительный раскат
Разбудит их, как мертвецов в могиле,
И теплый ветер, твой весенний брат,
Взовьет их к жизни дудочкой пастушьей,
И новою листвой оденет сад.
О дух морей, носящийся над сушей!
Творец и разрушитель, слушай, слушай!
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning! they are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, ev'n from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's heightThe locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst:-O hear!
Ты гонишь тучи, как круговорот
Листвы, не тонущей на водной глади,
Которую ветвистый небосвод
С себя роняет, как при листопаде.
То духи молний, и дожди, и гром.
Ты ставишь им, как пляшущей менаде,
Распущенные волосы торчком
И треплешь пряди бури. Непогода Как бы отходный гробовой псалом
Над прахом отбывающего года.
Ты высишь мрак, нависший невдали,
Как камень громоздящегося свода
Над черной усыпальницей земли.
Там дождь, и снег, и град. Внемли, внемли!
Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiаe's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers
Ты в Средиземном море будишь хляби
Под Байями, где меж прибрежных скал
Спит глубина, укачанная рябью,
И отраженный остров задремал,
Топя столбы причалов, и ступени,
И темные сады на дне зеркал.
И, одуряя запахом цветений,
�Content
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear
And tremble and despoil themselves:-O hear!
Пучина расступается до дна,
Когда ты в море входишь по колени.
Вся внутренность его тогда видна,
И водорослей и медуз тщедушье
От страха покрывает седина,
Когда над их сосудистою тушей
Твой голос раздается. Слушай, слушай!
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable!-if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision, - I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee-tameless, and swift, and proud.
Будь я листом, ты шелестел бы мной.
Будь тучей я, ты б нес меня с собою.
Будь я волной, я б рос пред крутизной
Стеною разъяренного прибоя.
О нет, когда б, по-прежнему дитя,
Я уносился в небо голубое
И с тучами гонялся не шутя,
Тогда б, участник твоего веселья,
Я сам, мольбой тебя не тяготя,
Отсюда улетел на самом деле.
Но я сражен. Как тучу и волну
Или листок, сними с песчаной мели
Того, кто тоже рвется в вышину
И горд, как ты, но пойман и в плену.
Make me thy lyre, ev'n as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Дай стать мне лирой, как осенний лес,
И в честь твою ронять свой лист спросонья.
Устрой, чтоб постепенно я исчез
Обрывками разрозненных гармоний.
Суровый дух, позволь мне стать тобой!
Стань мною иль еще неугомонней!
Развей кругом притворный мой покой
И временную мыслей мертвечину.
Вздуй, как заклятьем, этою строкой
Золу из непогасшего камина.
Дай до людей мне слово донести,
Как ты заносишь семена в долину.
И сам раскатом трубным возвести:
Пришла Зима, зато Весна в пути!
In his essay A Defence of Poetry Shelley wrote: "For the mind in creation is as a
fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to
transitory brightness".
Compare Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind with Wordsworth’s Daffodils. What
brings the two poems together? What makes them very different?
�Content
John Keats
John Keats (1795–1821) was born on October 31, 1795. His early life was marked by a series
of personal tragedies. His father, a livery stable keeper, was killed in an accident when Keats
was eight. His mother died of tuberculosis six years later, and one of his younger brothers died
in infancy. Keats received relatively little formal education and at fifteen was apprenticed to an
apothecary to study medicine in a London hospital. Keats became a licensed apothecary, but
he never practiced his profession.
In 1816 Keats met Leigh Hunt, an influential editor of the Examiner, who published his
sonnets On First Looking into Chapman's Homer (1817) and O Solitude (1817). Hunt
also introduced Keats to a circle of literary men, including the poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and
William Wordsworth. The influence of his acquaintances helped Keats to publish his first
volume, Poems by John Keats (1817). Endymion (1817), a four-thousand-line allegorical
romance based on the Greek myth, appeared the following year.
In Greek mythology, Endimion was a beautiful youth who spent much of his
life in perpetual sleep. According to one tradition, Zeus offered him anything
that he might desire, and Endymion chose an everlasting sleep in which he
might remain youthful forever. According to another version of the myth,
Endymion's eternal sleep was a punishment inflicted by Zeus because he had
attempted to have a sexual relationship with Zeus's wife, Hera. In any case, Endymion was
loved by Selene, the goddess of the moon, who visited him every night while he lay asleep in a
cave on Mount Latmus in Caria; she bore him 50 daughters. A common form of the myth
represents Endymion as having been put to sleep by Selene herself so that she might enjoy his
beauty undisturbed.
Two of the most influential critical magazines of the time, the Quarterly Review and
Blackwood's Magazine, attacked the collection. They declared Endymion to be nonsense and
recommended that Keats give up poetry. Shelley, who privately disliked Endymion but
recognized Keats's genius, wrote a more favorable review, but it was never published. Shelley
also exaggerated the effect that the criticism had on Keats, attributing his declining health over
the following years to a spirit broken by the negative reviews.
Keats spent the summer of 1818 on a walking tour in Northern England and Scotland, returning
home to care for his brother, Tom, who suffered from tuberculosis. While nursing his brother,
Keats met and fell in love with a woman named Fanny Brawne. Writing some of his finest
poetry between 1818 and 1819, Keats mainly worked on Hyperion, a blank-verse epic based
on the Greek creation myth. He stopped writing Hyperion upon the death of his brother, after
completing only a small portion. Late in 1819 he returned to the poem and rewrote it as The
Fall of Hyperion (unpublished until 1856).
�Content
In Greek mythology, Hyperion (Greek: "The High-One") was one of the
twelve Titan children of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (Sky or Heaven) who, led
by Cronus, overthrew Uranus and were themselves later overthrown by the
Olympians. With his sister, the Titanide Theia, Hyperion fathered Helios
(Sun), Selene (Moon) and Eos (Dawn).
Keats contracted tuberculosis, and by the beginning of 1819 he felt that death was already
upon him, referring to the present as his "posthumous existence."In July 1820, he published his
third and best volume of poetry, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems
(1820). The three title poems deal with mythical and legendary themes of ancient, medieval,
and Renaissance times. The volume also contained the unfinished Hyperion, the poems Ode
to Psyche, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode on Melancholy, Ode to a Nightingale, To
Autumn, a ballad La Belle Dame Sans Merci, and a few sonnets.
The book received enthusiastic praise, but by that time Keats had reached an advanced stage
of his disease and was too ill to be encouraged. He continued a correspondence with Fanny
Brawne, but his failing health prevented their getting married. Under his doctor's orders to seek
a warm climate for the winter, Keats went to Rome. He died there in February 1821 at the age
of twenty-five, and was buried in the Protestant cemetery.
Though Keats died young, and had only a few years in which he could write effectively, his
achievement in poetry is great. For a long time his poetry was considered merely as sensuous
having no depth of thought. But with the help of his letters, published posthumously, critics
have reinterpreted his poems. In those letters he recorded his thoughts on poetry, love,
philosophy and people and events of his day.
As a worshipper of beauty, Keats discovered that there is beauty in everything, and that Beauty
and Truth are one: "Beauty is truth, truth is beauty, - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye
need to know."He wrote in a letter to his friend: "I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the
heart’s affections and the truth of imagination. What the imagination seizes as beauty must
be truth – whether it existed before or not."
Of all the romantic poets, Keats was the pure poet. He was not only the last but the most
perfect of the Romanticists. He was devoted to poetry and had no other interest. Unlike
Wordsworth who was interested in reforming poetry, unlike Coleridge who was better known
as a critic and lecturer, unlike Shelley who advocated impossible reforms, and unlike Byron
who made his poetry a vehicle of his personal assertion, Keats did not take much notice of the
social, political and literary turmoil, but devoted himself entirely to the worship of beauty. He
was, about all things, a poet, and nothing else. Although his poems were not generally well
received by critics during his lifetime, his reputation grew after his death, and by the end of the
19th century, he had become one of the most beloved of all English poets.
Text
�Content
When I have fears
Перевод Надежды Радченко
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my hand has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
Когда боюсь, что кончу путь земной
Я прежде, чем успею записать,
Что в житнице хранит рассудок мой,
И на храненье книгам передать;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
Когда средь звёздной ночи надо мной
Небесные восходят письмена,
Боюсь, мне не постигнуть тайны той,
Что Вышней Волей в них заключена;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love; – then on the shore
И, видя эфемерность бытия,
Боюсь лишиться той, кого люблю,
И не вкусить волшебного питья
Любви! - тогда у бездны на краю
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
Я одиноко размышляю вновь
О том, что бренны слава и любовь.
What are the poet’s fears?
Comment on the last lines of the poem. What is the author’s resolution?
�Content
English Prose in the Romantic Period
Three types of novel flourished in the Romantic period: the historical novel,
the novel of manners and the Gothic novel.
Walter Scott (1771– 1832) started out as a writer of Romantic narrative verse
and ended up as a historical novelist. He wrote several historical novels, mainly
about Scottish history.
Jane Austen (1775– 1817) shared the chronological time with the Romantics,
but her novels have some features of Realism. She has a unique talent and
cannot really be assigned to any group. Her novels remain as popular and
critically acclaimed as ever. Her primary interest is people, not ideas, and her
achievement lies in the meticulously exact presentation of human situations and
in the delineation of characters that are really living creatures. Her novels deal
with the life of rural land-owners, seen from a woman’s point of view. There is little action but
a lot of humour and true dialogue.
The public taste for Gothic novels which had first appeared in the second half
of the eighteenth century continued throughout the Romantic period. Gothic
novels were based on tales of the macabre, the fantastic and the supernatural.
They were usually set in haunted castles, graveyards, ruins and wild
picturesque landscapes. This type of novel satisfied the Romantic appetite for
wild natural settings, the Middle Ages, and unrestrained imagination.
The greatest Gothic novel of the Romantic period is Mary Shelley's (1797–1851)
Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818).
�Content
Walter Scott
Walter Scott (1771–1832) is generally regarded as the inventor of the historical novel. He was
born in Edinburgh on August l5, 1771. When he was only two years old he got polio, which
left him lame for the rest of his life. To convalesce, he stayed with his grandparents in the
Scottish Border country, where he read widely about Scottish history and tradition.
When he returned to Edinburgh, he became a lawyer, but his real love was writing. He
collected Scottish stories and ballads in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802–03) before
dedicating himself to poetry. The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) and The Lady of the Lake
(1810) are his most popular poems.
He is best remembered, however, as the first great writer of historical novels in the English
language. His first novel Waverley (1814), which deals with the Scottish rebellion of 1745,
appeared anonymously and was immediately successful. The following novels were published
by "the author of Waverley"and were called the Waverley Novels (1771–1832). They are Rob
Roy (1818), The Heart of Midlothian (1818), The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), Ivanhoe
(1819), Kenilworth (1821), Quentin Durward (1823) and many others. For nearly a
century they were among the most popular and widely read novels in Europe.
In recognition of his work, he was made a baronet in 1820. At the height of his career, the
bankruptcy of his business associates brought his own financial ruin. Scott refused all offers of
assistance and spent the rest of his life writing to pay off an enormous debt.
Walter Scott was a born storyteller. Like many Romantic writers, Scott stepped back into the
past and set his novels in more passionate times. In his novels he placed vivid characters in
violent, dramatic historical settings. Ivanhoe, for example, is set against the conflict between
Normans and Saxons in England. In Ivanhoe there are many famous historical figures like
Richard the Lion-Hearted and Robin Hood.
Scott arranged his plots and characters so that the reader enters into the lives of both great and
ordinary people. He was the first novelist to portray peasant characters sympathetically and to
recognise the important role they had in history. Scott believed that every human was basically
decent regardless of class, religion, politics or ancestry. He is widely regarded as a master of
dialogue. He could capture the regional speech of highland peasants with the same ease as he
could reproduce the sophisticated, polished eloquence of knights and aristocrats.
Scott created a new literary form which is still popular to this day. He told the stories of
fictional characters and real people against authentic historical backgrounds. His interest in the
past, his concern for the common man, his use of regional speech and his descriptions of
beautiful natural setting placed him firmly in the Romantic tradition.
Content
Ivanhoe
�Content
Ivanhoe is set in the 12 th century after the Third Crusade. Wilfred, commonly known as
Ivanhoe, is the hero of the story. He returns to his pastoral home after venturing to the
Crusades with King Richard. He seeks to reconcile with his father and marry his childhood
love, Rowena whose guardian is Ivanhoe's father Cedric. Cedric, a Saxon noble, is a strong
supporter of Saxon rights and heritage. He disinherited Ivanhoe for joining King Richard, a
Norman King, to the Crusades. Ivanhoe, through a series of adventures, reconciles with his
father and rescues and marries his childhood sweetheart, Rowena. Along the way, Ivanhoe
is helped by an unusual cast of characters including the Jewess, Rebecca, who heals
Ivanhoe from injuries sustained in a tournament, King Richard disguised as Black Night,
and Robin Hood and his Merry Men.
List of major characters:
Cedric is a Saxon nobleman, father of Ivanhoe. He hates the Normans and wishes to restore
the Saxon monarchy.
Wilfred of Ivanhoe is Cedric’s son. He is a Crusader and a loyal follower of Richard I. He is
the embodiment of the knightly code of chivalry, heroism, and honor.
Athelstane is a descendant from Saxon nobility and Cedric’s last great hope for Saxon
restoration to the throne.
Lady Rowena is Cedric’s foster daughter. She represents the chivalric ideal of womanhood:
fair, chaste, virtuous, loyal, and mild-mannered.
Brian de Bois-Guilbert is a Knight of the Templar Order and Ivanhoe’s mortal enemy. He is
fierce and a strong fighter, but weak morally, as he falls for a Jewish girl (Rebecca) and
captures her.
Front-de-Boeuf is a companion of de Bois-Guilbert.
Richard Plantagenet (Black Knight) is the rightful King of England called Richard the
Lion-Hearted. His courage and prowess are beyond reproach, but he comes under criticism
for putting his love of adventure ahead of the well-being of his subjects.
John Plantagenet is Richard’s greedy brother, who sits on the throne of England in
Richard's absence. He spends most of his time plotting to keep his brother from coming back
to England.
Waldemar Fitzurse John’s advisor, a wily man who thinks of nothing but his own rise to
power if John succeeds in displacing Richard.
Isaac is a Jewish moneylender of York. He is rich but stingy and much disliked by both
Saxons and Normans.
Rebecca is a beautiful young Jewess, daughter of Isaac of York, who falls in love with
Ivanhoe. She attends him after he is wounded in the tournament. A tragic heroine, she is
among the most sympathetic characters in the book.
�Content
Maurice De Bracy is a knight attached to Prince John’s court.
Locksley is really Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest. He saves King Richard from an attack.
He is witty, gallant, heroic, and he likes adventure and excitement. However, he is also smart
and a good leader with many loyal followers.
Text
Ivanhoe
from Chapter II
A Monk there was, a fayre for the maistrie,
An outrider that loved venerie;
A manly man, to be an Abbot able,
Full many a daintie horse had he in stable:
And whan he rode, men might his bridle hear
Gingeling in a whistling wind as clear,
And eke as loud, as doth the chapell bell,
There as this lord was keeper of the cell.
–Chaucer.
Notwithstanding the occasional exhortation and chiding of his companion, the noise of the
horsemen's feet continuing to approach, Wamba could not be prevented from lingering
occasionally on the road, upon every pretence which occurred; now catching from the hazel a
cluster of half-ripe nuts, and now turning his head to leer after a cottage maiden who crossed
their path. The horsemen, therefore, soon overtook them on the road.
Their numbers amounted to ten men, of whom the two who rode foremost seemed to be
persons of considerable importance, and the others their attendants. It was not difficult to
ascertain the condition and character of one of these personages. He was obviously an
ecclesiastic of high rank; his dress was that of a Cistercian Monk, but composed of materials
much finer than those which the rule of that order admitted. His mantle and hood were of the
best Flanders cloth, and fell in ample, and not ungraceful folds, around a handsome, though
somewhat corpulent person. His countenance bore as little the marks of self-denial, as his habit
indicated contempt of worldly splendour. His features might have been called good, had there
not lurked under the pent-house of his eye, that sly epicurean twinkle which indicates the
cautious voluptuary. In other respects, his profession and situation had taught him a ready
command over his countenance, which he could contract at pleasure into solemnity, although
its natural expression was that of good-humoured social indulgence. In defiance of conventual
rules, and the edicts of popes and councils, the sleeves of this dignitary were lined and turned
up with rich furs, his mantle secured at the throat with a golden clasp, and the whole dress
proper to his order as much refined upon and ornamented, as that of a quaker beauty of the
present day, who, while she retains the garb and costume of her sect continues to give to its
�Content
simplicity, by the choice of materials and the mode of disposing them, a certain air of
coquettish attraction, savouring but too much of the vanities of the world.
This worthy churchman rode upon a well-fed ambling mule, whose furniture was highly
decorated, and whose bridle, according to the fashion of the day, was ornamented with silver
bells. In his seat he had nothing of the awkwardness of the convent, but displayed the easy and
habitual grace of a well-trained horseman. Indeed, it seemed that so humble a conveyance as a
mule, in however good case, and however well broken to a pleasant and accommodating
amble, was only used by the gallant monk for travelling on the road. A lay brother, one of
those who followed in the train, had, for his use on other occasions, one of the most
handsome Spanish jennets ever bred at Andalusia, which merchants used at that time to import,
with great trouble and risk, for the use of persons of wealth and distinction. The saddle and
housings of this superb palfrey were covered by a long foot-cloth, which reached nearly to the
ground, and on which were richly embroidered, mitres, crosses, and other ecclesiastical
emblems. Another lay brother led a sumpter mule, loaded probably with his superior's
baggage; and two monks of his own order, of inferior station, rode together in the rear,
laughing and conversing with each other, without taking much notice of the other members of
the cavalcade.
Why does the author select a passage from The Canterbury Tales as the
epigraph? Does he try to imitate Chaucer’s characters, tone, or manner of
description? What is the role of intertextuality here?
Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning with the help of another text.
Intertextuality can be used in texts in a variety of forms including allusion,
quotation and references. The writer expects the reader to possess enough
knowledge to spot the intext (intertext, precedental text) and grasp its importance
in a text. Allusion is a brief reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical,
cultural, literary or political significance. Quotation is a passage or remark repeated by
someone other than the originator as evidence or illustration. Reminiscences are the familiar
plots, motives, facts, wording or sounding of the text which arouse associations with other
texts.
Link
from the Prologue of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
modern English Translation
перевод И. Кашкина и О. Румера
�Content
There was a Monk. Here was a rising man;
All the estates of his abbey he ran,
He loved to hunt, was forceful and well able
to be an abbot. There were in his stable
Fine horses. When he rode out you could hear
Their bridles jingling on the wind as clear
And quite as loudly as did the chapel bell
At that priory where he had charge as well.
The rules of Saints Maurus and Benedict,
Because they were quite old and somewhat strict
This modern monk he let these old things pass,
The new world held the key to true success.
He didn't give a jot for that old saw
Which said that hunting broke the holy law.
Or that a monk who ignored his first duty,
Like a fish out of water, was no beauty.
In other words, a monk out of his cloister.
But this saying too was not worth an oyster.
As I have shown his views were not muddy.
Why should he drive himself mad with study
Pouring over a dull book in his cell?
And as for working with his hands as well - Augustine's way - how would that serve the world's good?
Let Augustine do his labour if he would.
To spur his horse, to hunt, was his delight.
He had greyhounds as swift as birds in flight.
To follow a trail and hunt for the hair
Was his great love - and no cost would he spare.
I saw that his sleeves were trimmed at the hand
With soft grey fur, the finest in the land;
And to fasten his hood under his chin,
Of clever design, he had a gold pin,
With its head shaped into a lovers knot.
His bald head shone like a mirror on top.
His face did too, as though all smeared with cream.
This was a weighty man, broad in the beam.
His bulging eyes which rolled around his head,
Shone like a glowing furnace smelting lead.
His boots were supple, his horse in fine fettle
He was truly a prelate of great mettle:
Nor was he pale like a suffering ghost,
A fat swan he loved best of any roast!
His palfrey was as brown as a berry.
Монах был монастырский ревизор.
Наездник страстный, он любил охоту
И богомолье - только не работу.
И хоть таких монахов и корят,
Но превосходный был бы он аббат:
Его конюшню вся округа знала,
Его уздечка пряжками бренчала,
Как колокольчики часовни той,
Доход с которой тратил он, как свой.
Он не дал бы и ломаной полушки
За жизнь без дам, без псарни, без пирушки.
Веселый нравом, он терпеть не мог
Монашеский томительный острог,
Устав Маврикия и Бенедикта
И всякие прескрипты и эдикты.
А в самом деле, ведь монах-то прав,
И устарел суровый сей устав:
Охоту запрещает он к чему-то
И поучает нас не в меру круто:
Монах без кельи - рыба без воды.
А я большой не вижу в том беды.
В конце концов монах - не рак-отшельник,
Что на спине несет свою молельню.
Он устрицы не даст за весь тот вздор,
Который проповедует приор.
Зачем корпеть средь книг иль в огороде,
Зачем тощать наперекор природе?
Труды, посты, лишения, молитвы На что они, коль есть любовь и битвы?
Пусть Августин печется о спасенье,
А братии оставит прегрешенья.
Был наш монах лихой боец, охотник.
Держал борзых на псарне он две сотни:
Без травли псовой нету в жизни смысла.
Он лебедя любил с подливкой кислой.
Был лучшей белкой плащ его подбит,
Богато вышит и отлично сшит.
Застежку он, как подобает франтам,
Украсил золотым "любовным бантом".
Зеркальным шаром лоснилась тонзура,
Свисали щеки, и его фигура
Вся оплыла; проворные глаза
Запухли, и текла из них слеза.
Вокруг его раскормленного тела
Испарина, что облако, висела.
Ему завидовал и сам аббат Так представителен был наш прелат.
�Content
И сам лицом упитанный, румяный,
И сапожки из лучшего сафьяна,
И конь гнедой, артачливый на вид.
There are some reasons for the popularity of historical novels:
• they provide an escape from reality;
• they fulfil an educational purpose;
• they give a new vision of historical events;
• and they teach some moral lessons.
What do you think is the main one?
Add more reasons to the list.
�Content
Jane Austen
Jane Austen (1775–1817) stands out as one of the greatest writers of all times. Her novels,
including Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Sense and Sensibility (1811), are considered
literary classics, bridging the gap between romanticism and realism.
Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in the family of a parish rector. The children
grew in the atmosphere of learning and creative thinking. They were encouraged to read from
their father's library, write stories and put on plays.
Jane and her elder sister Cassandra had a short period of formal education at a boarding
school. The family’s financial difficulties brought them back home before they finished their
studies.
Jane continued to write short stories, poems and plays. She developed her style in the first
ambitious work called Lady Susan. It was an epistolary novel about a manipulative woman
who used her sexuality, intelligence and charm to have her way with others. Jane also started to
write some of her future major works. Elinor and Marianne, another story told as a series of
letters, eventually was published as Sense and Sensibility.
In 1801, Jane moved to Bath with her father, mother and Cassandra. In 1805 the father died
after a short illness, and the family's income was considerably reduced. The three women
moved from home to home of various family members before they finally settled at Jane's
brother Edward's cottage in Chawton.
Jane started to publish her works anonymously. In the period of five years she published
Sense and Sensibility(1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma
(1816).
Jane Austen’s novels Persuasion (1818) and Northanger Abbey (1818) were published
posthumously by her brother Henry. He revealed the author’s identity to the public.
In 1816, at the age of 41, Jane started to become ill with what might have been Addison's
disease.
Addison’s disease (hypoadrenalism) is a rare, chronic endocrine disorder in
which the adrenal glands do not produce sufficient hormones. It may
progress to Addisonian crisis, a severe illness in which there may be very low
blood pressure and coma.
In spite of her illness Jane continued to write and started a novel called The Brothers, which
would be published after her death as Sandition (1925). At some point, Jane's condition
deteriorated to such a degree that she ceased writing. She died on July 18, 1817.
Jane Austen developed a type of fiction that is referred to as the novel of manners, where
characterisation and plot are very important. Her novels are a reflection of her outlook on life.
She spent most of her life in a close circle of her family and friends. Her major topics were the
�Content
traditional concerns of upper and middle class society: property, connections, money and
marriage. Most of the novels are set in the idyllic atmosphere of country life that Jane was so
fond of.
The strong point of Jane Austen’s novels was her ability to penetrate into the character and
nature of human relationships. The private lives of her characters, their romances, adventures
and misuderstandings, are in the focus of Jane Austen's witty and elegant works.
Apart from brief flirtations, Jane Austen herself remained single all her life. But the main subject
of her novels is the problem of gaining a suitable marriage. It was a big issue facing women and
men of her time. Financial considerations were often a principal criterion in deciding marriages.
Jane Austen satirised these financial motivations. She liberated contemporary ideas of women’s
aspirations and helped to redefine their role in marriage.
Text
Pride and Predjudice
Chapter 34
When they were gone, Elizabeth, as if
intending to exasperate herself as much as
possible against Mr. Darcy, chose for her
employment the examination of all the
letters which Jane had written to her since
her being in Kent. They contained no
actual complaint, nor was there any
revival of past occurrences, or any
communication of present suffering.
Когда они ушли, Элизабет, как бы желая еще
больше настроить себя против мистера
Дарси, стала перечитывать полученные ею в
Кенте письма Джейн. В них не было прямых
жалоб. Сестра не вспоминала о недавних
событиях и ничего не говорила о своих
теперешних переживаниях.
But in all, and in almost every line of
each, there was a want of that
cheerfulness which had been used to
characterise her style, and which,
proceeding from the serenity of a mind at
ease with itself and kindly disposed
towards everyone, had been scarcely ever
clouded. Elizabeth noticed every sentence
conveying the idea of uneasiness, with an
attention which it had hardly received on
the first perusal. Mr. Darcy's shameful
boast of what misery he had been able to
inflict, gave her a keener sense of her
sister's sufferings. It was some
consolation to think that his visit to
Но любое письмо, почти любая строка
свидетельствовали
об
исчезновении
обычной для прежних писем Джейн
жизнерадостности,
которая
была
так
свойственна царившему в ее душе миру и
расположению
к
людям.
Каждую
проникнутую печалью фразу Элизабет
замечала теперь гораздо явственнее, чем при
первом чтении. Бесстыдная похвальба
мистера
Дарси
столь
успешным
вмешательством в чужую судьбу позволила
ей еще острее осознать глубину горя,
пережитого ее бедной сестрой. И ей
искренне хотелось, чтобы оставшиеся до его
отъезда два дня миновали возможно скорее.
�Content
Rosings was to end on the day after the
next-and, a still greater, that in less than a
fortnight she should herself be with Jane
again, and enabled to contribute to the
recovery of her spirits, by all that
affection could do.
То, что через две недели ей предстояло
снова встретиться с Джейн и при этом
предпринять
для
восстановления
ее
душевного спокойствия все, к чему
способна истинная привязанность, было
единственно
приятной
стороной
ее
размышлений.
She could not think of Darcy's leaving
Kent without remembering that his cousin
was to go with him; but Colonel
Fitzwilliam had made it clear that he had
no intentions at all, and agreeable as he
was, she did not mean to be unhappy
about him.
При мысли об отъезде из Кента мистера
Дарси она не могла не вспомнить, что вместе
с ним Кент должен покинуть и его кузен. Но
полковник Фицуильям достаточно ясно
намекнул ей на отсутствие каких-либо
серьезных намерений с его стороны. И, как
бы ни было ей приятно его общество, она
вовсе не собиралась расстраиваться по
поводу предстоящей разлуки.
While settling this point, she was
suddenly roused by the sound of the
door-bell, and her spirits were a little
fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel
Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before
called late in the evening, and might now
come to inquire particularly after her. But
this idea was soon banished, and her
spirits were very differently affected,
when, to her utter amazement, she saw
Mr. Darcy walk into the room. In an
hurried manner he immediately began an
inquiry after her health, imputing his visit
to a wish of hearing that she were better.
She answered him with cold civility. He
sat down for a few moments, and then
getting up, walked about the room.
Elizabeth was surprised, but said not a
word. After a silence of several minutes,
he came towards her in an agitated
manner, and thus began:
Именно тогда, когда она вполне уяснила для
себя это обстоятельство, она вдруг
услышала звонок колокольчика. Подумав,
что неожиданный посетитель – сам
полковник Фицуильям, который однажды
примерно в этот же час уже навещал их и
мог зайти снова, чтобы справиться о ее
здоровье, Элизабет почувствовала легкое
волнение. Но ее предположение рассеялось и
мысли приняли другой оборот, когда, к
величайшему изумлению, она увидела
вошедшего в комнату мистера Дарси. Гость
сразу же осведомился о ее недомогании и
объяснил
свой
визит
желанием
удостовериться, что ее самочувствие
улучшилось. Она ответила с холодной
учтивостью. Он немного посидел, затем
встал и начал расхаживать по комнате.
Элизабет была озадачена, но ничего не
говорила. После нескольких минут молчания
он стремительно подошел к ней и сказал:
"In vain I have struggled. It will not do.
My feelings will not be repressed. You
must allow me to tell you how ardently I
admire and love you."
- Вся моя борьба была тщетной! Ничего не
выходит. Я не в силах справиться со своим
чувством. Знайте же, что я вами бесконечно
очарован и что я вас люблю!
�Content
Elizabeth's astonishment was beyond
expression. She stared, coloured,
doubted, and was silent. This he
considered sufficient encouragement; and
the avowal of all that he felt, and had long
felt for her, immediately followed. He
spoke well; but there were feelings
besides those of the heart to be detailed;
and he was not more eloquent on the
subject of tenderness than of pride. His
sense of her inferiority-of its being a
degradation-of the family obstacles which
had always opposed to inclination, were
dwelt on with a warmth which seemed
due to the consequence he was
wounding, but was very unlikely to
recommend his suit.
Невозможно описать, как его слова
ошеломили
Элизабет.
Растерянная
и
покрасневшая, она смотрела на него и
молчала. И, обнадеженный ее молчанием,
Дарси поторопился рассказать ей обо всем,
что пережил за последнее время и что так
волновало его в эту минуту. Он говорил с
необыкновенным жаром. Но в его словах
был слышен не только голос сердца:
страстная любовь звучала в них не сильнее,
чем
уязвленная
гордость.
Его
взволнованные
рассуждения
о
существовавшем между ними неравенстве,
об ущербе, который он наносил своему
имени, и о семейных предрассудках, до сих
пор мешавших ему открыть свои чувства,
убедительно подтверждали силу его страсти,
но едва ли способствовали успеху его
признания.
In spite of her deeply-rooted dislike, she
could not be insensible to the compliment
of such a man's affection, and though her
intentions did not vary for an instant, she
was at first sorry for the pain he was to
receive; till, roused to resentment by his
subsequent language, she lost all
compassion in anger. She tried, however,
to compose herself to answer him with
patience, when he should have done.
Несмотря на глубокую неприязнь к мистеру
Дарси, Элизабет не могла не понимать,
насколько лестна для нее любовь подобного
человека. И, ни на секунду не утратив этой
неприязни, она вначале даже размышляла о
нем с некоторым сочувствием, понимая, как
сильно он будет расстроен ее ответом.
Однако его дальнейшие рассуждения
настолько ее возмутили, что гнев вытеснил в
ее душе всякую жалость. Решив все же
совладать
со
своим
порывом,
она
готовилась ответить ему, когда он кончит,
возможно спокойнее.
He concluded with representing to her the
strength of that attachment which, in spite
of all his endeavours, he had found
impossible to conquer; and with
expressing his hope that it would now be
rewarded by her acceptance of his hand.
As he said this, she could easily see that
he had no doubt of a favourable answer.
He spoke of apprehension and anxiety,
but his countenance expressed real
В заключение он выразил надежду, что
согласие мисс Беннет принять его руку
вознаградит его за все муки страсти,
которую он столь тщетно стремился
подавить в своем сердце. То, что она может
ответить отказом, явно не приходило ему в
голову. И, объясняя, с каким волнением он
ждет ее приговора, Дарси всем своим видом
показывал, насколько он уверен, что ответ ее
будет благоприятным. Все это могло вызвать
�Content
security. Such a circumstance could only в душе Элизабет только еще большее
exasperate farther, and, when he ceased, возмущение. И как только он замолчал, она,
the colour rose into her cheeks, and she вспыхнув, сказала:
said:
"In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the
established mode to express a sense of
obligation for the sentiments avowed,
however unequally they may be returned.
It is natural that obligation should be felt,
and if I could feel gratitude, I would now
thank you. But I cannot-I have never
desired your good opinion, and you have
certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I
am sorry to have occasioned pain to
anyone. It has been most unconsciously
done, however, and I hope will be of
short duration. The feelings which, you
tell me, have long prevented the
acknowledgment of your regard, can have
little difficulty in overcoming it after this
explanation."
- Чувство, которое вы питаете, независимо
от того - разделяется оно человеком, к
которому оно обращено, или нет, свойственно, я полагаю, принимать с
благодарностью. Благодарность присуща
природе человека, и, если бы я ее
испытывала, я бы вам сейчас это выразила.
Но я ее не испытываю. Я никогда не искала
вашего расположения, и оно возникло
вопреки моей воле. Мне жаль причинять
боль кому бы то ни было. Если я ее
совершенно нечаянно вызвала, надеюсь, она
не
окажется
продолжительной.
Соображения, которые, по вашим словам,
так долго мешали вам уступить вашей
склонности, без труда помогут вам
преодолеть ее после этого объяснения.
Mr. Darcy, who was leaning against the
mantelpiece with his eyes fixed on her
face, seemed to catch her words with no
less resentment than surprise. His
complexion became pale with anger, and
the disturbance of his mind was visible in
every feature. He was struggling for the
appearance of composure, and would not
open his lips till he believed himself to
have attained it. The pause was to
Elizabeth's feelings dreadful. At length,
with a voice of forced calmness, he said:
Мистер Дарси, облокотясь на камин,
пристально смотрел на Элизабет. Ее слова
изумили его и привели в негодование. Лицо
его побледнело, и каждая черта выдавала
крайнее замешательство. Он старался
сохранить внешнее спокойствие и не
произнес ни слова, пока не почувствовал,
что способен взять себя в руки. Возникшая
пауза показалась Элизабет мучительной.
Наконец он сказал нарочито сдержанным
тоном:
"And this is all the reply which I am to
have the honour of expecting! I might,
perhaps, wish to be informed why, with
so little endeavour at civility, I am thus
rejected. But it is of small importance."
- И этим исчерпывается ответ, который я
имею честь от вас получить? Пожалуй, я мог
бы знать причину, по которой вы не
попытались облечь свой отказ по меньшей
мере в учтивую форму? Впрочем, это не
имеет значения!
"I might as well inquire," replied she, - С таким же правом я могла бы спросить, "why with so evident a desire of ответила она, - о причине, по которой вы
�Content
offending and insulting me, you chose to
tell me that you liked me against your will,
against your reason, and even against
your character? Was not this some
excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? But
I have other provocations. You know I
have. Had not my feelings decided
against you-had they been indifferent, or
had they even been favourable, do you
think that any consideration would tempt
me to accept the man who has been the
means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the
happiness of a most beloved sister?"
объявили, - с явным намерением меня
оскорбить и унизить, - что любите меня
вопреки своей воле, своему рассудку и даже
всем своим склонностям! Не служит ли это
для меня некоторым оправданием, если я и в
самом деле была с вами недостаточно
любезна? Но у меня были и другие поводы.
И вы о них знаете. Если бы даже против вас
не восставали все мои чувства, если бы я
относилась к вам безразлично или даже была
к вам расположена - неужели какие-нибудь
соображения могли бы склонить меня
принять руку человека, который явился
причиной
несчастья,
быть
может
непоправимого, моей любимой сестры?
As she pronounced these words, Mr.
Darcy changed colour; but the emotion
was short, and he listened without
attempting to interrupt her while she
continued:
При этих ее словах мистер Дарси изменился
в лице. Но овладевшее им волнение скоро
прошло, и он слушал Элизабет, не пытаясь
ее перебить, в то время как она продолжала:
"I have every reason in the world to think
ill of you. No motive can excuse the
unjust and ungenerous part you acted
there. You dare not, you cannot deny,
that you have been the principal, if not the
only means of dividing them from each
other-of exposing one to the censure of
the world for caprice and instability, and
the other to its derision for disappointed
hopes, and involving them both in misery
of the acutest kind."
- У меня есть все основания составить о вас
дурное мнение. Ваше злонамеренное и
неблагородное
вмешательство,
которое
привело к разрыву между мистером Бингли и
моей сестрой, не может быть оправдано
никакими мотивами. Вы не станете, вы не
посмеете отрицать, что являетесь главной,
если не единственной причиной разрыва.
Бингли заслужил из-за него обвинение в
ветрености и непостоянстве, а Джейн насмешку
над
неоправдавшимися
надеждами. И они оба не могли не
почувствовать себя глубоко несчастными.
She paused, and saw with no slight
indignation that he was listening with an
air which proved him wholly unmoved by
any feeling of remorse. He even looked at
her with a smile of affected incredulity.
Она остановилась и с возмущением
заметила, что он ее слушает, вовсе не
обнаруживая сожаления о случившемся.
Напротив, он даже смотрел на нее с
усмешкой напускного недоверия.
"Can you deny that you have done it?" - Можете ли вы утверждать, что это - не дело
she repeated.
ваших рук? - повторила она.
�Content
With assumed tranquillity he then replied:
Его ответ был нарочито спокойным:
"I have no wish of denying that I did
everything in my power to separate my
friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in
my success. Towards him I have been
kinder than towards myself."
- Я не намерен отрицать, что в пределах
моих возможностей сделал все, чтобы
отдалить моего друга от вашей сестры, или
что я доволен успехом моих усилий. О
Бингли я позаботился лучше, чем о самом
себе.
Elizabeth disdained the appearance of
noticing this civil reflection, but its
meaning did not escape, nor was it likely
to conciliate her.
Элизабет сделала вид, что это любезное
замечание прошло мимо ее ушей. Но смысл
его не ускользнул от ее внимания и едва ли
мог сколько-нибудь умерить ее гнев.
"But it is not merely this affair," she
continued, "on which my dislike is
founded. Long before it had taken place
my opinion of you was decided. Your
character was unfolded in the recital
which I received many months ago from
Mr. Wickham. On this subject, what can
you have to say? In what imaginary act of
friendship can you here defend yourself?
or under what misrepresentation can you
here impose upon others?"
- Но моя неприязнь к вам, - продолжала она,
- основывается не только на этом
происшествии. Мое мнение о вас сложилось
гораздо раньше. Ваш характер раскрылся
передо мной из рассказа, который я много
месяцев назад услышала от мистера Уикхема.
Что вы можете сказать по этому поводу?
Каким дружеским участием вы оправдаетесь
в этом случае? Или чьим неправильным
толкованием ваших поступков вы попробуете
прикрыться?
"You take an eager interest in that
gentleman's concerns," said Darcy, in a
less tranquil tone, and with a heightened
colour.
- Вы весьма близко к сердцу принимаете
судьбу этого джентльмена, - вспыхнув,
заметил Дарси уже менее сдержанным
тоном.
"Who that knows what his misfortunes - Может ли остаться равнодушным тот, кому
have been, can help feeling an interest in сделались известны его утраты?
him?"
"His misfortunes!" repeated Darcy - Его утраты? - с презрением повторил
contemptuously; "yes, his misfortunes Дарси. - Что ж, его утраты и в самом деле
have been great indeed."
велики.
"And of your infliction," cried Elizabeth
with energy. "You have reduced him to
his present state of poverty-comparative
poverty. You have withheld the
advantages which you must know to have
been designed for him. You have
deprived the best years of his life of that
- И в этом виновны вы! - с жаром
воскликнула Элизабет. - Вы довели его до
нищеты - да, это можно назвать нищетой!
Вы, и никто другой, лишили его тех благ, на
которые он был вправе рассчитывать. Вы
отняли у него лучшие годы жизни и ту
независимость, которая принадлежала ему
�Content
independence which was no less his due по праву и по заслугам. Все это - дело ваших
than his desert. You have done all this! рук! И при этом вы еще позволяете себе
and yet you can treat the mention of his посмеиваться над его участью?!
misfortune with contempt and ridicule."
"And this," cried Darcy, as he walked
with quick steps across the room, "is
your opinion of me! This is the estimation
in which you hold me! I thank you for
explaining it so fully. My faults, according
to this calculation, are heavy indeed! But
perhaps," added he, stopping in his walk,
and turning towards her, "these offenses
might have been overlooked, had not
your pride been hurt by my honest
confession of the scruples that had long
prevented my forming any serious design.
- Ах, вот как вы судите обо мне! воскликнул Дарси, быстро шагая из угла в
угол. - Вот что вы обо мне думаете!
Благодарю за
откровенность.
Судить
по-вашему - я и впрямь кругом виноват. Но,
быть может, - сказал он, останавливаясь и
поглядев на нее в упор, - мои прегрешения
были бы прощены, не задень вашу гордость
мое признание в сомнениях и внутренней
борьбе, которые мешали мне уступить моим
чувствам?
These bitter accusations might have been
suppressed, had I, with greater policy,
concealed my struggles, and flattered you
into the belief of my being impelled by
unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by
reason, by reflection, by everything. But
disguise of every sort is my abhorrence.
Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I
related. They were natural and just. Could
you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority
of your connections?-to congratulate
myself on the hope of relations, whose
condition in life is so decidedly beneath
my own?"
Не мог ли я избежать столь тяжких
обвинений, если бы предусмотрительно от
вас это скрыл? Если бы я вам польстил,
заверив в своей всепоглощающей страсти,
которую бы не омрачали противоречия,
доводы рассудка или светские условности?
Но притворство мне отвратительно. Я не
стыжусь чувств, о которых вам рассказал.
Они естественны и оправданны. Могли ли
вы ждать, что мне будет приятен круг людей,
в котором вы постоянно находитесь? Или
что я стану себя поздравлять, вступая в
родство с теми, кто находится столь ниже
меня на общественной лестнице?
Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry Возмущение Элизабет росло с каждой
every moment; yet she tried to the utmost минутой. Однако, отвечая ему, она всячески
to speak with composure when she said: старалась сохранить внешнее спокойствие.
"You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you
suppose that the mode of your
declaration affected me in any other way,
than as it spared the concern which I
might have felt in refusing you, had you
behaved in a more gentlemanlike
manner."
- Вы глубоко заблуждаетесь, мистер Дарси,
думая, что на мой ответ повлияла манера
вашего объяснения. Она лишь избавила меня
от сочувствия, которое мне пришлось бы к
вам испытывать, если бы вы вели себя так,
как подобает благородному человеку.
�Content
She saw him start at this, but he said Она заметила, как он вздрогнул при этих
nothing, and she continued:
словах. Но он промолчал, и она продолжала:
"You could not have made the offer of - В какой бы манере вы ни сделали мне
your hand in any possible way that would предложение, я все равно не могла бы его
have tempted me to accept it."
принять.
Again his astonishment was obvious; and
he looked at her with an expression of
mingled incredulity and mortification. She
went on:
На лице его снова было написано удивление.
И пока она говорила, он смотрел на нее со
смешанным выражением недоверия и
растерянности.
"From the very beginning-from the first
moment, I may almost say-of my
acquaintance with you, your manners,
impressing me with the fullest belief of
your arrogance, your conceit, and your
selfish disdain of the feelings of others,
were such as to form the groundwork of
disapprobation on which succeeding
events have built so immovable a dislike;
and I had not known you a month before
I felt that you were the last man in the
world whom I could ever be prevailed on
to marry."
- С самого начала я бы могла сказать: с
первой минуты нашего знакомства ваше
поведение
дало
мне
достаточно
доказательств
вашей
заносчивости,
высокомерия и полного пренебрежения к
чувствам тех, кто вас окружает. Моя
неприязнь к вам зародилась еще тогда. Но
под действием позднейших событий она
стала непреодолимой. И не прошло месяца
после нашей встречи, как я уже ясно поняла,
что из всех людей в мире вы меньше всего
можете стать моим мужем.
"You have said quite enough, madam. I
perfectly comprehend your feelings, and
have now only to be ashamed of what my
own have been. Forgive me for having
taken up so much of your time, and
accept my best wishes for your health
and happiness."
- Вы сказали вполне достаточно, сударыня.
Я понимаю ваши чувства, и мне остается
лишь устыдиться своих собственных.
Простите, что отнял у вас столько времени,
и примите мои искренние пожелания
здоровья и благополучия.
And with these words he hastily left the
room, and Elizabeth heard him the next
moment open the front door and quit the
house.
С этими словами Дарси покинул комнату, и в
следующее мгновение Элизабет услышала,
как он открыл входную дверь и вышел из
дома.
The tumult of her mind, was now
painfully great. She knew not how to
support herself, and from actual
weakness sat down and cried for
half-an-hour. Her astonishment, as she
reflected on what had passed, was
increased by every review of it. That she
Все ее чувства находились в крайнем
смятении. Не имея [146] больше сил
сдерживать себя, она села в кресло и
полчаса,
совершенно
обессиленная,
заливалась слезами. Снова и снова
перебирала она в памяти подробности
только что происшедшей сцены. И ее
�Content
should receive an offer of marriage from удивление непрерывно возрастало. Ей сделал
Mr. Darcy! That he should have been in предложение мистер Дарси! Мистер Дарси
love with her for so many months!
влюблен в нее в течение многих месяцев!
So much in love as to wish to marry her
in spite of all the objections which had
made him prevent his friend's marrying
her sister, and which must appear at least
with equal force in his own case-was
almost incredible! It was gratifying to
have inspired unconsciously so strong an
affection.
Влюблен настолько, что решился просить ее
руки, вопреки всем препятствиям, из-за
которых он расстроил женитьбу Бингли на
Джейн и которые имели по меньшей мере то
же значение для него самого! Все это
казалось
невероятным.
Сделаться
невольным предметом столь сильной
привязанности было, конечно, весьма
лестно.
But his pride, his abominable pride-his
shameless avowal of what he had done
with respect to Jane-his unpardonable
assurance in acknowledging, though he
could not justify it, and the unfeeling
manner in which he had mentioned Mr.
Wickham, his cruelty towards whom he
had not attempted to deny, soon
overcame
the
pity
which
the
consideration of his attachment had for a
moment excited.
Но гордость, страшная гордость мистера
Дарси, его бесстыдная похвальба своим
вмешательством
в
судьбу
Джейн,
непростительная уверенность, что он при
этом поступил правильно, бесчувственная
манера, с какой он говорил об Уикхеме, и его
жестокость по отношению к этому молодому
человеку, которую он даже не пытался
опровергнуть, - все это быстро подавило в ее
душе всякое сочувствие, на мгновение
вызванное в ней мыслью о его любви.
She continued in very agitated reflections
till the sound of Lady Catherine's carriage
made her feel how unequal she was to
encounter Charlotte's observation, and
hurried her away to her room.
Элизабет еще продолжала лихорадочно
размышлять о случившемся, когда шум
подъехавшего экипажа напомнил ей, что ее
может увидеть Шарлотта, и заставил
поскорее уйти в свою комнату.
What can you say about the manner in which Darcy proposed to Elizabeth?
What was the author’s purpose in making Elizabeth refuse Darcy?
Was it a common thing for a woman of her standing to decline such a flattering
offer?
�Content
Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) was born on August 30,1797, in London. Her
mother, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) wrote one of the first books on the rights of
women, A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). Her first inspiration for her
feminist works came from having grown up with a father who constantly beat her mother. Later
in life, after several unsuccessful love affairs, she found happiness with the radical philosopher
William Godwin. They married when Mary Wollstonecraft was already pregnant, but she died
a few days after giving birth to Mary. This was the first of many tragedies suffered by Mary in
her life.
Mary grew up in an intellectual household surrounded by her father's famous friends,
philosophers, writers and poets such as William Blake and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
In spring of 1814 Mary met the poet and revolutionary Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was an
admirer of her father. He was already married at the time and a child. The two fell in love, but
Mary’s father was against their relationship. In July, Mary eloped with Shelley to the Continent.
She described their adventures in her book History of a Six Weeks' Tour Through a Part of
France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland (1817). Financial difficulties brought the young
couple back to England.
In 1815 Mary gave birth prematurely to a baby girl who died two weeks later. Shelley received
a large annual income and the couple moved into a house on Bishopsgate Heath. In 1816, their
son William was born. At this time, Mary's stepsister Claire was having an affair with Byron
and persuaded Mary and Shelly to travel with her to Switzer-land.
The Shelleys spent a great deal of time with George Gordon, Lord Byron, sailing on Lake
Geneva and discussing poetry and other topics, including ghosts and spirits, long into the
night. During one of these "ghostly sessions" Byron proposed that each person present should
write a ghost story. Mary's contribution to the contest became the novel Frankenstein, or the
Modern Prometheus (1818).
At the end of that summer the Shelleys moved back to England. There they received the news
that Shelley’s wife Harriet had drowned herself. Mary and Shelley married. Public hostility
towards the couple made them move to Italy. When Mary was only twenty-four, her husband
drowned in the sea, leaving her penniless with their only surviving son Percy Florence. Mary
hoped that Percy Shelley's father would help her, but he said that he would only do so if she
gave up the boy. She refused and began to write to make money. When Shelley's father died,
Percy Florence inherited the family fortune. Mary lived the rest of her life fairly peacefully and
happily. She died in London on 1 February, 1851.
Content
Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus
Robert Walton, an explorer, describes his trip to the Arctic in letters to his sister, Margaret,
�Content
who lives in England. One of Walton’s letters contains a strange story.
Once Walton and his crew saw a gigantic man being pulled by a dogsled. The following
day they discovered another, smaller man, desperately ill, adrift on a sheet of ice. Walton
brought the man onto his ship. After a week the man was able to talk and told Walton an
incredible story.
The man’s name was Victor Frankenstein. He was a young scientist from Geneva,
Switzerland. At the university Victor made strange experiments. He constructed a huge
creature from parts of human corpses and brought it to life. Victor was horrified by his
creation and ran from his laboratory. He became very ill and disoriented for almost two
years.
As he prepared to return home to his family, Victor learned that William, his seven-year-old
brother, had been murdered. Justine Moritz, a young woman the Frankenstein family had
adopted, had been accused of the crime. Justine was tried, found guilty, and hanged. But
Victor refused to believe that Justine committed the murder. Instead, he suspected that his
creature wasn’t really dead, and was responsible for the horrible crime.
Victor felt guilty for William’s murder and Justine’s execution. Desperate to be alone, he
climbed into the mountains, where he encountered the creature. The creature told Victor that
he was hiding in the woods. He realized that he was repulsive to other human beings. In the
forest the creature discovered a peasant family living in a cottage. By secretly observing
them, the creature learned to read and write. Then, in his jacket pocket, the creature found
Victor’s journal and read of the experiments that led to his creation. The creature demanded
that Victor create a female companion for him. He promissed to go away with the new
creature and never bother Victor again.
Victor set up a new laboratory in Scotland and began the work. But he was terrified at the
idea of the two creatures creating a new, horrible race of monsters. So instead of completing
his task, Victor destroyed his work before giving life to the new creation. The monster took the
revenge by strangling Victor’s best friend, Henry, first, and then Victor’s bride Elizabeth.
Grief-stricken over the death of Elizabeth, Alphonse Frankenstein, Victor’s father, died a few
months later. In despair, Victor vowed to pursue the creature and destroy it. He chased the
monster for months, finally arriving in the Arctic where he met Walton and his expedition.
Victor Frankenstein died on Walton’s ship. The night Victor died, the monster entered
Victor’s room and wept. He told Walton he planned to build a huge fire and burn himself to
death. Before Walton could respond, the creature jumped from the ship and landed on a
floating slab of ice. Walton concludes his final letter, telling Margaret that the monster was
carried out to sea, where he disappeared into the darkness.
�Content
There are different opinions on scientific progress:
"Whenever the humans are trying to play God, they are in great trouble";
"Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can
do what he thought he could not do, is valuable".
Which of them do you support?
�Content
English Literature in the Victorian Period
Historical and Social Context
Literary Context
Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
Bronte Sisters
George Eliot
Thomas Hardy
Oscar Wilde
Alfred Tennyson
Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
�Content
Historical and Social Context
The 19th century in Britain is often referred to as the Victorian Era because it corresponds
with the reign of one of the country's best-loved queens, Victoria.
Queen Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was
the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20
June 1837 until her death. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, the
fourth son of King George III. She inherited the throne at the age of 18, after
her father's three elder brothers had all died, leaving no legitimate, surviving
children. Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840.
Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria
the nickname "the grandmother of Europe".
The United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy, in which the
sovereign held relatively little political power. The real business of running the country was left
to parliament. However, Queen Victoria became a symbol of all that was good and glorious in
nineteenth-century Britain. She was a national icon identified with strict standards of personal
morality. Her simple and virtuous behavior made the monarchy more popular than it had ever
been before.
In the 19th century Britain became a world power. After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in
1815, the country was not involved in a major European war until World War I began in 1914.
The Empire grew steadily, and by the beginning of the 20th century Victoria was
Queen-Empress of more than two hundred million people living outside Great Britain. Britain's
foreign trade was higher than that of France, Germany, Italy and the United States put together,
and the pound was the internationally recognised unit of currency.
While Britain was at the height of its wealth, power and influence, large sections of its
population lived and worked in appalling conditions.
The Industrial Revolution created a new urbanised society. The process of industrialisation
quickened as more factories were built particularly in the north of England. Heavy engineering,
machine tool production and the highly mechanised cotton and wool industries resulted in ever
greater numbers to towns and cities. The rapid growth of cities made them dirty and
disorderly.
In 1845, the potato blight caused a famine in Ireland that killed 1.5 million people and forced
nearly 20 percent of Ireland’s population to emigrate. People drifting to towns had to survive in
horrible conditions. They worked in the newly formed factories living in the unhealthy slums
built for them hurriedly at a minimum cost. Epidemics were common and deadly. Employers
used women and child labor at starvation wages.
In the 1850s town councils began to pay attention to these problems. They appointed a Health
Officer, built parks and public baths for the population. Towards the end of the century the
working man’s life improved greatly.
�Content
A series of political reforms gave the vote to almost all adult males by the last decades of the
century. Factory Acts limited child labor and reduced the usual working day to ten hours, with
a half-holiday on Saturday. State-supported schools were established in 1870 and made
compulsory in 1880.
In the second half of Victorian era people of all classes began to live better. The price of food
dropped after mid-century. Clothing, furniture, travel, and other goods and services became
cheaper. At the end of the Victorian era, British people were better housed, better clothed,
better informed and healthier than any other population in Europe.
Political and social reforms shattered the system of classes. The lower-class became more
self-conscious, the middle class more powerful and the rich became more vulnerable.
Parliamentaryreforms, however, did not affect women’s rights. Although there was a Queen on
the throne, the progress towards the emancipation of women was slow. For much of the
century, married women continued to be simply part of their husband’s property. The
Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 granted the right to a divorce to both men and women on the
basis of adultery but, in order to divorce her husband, a woman would have to further prove
gross cruelty or desertion. Women who sought divorce for whatever reason were ostracized
from polite society.
The Victorian family has become a synonym for a strict upbringing. Discipline was severe,
corporal punishment was common both at home and schools. Parents were typically distant
and unemotional, and the household was a closed environment, with little chance for women or
children to have contacts outside their immediate family.
The term Victorian has come to stand not only for a period of time but also for a particular
outlook on life. And that particular outlook consisted in respect to the regulations. The qualities
of the modern man and the modern woman, especially, were described in semi-religious tracts.
Women were expected to be frail, fainting, prudent and proper. A woman could earn a living
teaching, doing social work, delivering the Bible and religious books, working in a milliner’s
shop or filling other positions in which she could preserve her femininity. For the model man
the code prescribed equally rigid rules and prohibitions. Gambling, swearing, drunkenness and
sometimes even smoking, automatically removed a man from the ranks of the respectable.
Gambling pavilions and taverns fell into disgrace. Coffee houses gave way to public reading
rooms and clubs.
Along with the Industrial Revolution, there was another revolution taking place between science
and religion. Scientific and technological advances paved the way for a better future as
traditional religious beliefs began to crumble under the weight of new discoveries. Charles
Darwin upset the nation with his new doctrine that man evolved from earlier forms through a
process of long development. Dispute began between those who believed that Man was
created in a day in the image of God and given authority over the animal world, and those who
believed Man evolved scientifically.
�Content
Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882) was an English naturalist and
geologist, best known for his contributions to evolutionary theory. In his
book On the Origin of Species (1859) Darwin introduced his scientific theory
that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of
natural selection.
The new theories together with many political, economic, social and ideological developments
changed subsequent thought and literature dramatically.
�Content
Literary Context
As the Renaissance is identified with drama and Romanticism with poetry, the Victorian age is
identified with the novel. Though poetry and drama were certainly distinguished, it was the
novel that proved to be the Victorian special literary achievement. There are several reasons for
the triumph of fiction: the rapid growth of middle-class, an improved education system, a fall in
book prices, popularity of public libraries, the growth of the number of women readers and
writers.
Writing became an important commercial activity and novels were written to please the public
and sell. The middle-class readership wanted realistic novels, where the contemporary world
was authentically described and not idealized as in Romantic literature. Romanticism now
seemed too abstract and aloof with its mystery and symbolism. The social circumstances had
changed. Everyday life demanded a new presentation of the social problems. Hardships and
sufferings of the common people were described in realistic prose.
Literary realism is the trend, beginning with mid nineteenth-century
literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century
authors, toward depictions of contemporary life and society as it was, or is.
Realist authors opted for depictions of everyday and banal activities and
experiences, instead of a romanticized or similarly stylized presentation.
The Victorian novel’s most notable aspect was its diversity.
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) emerged on the literary scene in the 1830s, confirming the
trend for serial publication. Many early Victorian novels first appeared in periodicals. To
bridge the gap between one installment and the next writers had to create highly memorable
characters, and episodes usually ended with a "cliff-hanger" technique which is still used in
today’s soap operas. Writers received immediate feedback from their readers and could
fashion their work to satisfy the public’s taste.
Dickens wrote vividly about London life and the struggles of the poor, but in a
good-humoured fashion which was acceptable to readers of all classes. Charles Dickens
exemplifies the Victorian novelist better than any other writer. His first real novel, The Pickwick
Papers (1837), written at only twenty-five, was an overnight success, and all his subsequent
works sold extremely well. He was in effect a self-made man who worked hard to produce
exactly what the public wanted. While Dickens exposed the evils of society, he never lost his
sense of optimism, and many of his novels had a happy ending with all the loose ends neatly
tied.
The happy endings of Dickens’s novels satisfied his own and his readers’ belief that things
usually work out well for decent people. But from the beginning of his career in the 1830s to
the publication of his last complete novel in 1865, many Dickens’s stories showed decent
people neglected, abused and exploited. In his later novels Dickens showed that in the
�Content
competition for material gain, both winners and losers could be desperate and unhappy. The
slow trend in his later fiction towards darker themes is mirrored in the works of other writers,
and literature after his death in 1870 is very different from that at the start of the era.
During the Victorian era William Thackeray (1811–1863) was ranked second only to
Charles Dickenswas. He was Dickens' great rival at the time. Dickens, with little education and
less interest in literary culture, rejoiced at the ideas of democracy and social justice. Thackeray,
well born and well bred, with artistic tastes and literary culture, looked sceptically at the
changing life around him. He found his inspiration in a past age, and tried to uphold the best
traditions of English literature. In his books Thackeray was inclined to use eighteenth-century
narrative techniques, such as omniscient narrator, digressions and direct addresses to the
reader.
Thackeray began as a satirist and parodist, writing works that displayed his attraction to
roguish characters. He is best known for his novel Vanity Fair, A Novel without a Hero
(1847–48), a panoramic survey of English manners and human frailties set in the Napoleonic
era. It is an example of a form popular in Victorian literature: the historical novel, in which very
recent history is depicted.
Thackeray himself distinguished his work from the sentimentality of Dickens. His Vanity Fair
is a satire of society as a whole, characterised by hypocrisy and cunning. It is not a reforming
novel. Thackeray didn’t believe that anything like reforms or morality could improve the nature
of society. He continually compares his characters to actors and puppets. Thackeray liked
people, but he also thought they were weak, vain and self-deceived.
Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) began as a follower of Thackeray, but in the immense range
of his characters and incidents he soon surpassed his master. Among his best-loved works is a
series of novels collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire (1855–1867), which
revolves around the imaginary county of Barsetshire. Trollope was the first English writer to
use the same characters over the sequence of novels.
The Victorian interest in social life led to the popularity of the novel of romance. Elizabeth
Gaskell (1810–1865) wrote Cranford (1851), producing a charming picture of Victorian
village life and the complex studies of family life in Wives and Daughters (1864–66). Jane
Eyre (1847) and Villette (1853) by Charlotte Bronte (1816–1865), expressed the daily lives
of ordinary young women. Bronte also took a step towards the description of women’s
passions in her novels.
The novels of Bronte sisters caused a sensation. Emily Bronte's (1818–1848) only work,
Wuthering Heights (1847), in particular, presented a challenge for a typical image of a novel
of Victorian time. It is full of violence, passion, the supernatural and mystery. Never before did
a woman write a novel of this content.
George Eliot (1819–1880), a pseudonym which concealed a woman, Mary Ann Evans,
wished to write novels which would be taken seriously rather than the silly romances which all
women of the time were supposed to write. She was one of the most learned of the Victorian
�Content
novelists. Her novels are celebrated for their realism and psychological insights. Virginia Woolf
(1882-1941) in her series of essays The Common Reader (1925) called George Eliot's
Middlemarch (1871–72) o" ne of the few English novels written for grown-up people".
The Common Reader, collection of essays by Virginia Woolf, an English
writer, and one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century,
published in two series, the first in 1925 and the second in 1932. The title
indicates Woolf’s intention that her essays be read by the "common reader"
who reads books for personal enjoyment. Using the sympathetic persona of
"the common reader," Woolf treats various literary topics.
Most of the 19th century novels tended to be idealized portraits of difficult lives in which hard
work, perseverance, love and luck win in the end. In the majority of books virtue was rewarded
and wrong-doers were punished in the end. The novels tended to improve human nature. They
had a central moral lesson, informing the reader how to be a good Victorian.
This formula was the basis for much of earlier Victorian fiction but as the century progressed
the plot thickened and happy endings became less common. Even writers of the high Victorian
age were censured for their plots attacking the conventions of the day. George Eliot’s Adam
Bede (1859) was called "the vile outpourings of a lewd woman's mind"and Anne Bronte’s The
Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) "utterly unfit to be put into the hands of girls". The disgust of
the reading audience perhaps reached a peak with Thomas Hardy's (1840–1928) novels.
Hardy’s novels are set in the countryside of Wessex, the fictional name he gave to the
south-west part of England where he was born. His stories are so closely linked to this rural
setting that they are referred to as regional novels. Hardy’s description of the countryside is far
removed from the idealized version offered by the Romantics. The rural settings are often used
to help the reader interpret the moods and feelings of the characters. Hardy’s characters are
outsiders in their own society who fall victims to forces of economic and social change over
which they have no control. His two major novels Tess of the d’Ubervilles (1891) and Jude
the Obscure (1895), among others, classified as naturalistic novels of environment and
character, are deeply pessimistic.
Naturalism was a literary movement or tendency from the 1880s to 1940s that
used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and
environment had inescapable force in shaping human character. It was a mainly
unorganized Literary movement that sought to depict believable everyday
reality, as opposed to such movements as Romanticism or Surrealism, in which
subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment. Naturalism was
an outgrowth of literary realism, a prominent literary movement in mid-19th-century France and
elsewhere. Naturalistic writers were influenced by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. They
often believed that one's heredity and social environment largely determine one's character.
Whereas realism seeks only to describe subjects as they really are, naturalism also attempts to
�Content
determine "scientifically" the underlying forces (e.g., the environment or heredity) influencing
the actions of its subjects. Naturalistic works exposed the dark harshness of life, including
poverty, racism, violence, prejudice, disease, corruption, prostitution, and filth. As a result,
naturalistic writers were frequently criticized for focusing too much on human vice and misery.
Tess, an intelligent and loving girl, is driven to her death by a rigid, inflexible social system.
Jude, a working man who is passionate for education, is oppressed and defeated by Victorian
narrow-mindedness and destructive destiny. Hardy’s indictment of Victorian morals caused a
terrible scandal. His books were burned, banned and denounced. He became so disillusioned
and discouraged by the public response that he stopped writing.
The crises of faith and morality which characterizes the latter half of the Victorian period gave
rise to an artistic movement known as Aestheticism.
The term Aestheticism comes from the Greek word meaning "to perceive" or
"to feel". It is a late 19th-century European arts movement that centred on the
doctrine that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone. It began in reaction to
prevailing utilitarian social philosophies and to the perceived ugliness of the
industrial age. Its philosophical foundations were laid by Immanuel Kant, who
separated the sense of beauty from practical interests. Aesthetes believed that sensation should
be the source of art, and that the role of the artist was to make the public share his feelings.
They totally rejected the Victorian notion that art should have a moral, social or political
purpose, believing that artist should care about form and technique and express himself freely:
he should not become the slave of fixed moral and ethical conventions.
Decadent movement in literature, or Decadence, was closely associated with the doctrines of
Aestheticism. In France, decadence became almost synonymous with the work of the
Symbolists who wrote in reaction against realism and naturalism. Designed to convey
impressions by suggestion rather than by direct statement, Symbolism found its first
expression in poetry but was later extended to the other arts. In England, it emerged from the
Pre-Raphaelite circle, in the poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, leading to the work of Oscar
Wilde, until Wilde's imprisonment in 1895 suddenly ended the decadent episode.
Perhaps the most outstanding figure in the movement was Oscar Wilde (1854–1900 ). His
novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) was considered daringly modern and highly
immoral. It highlights the tension between the respectable surface of life and the life of secret
vice. Oscar Wilde was also an outstanding dramatist. He revived the comedy of manners.
Wilde’s plays are characterized by brilliantly constructed plots and witty and polished
dialogues. He produced outrageous social comedies in which he laughed at conventional
Victorian seriousness by using elevated and solemn language to describe frivolous and
ridiculous situations. The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) ranks among one of the most
brilliant comedies in the history English literature.
In Victorian period literature for children developed as a separate genre. The Victorians are
sometimes credited with the invention of childhood, partly because they tried to stop child
labour and introduced compulsory education. Victorians started to see children as distinct
�Content
from adults rather than adults-in-waiting. As children began to be able to read, literature for
young people became a growing industry.
The emergence of an intelligent and whimsical children’s literature was connected with the
work of such writers as Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) and Edward Lear (1812–1888) who
wrote mainly for children, although they had adult admirers as well. They were the most
celebrated nonsense writers. They transformed adult assumptions by considering them through
the eyes of children. However gloomy and perplexing the grown-up world might be, thought
Carroll and Lear, there remained a space for the playful and the joyful. Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1872), and The
Hunting of the Snark (1876) suggest a pleasure in exploring nonsense because nonsense
offered an alternative way of viewing things. Carroll recognized the joy in disjunction,
distortion, and displacement because they are mirror images of unity, shapeliness and stability.
In the same manner Lear’s limericks suggest that the world is full of terrors, errors and
misapprehensions, but their sing-song form helps to treat all these things with a sence of
humour.
Nonsense verse is a form of light, often rhythmical verse, often for children,
depicting peculiar characters in amusing and fantastical situations. It is
whimsical and humorous in tone and tends to employ fanciful phrases and
meaningless made-up words. Limericks are probably the best known form of
nonsense verse, although they tend nowadays to be used for bawdy or
straightforwardly humorous, rather than nonsensical, effect.
Adventure novels, such as those of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850– 1894), were written for
adults but are now generally classified as for children. Stevenson is best remembered for his
charming collection of Child’s Garden of Verses (1885), his masterpiece Treasure Island
(1883), and his Gothic tale The Strange Case of Dr Jeckill and Mr Hyde (1886).
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) is also chiefly remembered now for his tales for children,
though he was a prominent short-story writer, poet, and novelist. Kipling’s best works include
The Light that Failed (1890), The Jungle Book (1893–94), Kim (1901), Just So Stories
(1902), and his poems from Barrack-Room Ballads (1892). Kipling was one of the most
popular writers in England, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In
1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language
writer to receive the prize, and to this day he remains its youngest recipient.
At the turn of the century English literature took a neo-romantic direction associated with the
development of several genres, including Kipling’s and Joseph Conrad’s (1857–1924)
adventure novels, Stevenson’s historical novels, and Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
detective stories.
The term neo-romanticism is used to cover a variety of movements in
philosophy, literature, music, painting, and architecture, as well as social
movements, that exist after and incorporate elements from the era of
Romanticism. Neo-romanticism as well as Romanticism is considered in
opposition to Naturalism. The naturalist in art stresses external observation,
�Content
whereas the neo-romantic adds feeling and internal observation. Neo-Romanticism gave more
importance to the representation of internal feelings, the power of imagination, the exotic
and the unfamiliar, the supernatural experience, and the ideas of perfect love, the beauty of
youth, heroic death.
Close to the end of the 19th century the trends in the world of the novel moved increasingly
towards subjectivity and artistic experimentation.
Poetry settled down from the upheavals of the romantic era and much of the work of the time
is seen as a bridge between this earlier era and the modernist poetry of the next century. Alfred
Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) held the poet laureateship for over forty years. The husband
and wife poetry team of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) and Robert Browning
(1812–1889) conducted their love affair through verse and produced many tender and
passionate poems. Matthew Arnold’s (1822–1888) melancholy verses perfectly capture the
sense of alienation, despair and spiritual emptiness which pervaded the late Victorian period.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) was inspired by Old English poetry such as Beowulf.
The recovering of the past was a major part of Victorian literature with an interest in both
classical literature and the medieval literature of England. The Victorians loved the heroic,
chivalrous stories of knights and they hoped to regain some of that noble, courtly behaviour
and impress it upon the public. The best example of this is Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the
King (1842) which blended the stories of King Arthur with contemporary concerns and ideas.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood also took a lot from myth and folklore. Dante Gabriel
Rossetti (1828–1882) was regarded as the chief poet amongst them, although his sister
Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) is now held by scholars to be a stronger poet.
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a school of painters and poets dedicated
to recovering the purity of medieval art, which they believed Raphael and the
Renaissance had destroyed. Pre-Raphaelite pictures are characterized by
bright colours, detailed observation of flora and subjects drawn from religion
or literature.
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483–1520), better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian
painter and architect of the Renaissance. Together with Michelangelo (1475–1564) and
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.
In poetry there was a tendency to choose medieval subjects and forms such as the ballad.
Pre-Raphaelite pictures and poems are marked by a dreamy, melancholy and sensual
atmosphere in which it is difficult to distinguish fantasy from reality. They expressed the desire
to escape from the industrial ugliness of contemporary Victorian society into the unspoiled
beauty of the past.
By the time of Queen Victoria’s death in 1901, Great Britain had become the literary capital of
the world. The final blow to the Victorian age did not come until the outbreak of World War I
in 1914. For the next four years, novelists, poets and dramatists directed their energies
�Content
primarily to war. After the war ended, the British Empire was shaken badly by political and
social changes. The ideas and popular forms of the Victorians no longer satisfied the radically
different society. The Victorian age came to an end around 1916, terminating one of the most
fascinating times in English history.
�Content
Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth,
England. He was the second of eight children in the family of a naval clerk. Despite
the parents’ best efforts, the family remained poor. The father had a dangerous
habit of living beyond the family’s means. In 1822, the Dickens moved to a poor
neighborhood in London. By then the family’s financial situation had become very
bad. Eventually, John Dickens was sent to prison for debt in 1824.
After his father’s imprisonment, Charles Dickens, a boy of 12, was forced to leave school to
work at a blacking factory. Dickens earned six shillings a week labeling pots of blacking
substance used to clean fireplaces. He felt abandoned and betrayed by the adults who were
supposed to take care of him. These feelings would later become a repetitive theme in his
writing.
Dickens was permitted to go back to school when his father received a family inheritance and
used it to pay off his debts. When Dickens was 15 he began to work as an office boy. The job
became a launching point for his writing career.
Dickens began freelance reporting at the law courts of London. In just a few years he was
reporting for major London newspapers. In 1833, he began submitting sketches to various
magazines and newspapers under the pseudonym "Boz."Those articles were published in his
first book, Sketches by Boz (1836).
Dickens took the pseudonym from a nickname he had given his younger
brother Augustus, whom he called "Moses" after a character in Oliver
Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. This, "being facetiously pronounced
through the nose," became "Boses", which in turn was shortened to "Boz".
In the same year that Sketches by Boz was released, Dickens started publishing The
Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837). His series of sketches, originally written
as captions for artist Robert Seymour’s humorous sports-themed illustrations, took the form
of monthly serial installments. Dickens’ sketches appeared to become more popular than the
illustrations they were meant to accompany.
Soon after his first success Dickens married. Catherine Hogarth would give birth to Dickens’
10 children before the couple separated in 1858.
Dickens’ first novel, Oliver Twist (1837–39), follows the life of an orphan living in the streets.
The story was inspired by Dickens’ own experience as a poor child forced to live on his wits
and earn his own bread. The novel was very well received in both England and America.
Dickens dedicated all his energy and talent to writing. The amount of his literary output was
phenomenal. Between 1837 and 1843 he wrote Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), The Old
Curiosity Shop (1840–41) and A Christmas Carol (1843), all initially published in serial
�Content
form.
Nicholas Nickleby is the first of Dickens' romances. The novel centers on the life and
adventures of a young man who must support his mother and sister after his father dies. The
book is an ironic social satire. Dickens aimed at social injustices in the depiction of the
Yorkshire all-boys boarding school at which Nicholas temporarily served as a tutor. The
cruelty of a real Yorkshire schoolmaster became the basis for Dickens's brutal character of
Wackford Squeers. When it was published the book was an immediate and complete success
and established Dickens's lasting reputation
A Christmas Carol features the timeless character of Ebenezer Scrooge, a cantankerous old
miser, who was transformed into a gentle and kind man after the visits of the ghost of his
former business partner Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to
Come.
In 1842, Dickens had a five-month lecture tour of the United States. He went to America with
his wife Catherine leaving their children at home with friends. Dickens’s lectures, which began
in Virginia and ended in Missouri, were so widely attended that ticket scalpers started gathering
outside his events.
People who buy and sell tickets for profit are given many names: ticket
brokers, ticket agents, ticket resellers, and ticket scalpers.
Although Dickens enjoyed his celebrity status, he eventually resented the invasion of privacy.
He was annoyed by "crude" American culture and materialism. In 1843, Dickens wrote his
novel The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1844), a story about a man’s struggle
to survive on the ruthless American frontier.
For the next years Dickens travelled in Italy, Switzerland and France, continuing to write
nonstop. His attention to social problems increased. The main theme in Dombey and Son
(1846–48) can be summarized in the thesis: money means power, and everything can be
bought or sold. The title itself serves an illustration to this thesis referring simultaneously to the
two major characters of the book and the name of the business firm.
Dombey and Son had all the satirical resentment of Dickens’ early fiction, but also new shades
of darkness and a new narrative complexity. Halfway through his career, it was Dickens’ first
great novel. David Copperfield (1850) came next.
In David Copperfield Dickens described his own personal experiences, from his difficult
childhood to his work as a journalist. Although this book is not considered Dickens’s best
work, it was his personal favorite. It also helped define the public’s expectations of a
Dickensian novel.
During the 1850s, Dickens suffered two devastating losses: the deaths of his daughter and
�Content
father. He also separated from his wife. Consequently, his novels began to express his
pessimistic worldview. In Bleak House (1852–53), he deals with the hypocrisy of British
society. It was considered his most complex novel to date. Hard Times (1854) takes place in
an industrial town at the peak of economic expansion. Also among Dickens’s darker novels is
Little Dorrit (1855–57), a fictional study of how human values come in conflict with the
world’s brutality.
Coming out of his "dark" period, Dickens published A Tale of Two Cities (1859), a historical
novel that takes place in the time of the French Revolution. He published it in a periodical he
founded, All the Year Round. His next novel, Great Expectations (1860–61), focuses on the
protagonist’s lifelong journey of moral development. It is widely considered his greatest literary
achievement. A few years later, Dickens produced Our Mutual Friend (1864–65), a novel
that analyzes the psychological impact of wealth on London society.
In 1865, Dickens was in a train accident and never fully recovered. Despite his fragile
condition, he continued to tour until 1870. On June 9, 1870, Dickens had a stroke and died at
his country home in Kent. At the time of Dickens’ death, his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin
Drood, was left unfinished.
Many of Dickens’s novels are animated by a sense of social injustice. The majority of his
stories take place in the gloomy urban context. He stirred the conscience of his contemporaries
by showing them scenes of poverty and despair. He denounced the cruel competitive nature of
Victorian society and such evils of industrialization as materialism, social inequalities,
oppression of the poor and exploitation of children.
Childhood largely entered Dickens’ work. He could hardly write a story without bringing a
child into it. It is usually not an ordinary child, to make us smile, but a miserable or pathetic
child whose sorrows make our hearts ache. Later in life we learn that troubles are not
permanent, and so give them their proper place. But in childhood a trouble is the whole world.
Dickens showed the cruel life of poor children in workhouses and orphanages.
All of Dickens’s novels show touches of the comic genius which launched his literary career.
Often farcical and grotesque, Dickens created innumerable weird and funny characters
remembered for their eccentricity.
While he exposed the evils of society, Dickens never lost his sense of optimism, and many of
his novels end happily in the traditional devices of marriage or wealth. He makes frequent use
of happy coincidence. He responded closely to his reader’s demands and included scenes of
dramatic death-bed confessions, angelic children and saintly wives to please his public.
Dickens’s novels may seem overly sentimental and dull to modern readers. As Dickens wrote
in instalments, his novels often seem artificial and contrived. The fact that up to a month could
pass between one instalment and the next explains why the modern reader may find some of
the storytelling repetitive and redundant.
Notwithstanding that, Dickens still has a remarkable appeal for readers and writers alike. His
ability to create a character in a phrase, his ear for speech and his eye for detail, still make
�Content
Dickens one of the most beloved authors, and adaptations of his work for cinema and
television continue to impress the public.
Content
Great Expectations
Great Expectations is a coming-of-age novel that depicts the growth and personal
development of an orphan named Pip.
Pip is living in southeast England with his bad-tempered sister, Mrs. Joe, and her gentle
husband, Joe Gargery, the village blacksmith. On Christmas Eve, Pip encounters an
escaped convict who scares Pip into stealing food and a metal file for him. The next day, Pip
and Joe see soldiers capture the convict on the marshes where he wrestles bitterly with
another escaped convict.
Soon after, Pip is invited to start visiting wealthy Miss Havisham and her snobby adopted
daughter, Estella, at Satis House. Miss Havisham was abandoned by her fiancée twenty
years prior and seeks revenge on men by raising Estella to break men’s hearts. Estella's
disdain for Pip's c"ommonness"inspires Pip's dissatisfaction with life. He is unhappy with his
position and longs to become a gentleman in order that he may eventually win Estella’s
affection.
One day a lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, comes to tell Pip that a benefactor has left him a great
fortune. Pip is to go to London to become a gentleman. Pip believes that the benefactor is
Miss Havisham. In London he becomes friends with Herbert Pocket. The two young men
live beyond their means and fall deeply in debt. He also meets Wemmick, Mr. Jaggers'
clerk, who is stoic and proper in the office and warm and friendly outside of it.
The Jaggers invites Pip and friends to dinner. Pip, on Wemmick's suggestion, looks carefully
at Jagger's servant woman, a t"igress"according to Wemmick. Pip is also told the background
of Miss Havisham and her ill-fated wedding day.
On his visit to Satis House Pip sees something strikingly familiar in Estella's face.
Pip’s life is different now and he is embarrassed by a visit from Joe. Pip wishes Joe were
more refined and fears association with him will harm his own social status. He doesn't
return to the forge until he hears Mrs. Joe has died. But his visit is brief.
A rough sea-worn man of sixty comes to Pip's home on a stormy night soon after Pip's
twenty-fourth birthday. Pip recognizes him as the convict that he fed in the marshes when he
was a child. The man’s name is Magwitch. The convict reveals that he is Pit’s benefactor.
This knowledge begins the change in Pip from ungrateful snobbery to the humility
associated with Joe and home.
Magwitch's rival on the marshes was Compeyson, Miss Havisham's deceitful former fiancée.
�Content
Pip goes to Satis House to learn that Estelle will be married to Bentley Drummle, the most
repulsive of his acquaintances. When heartbroken Pip professes his love for Estella, Miss
Havisham realizes her error in depriving the girl of a heart. She pleads for Pip's
forgiveness.
Back in London a few days later, Pip realizes that Estella is the daughter of Magwitch and
Mr. Jaggers' maid Molly, the "tigress". Magwitch was Molly’s husband. It was Jaggers' first
big case. He was defending this woman in a case where she was accused of killing another
woman. Molly was also said to have killed her own child, a girl. Molly had come to
Magwitch on the day she murdered the other woman and told him she was going to kill their
child and that Magwitch would never see her.
Compeyson is looking for Magwitch in London. Pip plans to get Magwitch out of England
by boat. Pip nearly succeeds in escaping with Magwitch but Compeyson stops them, then
drowns, wrestling with Magwitch in the water. Magwitch is arrested and found guilty of
escaping illegally from the penal colony of New South Wales, but dies from illness before his
execution.
Pip falls ill. Joe nurses him and pays his debts. Healthy again, Pip goes abroad with
Herbert to be a clerk. When he returns eleven years later, he runs into Estella on the wrecked
site of Satis House. Drummle treated her roughly and recently died. Suffering has made
Estella grow a heart and she and Pip walk off together, never to part again.
Text
from Great Expectation. Chapter VIII
A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded "What name?" To which my conductor
replied "Pumblechook." The voice returned, "Quite right," and the window was shut again, and
a young lady came across the courtyard, with keys in her hand.
"This," said Mr. Pumblechook, "is Pip."
"This is Pip, is it?" returned the young lady, who was very pretty and seemed very proud;
"come in, Pip."
Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when she stopped him with the gate.
"Oh!" she said. "Did you wish to see Miss Havisham?"
"If Miss Havisham wished to see me," returned Mr. Pumblechook, discomfited.
"Ah!" said the girl; "but you see she don't."
She said it so finally, and in such an undiscussable way, that Mr. Pumblechook, though in a
condition of ruffled dignity, could not protest. But he eyed me severely–as if I had done
anything to him!–and departed with the words reproachfully delivered: "Boy! Let your
behaviour here be a credit unto them which brought you up by hand!" I was not free from
�Content
apprehension that he would come back to propound through the gate, "And sixteen?" But he
didn't.
My young conductress locked the gate, and we went across the courtyard. It was paved and
clean, but grass was growing in every crevice. The brewery buildings had a little lane of
communication with it, and the wooden gates of that lane stood open, and all the brewery
beyond stood open, away to the high enclosing wall; and all was empty and disused. The cold
wind seemed to blow colder there, than outside the gate; and it made a shrill noise in howling in
and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea.
She saw me looking at it, and she said, "You could drink without hurt all the strong beer that's
brewed there now, boy."
"I should think I could, miss," said I, in a shy way.
"Better not try to brew beer there now, or it would turn out sour, boy; don't you think so?"
"It looks like it, miss."
"Not that anybody means to try," she added, "for that's all done with, and the place will stand
as idle as it is, till it falls. As to strong beer, there's enough of it in the cellars already, to drown
the Manor House."
"Is that the name of this house, miss?"
"One of its names, boy."
"It has more than one, then, miss?"
"One more. Its other name was Satis; which is Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew, or all three–or all
one to me–for enough."
"Enough House," said I: "that's a curious name, miss."
"Yes," she replied; "but it meant more than it said. It meant, when it was given, that whoever
had this house could want nothing else. They must have been easily satisfied in those days, I
should think. But don't loiter, boy."
Though she called me "boy" so often, and with a carelessness that was far from
complimentary, she was of about my own age. She seemed much older than I, of course,
being a girl, and beautiful and self-possessed; and she was as scornful of me as if she had been
one-and-twenty, and a queen.
We went into the house by a side door–the great front entrance had two chains across it
outside–and the first thing I noticed was, that the passages were all dark, and that she had left a
candle burning there. She took it up, and we went through more passages and up a staircase,
and still it was all dark, and only the candle lighted us.
At last we came to the door of a room, and she said, "Go in."
I answered, more in shyness than politeness, "After you, miss."
�Content
To this, she returned: "Don't be ridiculous, boy; I am not going in." And scornfully walked
away, and–what was worse–took the candle with her.
This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the only thing to be done being
to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told from within to enter. I entered, therefore, and
found myself in a pretty large room, well lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight was
to be seen in it. It was a dressing-room, as I supposed from the furniture, though much of it
was of forms and uses then quite unknown to me. But prominent in it was a draped table with a
gilded looking-glass, and that I made out at first sight to be a fine lady's dressing-table.
Whether I should have made out this object so soon, if there had been no fine lady sitting at it,
I cannot say. In an arm-chair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that
hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see.
She was dressed in rich materials–satins, and lace, and silks–all of white. Her shoes were
white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her
hair, but her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and
some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore,
and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had
but one shoe on–the other was on the table near her hand–her veil was but half-arranged, her
watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets, and
with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a Prayer-book all confusedly heaped
about the looking-glass.
It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things, though I saw more of them in the
first moments than might be supposed. But I saw that everything within my view which ought
to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its luster, and was faded and yellow. I saw
that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had
no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon
the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose, had
shrunk to skin and bone. Once, I had been taken to see some ghastly waxwork at the Fair,
representing I know not what impossible personage lying in state. Once, I had been taken to
one of our old marsh churches to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress, that had been dug
out of a vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and skeleton seemed to have dark
eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if I could.
"Who is it?" said the lady at the table.
"Pip, ma'am."
"Pip?"
"Mr. Pumblechook's boy, ma'am. Come–to play."
"Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close."
It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of the surrounding objects
in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the
�Content
room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine.
"Look at me," said Miss Havisham. "You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the
sun since you were born?"
I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie comprehended in the answer
"No."
"Do you know what I touch here?" she said, laying her hands, one upon the other, on her left
side.
"Yes, ma'am." (It made me think of the young man.)
"What do I touch?"
"Your heart."
"Broken!"
She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong emphasis, and with a weird smile that
had a kind of boast in it. Afterwards, she kept her hands there for a little while, and slowly took
them away as if they were heavy.
"I am tired," said Miss Havisham. "I want diversion, and I have done with men and women.
Play."
What impression did the ladies of Satis house produce on Pip?
What details in the description of Miss Havisham make her one of Dickens’s
most mysterious and fantastic characters?
Speak about the means of character drawing employed by Dickens. Is
characterization direct or indirect?
�Content
Bronte Sisters
Charlotte (1816–1855), Emily (1818–1848), and Anne (1820–1849)
Bronte were born in West Yorkshire. After the death of their mother
in 1821, they grew up in relative seclusion as preacher's daughters.
They were mostly brought up by their aunt Elizabeth.
Highly imaginative and romantic, the young women wrote novels and
poetry.
Women were not allowed to publish in the 1850s and the three sisters wrote under the male pen
names Ellis, Currer and Acton Bell. They published their first anthology of poetry under these
names in May 1846. Charlotte and Emily studied in Brussels from 1842, but they had to return
to England following the death of their aunt. Charlotte worked as a teacher between 1843 and
1844. By 1845, all three sisters were back at home to look after their brother Branwell who was
addicted to drink and drugs. Branwell died of tuberculosis. Emily and Anne got infected from
him. Charlotte was left alone with her father. She was a well-known writer by this point and
visited London a couple of times.
Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre (1847) is considered one of the most gripping love stories
ever written. The publication of Jane Eyre was speedy even by today's standards. She saw her
work in print in just eight weeks. It was a major success and immediately raised suspicions
about the author. At the publication of Anne's Agnes Grey (1847) and Emily’s Wuthering
Heights (1848) several months later the gossip reached its peak, and Charlotte went to her
publisher to announce that the three writers were all women.
Then there came Shirley (1849), Villette (1853) and The Professor, published posthumously.
In 1854 Charlotte married her father’s curate, who had been courting her for a long time.
Charlotte became pregnant soon after the marriage but her health declined rapidly, and she died
with her unborn child at the age of 38.
Emily Bronte's only work Wuthering Heights is the towering romantic classic. It was her first
and only novel. The decision to publish came after the success of her sister Charlotte's novel,
Jane Eyre.
Wuthering Heights is the name of the farmhouse on the Yorkshire moors where the story takes
place. Wuthering is a Yorkshire word referring to turbulent weather. The narrative tells the tale
of the passionate, yet unfulfilled, love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how
this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them.
Wuthering Heights received mixed reviews when first published, and was considered
controversial because its depiction of mental and physical cruelty was unusually frank and
undisguised. It challenged strict Victorian morality and criticized such conventions of the day
as religious hypocrisy, social segregation and gender inequality.
Content
�Content
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is a young orphan being raised by Mrs. Reed, her cruel, wealthy aunt. Mrs.
Reed sends Jane away to the Lowood School. The school’s headmaster is Mr. Brocklehurst,
a cruel, hypocritical, and abusive man. At Lowood, Jane makes friends with a young girl
named Helen Burns. A massive typhus epidemic sweeps Lowood, and Helen dies of
consumption. The epidemic also results in the departure of Mr. Brocklehurst. Jane’s life
improves dramatically. She spends eight more years at Lowood, six as a student and two as
a teacher.
Jane accepts a governess position at a manor called Thornfield, where she teaches a lively
French girl named Adèle. Jane’s employer at Thornfield is a dark, impassioned man named
Rochester, with whom Jane finds herself falling secretly in love. She saves Rochester from a
fire one night, which he claims was started by a drunken servant named Grace Poole. But
because Grace Poole continues to work at Thornfield, Jane concludes that she has not been
told the entire story. Jane becomes sad when Rochester brings home a beautiful but vicious
woman named Blanche Ingram. Jane expects Rochester to propose to Blanche. But
Rochester instead proposes to Jane.
At the wedding ceremony Mr. Mason cries out that Rochester already has a wife. Mason
introduces himself as the brother of that wife–a woman named Bertha. Mr. Mason testifies
that Bertha, whom Rochester married when he was a young man in Jamaica, is still alive.
Rochester does not deny Mason’s claims, but he explains that Bertha has gone mad. He
takes the wedding party back to Thornfield, where they visit the insane Bertha Mason.
Rochester keeps Bertha hidden on the third story of Thornfield and pays Grace Poole to keep
his wife under control. Jane flees Thornfield.
Penniless and hungry, Jane is forced to sleep outdoors and beg for food. At last, three
siblings take her in. Their names are Mary, Diana, and St. John Rivers. St. John is a
clergyman, and he finds Jane a job at a charity school. He surprises her one day by
declaring that her uncle, John Eyre, has died and left her a large fortune: 20,000 pounds.
When Jane asks how he received this news, he shocks her further by declaring that her uncle
was also his uncle: Jane and the Riverses are cousins. Jane immediately decides to share her
inheritance equally with her three newfound relatives.
St. John decides to travel to India as a missionary, and he asks Jane to accompany him–as
his wife. Jane agrees to go to India but refuses to marry her cousin because she does not love
him. One night she hears Rochester’s voice calling her name. Jane immediately hurries back
to Thornfield and finds that it has been burned to the ground by Bertha Mason, who lost her
life in the fire. Rochester saved the servants but lost his eyesight and one of his hands. Jane
travels on to Rochester’s new residence, Ferndean, where he lives with two servants named
John and Mary.
At Ferndean, Rochester and Jane rebuild their relationship and soon marry. At the end of
her story, Jane writes that she has been married for ten blissful years and that she and
Rochester enjoy perfect equality in their life together. She says that after two years of
�Content
blindness, Rochester regained sight in one eye and was able to behold their first son at his
birth.
Wuthering Heights
One day, Mr. Earnshaw goes to Liverpool and returns home with an orphan boy whom he
will raise with his own children. At first, the Earnshaw children–a boy named Hindley and
his younger sister Catherine–detest the dark-skinned Heathcliff. But Catherine quickly
comes to love him, and the two soon grow inseparable, spending their days playing on the
moors. After his wife’s death, Mr. Earnshaw grows to prefer Heathcliff to his own son, and
when Hindley continues his cruelty to Heathcliff, Mr. Earnshaw sends Hindley away to
college, keeping Heathcliff nearby.
Three years later, Mr. Earnshaw dies, and Hindley inherits Wuthering Heights. He returns
with a wife, Frances, and immediately seeks revenge on Heathcliff. Heathcliff now finds
himself treated as a common laborer, forced to work in the fields. Heathcliff continues his
close relationship with Catherine, however. One night they wander to Thrushcross Grange,
hoping to tease Edgar and Isabella Linton, the cowardly, snobbish children who live there.
Catherine is bitten by a dog and is forced to stay at the Grange for five weeks. Mrs. Linton
tries to make her a proper young lady. By the time Catherine returns, she has become
infatuated with Edgar, and her relationship with Heathcliff grows more complicated.
When Frances dies after giving birth to a baby boy named Hareton, Hindley starts drinking
and behaves even more cruelly and abusively toward Heathcliff. Eventually, Catherine’s
desire for social advancement prompts her to become engaged to Edgar Linton, despite her
deep love for Heathcliff. Heathcliff runs away from Wuthering Heights, staying away for
three years, and returning shortly after Catherine and Edgar’s marriage.
Heathcliff returns to seek revenge on all who have ill-treated him. Having come into a vast
and mysterious wealth, he lends money to the drunken Hindley, knowing that Hindley will
only increase his debts. When Hindley dies, Heathcliff inherits the manor. He also places
himself in line to inherit Thrushcross Grange by marrying Isabella Linton, whom he treats
very cruelly. Catherine becomes ill, gives birth to a daughter, and dies. Heathcliff begs her
spirit to remain on Earth. Shortly thereafter, Isabella flees to London and gives birth to
Heathcliff’s son, named Linton after her family. She keeps the boy with her there.
Thirteen years pass. Isabella dies, and Linton comes to live with Heathcliff. Heathcliff treats
his sickly, whining son even more cruelly than he treated the boy’s mother.
Young Catherine meets Heathcliff on the moors, and makes a visit to Wuthering Heights to
meet Linton. The girl begins sneaking out at night to spend time with her frail young lover,
who asks her to come back and nurse him back to health. However, it quickly becomes
apparent that Linton is pursuing Catherine only because Heathcliff is forcing him to.
Heathcliff hopes that if Catherine marries Linton, his legal claim upon Thrushcross
Grange–and his revenge upon Edgar Linton–will be complete.
�Content
Soon after Catherine’s and Linton’s marriage, Edgar dies, and his death is quickly followed
by the death of the sickly Linton. Heathcliff now controls both Wuthering Heights and
Thrushcross Grange. He forces Catherine to live at Wuthering Heights and act as a common
servant.
Catherine grows to love Hareton as they live together at Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff
becomes more and more obsessed with the memory of the elder Catherine, to the extent that
he begins speaking to her ghost. Everything he sees reminds him of her. Shortly after a night
spent walking on the moors, Heathcliff dies. Hareton and young Catherine inherit
Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. They plan to be married on the next New
Year’s Day.
Compare the plots of Charlotte’s and Emily’s novels.
Find common and different elements.
Do the novels present typical love stories?
What other themes are discussed in them?
Text
from Wuthering Hights. Chapter 29
'I'll tell you what I did yesterday! I got the sexton, who was digging Linton's grave, to remove
the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there: when I
saw her face again--it is hers yet!--he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change if
the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose, and covered it up: not Linton's
side, damn him! I wish he'd been soldered in lead. And I bribed the sexton to pull it away when
I'm laid there, and slide mine out too; I'll have it made so: and then by the time Linton gets to
us he'll not know which is which!'
'You were very wicked, Mr. Heathcliff!' I exclaimed; 'were you not ashamed to disturb the
dead?'
'I disturbed nobody, Nelly,' he replied; 'and I gave some ease to myself. I shall be a great deal
more comfortable now; and you'll have a better chance of keeping me underground, when I get
there. Disturbed her? No! she has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen
years--incessantly--remorselessly--till yesternight; and yesternight I was tranquil. I dreamt I was
sleeping the last sleep by that sleeper, with my heart stopped and my cheek frozen against
hers.'
'Of dissolving with her, and being more happy still!' he answered. 'Do you suppose I dread
any change of that sort? I expected such a transformation on raising the lid--but I'm better
pleased that it should not commence till I share it. Besides, unless I had received a distinct
impression of her passionless features, that strange feeling would hardly have been removed. It
began oddly. You know I was wild after she died; and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying
her to return to me her spirit! I have a strong faith in ghosts: I have a conviction that they can,
�Content
and do, exist among us! The day she was buried, there came a fall of snow. In the evening I
went to the churchyard. It blew bleak as winter--all round was solitary. I didn't fear that her
fool of a husband would wander up the glen so late; and no one else had business to bring
them there. Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between
us, I said to myself--"I'll have her in my arms again! If she be cold, I'll think it is this north wind
that chills _me_; and if she be motionless, it is sleep." I got a spade from the tool-house, and
began to delve with all my might--it scraped the coffin; I fell to work with my hands; the wood
commenced cracking about the screws; I was on the point of attaining my object, when it
seemed that I heard a sigh from some one above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending
down. "If I can only get this off," I muttered, "I wish they may shovel in the earth over us
both!" and I wrenched at it more desperately still. There was another sigh, close at my ear. I
appeared to feel the warm breath of it displacing the sleet-laden wind. I knew no living thing in
flesh and blood was by; but, as certainly as you perceive the approach to some substantial
body in the dark, though it cannot be discerned, so certainly I felt that Cathy was there: not
under me, but on the earth. A sudden sense of relief flowed from my heart through every limb.
I relinquished my labour of agony, and turned consoled at once: unspeakably consoled. Her
presence was with me: it remained while I re-filled the grave, and led me home. You may laugh,
if you will; but I was sure I should see her there. I was sure she was with me, and I could not
help talking to her. Having reached the Heights, I rushed eagerly to the door. It was fastened;
and, I remember, that accursed Earnshaw and my wife opposed my entrance. I remember
stopping to kick the breath out of him, and then hurrying up-stairs, to my room and hers. I
looked round impatiently--I felt her by me--I could _almost_ see her, and yet I _could not_! I
ought to have sweat blood then, from the anguish of my yearning--from the fervour of my
supplications to have but one glimpse! I had not one. She showed herself, as she often was in
life, a devil to me! And, since then, sometimes more and sometimes less, I've been the sport of
that intolerable torture! Infernal! keeping my nerves at such a stretch that, if they had not
resembled catgut, they would long ago have relaxed to the feebleness of Linton's. When I sat
in the house with Hareton, it seemed that on going out I should meet her; when I walked on the
moors I should meet her coming in. When I went from home I hastened to return; she _must_
be somewhere at the Heights, I was certain! And when I slept in her chamber--I was beaten out
of that. I couldn't lie there; for the moment I closed my eyes, she was either outside the
window, or sliding back the panels, or entering the room, or even resting her darling head on
the same pillow as she did when a child; and I must open my lids to see. And so I opened and
closed them a hundred times a night--to be always disappointed! It racked me! I've often
groaned aloud, till that old rascal Joseph no doubt believed that my conscience was playing the
fiend inside of me.
Describe the nature of Heathcliff’s love to Catherine.
Is his love the source of joy or suffering?
�Content
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans (1819–1880), who wrote under the pseudonym George Eliot,
was born on November 22, 1819, in the family of a farmer and land agent. As a
girl Mary Anne was introspective and quiet. She was different from other girls,
because she enjoyed books and learning more than anything else. When her
mother died, Mary Anne had to leave school at the age of 16 and stay with her
father. He helped her to learn German and Italian.
Mary Ann’s life changed a lot when she moved to Coventry at the age of 22. There she was
introduced into the family of a wealthy ribbon-maker named Bray. He was a man of some
culture, and the atmosphere of his house, with its numerous guests, was exciting and unusual
to Mary Anne, who was brought up under the influence of strict Methodist ideals.
The Methodist denomination of Protestant Christianity was inspired by the
life and teachings of John Wesley. Methodism is characterized by its
emphasis on helping the poor and the average person. Methodists are
convinced that building loving relationships with others through social service
is a means of spreading God’s Love. This idea is put into practice by the establishment of
hospitals, universities, orphanages, and schools. Because of vigorous missionary activity, the
movement spread throughout the British Empire, the United States, and beyond, today
claiming approximately 80 million adherents worldwide. Early Methodist preachers took the
message to labourers and criminals who tended to be left outside organized religion at that
time. In the United States the Methodist Church became the religion of slaves who later
formed "black churches"that minister to predominantly African-American congregations.
Through the Brays, Mary Anne was introduced to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Influenced by the
ideas of transcendentalism Mary Anne renounced her faith in Christianity, which caused
distance between Mary Anne and her father.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was an American essayist, lecturer,
and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.
Transcendentalism is a religious and philosophical movement that was
developed during the late 1820s and 1830s in the United States. Among the
transcendentalists' core beliefs was the inherent goodness of both people and
nature. Transcendentalists believe that society and its institutions –
particularly organized religion and political parties – ultimately corrupt the
purity of the individual. They insisted that people are "self-reliant" and independent.
The publication of Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1836 essay Nature is usually considered the
moment at which transcendentalism became a major cultural movement. The transcendentalists
desired to ground their religion and philosophy in transcendental principles: principles not
�Content
based on physical experience, but deriving from the inner spiritual or mental essence of the
human. Transcendentalism has been influenced by Asian religions such as Buddhism,
Confucianism, Judaism and Hinduism.
Through the Brays, Mary Ann met John Chapman, a publisher and bookseller from London.
Chapman and Mary Anne became good friends, and he asked her to become the editor for the
freethinking Westminster Review.
In 1851, Mary Anne met George Henry Lewes, and the pair became romantically involved.
Though Lewes was already married, he and his wife had been separated for some years and his
wife was living with another man, with whom she had three children.
George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) was an English philosopher and critic
of literature and theatre. He became part of the mid-Victorian forum of ideas
which encouraged discussion of Darwinism and religious scepticism.
However, he is perhaps best known today for an open adulterate relation
with George Eliot.
It was impossible for Lewes to divorce his wife because he had disregarded her adultery, so he
and Mary Anne decided to try living together abroad and went to Germany in 1854. Their
friends and relatives disapproved of their lifestyle. The couple returned to England in 1855, and
Mary Anne remained separate from Lewes until his wife declared that she had no intention of
ever reuniting with him. After this, Mary Anne moved in with Lewes in London, and insisted on
being called Mrs. Lewes, which caused great scandal and her general isolation from society.
She and George were very happy, despite the stir that their relationship caused.
In 1856 Mary Ann Evans wrote her first novel Scenes of Clerical Life (1856) under the male
pseudonym George Eliot. Two years later her second novel Adam Bede (1858) became a
success. Soon George Eliot's identity as Mary Anne Lewes became known.
Ufter the publication of The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Silas Marner (1861) George
Eliot’s literary fame grew. Encouraged by success, she turned to continental and political
themes in her next works: Romola (1863), which was set in Renaissance Italy, and Felix
Holt, The Radical (1866), which depicted the political controversy surrounding the Reform
Bill of 1832. Three years later George Eliot published The Spanish Gypsy (1869), a long
narrative poem set during the Spanish Inquisition.
Mary Anne began writing Middlemarch in 1869. The novel was serialized through 1871 and
1872, and became a great success. By this time, public attitude had begun to soften toward
Mary Anne. George Lewes and Mary Anne became very social and popular as her writing
continued to make a great deal of money for the couple. They lived happily together until 1878,
when Lewes suddenly became ill and died. For a long time Mary Anne was in deep mourning.
John Cross, an American banker, who had been an intimate friend of the Lewes household,
became very concerned about Mary Anne's well-being during this trying period. He proposed
marriage to her several times until she finally accepted it in 1880. Their union was one of
companionship rather than romance. Cross was more than 20 years younger than Mary Anne,
�Content
who turned 61 soon after their marriage. In December 1880, after only seven months of
marriage, Mary Anne became seriously ill. She died in her sleep on December 22, 1880, and
was buried next to her lifelong companion, George Lewes.
More than other Victorian novelists George Eliot regarded her work as a means of public
instruction. George Eliot made the teaching of morality her main purpose. She thought that
people needed the moral law and the sense of duty in the same way as they needed their daily
bread.
In her first three novels George Eliot repeats one and the same message with various detail and
occasional irony here and there to light up the gloomy places. Adam Bede (1859) was a story
of moral principles which work among simple country people. The plot was drawn from a
reminiscence of Eliot's aunt, a Methodist preacher, whom she idealized as a character in the
novel. The story concerns the seduction of a stupid peasant girl by a selfish young squire,
and it follows the stages of the girl's pregnancy, mental disorder, conviction for child
murder, and transportation to the colonies. A greater interest develops, however, in the
growing love of the lady preacher and a village artisan, Adam Bede. The religious
inspiration and moral elevation of their life stand in contrast to the mental limitations and
selfishness that govern the personal relations of the other couple.
The scene of The Mill on the Floss and of Silas Marner is also laid in the country as the scene
of Adam Bede. The secret of their success is that they deal with people whom the author knew
well. The Mill on the Floss is as interesting to the readers of George Eliot as David
Copperfield is interesting to the readers of Dickens, because much of it is a reflection of
personal experience.
George Eliot grew more scientific in her later works. It was evident even to her admirers that
the pleasing novelist of the earlier days had been sacrificed to the moral philosopher.
In Middlemarch Eliot returned to the scenes with which she was familiar and produced a novel
that could match the success of Tolstoy’s and Turgenev's Russian sagas. The title – drawn
from the name of the fictional town in which most of the action occurs – and the subtitle, A
Study of Provincial Life, suggest that the author here describes the life of communities, as well
as that of individuals.The main line of the novel’s complex plot is the familiar George Eliot
story of a girl's awakening to the complexities of life. The heroine, Dorothea Brooke, is here
surrounded by other "seekers in life's ways,"a man of science and a political reformer. Themes
in the novel include the way that people react to change, women’s roles, marriage, and
relationships. Middlemarch is also about various human passions: heroism, egotism, love and
lust. Although the pace of the novel is slow, many scandalous topics are covered including
suspected murder, infidelity, secret pasts, gossip, politics, and family feuds.
Although like Dickens and Thackeray, George Eliot was the product of her age, she responded
differently to the forces which were affecting all Victorians. She felt the impact of the newly
promoted scientific truths, particularly those of biologists. She investigated moral,
philosophical, and religious problems with the analytical attitude of a scientist. The chief
concern in her novels was character. She studied the motives for the actions of individuals and
�Content
the problems of human relationships. The problem she dealt with in each of her works centered
in the inward conflict of an individual against his own weaknesses rather than in the outward
conflict of the individual or the group against a social evil. In her analisis of character George
Eliot started the trend toward the psychological novel of today.
Content
The Mill on the Floss
Tom and Maggie Tulliver are two kids growing up at Dorlcote Mill, which has been in
their family for generations. The Tulliver kids have a stormy relationship. They spend most of
their time getting along really well or else fighting horribly. Maggie in particular is very
smart and very emotional and is always getting into trouble.
Tom and Maggie are both sent to schools. While at school Tom meets a deformed boy
named Philip Wakem, who is the son of Mr. Tulliver’s arch-enemy. Mr. Tulliver dislikes
Mr. Wakem, a lawyer, since he is involved in a lawsuit against one of Wakem’s clients. Mr.
Tulliver loses his lawsuit and things go rapidly downhill for the Tulliver family. They go
bankrupt and Mr. Tulliver’s health begins to fail.
After the lawsuit fiasco, the Tulliver kids are forced to leave school and start working. Tom
works for one of his uncles and is obsessed with paying off the family debts. Maggie finds
comfort in an extreme form of religion, but she later puts that aside in favor of a secret
friendship with Philip Wakem, who has been in love with Maggie ever since they first met.
Maggie’s passionate nature continues to cause her a lot of emotional distress.
Tom discovers Maggie’s relationship with Philip and forbids her from seeing him again.
Maggie is torn but decides that family loyalty comes first. Her relationship with Tom is badly
damaged. Shortly after this, Tom manages to pay off the family debts, but the triumph is
ruined when Mr. Tulliver attacks Mr. Wakem and then dies shortly afterwards. The Tullivers
must move away from the mill.
A few years go by and Maggie returns from a stint as a governess to stay with her cousin
Lucy. Tom has worked his way up in his uncle’s business and is now successful. Maggie
meets Stephen Guest, Lucy’s boyfriend, and the two quickly fall in love. Philip also returns
and Maggie is involved in a messy love quadrangle. Eventually, Stephen and Maggie are
unable to control their feelings and the two try to elope. But Maggie has a crisis of
conscience and leaves Stephen, returning home in disgrace.
Though Maggie reconciles with those closest to her, she is unable to make amends with the
judgmental Tom. After a period of intense emotional suffering for Maggie, the local river
floods. Maggie goes to rescue Tom and the two reconcile their differences. But Tom and
Maggie are drowned in the flood. The other characters all survive and move on with their
lives and Tom and Maggie are buried together.
�Content
Text
from The Mill on the Floss
Book I. Brother and Sister
Chapter XI. Maggie Tries to Run away from Her Shadow
Maggie'S intentions, as usual, were on a larger scale than Tom imagined. The resolution that
gathered in her mind, after Tom and Lucy had walked away, was not so simple as that of going
home. No! she would run away and go to the gypsies, and Tom should never see her any
more. That was by no means a new idea to Maggie; she had been so often told she was like a
gypsy, and "half wild," that when she was miserable it seemed to her the only way of escaping
opprobrium, and being entirely in harmony with circumstances, would be to live in a little
brown tent on the commons; the gypsies, she considered, would gladly receive her and pay her
much respect on account of her superior knowledge. She had once mentioned her views on
this point to Tom and suggested that he should stain his face brown, and they should run away
together; but Tom rejected the scheme with contempt, observing that gypsies were thieves, and
hardly got anything to eat and had nothing to drive but a donkey. To-day however, Maggie
thought her misery had reached a pitch at which gypsydom was her refuge, and she rose from
her seat on the roots of the tree with the sense that this was a great crisis in her life; she would
run straight away till she came to Dunlow Common, where there would certainly be gypsies;
and cruel Tom, and the rest of her relations who found fault with her, should never see her any
more. She thought of her father as she ran along, but she reconciled herself to the idea of
parting with him, by determining that she would secretly send him a letter by a small gypsy,
who would run away without telling where she was, and just let him know that she was well and
happy, and always loved him very much.
from Book VI. The Great temptation
Chapter XII. A Family Party
But to minds strongly marked by the positive and negative qualities that create
severity,–strength of will, conscious rectitude of purpose, narrowness of imagination and
intellect, great power of self-control, and a disposition to exert control over others,–prejudices
come as the natural food of tendencies which can get no sustenance out of that complex,
fragmentary, doubt-provoking knowledge which we call truth. Let a prejudice be bequeathed,
carried in the air, adopted by hearsay, caught in through the eye,–however it may come, these
minds will give it a habitation; it is something to assert strongly and bravely, something to fill
up the void of spontaneous ideas, something to impose on others with the authority of
conscious right; it is at once a staff and a baton. Every prejudice that will answer these
purposes is self-evident. Our good, upright Tom Tulliver's mind was of this class; his inward
criticism of his father's faults did not prevent him from adopting his father's prejudice; it was a
prejudice against a man of lax principle and lax life, and it was a meeting-point for all the
disappointed feelings of family and personal pride. Other feelings added their force to produce
�Content
Tom's bitter repugnance to Philip, and to Maggie's union with him; and notwithstanding Lucy's
power over her strong-willed cousin, she got nothing but a cold refusal ever to sanction such a
marriage; "but of course Maggie could do as she liked,–she had declared her determination to
be independent. For Tom's part, he held himself bound by his duty to his father's memory, and
by every manly feeling, never to consent to any relation with the Wakems."
Compare the characters of Maggie and Tom.
What features of character does the author oppose in the psychological portraits
of the siblings?
from Book VII. The Final Rescue
Chapter I. The Return to the Mill
Between four and five o'clock on the afternoon of the fifth day from that on which Stephen
and Maggie had left St. Ogg's, Tom Tulliver was standing on the gravel walk outside the old
house at Dorlcote Mill. He was master there now; he had half fulfilled his father's dying wish,
and by years of steady self-government and energetic work he had brought himself near to the
attainment of more than the old respectability which had been the proud inheritance of the
Dodsons and Tullivers.
But Tom's face, as he stood in the hot, still sunshine of that summer afternoon, had no
gladness, no triumph in it. His mouth wore its bitterest expression, his severe brow its hardest
and deepest fold, as he drew down his hat farther over his eyes to shelter them from the sun,
and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, began to walk up and down the gravel. No news
of his sister had been heard since Bob Jakin had come back in the steamer from Mudport, and
put an end to all improbable suppositions of an accident on the water by stating that he had
seen her land from a vessel with Mr. Stephen Guest. Would the next news be that she was
married,–or what? Probably that she was not married; Tom's mind was set to the expectation
of the worst that could happen,–not death, but disgrace.
As he was walking with his back toward the entrance gate, and his face toward the rushing
mill-stream, a tall, dark-eyed figure, that we know well, approached the gate, and paused to
look at him with a fast-beating heart. Her brother was the human being of whom she had been
most afraid from her childhood upward; afraid with that fear which springs in us when we love
one who is inexorable, unbending, unmodifiable, with a mind that we can never mould
ourselves upon, and yet that we cannot endure to alienate from us.
That deep-rooted fear was shaking Maggie now; but her mind was unswervingly bent on
returning to her brother, as the natural refuge that had been given her. In her deep humiliation
under the retrospect of her own weakness,–in her anguish at the injury she had inflicted,–she
almost desired to endure the severity of Tom's reproof, to submit in patient silence to that
harsh, disapproving judgment against which she had so often rebelled; it seemed no more than
�Content
just to her now,–who was weaker than she was? She craved that outward help to her better
purpose which would come from complete, submissive confession; from being in the presence
of those whose looks and words would be a reflection of her own conscience.
Maggie had been kept on her bed at York for a day with that prostrating headache which was
likely to follow on the terrible strain of the previous day and night. There was an expression of
physical pain still about her brow and eyes, and her whole appearance, with her dress so long
unchanged, was worn and distressed. She lifted the latch of the gate and walked in slowly.
Tom did not hear the gate; he was just then close upon the roaring dam; but he presently
turned, and lifting up his eyes, saw the figure whose worn look and loneliness seemed to him a
confirmation of his worst conjectures. He paused, trembling and white with disgust and
indignation.
Maggie paused too, three yards before him. She felt the hatred in his face, felt it rushing
through her fibres; but she must speak.
"Tom," she began faintly, "I am come back to you,–I am come back home–for refuge–to tell
you everything."
"You will find no home with me," he answered, with tremulous rage. "You have disgraced us
all. You have disgraced my father's name. You have been a curse to your best friends. You
have been base, deceitful; no motives are strong enough to restrain you. I wash my hands of
you forever. You don't belong to me."
from Chapter V. The Last Conflict
It was not till Tom had pushed off and they were on the wide water,–he face to face with
Maggie,–that the full meaning of what had happened rushed upon his mind. It came with so
overpowering a force,–it was such a new revelation to his spirit, of the depths in life that had
lain beyond his vision, which he had fancied so keen and clear,–that he was unable to ask a
question. They sat mutely gazing at each other,–Maggie with eyes of intense life looking out
from a weary, beaten face; Tom pale, with a certain awe and humiliation. Thought was busy
though the lips were silent; and though he could ask no question, he guessed a story of almost
miraculous, divinely protected effort. But at last a mist gathered over the blue-gray eyes, and
the lips found a word they could utter,–the old childish "Magsie!"
Maggie could make no answer but a long, deep sob of that mysterious, wondrous happiness
that is one with pain.
As soon as she could speak, she said, "We will go to Lucy, Tom; we'll go and see if she is
safe, and then we can help the rest."
Tom rowed with untired vigor, and with a different speed from poor Maggie's. The boat was
soon in the current of the river again, and soon they would be at Tofton.
"Park House stands high up out of the flood," said Maggie. "Perhaps they have got Lucy
there."
�Content
Nothing else was said; a new danger was being carried toward them by the river. Some
wooden machinery had just given way on one of the wharves, and huge fragments were being
floated along. The sun was rising now, and the wide area of watery desolation was spread out
in dreadful clearness around them; in dreadful clearness floated onward the hurrying,
threatening masses. A large company in a boat that was working its way along under the Tofton
houses observed their danger, and shouted, "Get out of the current!"
But that could not be done at once; and Tom, looking before him, saw death rushing on them.
Huge fragments, clinging together in fatal fellowship, made one wide mass across the stream.
"It is coming, Maggie!" Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, loosing the oars, and clasping her.
The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water, and the huge mass was hurrying
on in hideous triumph.
But soon the keel of the boat reappeared, a black speck on the golden water.
The boat reappeared, but brother and sister had gone down in an embrace never to be parted;
living through again in one supreme moment the days when they had clasped their little hands in
love, and roamed the daisied fields together.
Conclusion
Nature repairs her ravages,–repairs them with her sunshine, and with human labor. The
desolation wrought by that flood had left little visible trace on the face of the earth, five years
after. The fifth autumn was rich in golden cornstacks, rising in thick clusters among the distant
hedgerows; the wharves and warehouses on the Floss were busy again, with echoes of eager
voices, with hopeful lading and unlading.
And every man and woman mentioned in this history was still living, except those whose end
we know.
Nature repairs her ravages, but not all. The uptorn trees are not rooted again; the parted hills
are left scarred; if there is a new growth, the trees are not the same as the old, and the hills
underneath their green vesture bear the marks of the past rending. To the eyes that have dwelt
on the past, there is no thorough repair.
Dorlcote Mill was rebuilt. And Dorlcote churchyard–where the brick grave that held a father
whom we know, was found with the stone laid prostrate upon it after the flood–had recovered
all its grassy order and decent quiet.
Near that brick grave there was a tomb erected, very soon after the flood, for two bodies that
were found in close embrace; and it was visited at different moments by two men who both felt
that their keenest joy and keenest sorrow were forever buried there.
One of them visited the tomb again with a sweet face beside him; but that was years after.
The other was always solitary. His great companionship was among the trees of the Red
Deeps, where the buried joy seemed still to hover, like a revisiting spirit.
�Content
The tomb bore the names of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, and below the names it was written,–
"In their death they were not divided."
What was it that finally reconciled Maggie and Tom?
Speak about the message contained in the conclusion.
�Content
Thomas Hardy
Son of a country stonemason and builder, Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was born
in Dorset, on June 2, 1840. He practiced architecture before beginning to write.
Hardy started writing poetry which he considered as the work that truly
expressed his ideas, but he is best remembered for his novels.
Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), his first success, enabled Hardy to
become a full-time writer. It was followed by The Return of the Native (1878),
The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure
(1895), all expressing his pessimism and his sense of the inevitable tragedy of life.
Hardy lived a secluded life in southern England, the ancient Wessex, which he made the scene
of all his novels. He painted a vivid picture of rural life in the 19th century, with all its joys and
sufferings, a world full of superstition and injustice. The hard labour of the farmers, their
endless and often unrewarded labour is depicted with grim realism. Hardy rejected the
Victorian belief in a benevolent God, and his novels predominantly depict the bleakness of the
human condition.
Literary critics of the day attacked Hardy's works accusing him of pessimism and immorality.
The novel Jude the Obscure was often referred to as "Jude the Obscene"for its frank treatment
of sex. Heavily criticised for its apparent attack on the institution of marriage the book caused
strain on Hardy's already difficult marriage because Emma Hardy (his first wife) was
concerned that Jude the Obscure would be read as autobiographical.
Public indignation discouraged Hardy so much that he wrote no more novels. He returned to
poetry with Wessex Poems (1898), Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), and The
Dynasts (1910), a huge poetic drama of the Napoleonic Wars. While Hardy’s fiction typically
belongs to Naturalism, some of his poems display elements of the previous Romantic
literature.
Naturalism was a literary movement or tendency from the 1880s to 1940s
that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and
environment had inescapable force in shaping human character. Naturalistic
works exposed the dark harshness of life, including poverty, racism,
violence, prejudice, disease, corruption, prostitution. As a result, naturalistic
writers were frequently criticized for focusing too much on human vice and misery.
Despite the heavy criticism towards his novels, by the 1900s Thomas Hardy had become a
celebrity. In the last years of his life Thomas Hardy was awarded honorary degrees by Oxford
and Cambridge Universities. He lived with his second wife (his former secretary) Florence
Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years his junior. Hardy became ill in December 1927 and died on
11 January 1928, having dictated his final poem to his wife on his deathbed. His ashes were
buried in Westminster Abbey and his heart was buried in the same grave as his first wife Emma.
�Content
Thomas Hardy’s novels mark the turning point in Victorian novel. The second half of the 19th
century was the time of controversies that gave rise to many debates concerning man, culture
and society. The last fifty years of the nineteenth century saw innovations in science and
technology. The theory of Charles Darwin that humans were descended from animals changed
accepted views of religion and society. It shocked the Victorians to think that their ancestors
were animals. They glorified order and high-mindedness, and thought themselves, as British
subjects, the pinnacle of culture.
To make Darwin’s theory more palatable, a complementary theory called Social Darwinism
was formulated. Proponents of this social philosophy argued that Darwin’s ideas of "survival of
the fittest"also applied to society. The existence of lower classes could be explained by their
inferior intelligence and initiative in comparison to that of the upper classes.
In his naturalistic novels of character and environment Thomas Hardy preferred to deal
chiefly with persons in the middle and poorer classes of society because he felt that in their
experiences the real facts of life stood out most truly. His deliberate theory was an absolute
fatalism: human character and action are the inevitable result of laws of heredity and
environment over which man has no control.
All of Hardy’s fiction reflects his deep pessimism. Hardy’s characters often encounter
crossroads, which symbolize a point of opportunity and transition. But the hand of fate hinders
people’s prospects. In the world he describes, man cannot fight against fate which corrupts
any possibility of happiness and leads him to tragedy. Another element that plays a role in
crushing the hopes of Hardy’s characters is the hypocritical values Victorian society. Social
constraints are always in the way of Hardy’s most sympathetically portrayed characters. This
is especially true for female characters, whose bleak lives and loveless marriages are vividly
exposed in his novels.
Women of the Victorian era were idealized as the helpmate of man, the keeper of the home,
and the "weaker sex." Victorian era was a time of national pride and belief in British superiority.
It was also an age best-remembered for its emphasis on a strict code of morality, unequally
applied to men and women. Heroines in popular fiction were expected to be frail and virtuous.
The thought that Hardy subtitled his novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles A
" Pure Woman"infuriated
some Victorian critics, because it flew in the face of all they held sacred. The Matrimonial
Causes Act of 1857 granted the right to a divorce to both men and women on the basis of
adultery but, in order to divorce her husband, a women would have to further prove gross
cruelty or desertion. Women who sought divorce for whatever reason were ostracized from
polite society.
Content
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Tess Durbeyfield, a poor country girl, is misled by her father and the local parson into
believing that their surname is really of noble origin. She goes to find her rich relatives and
�Content
begins to work for Alec D’Urberville, a rich landowner who seduces her and leaves her
pregnant. Heartbroken, the girl returns to her village to take up her old life again. She has
the baby, but it is sickly and dies in infancy. Tess goes to work on a dairy farm and falls in
love with Angel Clare. On their wedding night she reveals the secret of her relationship with
Alec. Angel reacts angrily, abandons her and goes to Brazil. Out of necessity and to help her
family, Tess goes back to Alec. When she hears that Angel has returned and realizes he has
forgiven her, she kills Alec in a fit of anger. Tess and Angel run away to escape the police
but she is eventually captured at Stonehenge and hanged.
Text
from Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Phase the Fifth: The Woman Pays
XXXV
Tess has just told her new husband, Angel Clare, about her seduction and her dead baby.
…When he spoke it was in the most inadequate, commonplace voice of the many varied tones
she had heard from him.
"Tess!"
"Yes, dearest."
"Am I to believe this? From your manner I am to take it as true. O you cannot be out of your
mind! You ought to be! Yet you are not. ... My wife, my Tess – nothing in you warrants such a
supposition as that?"
"I am not out of my mind," she said.
"And yet – He looked vacantly at her, to resume with dazed senses: "Why didn't you tell me
before? Ah, yes, you would have told me, in a way – but I hindered you, I remember!"
These and other of his words were nothing but the perfunctory babble of the surface while the
depths remained paralyzed. He turned away, and bent over a chair. Tess followed him to the
middle of the room where he was, and stood there staring at him with eyes that did not weep.
Presently she slid down upon her knees beside his foot, and from this position she crouched in
a heap.
"In the name of our love, forgive me!" she whispered with a dry mouth. "I have forgiven you
for the same!" And, as he did not answer, she said again – Forgive me as you are forgiven! I
forgive YOU, Angel."
"You – yes, you do."
"But you do not forgive me?"
"O Tess, forgiveness does not apply to the case! You were one person; now you are another.
�Content
My God – how can forgiveness meet such a grotesque – prestidigitation as that!"
He paused, contemplating this definition; then suddenly broke into horrible laughter – as
unnatural and ghastly as a laugh in hell.
"Don't – don't! It kills me quite, that!" she shrieked.
"O have mercy upon me – have mercy!"
He did not answer; and, sickly white, she jumped up.
"Angel, Angel! what do you mean by that laugh?" she cried out. "Do you know what this is to
me?"
He shook his head.
"I have been hoping, longing, praying, to make you happy! I have thought what joy it will be to
do it, what an unworthy wife I shall be if I do not! That's what I have felt, Angel!"
"I know that."
"I thought, Angel, that you loved me – me, my very self! If it is I you do love, O how can it be
that you look and speak so? It frightens me! Having begun to love you, I love you for ever – in
all changes, in all disgraces, because you are yourself. I ask no more. Then how can you, O
my own husband, stop loving me?"
"I repeat, the woman I have been loving is not you."
"But who?"
"Another woman in your shape."
Can you accept Angel’s remark that the woman he has been loving is "another
woman"in Tess’ shape? Is he being sincere?
The title of this part of the book is "The Woman Pays". What general moral do
you think Hardy was trying to express?
from Phase the Seventh: Fulfilment
LVIII
"It is Stonehenge!" said Clare.
"The heathen temple, you mean?"
"Yes. Older than the centuries; older than the d'Urbervilles! Well, what shall we do, darling? We
may find shelter further on."
But Tess, really tired by this time, flung herself upon an oblong slab that lay close at hand, and
�Content
was sheltered from the wind by a pillar. Owing to the action of the sun during the preceding
day, the stone was warm and dry, in comforting contrast to the rough and chill grass around,
which had damped her skirts and shoes.
"I don't want to go any further, Angel," she said, stretching out her hand for his. "Can't we
bide here?"
"I fear not. This spot is visible for miles by day, although it does not seem so now."
"One of my mother's people was a shepherd hereabouts, now I think of it. And you used to
say at Talbothays that I was a heathen. So now I am at home."
He knelt down beside her outstretched form, and put his lips upon hers.
"Sleepy are you, dear? I think you are lying on an altar."
"I like very much to be here," she murmured. "It is so solemn and lonely – after my great
happiness – with nothing but the sky above my face. It seems as if there were no folk in the
world but we two; and I wish there were not – except 'Liza-Lu."
Clare though she might as well rest here till it should get a little lighter, and he flung his overcoat
upon her, and sat down by her side.
"Angel, if anything happens to me, will you watch over 'Liza-Lu for my sake?" she asked,
when they had listened a long time to the wind among the pillars.
"I will."
"She is so good and simple and pure. O, Angel – I wish you would marry her if you lose me,
as you will do shortly. O, if you would!"
"If I lose you I lose all! And she is my sister-in-law."
"That's nothing, dearest. People marry sister-laws continually about Marlott; and 'Liza-Lu is so
gentle and sweet, and she is growing so beautiful. O, I could share you with her willingly when
we are spirits! If you would train her and teach her, Angel, and bring her up for your own self!
… She had all the best of me without the bad of me; and if she were to become yours it would
almost seem as if death had not divided us… Well, I have said it. I won't mention it again."
She ceased, and he fell into thought. In the far north-east sky he could see between the pillars a
level streak of light. The uniform concavity of black cloud was lifting bodily like the lid of a
pot, letting in at the earth's edge the coming day, against which the towering monoliths and
trilithons began to be blackly defined.
"Did they sacrifice to God here?" asked she.
"No," said he.
"Who to?"
"I believe to the sun. That lofty stone set away by itself is in the direction of the sun, which will
presently rise behind it."
�Content
"This reminds me, dear," she said. "You remember you never would interfere with any belief of
mine before we were married? But I knew your mind all the same, and I thought as you
thought–not from any reasons of my own, but because you thought so. Tell me now, Angel,
do you think we shall meet again after we are dead? I want to know."
He kissed her to avoid a reply at such a time.
"O, Angel – I fear that means no!" said she, with a suppressed sob. "And I wanted so to see
you again – so much, so much! What – not even you and I, Angel, who love each other so
well?"
Like a greater than himself, to the critical question at the critical time he did not answer; and
they were again silent. In a minute or two her breathing became more regular, her clasp of his
hand relaxed, and she fell asleep. The band of silver paleness along the east horizon made even
the distant parts of the Great Plain appear dark and near; and the whole enormous landscape
bore that impress of reserve, taciturnity, and hesitation which is usual just before day. The
eastward pillars and their architraves stood up blackly against the light, and the great
flame-shaped Sun-stone beyond them; and the Stone of Sacrifice midway. Presently the night
wind died out, and the quivering little pools in the cup-like hollows of the stones lay still. At the
same time something seemed to move on the verge of the dip eastward – a mere dot. It was the
head of a man approaching them from the hollow beyond the Sun-stone. Clare wished they
had gone onward, but in the circumstances decided to remain quiet. The figure came straight
towards the circle of pillars in which they were.
He heard something behind him, the brush of feet. Turning, he saw over the prostrate columns
another figure; then before he was aware, another was at hand on the right, under a trilithon,
and another on the left. The dawn shone full on the front of the man westward, and Clare could
discern from this that he was tall, and walked as if trained. They all closed in with evident
purpose. Her story then was true! Springing to his feet, he looked around for a weapon, loose
stone, means of escape, anything. By this time the nearest man was upon him.
"It is no use, sir," he said. "There are sixteen of us on the Plain, and the whole country is
reared."
"Let her finish her sleep!" he implored in a whisper of the men as they gathered round.
When they saw where she lay, which they had not done till then, they showed no objection,
and stood watching her, as still as the pillars around. He went to the stone and bent over her,
holding one poor little hand; her breathing now was quick and small, like that of a lesser
creature than a woman. All waited in the growing light, their faces and hands as if they were
silvered, the remainder of their figures dark, the stones glistening green-gray, the Plain still a
mass of shade. Soon the light was strong, and a ray shone upon her unconscious form,
peering under her eyelids and waking her.
"What is it, Angel?" she said, starting up. "Have they come for me?"
"Yes, dearest," he said. "They have come."
�Content
"It is as it should be," she murmured. "Angel, I am almost glad – yes, glad! This happiness
could not have lasted. It was too much. I have had enough; and now I shall not live for you to
despise me!"
She stood up, shook herself, and went forward, neither of the men having moved.
"I am ready," she said quietly.
What is Tess’ reaction to being arrested?
What does the statement I"t is as it should be"suggest about her outlook?
The final episode of Hardy’s novel is set in the prehistoric temple of Stonehenge.
What is the symbolic significance of this choice?
�Content
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854–1900) was born in Dublin. Oscar
Wilde’s mother, Lady Jane Francesca Wilde (1820–1896), was a successful
poet and journalist. She wrote patriotic Irish verse under the pseudonym
"Speranza". Oscar's father, Sir William Wilde (1815–1876), was a leading ear
and eye surgeon and a gifted writer, who wrote books on archaeology and
folklore.
While at Oxford, Wilde became involved in the aesthetic movement and won the 1878
Newdigate Prize for his poem Ravenna.
Aestheticism was a late 19th-century European arts movement that centred
on the doctrine that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone. It began in
reaction to the perceived ugliness of the industrial age. Its philosophical
foundations were laid by Immanuel Kant, who separated the sense of
beauty from practical interests. Aesthetes rejected the Victorian notion that
art should have a moral, social or political purpose, believing in "Art for Art’s Sake".
After he graduated, Wilde moved to Chelsea in London to establish a literary career. His first
collection of poetry Poems (1881) received mixed reviews. He worked as an art reviewer,
lectured in Britain, Ireland, the United States and Canada and lived in Paris. Wilde’s wit, irony
and brilliant conversational skills opened the doors to fashionable societies for him. He applied
the aesthetic ideals to all spheres of his life. Wilde wore extravagant clothes and considered
eccentricity to be the sign of genius.
In 1884, Wilde married Constance Lloyd, a daughter of Queen's Counsel. To support his
family, Oscar accepted a job as the editor of Woman's World magazine.
In 1888 Wilde published The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888), fairy-stories written for
his two sons. Although Wilde's fairy tales were intended for a young audience, they contain
social implications that most children would not understand. The criticism of the Victorian
society in Wilde's fairy tales is obvious. His tales rarely have a truly happy ending, reflecting his
pessimistic views about society which is not likely to change for the better. Injustice is the
central theme in many tales.
His first and only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) received quite a negative
response. It is based on the myth of Narcissus: a young hedonist in love with his youth and
beauty wishes to remain eternally young and handsome. His wish is granted, but over time his
portrait grows old and ugly and shows the physical consequences of his amoral and criminal
life. The novel caused something of a sensation amongst Victorian critics. The public
considered the novel shocking and immoral.
�Content
In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a hunter who was renowned for his
beauty. He was the son of a river god named Cephissus and a nymph
named Liriope. He was exceptionally proud of what he did to those who
loved him. Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, noticed and attracted Narcissus
to a pool, wherein he saw his reflection and fell in love with it, not realizing it
was merely an image. Unable to leave the beauty of his reflection, Narcissus died. Narcissus is
the origin of the term narcissism, a fixation with oneself.
In 1891, Wilde began an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, nicknamed 'Bosie', who became
both the love of his life and his downfall. Wilde's marriage ended in 1893.
Wilde's greatest talent and everlasting fame lies in his plays. His first successful play was Lady
Windermere's Fan (1892). He produced successful and extremely popular comedies one
after another: A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), The
Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Wilde had finally found a way of turning his genius for
conversation into literature. The plays were vehicles for his exceptionally witty dialogues. They
illustrate Wilde’s ability to mix farce, romantic comedy and social satire. Wilde challenged
Victorian society with his cynical views expressed in aphorisms. He is one of the most quoted
authors.
In April 1895, Wilde sued Bosie's father for libel as he had accused him of homosexuality.
Oscar's case was unsuccessful and he was himself arrested and tried for gross indecency. He
was sentenced to two years of hard labor for the crime of sodomy. During his time in prison
he wrote De Profundis (1905), a dramatic monologue and autobiography, which was
addressed to Bosie.
Upon his release, Wilde wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), revealing his concern for
inhumane prison conditions. At the time the poem was published, Wilde’s name was so
unacceptable in England that it appeared under the pseudonym C33, Wilde’s prison number.
The scandal ruined Wilde financially and physically. He spent the rest of his life in Europe,
staying with friends and living in cheap hotels. He died at the age of 46 of cerebral meningitis in
a Paris.
Content
The Happy Prince
In a town where a lot of poor people suffer, a swallow who was left behind after his flock
flew off to Egypt for the winter meets the statue of the late "Happy Prince", who in reality has
never experienced true happiness. Viewing various scenes of people suffering in poverty from
his tall monument, the Happy Prince asks the swallow to take the ruby from his hilt, the
sapphires from his eyes, and the golden leaf covering his body to give to the poor. As the
winter comes and the Happy Prince is stripped of all of his beauty, his lead heart breaks
�Content
when the swallow dies as a result of his selfless deeds. The statue is then torn down and
melted leaving behind the broken heart and the dead swallow. These are taken up to heaven
by an angel that has deemed them the two most precious things in the city by God, so they
may live forever in his city of gold and garden of paradise.
The Selfish Giant
The Selfish Giant owns a beautiful garden which has 12 peach trees and lovely fragrant
flowers, in which children love to play after returning from the school. On the giant's return
from seven years visiting his friend the Cornish Ogre, he takes offense at the children and
builds a wall to keep them out. He put a notice board "TRESSPASSERS WILL BE
PROSECUTED". The garden falls into perpetual winter. One day, the giant is awakened by
a linnet, and discovers that spring has returned to the garden, as the children have found a
way in through a gap in the wall. He sees the error of his ways, and resolves to destroy the
wall. However, when he emerges from his castle, all the children run away except one boy
who was trying to climb a tree. The giant helps this boy into the tree and announces: I"t is
your garden now, little children,"and knocks down the wall. The children once more play in
the garden, and spring returns. But the boy that the Giant helped does not return and the
Giant is heartbroken. Many years later after happily playing with the children all the time,
the Giant is old and feeble. One winter morning, he awakes to see the trees in one part of his
garden in full blossom. He descends from the castle to discover the boy that he once helped
lying beneath a beautiful white tree that the Giant has never seen before. The Giant sees that
the boy bears the stigmata. He does not realize that the boy is actually the Christ Child and
is furious that somebody has wounded him. Shortly afterwards the happy giant dies. That
same afternoon, his body is found lying under the tree, covered in blossoms.
The Devoted Friend
Hans is a gardener, the devoted friend of a rich miller. On the basis of this friendship, the
miller helps himself to flowers from Hans' garden, and promises to give Hans an old, broken
wheelbarrow, to replace one that Hans was forced to sell so that he could buy food. Against
this promise, the miller compels Hans to run a series of arduous errands for him. One stormy
night, the miller asks Hans to fetch a doctor for his sick son. Returning from the doctor,
Hans is lost on the moors in the storm and drowns in a pool of water. After Hans' funeral,
the miller's only emotion is regret as he has been unable to dispose of the wheelbarrow.
The Nightingale and the Rose
A nightingale overhears a student complaining that his professor's daughter will not dance
with him, as he is unable to give her a red rose. The nightingale visits all the rose-trees in the
garden, and one of the roses tells her there is a way to produce a red rose, but only if the
�Content
nightingale is prepared to sing the sweetest song for the rose all night with her heart
pressing into a thorn, sacrificing her life. Seeing the student in tears, and valuing his human
life above her bird life, the nightingale carries out the ritual. She impales herself on the
rose-tree's thorn so that her heart's blood can stain the rose. The student takes the rose to the
professor's daughter, but she again rejects him because another man has sent her some real
jewels and "everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers." The student angrily
throws the rose into the gutter, returns to his study of metaphysics, and decides not to believe
in true love anymore.
The Importance of Being Ernest
Algernon Moncrieff invites his friend Ernest Worthing in for a visit.
Ernest’s real name is Jack. He is a guardian for a pretty girl Cecily. Jack’s boring life in the
country made him create a younger brother named Ernest, who lives in London. Whenever
Jack feels bored, he visits London on the pretense that he’s cleaning up Ernest’s messes.
Instead, Jack takes on the name Ernest and goes partying around town. Algernon's similar
nonexistent friend is a perpetual invalid named Bunbury, who allows Algernon to visit the
country whenever he likes.
Jack is in love with Gwendolen Fairfax, who is Algernon’s cousin. Gwendolen is obsessed
by the name Ernest. Jack asks Algernon if he can get Gwendolen’s mother, Lady Bracknell,
out of the room, then Jack can propose to Gwendolen.
The plan works. Gwendolen is just about to accept Ernest’s proposal when Lady Bracknell
re-enters the room. Lady Bracknell doesn't approve of the engagement because Ernest is an
orphan, abandoned at birth for unknown reasons and found in a handbag at Victoria train
station.
Jack and Algernon concoct a scheme for getting rid of Ernest. They decide that he’ll die in
Paris of a severe cold.
When her mother left, Gwendolen slipped back into the room. She asks Ernest (Jack) for his
country address. As he gives it, Algernon discreetly copies it down and later announces to his
servant that he’s going Bunburying tomorrow.
At Jack’s country estate, young Cecily does everything she can to avoid studying her German
grammar. Just as Cecily’s governess Miss Prism leaves, the arrival of Ernest Worthing is
announced. It turns out to be Algernon. Algernon and Cecily flirt. Cecily reveals that she
imagined that she's engaged to Ernest.
At that moment, Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble return from their walk, only to meet Jack
dressed in black mourning clothes. He’s come home early to announce that his brother,
Ernest, has died tragically in Paris.
Cecily comes out to tell her Uncle Jack that Ernest has come to visit. When Jack sees it’s
�Content
Algernon, he is furious and wants Ernest to leave.
Gwendolen arrives. Cecily entertains her. When each lady learns that the other is
supposedly engaged to Ernest Worthing, they start fighting. Jack and Algernon show up in
time to clear up any doubt. Their true identities are revealed, as well as the fact that there is
no Ernest.
Lady Bracknell comes to bring Gwendolen home. When she sees Cecily holding Algernon’s
hand, she gives her an icy glare, but politely asks Jack how big this girl’s inheritance is.
When she finds out that the girl is extremely wealthy, Lady Bracknell’s attitude toward Cecily
changes and she gives consent for her and Algernon to marry. But Jack, as Cecily’s
guardian, refuses to give his consent unless Lady Bracknell allows him to marry
Gwendolen.
During the conversation Lady Bracknell’s ears prick up at the name of Miss Prism. The
governess is brought before her and confesses the truth: she was once Lady Bracknell’s
servant and was in charge of a certain child. One day, she took the baby out in his stroller
for a walk and brought along a three-volume novel that she had written and kept in a
handbag. Distracted, she switched the two–putting the novel in the stroller and the baby
into the handbag. She dropped the handbag off at Victoria train station.
Lady Bracknell tells Jack him that his mother is Mrs. Moncrieff and Algernon is his older
brother. Lady Bracknell tells Jack that he was named Ernest after his father. Now he can
marry Gwendolen. There’s general rejoicing. Ernest closes the play by insisting that he’s
now learned the i"mportance of being earnest."
Text
from The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Preface
The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
That is all.
They are elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
All art is quite useless.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only
excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art
shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
�Content
Take one of Oscar Wilde’s sayings for your commentary.
Do you agree with "art for art’s sake"principle of aestheticism?
from Chapter 8
"So I have murdered Sibyl Vane," said Dorian Gray, half to himself, "murdered her as surely as
if I had cut her little throat with a knife. Yet the roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds
sing just as happily in my garden. And to-night I am to dine with you, and then go on to the
opera, and sup somewhere, I suppose, afterwards. How extraordinarily dramatic life is! If I
had read all this in a book, Harry, I think I would have wept over it. Somehow, now that it has
happened actually, and to me, it seems far too wonderful for tears. Here is the first passionate
love-letter I have ever written in my life. Strange, that my first passionate love-letter should have
been addressed to a dead girl. Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent people we call the
dead? Sibyl! Can she feel, or know, or listen? Oh, Harry, how I loved her once! It seems years
ago to me now. She was everything to me. Then came that dreadful night – was it really only
last night? – when she played so badly, and my heart almost broke. She explained it all to me.
It was terribly pathetic. But I was not moved a bit. I thought her shallow. Suddenly something
happened that made me afraid. I can't tell you what it was, but it was terrible. I said I would go
back to her. I felt I had done wrong. And now she is dead. My God! My God! Harry, what
shall I do? You don't know the danger I am in, and there is nothing to keep me straight. She
would have done that for me. She had no right to kill herself. It was selfish of her."
"My dear Dorian," answered Lord Henry, taking a cigarette from his case and producing a
gold-latten matchbox, "the only way a woman can ever reform a man is by boring him so
completely that he loses all possible interest in life. If you had married this girl, you would have
been wretched. Of course, you would have treated her kindly. One can always be kind to
people about whom one cares nothing. But she would have soon found out that you were
absolutely indifferent to her. And when a woman finds that out about her husband, she either
becomes dreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart bonnets that some other woman's husband
has to pay for. I say nothing about the social mistake, which would have been abject – which,
of course, I would not have allowed – but I assure you that in any case the whole thing would
have been an absolute failure."
"I suppose it would," muttered the lad, walking up and down the room and looking horribly
pale. "But I thought it was my duty. It is not my fault that this terrible tragedy has prevented my
doing what was right. I remember your saying once that there is a fatality about good
resolutions – that they are always made too late. Mine certainly were."
"Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure
vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious
sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak. That is all that can be said for them.
They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account."
"Harry," cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him, "why is it that I cannot
�Content
feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I don't think I am heartless. Do you?"
"You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight to be entitled to give yourself
that name, Dorian," answered Lord Henry with his sweet melancholy smile.
The lad frowned. "I don't like that explanation, Harry," he rejoined, "but I am glad you don't
think I am heartless. I am nothing of the kind. I know I am not. And yet I must admit that this
thing that has happened does not affect me as it should. It seems to me to be simply like a
wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible beauty of a Greek tragedy, a
tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which I have not been wounded."
"It is an interesting question," said Lord Henry, who found an exquisite pleasure in playing on
the lad's unconscious egotism, "an extremely interesting question. I fancy that the true
explanation is this: It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic
manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want
of meaning, their entire lack of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us an
impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that. Sometimes, however, a tragedy that
possesses artistic elements of beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the
whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are no
longer the actors, but the spectators of the play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves,
and the mere wonder of the spectacle enthralls us. In the present case, what is it that has really
happened? Some one has killed herself for love of you. I wish that I had ever had such an
experience. It would have made me in love with love for the rest of my life. The people who
have adored me – there have not been very many, but there have been some – have always
insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me. They
have become stout and tedious, and when I meet them, they go in at once for reminiscences.
That awful memory of woman! What a fearful thing it is! And what an utter intellectual
stagnation it reveals! One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its
details. Details are always vulgar."
What is the dramatic character of life Lord Henry speaks about?
Do you share his views?
Comment on the lines: O
" ne can always be kind to people about whom one cares
nothing."S" ome one has killed herself for love of you. I wish that I had ever had
such an experience. It would have made me in love with love for the rest of my
life."
from The Importance of Being Ernest. Act I
Lady Bracknell. Mr. Worthing! Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture. It is most
indecorous.
Gwendolen. Mamma! [He tries to rise; she restrains him.] I must beg you to retire. This is no
place for you. Besides, Mr. Worthing has not quite finished yet.
Lady Bracknell. Finished what, may I ask?
�Content
Gwendolen. I am engaged to Mr. Worthing, mamma. [They rise together.]
Lady Bracknell. Pardon me, you are not engaged to any one. When you do become engaged
to some one, I, or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact. An
engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may
be. It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself… And now I have a
few questions to put to you, Mr. Worthing. While I am making these inquiries, you,
Gwendolen, will wait for me below in the carriage.
Gwendolen. [Reproachfully.] Mamma!
Lady Bracknell. In the carriage, Gwendolen! [Gwendolen goes to the door. She
and Jack blow kisses to each other behind Lady Bracknell’s back. Lady Bracknell looks
vaguely about as if she could not understand what the noise was. Finally turns round.]
Gwendolen, the carriage!
Gwendolen. Yes, mamma. [Goes out, looking back at Jack .]
Lady Bracknell. [Sitting down.] You can take a seat, Mr. Worthing.
[Looks in her pocket for note-book and pencil.]
Jack . Thank you, Lady Bracknell, I prefer standing.
Lady Bracknell. [Pencil and note-book in hand.] I feel bound to tell you that you are not
down on my list of eligible young men, although I have the same list as the dear Duchess of
Bolton has. We work together, in fact. However, I am quite ready to enter your name, should
your answers be what a really affectionate mother requires. Do you smoke?
Jack . Well, yes, I must admit I smoke.
Lady Bracknell. I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind.
There are far too many idle men in London as it is. How old are you?
Jack . Twenty-nine.
Lady Bracknell. A very good age to be married at. I have always been of opinion that a man
who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know?
Jack . [After some hesitation.] I know nothing, Lady Bracknell.
Lady Bracknell. I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with
natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The
whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate,
education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the
upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square. What is your
income?
Jack . Between seven and eight thousand a year.
Lady Bracknell. [Makes a note in her book.] In land, or in investments?
�Content
Jack . In investments, chiefly.
Lady Bracknell. That is satisfactory. What between the duties expected of one during one’s
lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one’s death, land has ceased to be either a profit
or a pleasure. It gives one position, and prevents one from keeping it up. That’s all that can be
said about land.
Jack . I have a country house with some land, of course, attached to it, about fifteen hundred
acres, I believe; but I don’t depend on that for my real income. In fact, as far as I can make
out, the poachers are the only people who make anything out of it.
Lady Bracknell. A country house! How many bedrooms? Well, that point can be cleared up
afterwards. You have a town house, I hope? A girl with a simple, unspoiled nature, like
Gwendolen, could hardly be expected to reside in the country.
Jack . Well, I own a house in Belgrave Square, but it is let by the year to Lady Bloxham. Of
course, I can get it back whenever I like, at six months’ notice.
Lady Bracknell. Lady Bloxham? I don’t know her.
Jack . Oh, she goes about very little. She is a lady considerably advanced in years.
Lady Bracknell. Ah, nowadays that is no guarantee of respectability of character. What
number in Belgrave Square?
Jack . 149.
Lady Bracknell. [Shaking her head.] The unfashionable side. I thought there was something.
However, that could easily be altered.
Jack . Do you mean the fashion, or the side?
Lady Bracknell. [Sternly.] Both, if necessary, I presume. What are your polities?
Jack . Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Unionist.
Lady Bracknell. Oh, they count as Tories. They dine with us. Or come in the evening, at any
rate. Now to minor matters. Are your parents living?
Jack . I have lost both my parents.
Lady Bracknell. To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose
both looks like carelessness. Who was your father? He was evidently a man of some wealth.
Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the
ranks of the aristocracy?
Jack . I am afraid I really don’t know. The fact is, Lady Bracknell, I said I had lost my parents.
It would be nearer the truth to say that my parents seem to have lost me… I don’t actually
know who I am by birth. I was… well, I was found.
Lady Bracknell. Found!
�Content
Jack . The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of a very charitable and kindly
disposition, found me, and gave me the name of Worthing, because he happened to have a
first-class ticket for Worthing in his pocket at the time. Worthing is a place in Sussex. It is a
seaside resort.
Lady Bracknell. Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first-class ticket for this
seaside resort find you?
Jack . [Gravely.] In a hand-bag.
Lady Bracknell. A hand-bag?
Jack . [Very seriously.] Yes, Lady Bracknell. I was in a hand-bag–a somewhat large, black
leather hand-bag, with handles to it–an ordinary hand-bag in fact.
Lady Bracknell. In what locality did this Mr. James, or Thomas, Cardew come across this
ordinary hand-bag?
Jack . In the cloak-room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in mistake for his own.
Lady Bracknell. The cloak-room at Victoria Station?
Jack . Yes. The Brighton line.
Lady Bracknell. The line is immaterial. Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel somewhat bewildered
by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had
handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that
reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. And I presume you know what
that unfortunate movement led to? As for the particular locality in which the hand-bag was
found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion–has
probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before now-but it could hardly be regarded as an
assured basis for a recognised position in good society.
Jack . May I ask you then what you would advise me to do? I need hardly say I would do
anything in the world to ensure Gwendolen’s happiness.
Lady Bracknell. I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations
as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either
sex, before the season is quite over.
Jack . Well, I don’t see how I could possibly manage to do that. I can produce the hand-bag at
any moment. It is in my dressing-room at home. I really think that should satisfy you, Lady
Bracknell.
Lady Bracknell. Me, sir! What has it to do with me? You can hardly imagine that I and Lord
Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter–a girl brought up with the utmost care–to
marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel? Good morning, Mr. Worthing!
�Content
Speak about the character of Lady Bracknell.
How does her dialogue with Jack reveal the prejudices one can expect from a
Victorian lady?
�Content
Alfred Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) was the fourth son of the twelve children of the
rector of Somersby. George Clayton Tennyson had been pushed into the
church being disinherited by his own father, a rich and ambitious country
solicitor.
Tennyson's father was mentally unstable. He took to drink and drugs, making the home
atmosphere very depressing. One of Tennyson's brothers was confined to an insane asylum
most of his life, another was addicted to drugs, a third had to be put into a mental home
because of his alcoholism. Of the rest of the eleven children who reached maturity, all had at
least one severe mental breakdown. The family referred to their unfortunate inheritance as
"black blood" of the Tennysons.
To escape from the unhappy environment Alfred began writing poetry long before he was sent
to school. All his life he used writing as a way of taking his mind from his troubles.
In 1827 Tennyson entered Trinity College. Soon he was at the center of an admiring group of
young men interested in poetry and conversation. Tennyson's poem Timbuctoo (1829) won
the Chancellor's Gold Medal for poetry. At Cambridge Tennyson came into contact with
Arthur Henry Hallam, the most brilliant man of his Cambridge generation. Both became
members of the secret society known as the Apostles, a group of undergraduates who were
regarded as the elite of the entire university.
After the publication of his first collection of poems Poems Chiefly Lyrical (1830) Tennyson
became popular and was brought to the attention of well-known writers of the day, including
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
In 1831 Tennyson’s father died and he had to leave Cambridge before taking his degree. In two
years Arthur Hallam died suddenly and unexpectedly. His death had a profound impact on
Tennyson, and inspired several masterpieces, including In Memoriam A.H.H., a long requiem
poem written over a period of 17 years. The original title of the poem was The Way of the
Soul. It is a meditation on the search for hope after a great loss.
Soon after his friend’s death Tennyson published his second book of poetry Poems (1833),
which included his well-known ballad The Lady of Shalott. The book was heavily criticized.
Discouraged Tennyson did not publish again for 10 more years, although he continued to
write.
With the publication of Poems (1842) Tennyson’s reputation grew steadily. After the
publication of In Memoriam A.H.H. in 1850 Tennyson reached the pinnacle of his career. The
same year he was granted a government pension and succeeded to the position of Poet
Laureate after the death of William Wordsworth and married Emily Sellwood, whom Tennyson
had known since childhood but couldn’t marry because of financial difficulties. They had two
sons, Hallam and Lionel.
�Content
As the country’s leading poet Tennyson was very much in demand. He published Maud, and
Other Poems (1855) and The Idylls of the King (1859), which is one of literature's greatest
interpretations of the legend of King Arthur.
Queen Victoria was an ardent admirer of Tennyson's work, and in 1884 he received the title of
a baron and the seat in Parliament.
Tennyson continued writing into his eighties, and died on 6 October 1892, aged 83. He was
succeeded as 2nd Baron Tennyson by his son, Hallam, who produced an authorised biography
of his father in 1897, and was later the second Governor-General of Australia.
In his poetry Tennyson used a wide range of subjects, ranging from medieval legends to
classical myths and from domestic situations to observations of nature. The richness of his
imagery and descriptive writing reveals the influence of Romantic poets. There is often a mood
of sadness in his lyrics and narrative epics because of the devastating effect the death of his
friend and the family problems had on him.
Tennyson was a craftsman who polished and revised his manuscripts extensively. He was
described as the master of metre. All his poems are very rhythmical and musical. Thomas Eliot,
the most influential modernist poet, wrote that Tennyson had "the finest ear of any English poet
since Milton".
Content
The Lady of Shalott
On the island, a woman known as the Lady of Shalott is imprisoned within a building made
of "four gray walls and four gray towers."
The Lady of Shalott weaves a magic colorful web. She has heard a voice whisper that a
curse will befall her if she looks down to Camelot. A mirror hangs before her. In the mirror,
she sees s"hadows of the world".
A knight passes by the river, his image flashes into the Lady of Shalott’s mirror. Sick of
shadows the Lady of Shalott leaves her loom and crosses the room in three paces. She looks
down and sees the water lilies blooming and Lancelot’s helmet and plume. She looks down
to Camelot, and as she does so, her web flies out the window and her mirror cracks from
side to side. She cries out, T
" he curse is come upon me."
The Lady of Shalott descends from her tower and finds a boat. She lies down in the boat,
and the stream carries her to Camelot. The Lady of Shalott wears a snowy white robe and
sings her last song as she sails down to Camelot. She sings until her blood freezes, her eyes
darken, and she dies.
Link
�Content
The poem was particularly popular amongst artists of the
Pre-Raphaelite movement, who shared Tennyson's interest
in Arthurian theme. There are several paintings based on
episodes from the poem. Two aspects, in particular, of The
Lady of Shalott intrigued artists: the idea of the lady
trapped in her tower and the dying girl floating down the
river towards Camelot.
John William Waterhouse painted three episodes from the
poem: the Lady setting out for Camelot in her boat; the Lady at the climactic moment when she
turns to look at Lancelot in the window; and "I Am Half-Sick of Shadows" episode, as the
Lady of Shalott sits wistfully before her loom.
Text
The Lady of Shalott. Part II
There she weaves by night and day
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
A magic web with colours gay.
An abbot on an ambling pad,
She has heard a whisper say,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
A curse is on her if she stay
Or long-hair’d page in crimson clad,
To look down to Camelot.
Goes by to tower’d Camelot;
She knows not what the curse may be,
And sometimes thro’ the mirror blue
And so she weaveth steadily,
The knights come riding two and two:
And little other care hath she,
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.
The Lady of Shalott.
And moving thro’ a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot:
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village-churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror’s magic sights,
For often thro’ the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed:
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.
What features of Romantic poetry are present in Tennyson’s poem?
How can you interpret the symbolism of the world as a reflection in the mirror?
�Content
Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Robert Browning was born on 7 May, 1812 in south-east London. He was the
eldest child of a wealthy clerk who was also a scholar and collector of books.
Both his parents encouraged Browning to study and write. Up to the age of
sixteen Browning was taught at home, learning French, Greek, Hebrew, Latin,
and Italian, as well as studying music, horsemanship and drawing.
In 1833 Browning's Shelley-inspired confessional poem Pauline: A
Fragment of a Confession was published anonymously by his family. His next work
Paracelsus (1835), a series of monologues between Swiss alchemist, physician, and occultist
Paracelsus (1493–1541) and his friends, attracted the attention of literary critics, and Browning
was inspired to continue writing.
Browning’s next publications including the verse drama for the stage Strafford (1837), and his
narrative poem Pippa Passes (1841), were largely ignored. The public considered Browning
too obscure. Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845) was another collection of his poems
that would only years later be considered among his finest.
In 1846 Browning married an English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861). They had
started a well-known today correspondence a year earlier after Browning had read and admired
her Poems (1844). The marriage was against her father’s wishes partly because he was so
protective of Elizabeth and, since her teens she had suffered a lung illness and treated as an
invalid. Despite her frail health, the happy couple settled in Florence, Italy. Elizabeth’s health
improved and she went on writing.
Elizabeth Barrett was one of the most accomplished poets of the period. After
the death of William Wordsworth she was seriously considered as his
successor to the post of Poet Laureate. She wrote poetry in a wide variety of
forms and styles. Elizabeth Barrett reflected upon the problems faced by many
women in her contemporary society. Many of her poems focus on
relationships between men and women that often take the form of brutal power
games and are marked by disillusionment. The women usually die or are silenced at the end.
These poems had a large influence on the next generation of poets – such as Christina
Rossetti and Dante Gabriel Rossetti – and attracted particular attention from a number of
feminist critics in the second half of the 20th century.
Elizabeth Barrett’s most extensive, controversial, challenging and thought-provoking work is
Aurora Leigh (1856). It is a nine-book epic which follows the development of the heroine
into a successful poet. Elizabeth Barrett called this work her ‘novel-poem’. George Eliot
considered it ‘the greatest poem’ by ‘a woman of genius’. The poem deals with issues such
as industrialization, women’s education, socialism and life in the new urban environment.
Robert Browning dedicated to his wife Christmas Eve and Easter Day (1850) and Men and
Women (1855). After her death he moved back to London to live with his son Robert. In
London Browning published Dramatis Personae (1864) that was followed by The Ring and
�Content
The Book (1868). It is a blank verse narrative poem consisting of twelve volumes and 21,000
lines. The Ring and The Book foreshadows the 20th century interest in fragmentation of reality
and multiple points of view. In various voices it describes the 1698 trial of Count Guido
Franceschini of Rome who murdered his wife Pompilia Comparini and her parents. It was a
best-selling work during Browning’s lifetime.
In 1881 the Robert Browning Society was founded by enthusiasts in England and America. In
his last years Robert Browning devided his time between England and Italy where died at his
son’s home in Venice on 12 December, 1889. He was buried in Poets’ Corner next to Lord
Alfred Tennyson.
Critical and popular success came relatively late to Browning. The Victorian reading public
considered his poetry strange and unappealing.
Browning’s characters are artists and poets. Most of them are evil people, who commit crimes
and sins. They are crafty, intelligent, argumentative, and capable of lying. One of the most
frequent themes in Browning’s poetry is relationship between art and morality. There is always
a haunting aspect of mystery that draws Browning’s poems to the dark side. The setting of
Medieval and Renaissance Europe adds to symbolic interpretation of evil and violence.
Browning’s greatest achievement in poetry was the form of dramatic monologue in which the
actions, settings, and characters are revealed through the characters’ own words. Browning
explored the human psychology through his characters and the dramatic situations he
presented.
Content
My Last Duchess
Alfonso, the Duke of Ferrara, who lived in the 16th century, tells us he is entertaining an
emissary who has come to negotiate the Duke’s marriage (he has recently been widowed) to
the daughter of another powerful family. As he shows the visitor through his palace, he stops
before a portrait of the late Duchess. The Duke begins reminiscing about the portrait
sessions, then about the Duchess herself. His musings give way to a attack on her
disgraceful behavior: he claims she flirted with everyone and didn’t appreciate him. As his
monologue continues, the reader realizes with ever-more chilling certainty that the Duke in
fact caused the Duchess’s early death. Having made this confession, the Duke returns to the
business at hand: arranging for another marriage, with another young girl.
Text
from My Last Duchess, by Robert Browning
She had
A heart -- how shall I say? -- too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 't was all one! My favour at her breast,
Or there exceed the mark' -- and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
-- E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop.Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
�Content
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace -- all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, -- good! but thanked
Somehow -- I know not how -- as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech -- (which I have not) -- to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, 'Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
How does the author reveal a murderer in Alfonso?
The Best Thing in the World, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
What’s the best thing in the world ?
June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Pleasure, not in haste to end;
Beauty, not self-decked and curled
Till its pride is over-plain;
Light, that never makes you wink;
Memory, that gives no pain;
Love, when, so, you're loved again.
What's the best thing in the world ?
– Something out of it, I think.
Interpret the message of the poem.
�Content
English Literature in the First Half of the 20th Century
Historical Context
Cultural Context
Literary Context
Henry James
Virginia Woolf
James Joyce
David Herbert Lawrence
Aldous Huxley
George Orwell
Thomas Stearns Eliot
George Bernard Shaw
�Content
Historical Context
The 20th century in Britain began with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. She was succeeded
by her son Edward VII (1901–1910) whose reign marked the beginning of the age in which
the Victorian strict moral code began to give way to modern influences.
The crucial feature of the period was the build-up to World War I. Britain’s supremacy and
domination of world affairs was now called into question. During the time of The South
African War (1899–1902) in which the rest of Europe sided with the Boers, Britain had to
seek alliances with other countries (France, Russia) to ensure the balance of power within
Europe.
Boer is the Dutch word for "farmer". It was used in South Africa to denote
the descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers of the Eastern Cape frontier
during the 18th century. For a time the Dutch East India Company controlled
this area, but it was taken over by the United Kingdom.
Tension in Europe steadily increased. Germany and Austro-Hungarian Empire, on the one
hand, Russia and France, on the other, formed military coalitions. When Germany marched
through Belgium, which was a neutral territory, in order to attack France, Britain was dragged
into the war. Edward’s successor George V (1910–1936) saw the outbreak of the First
World War in history which lasted from 1914 to 1918. It destroyed the bloom of European
youth and left deep scars on European life for generations.
The Irish question also became a serious political issue at the turn of the century. The British
feared civil war in Ulster (Northern Ireland) and called on the Irish to volunteer for the British
army. A group of patriots organized an armed rebellion in Dublin on Easter Monday 1916. It
was quickly crushed but became a symbol of Irish heroism. At the end of the war the
Republicans won almost everywhere in Ireland and preferred to constitute their own parliament
in Dublin. Guerrilla war broke out and Britain finally agreed to the independence of Sothern
Ireland, which became a republic in 1937.
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which a small group of
combatants such as armed civilians or irregulars use military tactics
including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactics, and
extraordinary mobility to fight a larger and less-mobile traditional army.
The 1920s were a period of general depression, both social and economic. Strikes were regular
and common, mainly in the areas in the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The
tension culminated in the General Strike of 1926 , which lasted 9 days and ended with a
humiliating defeat for the Trades Union Congress. During the second half of the decade
rearmament for a new war with Germany slightly revived the economy.
The 1930s were the time of great political changes: Stalin came to power in Russia, and
Germany witnessed the rise of Nazism and Hitler. These two factors predetermined the
�Content
beginning of the Spanish Civil War (1936– 39). This war influenced many English
intellectuals who came to Spain to fight for the republicans and demonstrate their opposition to
the Fascism. The war in Spain ended with General Franco’s victory.
Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde
(1892–1975) was a Spanish general and the ruler of Spain from 1936/1939
until his death in 1975. When the monarchy was removed and replaced with a
republic in 1931, Franco and other generals staged a coup, which started the
Spanish Civil War. With the death of the other generals, Franco quickly
became his party's only leader. Franco received military support from fascist groups, while the
Republican side was supported by communists. The Spanish Civil War was eventually won by
Franco in 1939. He established a dictatorship, which he defined as a totalitarian state. Franco's
Spain maintained an official policy of neutrality during World War II. During the Cold War
Franco appeared as one of the world’s foremost anticommunist figures.
On the 3rd of September 1939 Germany invaded Poland and Britain was forced to go to war.
World War II lasted almost six years. In 1940 British Prime Minister Chamberlain gave way
to Winston Churchill, who was responsible for leading Britain and the allies to victory in 1945.
Arthur Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) was a British Conservative
politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May
1937 to May 1940.
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill (1874–1965) was a British
politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again
from 1951 to 1955. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century,
Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the
only British Prime Minister to have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person
to be made an honorary citizen of the United States.
Despite this victory Britain was almost economically ruined, and the majority of people voted
for the Labour government. By the time Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952 British life had
already improved considerably and continued to do so until the end of the 1960s.
�Content
Cultural Context
The beginning of the 20th century was marked by a crucial change in the intellectual climate.
This was a new age of uncertainty. Scientific discoveries such as relativity and the quantum
theory destroyed people’s assumptions about reality.
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist and
violinist. He developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars
of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics). While best known for his
mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc 2 (which has been dubbed "the
world's most famous equation"), he received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics
for the discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. The latter was fundamental in
establishing quantum theory that explains the behaviour of matter on the scale of atoms and
subatomic particles.
Freud’s work, beginning with The Interpretation of Dreams (1901), revolutionized people’s
view of the human mind.
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (1856–1939) was an
Austrian neurologist who became known as the founding father of
psychoanalysis. In creating psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating
psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst,
Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association (in
which patients report their thoughts without reservation and in whichever order
they spontaneously occur) and discovered transference (the process in which patients displace
onto their analysts feelings derived from their childhood attachments), establishing its central
role in the analytic process. Freud’s redefinition of sexuality to include its infantile forms led
him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytical theory. His
analysis of his own and his patients' dreams as wish-fulfillments provided him with models for
the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the mechanisms of repression. He also
elaborated his theory of the unconscious as an agency disruptive of conscious states of mind.
Freud postulated the existence of libido, an energy with which mental processes and structures
are invested and which generates erotic attachments, and a death drive, the source of repetition,
hate, aggression and neurotic guilt. In his later work Freud drew on psychoanalytic theory to
develop a wide-ranging interpretation and critique of religion and culture.
Advances in physics, cybernetics, genetics, psychoanalysis, and other sciences alongside with
rich literary output, and the emergence of the motion picture as an art form greatly enriched
philosophical subject matter. Numerous philosophical developments, such as existentialism,
tended to undermine firm 19th century beliefs in the solidity of observed reality.
�Content
Existentialism is a term applied to the work of certain late 19th- and
20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared
the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject – the acting,
feeling, living human individual. In existentialism, the individual's starting point is
characterized by what has been called "the existential attitude", or a sense of
disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world. The
themes popularly associated with existentialism – dread, boredom, alienation, the absurd,
freedom, commitment, nothingness.
Modernism, being the leading cultural trend of the beginning of the 20th century, first began to
be exhibited in the visual arts.
Modernism is a philosophical movement that, along with cultural trends, arose
from changes in Western society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Modernism, in general, includes the activities and creations of those who felt
the traditional forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, philosophy,
social organization, and activities of daily life were becoming outdated in the new economic,
social, and political environment of an emerging fully industrialized world. Modernism explicitly
rejected the ideology of realism and manifested the deliberate departure from tradition and the
use of innovative forms of expression that distinguish many styles in the arts and literature of
the 20th century. It brought innovations like the stream-of-consciousness novel, twelve-tone
music and abstract art.
In music and painting the avant-garde broke away from the 19th century concepts of beauty.
Cubist and Post-Impressionist exhibitions in London in 1907 and1910, revolutionary
manifestoes of Futurism and Dada aggressively challenged Victorian popular tastes.
�Content
In Cubist artwork, objects
are analyzed, broken up and
reassembled in an abstracted
form – instead of depicting
objects from one viewpoint,
the artist depicts the subject
from a multitude of viewpoints
to represent the subject in a
greater context.
The Young Ladies of Avignon
Pablo Picasso
Violin and Candlestick
Georges Braque
Impressionism derives from the title of a Claude Monet (1840–1926)
work, Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise). Impressionist
painting characteristics include relatively small, thin, yet visible brush
strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its
changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time),
ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of
human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles.
Impression, soleil levant
Claude Monet
�Content
Post-Impressionists extended Impressionism while
rejecting its limitations: they continued using vivid
colours, often thick application of paint, and real-life
subject matter, but they were more inclined to
emphasize geometric forms, to distort form for
expressive effect, and to use unnatural or arbitrary
colour.
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
Georges-Pierre Seurat
Futurism emphasized and glorified themes associated with
contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth
and violence, and objects such as the car, the aeroplane and the
industrial city. It was largely an Italian phenomenon, though there were
parallel movements in Russia, England and elsewhere. The Futurists
practiced in every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, ceramics,
graphic design, industrial design, interior design, urban design, theatre,
film, fashion, textiles, literature, music, architecture and even
gastronomy.
Cyclist
Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova
Dada (or Dadaism ) was born out of negative reaction to the horrors
of World War I. This international movement was begun by a group of
artist and poets associated with the Cabaret Voltaire (the name of a
nightclub in Zurich). Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense,
irrationality and intuition. The movement primarily involved visual arts,
literature, poetry, art manifestoes, art theory, theatre, and graphic design,
and concentrated its anti-war politics through a rejection of the prevailing
standards in art through anti-art cultural works.
Dada Rooftop Studio
Rudolf Schlichter
�Content
Literary Context
Two world wars and an intervening economic depression predetermined the quality and
direction of English literature in the first half of the 20th century. The traditional values of
Western civilization came to be questioned seriously by a number of new writers, who saw
society breaking down around them.
It is difficult to say exactly when the Victorian literary heritage gave way to new tendencies. In
the first ten years of the 20th century some writers continued to adhere to tried and tested
Victorian traditions, while others began to modify their style in accordance with the changing
world around them. While the traditional novel continued to find a wide readership, there
appeared more daring forms of expression which were relevant to the complexities of the new
age.
Among the writers who used the realistic method and traditional forms were John Galsworthy
(1867–1933), William Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) and Edward Morgan Forster
(1879– 1970). They observed society very closely and in great detail.
John Galsworthy was a novelist and playwright whose literary career bridged the Victorian and
Edwardian eras. He is viewed as one of the first writers who challenged some of the ideals of
society depicted in the preceding literature of Victorian England.
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period in Great Britain is the period
covering the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910, and is sometimes
extended beyond Edward's death to include the four years leading up to
World War I. The Edwardian period is imagined as a romantic golden age of
long summer afternoons and garden parties. This perception was created by
those who remembered the Edwardian age with nostalgia, looking back to their childhoods
across the horrors of World War I. The Edwardian age was seen as a mediocre period of
pleasure between the great achievements of the preceding Victorian age and the catastrophe of
the following war.
As a novelist Galsworthy is chiefly known for The Forsyte Saga (1906–1921). The first novel
of this vast work The Man of Property (1906) was a harsh criticism of manners and values of
the upper middle classes: the narrow, snobbish, and materialistic attitudes of people from
Galsworthy's own background and their suffocating moral codes. In other novels, In
Chancery (1920), To Let (1921), which follow the lives of three generations of the Forsytes,
the author became more and more sympathetic to the world he had judged very harshly. This
development is evident than in the author's changing attitude toward Soames Forsyte, the "m an
of property", who dominates the first part of the work.
The most recurring themes in Galsworthy’s novels are duty vs. desire, generations and
change, a woman in an unhappy marriage. The character of Irene in The Forsyte Saga is
drawn from Ada Pearson, Galsworthy’s wife who had been married to his cousin. In 1932
Galsworthy won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
�Content
Somerset Maugham became a witty satirist of the post-colonial world. He was a sophisticated
world traveler, and many of his works depict Europeans in alien surroundings that provoke
strong emotions. Maugham’s writing is remarkable for realistic portrayal of life, powerful
character observation, interesting plots and an astonishing understanding of human nature. His
manner is distinguished by economy and suspense. He avoided verbose sentimentality in
favour of a clear, simple and expressive style that makes easy reading. Maugham said: "I have
never pretended to be anything but a story teller."
The writer’s philosophy of life can be described as certain skepticism about the extent of
man’s innate goodness and intelligence. Many of his novels and stories end with a bitter hint of
irony. Maugham always wants the readers to draw their own conclusion about the characters
and events described in his works.
Maugham's masterpiece is generally agreed to be Of Human Bondage (1915), a
semiautobiographical novel that deals with the life of the main character Philip Carey, who, like
Maugham, was orphaned, embarrassed by his physical defect of a club-foot (echoing
Maugham's struggles with his stutter), and like Maugham himself would live for many years in
search of his calling and a place where he belonged.
The novels of E. M. Forster A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910) had exposed
the senselessness of abstract intellectuality and upper-class social life. Forster called for a
return to a simple, intuitive reliance on the senses and for a satisfaction of the needs of one's
physical being. His most famous novel, A Passage to India (1924), combines these themes
with an examination of the social distance separating the English ruling classes from the native
inhabitants of India and shows the impossibility of continued British rule there.
A member of the Bloomsbury Group, Forster was deeply critical of the upper-middle classes
from which he himself came. The structure and style of his novels was traditional, but his
revolt against conventions and hypocrisies of society placed him among an avant-garde group
of writers.
The Bloomsbury Group was an influential group of associated English
writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists. This loose collective of friends
and relatives lived, worked or studied together near Bloomsbury, London,
during the first half of the 20th century. Their works and outlook deeply
influenced literature, aesthetics, criticism, and economics as well as modern
attitudes towards feminism, pacifism, and sexuality.
Unlike Forster, Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) was one of a new breed of writers who
came from relatively poor backgrounds. His interest and wide reading in the sciences led him
to write some of the first science fiction novels in the language.
The Time Machine (1895), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898)
were all outstanding in their ideas which seem extremely advanced for their era. Wells explored
the effects of modern science and technology on men's lives and thoughts.
In the 20th century the short story became a popular and significant form of writing. One of the
�Content
most talented short-story writers of the beginning of the 20th century was Katherine
Mansfield (1888–1923). She has been seen as an originator of the modernist style, and an
early practitioner of stream-of-consciousness technique.
Stream of consciousness is a narrative device used in literature to depict
the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind.
Another phrase for it is interior monologue. The term "Stream of
Consciousness"was coined by philosopher and psychologist William James
in The Principles of Psychology (1890): consciousness, then, does not
appear to itself as chopped up in bits ... it is nothing joined; it flows. A 'river' or a 'stream'
are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let's call
it the stream of thought, consciousness, or subjective life. In literary criticism, stream of
consciousness is a narrative mode that seeks to portray an individual's point of view by giving
the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue,
or in connection to his or her actions. Stream-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as a
special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative leaps in thought and
lack of punctuation. Stream of consciousness and interior monologue are distinguished from
dramatic monologue and soliloquy, where the speaker is addressing an audience or a third
person, which are chiefly used in poetry or drama. In stream of consciousness the speaker's
thought processes are more often depicted as overheard in the mind (or addressed to oneself);
it is primarily a fictional device.
Mansfield’s best known stories are Miss Brill (1922) and ACup of Tea (1922). Above all, she
is praised for her capacity to pack complex emotion and thought into simple and direct plots.
Mansfield was influenced by the works of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. Her stories aim to reveal
to the reader some essential truth implicit in the narration. A master of understatement,
Mansfield built up each story through the description of closely observed, seemingly
insignificant moments. Thus, the complexity of human relationships is shown through everyday
concerns of ordinary people. Katherine Mansfield’s main subjects were the troubles of family
relations, the selfishness of the rising middle classes, the social consequences of war, and
people’s attempt to find beauty and vitality in their difficult lives.
Aldous Huxley (1894–1936) was another novelist and short-story writer, who expressed the
sense of disillusionment and hopelessness in the period after World War.
Like Huxley, Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966), exposed the evils of society. His novels Decline
and Fall (1928), The Loved One (1948) and Brideshead Revisited (1945) are similarly
satirical and extravagant.
Much of the reputation of George Orwell (1903–1950) rests on two works of fiction,
Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) – both directed against the dangers of
totalitarianism.
�Content
The main line of development of the early 20th century novel represents a break with the
school of realism and naturalism and a movement towards a more subtle and complex vision
of man and his world. The factors that seem to be responsible for this were the total decline of
social, moral and intellectual values and the development of new theories.
Novelists up to the end of the 19th century had concentrated on describing people and the
world from the outside. Modernist writers applied psychoanalytic theory to their work so that
the inner psychology of man became as important as the external world. Modernist literature
flourished in the first half of the 20th century. It was initiated by Henry James (1843–1916),
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924), D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930), James Joyce (1882–1941)
and Virginia Woolf (1882–1941).
Henry James was one of the first "moderns". His interest in the consciousness of his characters
and his innovative use of limited point of view made him one of the forerunners of the stream
of consciousness technique.
Modernist writers, along with artists such as Picasso and Matisse, tried to find forms of
expression that reflected the complexity of 20th century life.
Pablo Ruiz y Picasso , known as Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) was a
Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and
playwright who spent most of his adult life in France. As one of the greatest
and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding
the Cubist movement and the wide variety of styles that he helped develop
and explore. Among his most famous works is Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German
bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.
Picasso and Henri Matisse (1869–1954) are among the artists who most defined the
revolutionary developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics.
Josef Conrad shared with Henry James the central position in the development of the modern
novel and explored the technical possibilities of fiction. He was one of the earliest writers to
experiment with time shifts. He abandoned chronological plot and narration in favour of
fragmented but highly significant flashes of thought which gave truer impressions of how the
mind really works and how it perceives the world. He made use of multiple points of view, so
that, one and the same event is seen from different angles and the complete shape of the story
is put together through the intervention of several witnesses, each of whom knows only a
fragment of the whole.
Joseph Conrad, whose real name was Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski, is a unique case of
a foreigner writing in English, a language that he had not learnt until his twenties, and acquiring
such knowledge of the language as to come to be regarded as one of the supreme masters of
English prose fiction.
Conrad's fiction is related with unusual closeness to his own experience. He was concerned
with men under stress, deprived of the ordinary supports of civilized life and forced to
�Content
confront the mystery of human individuality. His first great novel was Lord Jim (1900). It is a
story of a young English officer who, in a moment of panic, deserts his ship, which he believes
to be sinking, and finally finds redemption in an honorable death. His other important works
are The Nigger of the "Narcissus"(1897) and Heart of Darkness (1902).
The most important writer to use new literary techniques was James Joyce. He influenced many
writers on both sides of Atlantic. The portrayal of the steam of consciousness as a literary
technique is particularly evident in his major novel Ulysses (1922). Generally regarded as the
greatest novel of the 20th century, Ulisses is the story of one day in the city of Dublin, written
in a framework based on the Greek classic epic of the same name. Joyce wanted to present a
day in ordinary life as a miniature picture of the whole human history.
Joyce’s novels were paralleled by those of Virginia Woolf, whose Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and
To the Lighthouse (1927) demonstrate the technique of interior monologue to great effect.
The complexity of human psychology and the central importance of man’s emotional and
sensual life are core features of the works of D. H. Lawrence, one of the period’s most
revolutionary writers. In the semi-autobiographical Sons and Lovers (1913), the daring Women
in Love (1921), and the scandalous Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) Lawrence reveals his
characters’ deepest inner emotions as they strive to find renewed vitality in the materialised
world. Man’s salvation, according to Lawrence, lies in rooting himself in his natural instincts.
He offers sexual liberation as the means to overcome social and moral repression.
Like fiction, poetry in the first half of the 20th century developed along two lines which can be
broadly defined as traditional and Modernist. Traditional poems were conventional in form
and did not move very far away from the canons of Victorian poetry. The traditional strand
was best exemplified by the Georgian Poets, so called because much of their work was
published during the reign of George V (1910 – 1936).
Among traditional poets there were those who produced a unique corpus of work around the
theme of war. Their work has survived to give us a gripping account of the brutality and
absurdity of the war. Many of them died at the front. Rupert Brooke (1887–1915) joined the
Royal Navy as an officer. While on leave, in December 1914, he wrote the five War Sonnets
that made him famous. Like Brooke Wilfred Owen (1893–1918) enlisted in the army when
the war broke out. Suffering from shell shock he was sent to hospital in Scotland where he
met Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) who inspired him to write poetry as a form of therapy.
The harsh, realistic depictions of war which Owen presented in his poems were not
immedietely popular with the reading public who prefered the romantic patriotism of Rupert
Brooke. However his reputation grew slowly and today he is regarded as one of the greatest
War Poets. Out of the three poets only Sassoon survived the war. In his later years he wrote a
three-volume autobiography and published two volumes of religious poetry, but his experience
of war still dominated his writing in the post-war years.
The modern strand in poetry was best exemplified by the Imagist Movement. Imagistic poems
were generally short, contained hard, condensed, precise images, were written in free verse,
employed everyday language and dealt with topical subjectmatter.
�Content
Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that
favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It has been
described as the most influential movement in English poetry since the
activity of the Pre-Raphaelites. As a poetic style it gave Modernism its start
in the early 20th century, and is considered to be the first organized Modernist literary
movement in the English language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness
typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry, in contrast to their contemporaries, the
Georgian poets, who were generally content to work within that tradition. Imagism called for a
return to what were seen as more Classical values, such as directness of presentation and
economy of language, as well as a willingness to experiment with non-traditional verse forms.
In seach for the new forms suited to the contemporary world the Imagists were joined by the
most famous Modernist poets of the era, Thomas Sterns Eliot (1880–1965) and William
Butler Yeats (1865–1939).
The work of Yeats is a good example of how poetry developed in the 20th century. At the time
of the Irish Literary Revival at the turn of the 20th century he was a mouthpiece for Irish
mythology and nationalism.
The Irish Literary Revival (also called the Irish Literary Renaissance,
nicknamed the Celtic Twilight) was a flowering of Irish literary talent in the
late 19th and early 20th century. The literary movement was associated with a
revival of interest in Ireland's Gaelic heritage and the growth of Irish
nationalism.
In later years his poetry became increasingly sophisticated and philosophical covering subjects
like aging, personal regret and the importance of high culture.
The term high culture embraces he moral, social, intellectual, and physical
qualities that are perceived to be the most valuable to a culture. High culture
is thought by many to be developed and refined by training in the tastes and
manners of society. It includes aspects of culture, such as classical music,
ballet, poetry, and fine arts, which involve a relatively small segment of the
population. These aspects are usually the domain of the upper class or well-educated social
elite, particularly in Western countries. High culture is opposed to mass culture, or popular
culture.
Thomas Eliot is regarded as the father of modern poetry in English. The publication of The
Waste Land (1922) had a great impact on the literary world. The poem expresses the horror
of a man looking at the gloomy materialistic world of nothingness surrounding him while he
searches for the meaning of life. The poem includes images and allusions symbolising the
spiritual emptiness of a godless society.
�Content
As far as drama is concerned the early 20th century is dominated by George Bernard
Shaw’s (1856–1950) comedy of ideas. A man of exeptional energy, Shaw was a master of
innovation. His plays aim to entertain and engage the audience intellectually. In many ways
Shaw saw the theatre as a vehicle for social reform, and the long prefaces to many of his
works offered him the opportunity to express his views.
Many of the best plays of the period were produced in Bernard Shaw’s native country. Due to
the Irish Literary Revival and the openning of the Abbey Theatre in 1904, Dublin became a
major theatrical centre. The most renowned Irish playwrights were John Millinton Synge
(1871–1909) and Sean O’Casey (1880– 1964). Synge’s description of peasant life in the
west of Ireland caused scandal among a shocked public, and the first performance of The
Playboy of the Western World (1907) was greeted with rioting. O’Casey’s portrayal of blind
and unthinking patriotism in The Plough and the Star (1926) was also greeted with the protest
of angry nationalists.
As England entered the second half of the 20th century the Modernist revolution had changed
the face of fiction and poetry forever. The new age that began in the 1950s would extend that
revolution to the world of theatre.
�Content
Henry James
Henry James (1843–1916) is regarded as one of the pioneers of the modern
novel. He was born in New York City into a wealthy and intellectual family.
Henry James Sr. was connected with noted philosophers, writers and influential
thinkers of the time who had a profound effect on his son's life. The family
spent many years in Europe, children being tutored in languages and literature.
After several attempts at attending schools to study science and law, James
decided he would become a writer.
James left America and lived for a time in Paris before moving to London in 1876. He
renounced his American Citizenship for America’s refusal to enter into World War I and in
1915 became a British citizen.
Henry James spent most of his life in Europe, because he thought that the "old world"was richer
in tradition and culture and more stimulating for the production of great literature.
As a writer Henry James began with the idea of the impact of Europe on the American abroad.
It developed into his main theme in literature: the conflict between the old world and the new,
between Europe's tolerant (and often corrupt) sophisticated civilization and America's rigid
Puritanism and fervent idealism.
The Portrait of a Lady (1881) is the best novel in the first period of his literary career. It
brilliantly depicts the clashes between the European and American sentiments. The novel
exhibits a huge panorama of transatlantic life. Henry James’s moneyed world appears charming
and leisurely on the surface, but turns out to be treacherous, deceitful and full of suffering on
the inside. The novel’s main focus is the problem of choice faced by young Isabel, the novel’s
protagonist, between personal freedom and sense of responsibility. Isabel turns down personal
happiness for a feeling of responsibility to a man who has mistreated her. It is only through
disappointment and loss, James seems to say, that one can grow to complete maturity.
Contemporary critics recognized that James had pushed the analysis of human consciousness
and motivation to new levels, particularly in such passages as the famous Chapter 42, where
Isabel meditates deep into the night about her marriage and the trap she seems to have fallen
into.
In the novels of his second phase, such as The Princess Casamassima (1886) and The
Awkward Age (1899), James turned away from the international topic and concentrated mainly
on the English characters and scene. James's third and final phase is considered to be his
greatest. Here, he resumed his transatlantic theme with greater maturity of vision and style. His
masterpieces of this period were The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903)
and The Golden Bowl (1905).
Henry James was a great observer both of social scene and of the inner life of man. The depth
of character, the scale of social commentary and the deep insight into the psychological
motives of the characters’ actions, are the most remarkable features of his books. His
favoured the dramatic method of writing giving the direct presentation of events and the minds
�Content
of the characters without comment or explanation. James’s protagonists are individuals who
battle personal and social prejudices, and whose destinies reflect the complexities of American
and European lives.
Content
The Portrait of a Lady
Isabel Archer is a penniless orphan who is taken in by her aunt Lydia Touchett. The family
of Touchetts consists of the patriarch Touchett, a rich banker, Lydia his wife and their
tubercular son Ralph. Ralph is a good natured young fellow and intervenes with his dad to
make a provision for Isabel in his will. As Mr. Touchett dies Isabel comes into her
inheritance and becomes a wealthy woman. While in New York she gets two marriage
proposals, one by Casper Goodwood and another from Lord Warburton. Isabel rejects them
both and leaves with her aunt to Europe to see the world. She meets Madam Merle and is
taken up by the woman’s free spirit and aspires to have her bohemian outlook. Merle
introduces her to Gilbert Osmond, and he impreses Isabel with his good tastes and behavior.
Isabel marries Osmond and becomes a mother to his daughter Pansy. But after the
marriage, Isabel comes to know the horrific truth that Osmond had married her for her
money. She also comes to know that Madam Merle is in fact Pansy's mother and she and
Osmond had schemed to entrap her in the marriage. Isabel learns that her cousin Ralph is
on his death bed and plans to reach him. Osmond forbids her journey to the States. But after
pondering over the consequences, Isabel travels to the states to be with Ralph till his dying
day. She again encounters Casper Goodwood who proposes to her again. But Isabel's sense
of responsibility makes her turn him down again, and she returns to Osmond and Pansy in
Europe.
Text
from The Portrait of a Lady. Chapter 42
Isabel's cheek burned when she asked herself if she had really married on a factitious theory, in
order to do something finely appreciable with her money. But she was able to answer quickly
enough that this was only half the story. It was because a certain ardour took possession of her
– a sense of the earnestness of his affection and a delight in his personal qualities. He was
better than any one else. This supreme conviction had filled her life for months, and enough of
it still remained to prove to her that she could not have done otherwise. The finest – in the
sense of being the subtlest – manly organism she had ever known had become her property,
and the recognition of her having but to put out her hands and take it had been originally a sort
of act of devotion. She had not been mistaken about the beauty of his mind; she knew that
organ perfectly now. She had lived with it, she had lived IN it almost – it appeared to have
become her habitation. If she had been captured it had taken a firm hand to seize her; that
reflection perhaps had some worth. A mind more ingenious, more pliant, more cultivated, more
�Content
trained to admirable exercises, she had not encountered; and it was this exquisite instrument
she had now to reckon with. She lost herself in infinite dismay when she thought of the
magnitude of HIS deception. It was a wonder, perhaps, in view of this, that he didn't hate her
more. She remembered perfectly the first sign he had given of it – it had been like the bell that
was to ring up the curtain upon the real drama of their life. He said to her one day that she had
too many ideas and that she must get rid of them. He had told her that already, before their
marriage; but then she had not noticed it: it had come back to her only afterwards. This time
she might well have noticed it, because he had really meant it. The words had been nothing
superficially; but when in the light of deepening experience she had looked into them they had
then appeared portentous. He had really meant it – he would have liked her to have nothing of
her own but her pretty appearance. She had known she had too many ideas; she had more
even than he had supposed, many more than she had expressed to him when he had asked her
to marry him. Yes, she HAD been hypocritical; she had liked him so much. She had too many
ideas for herself; but that was just what one married for, to share them with some one else. One
couldn't pluck them up by the roots, though of course one might suppress them, be careful not
to utter them. It had not been this, however, his objecting to her opinions; this had been
nothing. She had no opinions – none that she would not have been eager to sacrifice in the
satisfaction of feeling herself loved for it. What he had meant had been the whole thing – her
character, the way she felt, the way she judged. This was what she had kept in reserve; this was
what he had not known until he had found himself – with the door closed behind, as it were –
set down face to face with it. She had a certain way of looking at life which he took as a
personal offence. Heaven knew that now at least it was a very humble, accommodating way!
The strange thing was that she should not have suspected from the first that his own had been
so different. She had thought it so large, so enlightened, so perfectly that of an honest man and
a gentleman. Hadn't he assured her that he had no superstitions, no dull limitations, no
prejudices that had lost their freshness? Hadn't he all the appearance of a man living in the open
air of the world, indifferent to small considerations, caring only for truth and knowledge and
believing that two intelligent people ought to look for them together and, whether they found
them or not, find at least some happiness in the search? He had told her he loved the
conventional; but there was a sense in which this seemed a noble declaration. In that sense, that
of the love of harmony and order and decency and of all the stately offices of life, she went
with him freely, and his warning had contained nothing ominous. But when, as the months had
elapsed, she had followed him further and he had led her into the mansion of his own
habitation, then, THEN she had seen where she really was.
What was Isabel’s misapprehension about her husband’s attitude?
from Chapter 51
Isabel stood a moment looking at the latter missive; then, thrusting it into her pocket, she went
�Content
straight to the door of her husband's study. Here she again paused an instant, after which she
opened the door and went in. Osmond was seated at the table near the window with a folio
volume before him, propped against a pile of books. This volume was open at a page of small
coloured plates, and Isabel presently saw that he had been copying from it the drawing of an
antique coin. A box of water-colours and fine brushes lay before him, and he had already
transferred to a sheet of immaculate paper the delicate, finely-tinted disk. His back was turned
toward the door, but he recognised his wife without looking round.
"Excuse me for disturbing you," she said.
"When I come to your room I always knock," he answered, going on with his work.
"I forgot; I had something else to think of. My cousin's dying."
"Ah, I don't believe that," said Osmond, looking at his drawing through a magnifying glass.
"He was dying when we married; he'll outlive us all."
Isabel gave herself no time, no thought, to appreciate the careful cynicism of this declaration;
she simply went on quickly, full of her own intention "My aunt has telegraphed for me; I must
go to Gardencourt."
"Why must you go to Gardencourt?" Osmond asked in the tone of impartial curiosity.
"To see Ralph before he dies."
To this, for some time, he made no rejoinder; he continued to give his chief attention to his
work, which was of a sort that would brook no negligence. "I don't see the need of it," he said
at last. "He came to see you here. I didn't like that; I thought his being in Rome a great mistake.
But I tolerated it because it was to be the last time you should see him. Now you tell me it's not
to have been the last. Ah, you're not grateful!"
"What am I to be grateful for?"
Gilbert Osmond laid down his little implements, blew a speck of dust from his drawing, slowly
got up, and for the first time looked at his wife. "For my not having interfered while he was
here."
"Oh yes, I am. I remember perfectly how distinctly you let me know you didn't like it. I was
very glad when he went away."
"Leave him alone then. Don't run after him."
Isabel turned her eyes away from him; they rested upon his little drawing. "I must go to
England," she said, with a full consciousness that her tone might strike an irritable man of taste
as stupidly obstinate.
"I shall not like it if you do," Osmond remarked.
"Why should I mind that? You won't like it if I don't. You like nothing I do or don't do. You
pretend to think I lie."
�Content
Osmond turned slightly pale; he gave a cold smile. "That's why you must go then? Not to see
your cousin, but to take a revenge on me."
"I know nothing about revenge."
"I do," said Osmond. "Don't give me an occasion."
"You're only too eager to take one. You wish immensely that I would commit some folly."
"I should be gratified in that case if you disobeyed me."
"If I disobeyed you?" said Isabel in a low tone which had the effect of mildness.
"Let it be clear. If you leave Rome to-day it will be a piece of the most deliberate, the most
calculated, opposition."
"How can you call it calculated? I received my aunt's telegram but three minutes ago."
"You calculate rapidly; it's a great accomplishment. I don't see why we should prolong our
discussion; you know my wish." And he stood there as if he expected to see her withdraw.
But she never moved; she couldn't move, strange as it may seem; she still wished to justify
herself; he had the power, in an extraordinary degree, of making her feel this need. There was
something in her imagination he could always appeal to against her judgement. "You've no
reason for such a wish," said Isabel, "and I've every reason for going. I can't tell you how
unjust you seem to me. But I think you know. It's your own opposition that's calculated. It's
malignant."
She had never uttered her worst thought to her husband before, and the sensation of hearing it
was evidently new to Osmond. But he showed no surprise, and his coolness was apparently a
proof that he had believed his wife would in fact be unable to resist for ever his ingenious
endeavour to draw her out. "It's all the more intense then," he answered. And he added almost
as if he were giving her a friendly counsel: "This is a very important matter." She recognised
that; she was fully conscious of the weight of the occasion; she knew that between them they
had arrived at a crisis. Its gravity made her careful; she said nothing, and he went on. "You say
I've no reason? I have the very best. I dislike, from the bottom of my soul, what you intend to
do. It's dishonourable; it's indelicate; it's indecent. Your cousin is nothing whatever to me, and
I'm under no obligation to make concessions to him. I've already made the very handsomest.
Your relations with him, while he was here, kept me on pins and needles; but I let that pass,
because from week to week I expected him to go. I've never liked him and he has never liked
me. That's why you like him – because he hates me," said Osmond with a quick, barely audible
tremor in his voice. "I've an ideal of what my wife should do and should not do. She should
not travel across Europe alone, in defiance of my deepest desire, to sit at the bedside of other
men. Your cousin's nothing to you; he's nothing to us. You smile most expressively when I talk
about US, but I assure you that WE, WE, Mrs. Osmond, is all I know. I take our marriage
seriously; you appear to have found a way of not doing so. I'm not aware that we're divorced
or separated; for me we're indissolubly united. You are nearer to me than any human creature,
and I'm nearer to you. It may be a disagreeable proximity; it's one, at any rate, of our own
�Content
deliberate making. You don't like to be reminded of that, I know; but I'm perfectly willing,
because – because – " And he paused a moment, looking as if he had something to say which
would be very much to the point. "Because I think we should accept the consequences of our
actions, and what I value most in life is the honour of a thing!"
He spoke gravely and almost gently; the accent of sarcasm had dropped out of his tone. It had
a gravity which checked his wife's quick emotion; the resolution with which she had entered the
room found itself caught in a mesh of fine threads. His last words were not a command, they
constituted a kind of appeal; and, though she felt that any expression of respect on his part
could only be a refinement of egotism, they represented something transcendent and absolute,
like the sign of the cross or the flag of one's country. He spoke in the name of something
sacred and precious--the observance of a magnificent form. They were as perfectly apart in
feeling as two disillusioned lovers had ever been; but they had never yet separated in act. Isabel
had not changed; her old passion for justice still abode within her; and now, in the very thick of
her sense of her husband's blasphemous sophistry, it began to throb to a tune which for a
moment promised him the victory. It came over her that in his wish to preserve appearances he
was after all sincere, and that this, as far as it went, was a merit. Ten minutes before she had
felt all the joy of irreflective action – a joy to which she had so long been a stranger; but action
had been suddenly changed to slow renunciation, transformed by the blight of Osmond's
touch. If she must renounce, however, she would let him know she was a victim rather than a
dupe. "I know you're a master of the art of mockery," she said. "How can you speak of an
indissoluble union – how can you speak of your being contented? Where's our union when
you accuse me of falsity? Where's your contentment when you have nothing but hideous
suspicion in your heart?"
"It is in our living decently together, in spite of such drawbacks."
"We don't live decently together!" cried Isabel.
"Indeed we don't if you go to England."
"That's very little; that's nothing. I might do much more."
He raised his eyebrows and even his shoulders a little: he had lived long enough in Italy to
catch this trick. "Ah, if you've come to threaten me I prefer my drawing." And he walked back
to his table, where he took up the sheet of paper on which he had been working and stood
studying it.
"I suppose that if I go you'll not expect me to come back," said Isabel.
He turned quickly round, and she could see this movement at least was not designed. He
looked at her a little, and then, "Are you out of your mind?" he enquired.
"How can it be anything but a rupture?" she went on; "especially if all you say is true?" She
was unable to see how it could be anything but a rupture; she sincerely wished to know what
else it might be.
He sat down before his table. "I really can't argue with you on the hypothesis of your defying
�Content
me," he said. And he took up one of his little brushes again.
What was the cause of Isabel’s moral suffering?
Transfer the situation described in the episode to the 21 st century context. Has
the institution of marriage changed since the 19th century?
Is the conflict between personal freedom and responsibility still topical in a
marriage?
Link
The Portrait of a Lady was notoriously difficult to adapt for any other medium but Jane
Campion’s 1996 film is surprisingly successful.
Elizabeth Jane Campion (born 1954) is a New Zealand screenwriter,
producer, and director based in Australia. Campion is the second of four
women ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and is also
the first female filmmaker in history to receive the Palme d'Or, which she
received for directing the acclaimed film The Piano (1993), for which she
also won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
�Content
Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was one of the foremost modernists of the
twentieth century. Virginia Woolf’s parents had been previously married and
widowed, and, consequently, the household contained the children of three
marriages. The mother had three children by her first husband: George, Stella,
and Gerald. The father had first married Harriet Marian (Minny) Thackeray,
the daughter of William Thackeray, and they had one daughter: Laura. In their
second marriage they had four children: Vanessa, Thoby, Virginia and Adrian.
Julia Prinsep Duckworth Stephen, Virginia Woolf’s mother, was a very beautiful woman, who
served as a model for Pre-Raphaelite painters in her youth. Her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, was
a distinguished philosopher, historian, and literary critic. She grew up in an atmosphere of
great cultural refinement.
Virginia had an extremely fragile nervous system, and therefore never received a regular
education. Her youth was overshadowed by a series of emotional shocks, including the death
of her mother, her half-sister and eventually her father, who suffered a slow death from cancer.
Throughout her life Virginia Woolf had severe attacks of mental illness, which is now known
as bipolar disorder characterized by periods of elevated mood and periods of depression.
After her father’s death, Virginia moved to a house in the Bloomsbury area of London with her
sister Vanessa and her brothers Thoby and Adrian. She married Leonard Woolf (1880–1969),
a central figure of the Bloomsbury Group. The house became the meeting place of a circle of
intellectuals who were committed to the idea of eradicating social constraints and taboos of
Victorian times.
Virginia Woolf’s first novels The Voyage Out (1915) and Night and Day (1919) were
traditional in form, but later she began to experiment with the stream of consciousness
technique, which she developed to produce her best novels, including Mrs. Dalloway (1925),
To the Lighthouse (1927), The Waves (1931).
In her works Woolf’s main emphasis is not on the events but on the characters’ feelings. The
novel Mrs. Dalloway, for example, is formed on the web of thoughts of various people during
the course of a single day. It focuses on the efforts of Clarissa Dalloway, a middle-aged
society woman, to organise a party. The novel has two main narrative lines involving two
separate characters. Clarissa’s life is paralleled with that of Septimus Smith, a working-class
veteran who has returned from the First World War with deep psychological scars. The story
moves backward and forward in time and in and out of the characters' minds to construct
Clarissa's life and the social environment of the inter-war period.
Time plays an integral role in the novel. Each of the characters feels the passing of time and the
impending fate of death. As Big Ben rings for each half hour, characters stop and notice the
loss of life to time. A constant stream of consciousness can serve as a distraction from this
passing of time. Each individual moment in characters’ lives, each memory and idea becomes
important and gives appreciation. Clarissa feels that her job of giving parties is "the gift" of
�Content
connections to the inhabitants of London.
Virginia Woolf’s writing style crosses the boundaries of the past, present and future,
emphasising her idea of time as a constant flow, connected only by some force within a
person’s consciousness. She emphasises the significance of private thoughts on existential
crisis rather than concrete events in a person's life.
An existential crisis is a moment at which an individual questions the very
foundations of their life: whether this life has any meaning, purpose, or value.
This issue of the meaning and purpose of existence is the topic of the
philosophical school of existentialism.
In her most celebrated novel, To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf explores the creative and
intuitive consciousness of Mr. Ramsay, the central figure in the Ramsay family. The novel
highlights the differences between the male perspective as represented by the tragic and
self-pitying philosopher Mr. Ramsay, and the female perspective as represented by the warm
and maternal Mrs Ramsay. It also explores the passing of time, and how women are forced by
society to allow men to take emotional strength from them. The main characters were modelled
on Virginia Woolf’s parents, and the novel contains many autobiographical references. There is
little action as in all other novels. The story revolves around a single event: a planned
expedition to a lighthouse.
The Waves, Virginia Woolf’s most difficult work, presents the lives of six characters from
childhood to old age. The characters’ memories create a wave-like atmosphere that is more
akin to a prose poem than to a plot-centred novel.
Prose poetry is poetry written in prose instead of using verse but preserving
poetic qualities such as simple syntax, imagery, emotional effects.
While an activist in the campain for women’s liberation, Virginia Woolf wrote a series of
notable feminist essays. In A Room of One’s Own (1929), she examines the prejudices and
financial disadvantages that have held women writers back through the centuries.
Virginia Woolf’s final work was Between the Acts (1941), which reflected the crisis of World
War II, shows the continuous flow of the character’s mind with its free play of images and
associations. This book is the most lyrical of all her works, not only in feeling but in style,
being chiefly written in verse.
What mattered to Virginia Woolf was not external reality but the life of the mind, therefore she
rejected the traditional form of the novel and we can see in her work that plot and external
description are not important. Her prose is often more similar to poetry in its form.
In 1941 Virginia Woolf suffered another of her many attacks of mental illness which drove her
�Content
to suicide. She drowned herself in a river near her home.
Content
Mrs. Dalloway
Clarissa Dalloway prepares for a party. She goes to the city to buy flowers.During the day
Clarissa meets all those who are significant in her life: her dauther, Elisabeth; Elisabeth's
workingclass woman friend Doris Kilman; her former lover, Peter Walsh, returning from
India with a broken marriage and an unsuitable fiancee; and Hugh Whitbread, an
upperclass sneaker who noses about the private lives of his friends.
Clarissa wanders through Hyde Park. Septimus Warren Smith, suffering from WWI
shellshock and his wife Lucrezia are also in the park observed by Peter Walsh. Septimus is
trying to shut up the accusing voices from his fallen comrade Evans telling him to kill
himself.
In the evening, Clarissa's party becomes a great success, surrounded by past and present
acquaintances summing up her life. She is only upset with the story of the social-climbing D.
Bradshaw and his wife, who inform her of the suicide of one of the doctor's patients:
Septimus Smith. Clarissa, who only wants to hear of happiness, is in dismay. Gradually she
comes to admire Septimus Smith's death, which she interprets as an act of embracing life
and her mood remains light.
Text
from To the Lighthouse. The Window. Chapter X
…Oh, but she never wanted James to grow a day older! or Cam either. These two she would
have liked to keep for ever just as they were, demons of wickedness, angels of delight, never to
see them grow up into long-legged monsters. Nothing made up for the loss. When she read
just now to James, "and there were numbers of soldiers with kettledrums and trumpets," and
his eyes darkened, she thought, why should they grow up and lose all that? He was the most
gifted, the most sensitive of her children. But all, she thought, were full of promise. Prue, a
perfect angel with the others, and sometimes now, at night especially, she took one’s breath
away with her beauty. Andrew–even her husband admitted that his gift for mathematics was
extraordinary. And Nancy and Roger, they were both wild creatures now, scampering about
over the country all day long. As for Rose, her mouth was too big, but she had a wonderful
gift with her hands. If they had charades, Rose made the dresses; made everything; liked best
arranging tables, flowers, anything. She did not like it that Jasper should shoot birds; but it was
only a stage; they all went through stages. Why, she asked, pressing her chin on James’s head,
should they grow up so fast? Why should they go to school? She would have liked always to
have had a baby. She was happiest carrying one in her arms. Then people might say she was
tyrannical, domineering, masterful, if they chose; she did not mind. And, touching his hair with
�Content
her lips, she thought, he will never be so happy again, but stopped herself, remembering how it
angered her husband that she should say that. Still, it was true. They were happier now than
they would ever be again. A tenpenny tea set made Cam happy for days. She heard them
stamping and crowing on the floor above her head the moment they awoke. They came
bustling along the passage. Then the door sprang open and in they came, fresh as roses,
staring, wide awake, as if this coming into the dining-room after breakfast, which they did
every day of their lives, was a positive event to them, and so on, with one thing after another,
all day long, until she went up to say good-night to them, and found them netted in their cots
like birds among cherries and raspberries, still making up stories about some little bit of
rubbish–something they had heard, something they had picked up in the garden. They all had
their little treasures . . . And so she went down and said to her husband, Why must they grow
up and lose it all? Never will they be so happy again. And he was angry. Why take such a
gloomy view of life? he said. It is not sensible. For it was odd; and she believed it to be true;
that with all his gloom and desperation he was happier, more hopeful on the whole, than she
was. Less exposed to human worries–perhaps that was it. He had always his work to fall back
on. Not that she herself was "pessimistic," as he accused her of being. Only she thought
life–and a little strip of time presented itself to her eyes–her fifty years. There it was before
her–life. Life, she thought–but she did not finish her thought. She took a look at life, for she
had a clear sense of it there, something real, something private, which she shared neither with
her children nor with her husband. A sort of transaction went on between them, in which she
was on one side, and life was on another, and she was always trying to get the better of it, as it
was of her; and sometimes they parleyed (when she sat alone); there were, she remembered,
great reconciliation scenes; but for the most part, oddly enough, she must admit that she felt
this thing that she called life terrible, hostile, and quick to pounce on you if you gave it a
chance. There were eternal problems: suffering; death; the poor. There was always a woman
dying of cancer even here. And yet she had said to all these children, You shall go through it
all. To eight people she had said relentlessly that (and the bill for the greenhouse would be fifty
pounds). For that reason, knowing what was before them–love and ambition and being
wretched alone in dreary places–she had often the feeling, Why must they grow up and lose it
all? And then she said to herself, brandishing her sword at life, Nonsense. They will be
perfectly happy. And here she was, she reflected, feeling life rather sinister again, making Minta
marry Paul Rayley; because whatever she might feel about her own transaction, she had had
experiences which need not happen to every one (she did not name them to herself); she was
driven on, too quickly she knew, almost as if it were an escape for her too, to say that people
must marry; people must have children.
Do Mrs Ramsay’s thoughts follow a pattern of logical connections or free
associations?
How does Mrs Ramsay see her life? What is the predominant thought to which
the woman constantly returns?
Point out the linguistic features of streamof consciousness technique.
�Content
James Joyce
James Joyce (1882–1941) was born on February 2, 1882, in the family of an
impoverished gentleman. His father had several jobs including a position as
tax collector for the city of Dublin. Joyce's mother was an accomplished
pianist, whose life was dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. In spite of
their poverty, the family struggled to maintain middle-class standards.
Joyce was educated entirely in Jesuit (a Catholic religious order) schools in Ireland. He did
very well in the study of philosophy (the study of humans and their relationship to the universe)
and languages. After his graduation in 1902, he left Ireland for the rest of his life. Joyce found
that he had to escape from the narrowness of Irish culture, the constraining ties of family and
especially the stifling role of the Church. On the Continent he lived mostly in Paris and Zurich
until his death in 1941. Joyce married Nora Barnacle, his lifelong companion, with whom he
had a son and a daughter.
Joyce’s personal life was not very happy. He suffered from glaucoma, an eye condition that
forced him to undergo many operations and caused him to be almost blind in the last years of
his life. Besides, the family’s finances were not good, and for many years the Joyces lived on
money donated by patrons.
Though most of his adult life was spent abroad, Joyce's fictional universe centres on Dublin,
and is populated largely by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and
friends from his time there. Literary recognition came to Joyce with the publication of
Dubliners (1914), a collection of short stories that presented a series of portraits of pathetic
Dublin individuals who have been trapped in their meaningless and empty existence. Joyce said
of the book: "My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I
choose Dublin because the City seemed to me to be the center of paralysis". Although there is
nothing truly revolutionary either in the style or subject in these stories Joyce already shows his
characteristic combination of the naturalistic and symbolistic traditions.
In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), a heavily autobiographical coming-of-age
novel depicting the childhood and adolescence of protagonist Stephen Dedalus and his
gradual growth into a modern artist. The hero, like Joyce, rejects his people and religion to find
fulfillment as a "martyr-artist". The protagonist's name is taken from the first martyr Saint
Stephen and the artist of Greek mythology, Dedalus.
In Greek mythology, Daedalus was a skillful craftsman and artist who was
contracted by King Minos to build the Labyrinth in which he would imprison
his wife's son the Minotaur. Daedalus is the father of Icarus. Icarus and his
father attempted to escape from Crete by means of wings that Daedalus
constructed from feathers and wax. The father warned his son first of
complacency and then of hubris, asking that he fly neither too low nor too high, so the sea's
dampness would not clog his wings or the sun's heat melt them. Icarus ignored his father's
�Content
instructions not to fly too close to the sun, the wax in his wings melted and he fell into the sea.
Saint Stephen or Stephan, the first martyr of Christianity, was a deacon in the early church at
Jerusalem who aroused the enmity of members of various synagogues by his teachings. He
was accused of blasphemy and stoned to death.
Ulysses (1922), generally considered Joyce's masterpiece, is patterned on Homer's Odyssey.
Each chapter employs its own literary style, and parodies a specific episode of the ancient
epic. Furthermore, each chapter is associated with a specific colour, art or science, and bodily
organ.
The action takes place in a single day, June 16, 1904 (still observed as "Bloomsday"in many
countries), on which the Irish Jew, Leopold Bloom (Ulysses), walks or rides through the
streets of Dublin after leaving his wife, Molly (Penelope), at home in bed.
1929.
Bloomsday is the day on which Joyceans all over the world celebrate the
day in 1904 that the events of Ulysses take place on. It’s named for the
novel’s protagonist, Leopold Bloom. Joyce chose June 16, 1904, as the
setting for the novel, to commemorate the day he went on his first date with
Nora Barnacle, his future wife. The first Bloomsday celebration was in Paris
Through the stream-of-consciousness technique, Joyce allows the reader to enter the mind of
Bloom and observe the chaos of his fragmentary conversations, physical sensations and
memories. Underlying the surface action is the mythic quest of Leopold for a son to replace
the child he and Molly have lost. He finds instead Stephen Dedalus (Telemachus), who, having
rejected his family and faith is in need of a father. At the beginning of the novel Bloom and
Stephen do not even know each other. By the end of it Stephen becomes Leopold’s spiritual
son. At each of their chance encounters during the day, the mythic quest becomes more
evident. The two are finally united when Bloom rescues the drunken Stephen from nasty
companions and the police. They share a symbolic communion over cups of hot chocolate in
Bloom's home.
Joyce's technical innovations, particularly his extensive use of stream of consciousness, his
experiments with form, and his unusually frank subject matter and language made Ulysses a
major contribution to the development of 20th-century modernist literature.
First published in its full version in France in 1922, the novel was the subject of a famous
obscenity trial in 1933, but was found by a U.S. district court in New York to be a work of art.
The furor over the novel made Joyce a celebrity.
Finnegan's Wake (1939) was Joyce's final work. It is significant for its experimental style and
the reputation of one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language. The novel
recounts a single night’s events in the life of a Dublin inn-keeper Humphrey Earwicker. The
plot is simple: Humphrey goes to bed, falls asleep, has a dream, is awakened by the cries of
�Content
one of his children and falls back asleep. As he dreams the language moves and changes, and
words are joined together as if to recreate the experience of sleep and dreams. This great and
difficult work probably marks the limits of experiment in language. It consists of a mixture of
Standard English vocabulary and neologisms created from the elements of words of many
languages.
Because of the work's unique language of invented words and puns, mythological and
historical allusions, its unconventional plot and character drawing method, Finnegans Wake
remains generally unread by the public.
Text
from Ulysses. Molly’s monologue
…I love flowers I’d love to have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven there’s
nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful
country with fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going about
that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers all sorts of shapes and
smells and colours springing up even out of the ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for
them saying there’s no God I wouldn’t give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why
don’t they go and create something I often asked him atheists or whatever they call themselves
go and wash the cobbles off themselves first then they go howling for the priest and they dying
and why why because they’re afraid of hell on account of their bad conscience ah yes I know
them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all
who ah that they don’t know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun
from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the
rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to
propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like
now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said was a
flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a woman’s body yes that was one true thing
he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw
he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him
all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldn’t answer first
only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didn’t know of
Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing
all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in
front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and
the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning
the Greeks and the Jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of
Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharans and the poor
donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the
steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes
and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their
�Content
little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid
for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the
night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O
that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious
sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and
blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and
Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like
the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish
wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again
yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms
around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his
heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
The passage represents Molly’s memories. How effective is the stream of
consciousness in rendering the woman’s mind?
Does she think in words or images?
Is she predominantly intellectual or sensual? Find images in the passage
that appeal to each of the five senses.
�Content
David Herbert Lawrence
David Herbert Lawrence (1885–1930) was born in the mining village of
Eastwood, Nottingham. His father was an illiterate miner but his mother was of a
higher class and had once been a school teacher. Lawrence was a weak child. He
didn’t communicate much with other children and spent his days with books or in
the countryside. He qualified for a teacher's certificate at Nottingham University in
1908.
Lawrence’s mother was extremely close and important to him, and the relationships with
mother and his girlfriend Jessie Chambers became the subject to his first major novel Sons
and Lovers (1913). In it the writer explored social issues such as changes in the class system
and living in an industrial setting.
Lawrence’s marriage to a divorced German woman in 1914 caused negative reaction
considering that Britain was at war with Germany. Lawrence left Britain to spent his life first in
Europe and then in Australia and America. By that time he had begun working on another
novel, which began as The Sisters but was eventually published as The Rainbow (1915) and
Women in Love (1920). Both novels deal with the central characters of two sisters Ursula and
Gudrun, and can be read together or separately. Lawrence develops the themes of friendship
and marriage concluding that a happy marriage must be a relationship between "fulfilled"
individuals.
As James Joyce and Virginia Woolf radicalized the forms of literature, Lawrence expanded the
literary subject. Lawrence invented a new kind of novel and a new way of treating human
personality. He rejected civilization and wanted man to go back to the natural world of instinct.
Many of his novels are concerned with the relationship between men and women which he
regards as a source of vitality and integration. Lawrence offered human touch behaviour and
physical intimacy as an alternative to western civilization's fixation on the mind. He saw love as
the union of man and woman, as a mystic experience and a liberating force that could free
mankind from social repression and humanize life of the modern world.
Lawrence’s thought was deeply influenced by contemporary philosophers such as Nietzsche,
as well as by Freudian psychoanalysis.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German philosopher whose work greatly
influenced modern intellectual history. Among the most prominent elements
of his philosophy is his radical criticism of institutionalised Christianity which
he characterized as spreading a slave morality. Nietzsche’s response to the
"death of God" was the aesthetic appreciation of art. He developed the
influential (and frequently misunderstood) concept of the Übermensch. Nietzsche calls for
exceptional people to no longer be ashamed of their uniqueness in the face of morality-for-all,
which is harmful to the exceptional people. He was concerned with the creative powers of the
individual to overcome social, cultural, and moral contexts in pursuit of aesthetic health.
Lawrence’s most controversial and notorious novel Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) was
�Content
considered shocking for the portrayal of sex scenes and the use of bad language. It was not
published in Britain until 1960. The novel tells the story of a passionate love affair between the
wife of a disabled nobleman and his gamekeeper.
A lifelong sufferer from tuberculosis, Lawrence died in 1930 in France, at the age of forty-four.
Despite his failing health Lawrence continued to write till the end. In his last months he wrote
numerous poems, reviews and essays, as well as a defence of his novels. Lawrence's opinions
earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and
misrepresentation of his work. At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a
pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. Now Lawrence is esteemed as one of
the most important figures in the history of Modernism.
Content
Sons and Lovers
Mrs Morel already has two children, Annie and William, when she becomes pregnant for a
third time. Her marriage to Walter has slowly deteriorated into an endless series of drunken
rows and she is less than happy at the prospect of having another baby, Paul, to bring up.
However, when William dies she directs her emotional attention and needs into Paul to such
an extent that his relationship with other women is jeopardised. When Mrs Morel dies of
cancer, Paul is tempted to commit suicide, but finds the strength to carry on living.
Text
from Sons and Lovers
Paul sat pretending to read. He knew his mother wanted to upbraid him. He also wanted to
know what had made her ill, for he was troubled. So, instead of running away to bed, as he
would have liked to do, he sat and waited. There was a tense silence. The clock ticked loudly.
"You'd better go to bed before your father comes in," said the mother harshly. "And if you're
going to have anything to eat, you'd better get it."
"I don't want anything."
It was his mother's custom to bring him some trifle for supper on Friday night, the night of
luxury for the colliers. He was too angry to go and find it in the pantry this night. This insulted
her.
"If I WANTED you to go to Selby on Friday night, I can imagine the scene," said Mrs. Morel.
"But you're never too tired to go if SHE will come for you. Nay, you neither want to eat nor
drink then."
"I can't let her go alone."
�Content
"Can't you? And why does she come?"
"Not because I ask her."
"She doesn't come without you want her – "
"Well, what if I DO want her – " he replied.
"Why, nothing, if it was sensible or reasonable. But to go trapseing up there miles and miles in
the mud, coming home at midnight, and got to go to Nottingham in the morning – "
"If I hadn't, you'd be just the same."
"Yes, I should, because there's no sense in it. Is she so fascinating that you must follow her all
that way?" Mrs. Morel was bitterly sarcastic. She sat still, with averted face, stroking with a
rhythmic, jerked movement, the black sateen of her apron. It was a movement that hurt Paul to
see.
"I do like her," he said, "but – "
"LIKE her!" said Mrs. Morel, in the same biting tones. "It seems to me you like nothing and
nobody else. There's neither Annie, nor me, nor anyone now for you."
"What nonsense, mother – you know I don't love her – I – I tell you I DON'T love her – she
doesn't even walk with my arm, because I don't want her to."
"Then why do you fly to her so often?"
"I DO like to talk to her – I never said I didn't. But I DON'T love her."
"Is there nobody else to talk to?"
"Not about the things we talk of. There's a lot of things that you're not interested in, that – "
"What things?"
Mrs. Morel was so intense that Paul began to pant.
"Why – painting – and books. YOU don't care about Herbert Spencer."
"No," was the sad reply. "And YOU won't at my age."
"Well, but I do now – and Miriam does – "
"And how do you know," Mrs. Morel flashed defiantly, "that I shouldn't. Do you ever try me!"
"But you don't, mother, you know you don't care whether a picture's decorative or not; you
don't care what MANNER it is in."
"How do you know I don't care? Do you ever try me? Do you ever talk to me about these
things, to try?"
"But it's not that that matters to you, mother, you know it's not."
"What is it, then – what is it, then, that matters to me?" she flashed. He knitted his brows with
�Content
pain.
"You're old, mother, and we're young."
He only meant that the interests of HER age were not the interests of his. But he realised the
moment he had spoken that he had said the wrong thing.
"Yes, I know it well – I am old. And therefore I may stand aside; I have nothing more to do
with you. You only want me to wait on you – the rest is for Miriam."
He could not bear it. Instinctively he realised that he was life to her. And, after all, she was the
chief thing to him, the only supreme thing.
"You know it isn't, mother, you know it isn't!"
She was moved to pity by his cry.
"It looks a great deal like it," she said, half putting aside her despair.
"No, mother – I really DON'T love her. I talk to her, but I want to come home to you."
He had taken off his collar and tie, and rose, bare-throated, to go to bed. As he stooped to
kiss his mother, she threw her arms round his neck, hid her face on his shoulder, and cried, in
a whimpering voice, so unlike her own that he writhed in agony:
"I can't bear it. I could let another woman – but not her. She'd leave me no room, not a bit of
room – "
And immediately he hated Miriam bitterly.
"And I've never – you know, Paul – I've never had a husband – not really – "
He stroked his mother's hair, and his mouth was on her throat.
"And she exults so in taking you from me – she's not like ordinary girls."
"Well, I don't love her, mother," he murmured, bowing his head and hiding his eyes on her
shoulder in misery. His mother kissed him a long, fervent kiss.
"My boy!" she said, in a voice trembling with passionate love.
Without knowing, he gently stroked her face.
"There," said his mother, "now go to bed. You'll be so tired in the morning." As she was
speaking she heard her husband coming. "There's your father – now go." Suddenly she looked
at him almost as if in fear.
"Perhaps I'm selfish. If you want her, take her, my boy."
His mother looked so strange, Paul kissed her, trembling.
�Content
What could be the cause of over-dependent relationship between mothers and
their sons?
�Content
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) was born into a family of famous intellectuals and
scientist. Huxley's grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825 –1895), was an
English biologist who introduced Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to a wide
public. Huxley's mother was a niece of poet and essayist Matthew Arnold
(1822–1888), who expressed the moral struggles of the modern age and the
decline of a religion-based culture.
Like all the sons of his family, Huxley attended Eton and Oxford. Poor sight caused by the eye
disease prevented his pursuit of medicine, and he turned to literature, reading with the help of a
magnifying glass. After taking his degree in English Literature, Huxley returned to Eton to
teach.
He began as a poet. Huxley's first published work was a collection of his poetry, The Burning
Wheel (1916). With Crome Yellow (1921) he began to use the novel as a vehicle for his ideas,
which he presented in a humorous and satirical way. In Antic Hay (1923) and Those Barren
leaves (1925) Huxley expressed his protest against moral recklessness and intellectual
sophistication. The novels have little plot but a great deal of brilliant dialogue. The author’s
focus is the seemingly meaningless lives of artists and rich people. He shows the world which
doesn’t have an aim or direction.
Point Counter Point (1928) solidified Huxley’s reputation as a satirist. The novel shows that
man is too complicated a creature, divided by passion and reason, to find much happiness in
life. The novel presents a departure from the straightforward storytelling technique of the
realistic novel.
Huxley's pessimistic view of society and the future of man is also found in a dystopian novel
Brave New World (1932).
A dystopia, or anti-utopia, is a community or society, usually fictional, that
is in some important way undesirable or frightening. It is the opposite of a
utopia. Such societies appear in many works of fiction, particularly in
stories set in a speculative future. Dystopias are often characterized by
dehumanization, totalitarian governments, environmental disaster, or other
characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Elements of dystopias may
vary from environmental to political and social issues. Dystopian societies have culminated in a
broad series of sub-genres of fiction and are often used to raise real-world issues regarding
society, environment, politics, religion, psychology, spirituality, or technology that may
become present in the future. For this reason, dystopias have taken the form of a multitude of
speculations, such as pollution, poverty, societal collapse, political repression, or
totalitarianism.
It proved to be his most popular work in which the author stated his main thesis: if man
became completely happy and society completely efficient he would cease to be human and
�Content
existence would become intolerable. In Brave New World, Huxley takes the problem of evil
much more seriously than in the past. A satirist in him began to evolve into a social
philosopher.
Huxley said in a foreword to the novel in 1946: "I projected it six hundred years into the future,
today, after the 2nd World War and atomics bombs, it seems quite possible that the
horror may be upon us within a single century".
In his later works Huxley showed faith in brotherly love, non-violence and man's capacity to
become a more selfless creature. He became interested in spiritual subjects such as
parapsychology and philosophical mysticism.
Parapsychology is a pseudoscience that claims to study paranormal and
psychic phenomena scientifically. Parapsychologists study telepathy,
precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences,
reincarnation, apparitional experiences, and other supernatural and
paranormal claims.
Beginning in 1939 and continuing until his death in 1963, Huxley had an extensive association
with the Vedanta Society of Southern California, where he was taught meditation and spiritual
practices
Vedanta is one of the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy. The term
veda means "knowledge" and anta means "end". Vedanta is a system of
philosophy that develops the idea that all reality is Brahman, the single
binding unity behind the diversity in all that exists in the universe. It teaches
that the believer's goal is to transcend the limitations of self-identity and
realize one's unity with Brahman.
Huxley moved toward mystical writings, far from the tone of his early satire. The Perennial
Philosophy (1945) represents the author’s non-fictional expression of his interests, including
experimentation with psychedelic drugs.
Psychedelics are part of a wider class of psychoactive drugs known as
hallucinogens, whose primary action is to alter cognition and perception.
The psychedelic experience is often compared to non-ordinary forms of
consciousness such as trance, meditation, yoga, religious ecstasy,
dreaming and even near-death experiences.
The Doors of Perception (1954) desribes Huxley’s experience of taking hallucinogenic drugs,
such as mescaline. The book takes its title from a phrase in William Blake's book The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Huxley recalled the visions he experienced while intoxicated
and described them in his book. He also included later reflections on the experience and its
meaning for art and religion.
�Content
In 1960, Huxley was diagnosed with cancer and, in the years that followed, with his health
deteriorating, he wrote his last novel, Island (1962) in which he returned to the theme of the
future he had explored in Brave New World.
Content
Brave New World begins in 632 A.F. (After Ford), which is approximately the twenty-sixth
century, in the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre.
In 1908, Henry Ford introduced the Model-T, in "any color you choose so
long as it’s black."In 1914, he opened his Highland Park, Michigan factory,
equipped with the first electric conveyor belt assembly line. A Model-T
could now be assembled in 93 minutes. Consequently, Ford had 45 percent
of the new automobile market. He paid his workers the highest wages in the
industry–a whopping five dollars a day. In return, he demanded that his workers live by his
standards: wives were not to work or take in boarders, employees were not to drink in local
bars, and families were to attend church each Sunday. He sent men out into the workers’
neighborhoods to make sure his rules were being followed.
The Director is taking a group of students through the Hatchery. He shows how the five
castes of society are created, from Alphas and Betas, who lead the society, down to the
physically and intellectually inferior Deltas, Gammas, and Epsilons, who do menial labor.
The Director also shows how each individual is conditioned both before and after "birth"to
conform to the moral rules of the World State, and to enjoy his or her predetermined job.
Each caste is conditioned differently, but all castes are conditioned to seek instant
satisfaction, to be sexually promiscuous, to engage in economic consumption, and to use the
drug soma to escape from all unpleasant experiences.
Bernard Marx works in the Hatchery. He wants to become intimate with Lenina Crowne, a
nurse at the Hatchery. Lenina decides to accept Bernard’s invitation to spend a week at the
Savage Reservation in New Mexico. Bernard receives permission from the Director to visit
the Reservation with Lenina. The Director remembers once visiting the place with his woman
companion. Consequently, he returned from the Reservation alone.
At the Reservation, Bernard and Lenina are shocked by the primitive conditions. They meet a
semi-Indian creature who speaks in strange, ancient words. This is John the Savage. John’s
mother, Linda, is from the New World of Lenina and Bernard. She has grown old, fat, and
quite ugly. She has used alcohol to replace the soma drug. Bernard realizes that this must be
the lost companion of the Director, then pregnant with his child, John.
Bernard decides to return John and Linda, which will disgrace the Director and bring fame
to Bernard. Bernard’s plan works. The Director is humiliated and resigns. Bernard exposes
the New World to the Savage and becomes an instant celebrity with John, the freak everyone
must meet.
�Content
When John tells Linda he loves her, she offers herself to him. He finds the promiscuity of
World State society disgusting. John finally refuses to meet any more people, and Bernard’s
pseudo-celebrity dispels quickly. Finally, everyone becomes embarrassed by John’s grief
when his mother dies, after falling into a soma-induced coma and failing to recognize him.
Mustapha Mond, one of the ten World Controllers, and John argue about World State
society. John says it makes life worthless by destroying truth. Mond says that stability and
happiness are more important than truth. Mond tells Bernard that he’ll be sent to an island
– islands are where all the interesting people who don't like conforming to World State
society live – but refuses to let John accompany them.
John lives in a lighthouse on the southern coast of England near Portsmouth. He wants
solitude, preferring to be alone with his thoughts and memories. He is discovered and again
becomes the object of public curiosity. John takes what he sees as his only escape. He
commits suicide.
What typical features of a dystopian society you can find in Huxley’s novel?
Do you believe that stability and wellfare are more important than truth?
�Content
George Orwell
George Orwell (1903–1950), whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair, was born in
India and educated in England. He studied at Eton, but he didn’t get a higher
education. Orwell read a lot and was determined to be a writer.
In 1922–27 Orwell worked for Burma Police. After he resigned he began a most unusual
literary career. In 1928, while living in Paris and working in a restaurant washing dishes, he
started writing articles for the French newspaper Le Monde.
In 1929 he returned to London, where he lived the life of a poor person, collecting information
for his book Down and Out in Paris and London (1933). It was for this book that he first
adopted the pseudonym George Orwell. He then published three more novels. The first,
Burmese Days (1934), described his experience in the Police force in Burma and
demonstrated his anti-Imperialist political views. This was followed by A Clergyman’s
Daughter (1935) and Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936).
In 1936 Orwell was commissioned to research and write about the situation and conditions of
the unemployed in England. The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) was the result of his research.
His political point of view, left-wing, anti-Capitalist and independent, was by now quite clear.
Left-wing politics support social equality, often in opposition to social
hierarchy. They stand up for those in society whom they perceive as
disadvantaged and believe that there are unjustified inequalities that need to
be reduced or abolished.
With the Spanish Civil War, Orwell left England to fight in Spain for the Republican,
anti-Fascist forces. He remained there until he was wounded and forced to return to England.
Homage to Catalonia (1938) is about his experiences in the Spanish Civil War. Orwell was
suffering from tuberculosis. His next novel, Coming up for Air (1939) was written during a
period of convalescence spent in North Africa.
When he returned to England Orwell continued to write and publish an enormous variety of
works including essays, literary criticisms and political reflections. His reputation as a political
free-thinker and social critic was high.
During the Second World War Orwell worked for the BBC and enlisted in the Home Guard, a
volunteer armed body of men, usually too old or too ill to join the regular army. However, his
illness prevented Orwell from fulfilling this activity. He died in 1950 at the age of 46.
Orwell is best known for his dystopian fiction. His books Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen
Eighty-Four (1949 are both directed against the dangers of totalitarianism. Animal Farm is a
terrifying allegory of the events that took place when Communism was established in Russian
after the Revolution of 1917. It is a simple tale of what happens when the animals get rid of the
�Content
owner of the farm and take the farm over control. Their revolution begins with the best of
intentions, but is undermined by corruption and greed.
Nineteen-Eighty Four (1949) describes a future world in which the political system has a total
control over people. The novel is set in Oceania which is a world of government surveillance
and public manipulation. This superstate has a political system named English Socialism, or
Ingsoc in the government's invented language Newspeak. The state has changed language so
that the only words left are those for objects and ideas that the government wants people to
know about. All the power in Oceania is in the hands of privileged elite of the Inner Party,
Individualism and independent thinking are persecuted as thoughtcrimes. The slogan of the
book is Big Brother Is Watching You. Every action of a person is seen by the state with the
help of television that can watch people in their own home.
Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm share many themes such as the betrayed revolution,
the person's subordination to the group, strict class distinctions, the cult of personality,
thought police, daily exercise. This picture of the future created by Orwell is influenced by the
hardships of the world war and already existing totalitarian regimes, as in Russia and Spain. It
is depressing and gloomy.
Link
Throughout its publication history, Nineteen Eighty-Four has been either banned or legally
challenged, as subversive or ideologically corrupting, like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
(1932), We (1924) by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Kallocain (1940) by Karin Boye and Fahrenheit
451 (1951) by Ray Bradbury. Literary scholars consider the Russian dystopian novel We by
Zamyatin to have strongly influenced Orwell’s book. It was completed in 1921. The novel was
first published in an English translation in 1924 in New York.
We is set in the post-apocalyptic future. The One State is an urban nation constructed almost
entirely of glass, which helps mass surveillance. The structure of the state is Panopticon-like.
The Panopticon is a type of institutional building designed by the English
philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The
concept of the design is to allow all (pan-) inmates of an institution to be
observed (-opticon) by a single watchman without the inmates being able to
tell whether or not they are being watched.
The society is surrounded by a giant Green Wall to separate the citizens from primitive
untamed nature. People march in step with each other and are uniformed. Instead of names
they have numbers. The individual's behaviour is based on logic by way of formulas and
equations outlined by the One State. The society is headed by the Benefactor. Every hour in
one's life is directed by The Table.
Zamyatin’s novel was much influenced by Jerome K. Jerome’s short essay The New Utopia
(1891).
�Content
Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859–1927) was an English writer and humourist,
best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat (1889).
In his essay Jerome describes a regimented future city, where men and
women are barely distinguishable in their grey uniforms. They all have short black hair, natural
or dyed. No one has names: women wear even numbers on their tunics, and men wear odd
ones, just as in We. Equality is taken to such lengths that physically developed people have to
be crippled. Similarly, in We the cutting of noses is proposed. In Jerome’s essay anyone with
an overactive imagination is subjected to a levelling-down operation. Both in Jerome’s and
Zamytin’s works love is described as a disruptive and humanizing force.
Content
The Animal Farm
The animals led by the pigs, angry about the way Farmer Jones runs the farm and treats the
animals, stage a successful revolution. They rid themselves of Jones and his tame Crow
(which stands for the Church) and establish an equal system of government, a republic
organized along socialist lines. Their slogans resemble the 7 of the Ten Commandments of
the Bible:
1) Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2) Whatever goes upon four legs is a friend.
3) No animal shall wear clothes.
4) No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5) No animal shall drink alcohol.
6) No animal shall kill any other animal.
7) ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL.
But the purity of their political ideas is soon destroyed, and they become as greedy and
cunning as their farmer whom they banished.
The action takes place in England on the Manor Farm. Among the animals there are the
pigs, the dogs, the hens, the sheep and cows, the art-horses, the cat, the raven and the oldest
animal of the farm – Benjamin, the donkey.
The animals are assembled in the big barn by a wise old boar Old Major. Old Major tells
them that their life is misery and slavery. And the only real enemy they have is Man, who
steals the products of their labor. Soon Old Major dies, but his speech about the rebellion
produces a new outlook on life among the most intelligent animals. They are three pigs:
�Content
Napoleon, a large and fierce-looking boar with a reputation for getting his own way;
Snowball, "inventive and quick in speech"; and Squealer, a" small fat pig with very round
cheeks, twinkling eyes and a shrill voice". These three have elaborated Old Major’s teachings
into a complete system of thought. They call it Animalism. So Mr. Jones, the farmer, is
expelled, the Manor Farm is renamed into Animal Farm.
Firstly, everyone works according to his capacity. Nobody steals. There is no jealousy among
the animals. On Sundays there is no work. The animals become total masters of the farm.
But not all of them are equal in their literacy skills, some can read and write, like pigs, some
only read, like dogs, and others can do neither.
Gradually the pigs occupy the privileged position. Step by step, Napoleon becomes a
dictator. All orders are issued by the pigs. Meanwhile, life on the farm is getting hard; the
farm is short of money, rations are reduced. Only the pigs are putting on weight. When
Animal Farm is proclaimed a Republic, it becomes necessary to elect a President. There is
only one candidate, Napoleon, who is elected unanimously. Years pass. The farm is
prosperous and better organized. But the animals are not rich except for the pigs that begin
to walk on their hind legs. They resemble people. On top of everything, the Seven
Commandments are reduced to a single one: All Animals Are Equal, but Some Animals
Are More Equal Than Others.
Furthermore, for the first time animals and human beings were meeting on equal terms. The
farm name Animal farm was restored to its original and proper Manor Farm. Suddenly a
quarrel between pigs and people occurs during one of their meetings. And all the animals
say that the farmer’s and the pigs’ faces became alike. It was impossible to say, which was
which.
As a literary device, an allegory in its most general sense is an extended
metaphor. Allegory has been used widely throughout history in all forms of
art, largely because it can illustrate complex ideas and concepts in ways that
are comprehensible or striking.
Write an allegoric tale to describe some aspect of modern life (general topics:
money and property, art and expression, human relations, values, etc.; special focus:
consumerism, haste, diversity, individualism, etc.)
Nineteen-Eighty Four
In 1984, the state of Oceania is a totalitarian society ruled by the Big Brother. It is in
permanent war, presently against Eurasia. People from the middle class Outer Party follow
the Ingsoc philosophy and are under permanent surveillance of Big Brother through the
telescreen - a monitor that both telecasts the brainwashing programmes and spies the life of
each individual. However, the members of the lower class Proles (proletariats) are free of the
control of the state.
The main character of the book Winston Smith works in the Minitrue (Ministry of Truth in
Newspeak). He rewrites history to make it consistent with the Party’s current ideolody.
�Content
Winston is a member of the Outer Party. Because of the childhood trauma of the destruction
of his family, the disappearances of his parents and sister, Winston secretly hates the Party,
and dreams of rebellion against Big Brother. When by chance Winston uncovers the proof
that the Party is lying, he commits the thoughtcrime of self-questioning.
Winston begins to notice that a young Party member, Julia, is watching him. She wears the
distinctive sash of the ultra-zealous Anti Sex League and Winston fears that she is an
informant. However, to his surprise, she reveals herself as a subversive and they go into an
illicit and dangerous relationship.
Winston understands the difference between propaganda and reality. It leads him to
O'Brien, a member of the upper class Inner Party. Winston believes he is an agent of the
Brotherhood, a secret, counter-revolutionary organisation meant to destroy The Party.
Eventually, Winston and Julia are captured by the fearful Thought Police and Winston is
interrogated and brainwashed in the Minilove (Ministry of Love). O'Brien is revealed to be
a Thought Police leader. He tortures Winston with electroshock. In the end, upon accepting
the doctrine of The Party, Winston Smith is reintegrated to the society of Oceania, because
he loves Big Brother.
Text
from Nineteen-Eighty Four. Part III. Chapter 6
He had seen her; he had even spoken to her. There was no danger in it. He knew as though
instinctively that they now took almost no interest in his doings. He could have arranged to
meet her a second time if either of them had wanted to. Actually it was by chance that they had
met. It was in the Park, on a vile, biting day in March, when the earth was like iron and all the
grass seemed dead and there was not a bud anywhere except a few crocuses which had
pushed themselves up to be dismembered by the wind. He was hurrying along with frozen
hands and watering eyes when he saw her not ten metres away from him. It struck him at once
that she had changed in some ill-defined way. They almost passed one another without a sign,
then he turned and followed her, not very eagerly. He knew that there was no danger, nobody
would take any interest in him. She did not speak. She walked obliquely away across the grass
as though trying to get rid of him, then seemed to resign herself to having him at her side.
Presently they were in among a clump of ragged leafless shrubs, useless either for concealment
or as protection from the wind. They halted. It was vilely cold. The wind whistled through the
twigs and fretted the occasional, dirty-looking crocuses. He put his arm round her waist.
There was no telescreen, but there must be hidden microphones: besides, they could be seen.
It did not matter, nothing mattered. They could have lain down on the ground and done that if
they had wanted to. His flesh froze with horror at the thought of it. She made no response
whatever to the clasp of his arm; she did not even try to disengage herself. He knew now what
had changed in her. Her face was sallower, and there was a long scar, partly hidden by the hair,
across her forehead and temple; but that was not the change. It was that her waist had grown
�Content
thicker, and, in a surprising way, had stiffened. He remembered how once, after the explosion
of a rocket bomb, he had helped to drag a corpse out of some ruins, and had been astonished
not only by the incredible weight of the thing, but by its rigidity and awkwardness to handle,
which made it seem more like stone than flesh. Her body felt like that. It occurred to him that
the texture of her skin would be quite different from what it had once been.
He did not attempt to kiss her, nor did they speak. As they walked back across the grass, she
looked directly at him for the first time. It was only a momentary glance, full of contempt and
dislike. He wondered whether it was a dislike that came purely out of the past or whether it was
inspired also by his bloated face and the water that the wind kept squeezing from his eyes.
They sat down on two iron chairs, side by side but not too close together. He saw that she
was about to speak. She moved her clumsy shoe a few centimetres and deliberately crushed a
twig. Her feet seemed to have grown broader, he noticed.
'I betrayed you,' she said baldly.
'I betrayed you,' he said.
She gave him another quick look of dislike.
'Sometimes,' she said, 'they threaten you with something -- something you can't stand up to,
can't even think about. And then you say, "Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to
So-and-so." And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you
just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it
happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite
ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a
damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.'
'All you care about is yourself,' he echoed.
'And after that, you don't feel the same towards the other person any longer.'
'No,' he said, 'you don't feel the same.'
There did not seem to be anything more to say. The wind plastered their thin overalls against
their bodies. Almost at once it became embarrassing to sit there in silence: besides, it was too
cold to keep still. She said something about catching her Tube and stood up to go.
'We must meet again,' he said.
'Yes,' she said, 'we must meet again.'
He followed irresolutely for a little distance, half a pace behind her. They did not speak again.
She did not actually try to shake him off, but walked at just such a speed as to prevent his
keeping abreast of her. He had made up his mind that he would accompany her as far as the
Tube station, but suddenly this process of trailing along in the cold seemed pointless and
unbearable. He was overwhelmed by a desire not so much to get away from Julia as to get
back to the Chestnut Tree Cafe, which had never seemed so attractive as at this moment. He
had a nostalgic vision of his corner table, with the newspaper and the chessboard and the
�Content
everflowing gin. Above all, it would be warm in there. The next moment, not altogether by
accident, he allowed himself to become separated from her by a small knot of people. He
made a half-hearted attempt to catch up, then slowed down, turned, and made off in the
opposite direction. When he had gone fifty metres he looked back. The street was not
crowded, but already he could not distinguish her. Any one of a dozen hurrying figures might
have been hers. Perhaps her thickened, stiffened body was no longer recognizable from
behind.
'At the time when it happens,' she had said, 'you do mean it.' He had meant it. He had not
merely said it, he had wished it. He had wished that she and not he should be delivered over to
the -Something changed in the music that trickled from the telescreen. A cracked and jeering note, a
yellow note, came into it. And then -- perhaps it was not happening, perhaps it was only a
memory taking on the semblance of sound -- a voice was singing:
'Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me --'
The tears welled up in his eyes. A passing waiter noticed that his glass was empty and came
back with the gin bottle.
Interpret Julia’s words about suffering and betrayal.
Why did they both give up?
Do you think any human would give up in similar circumstances?
�Content
Thomas Stearns Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965) was a publisher, playwright, literary and
social critic, and one of the twentieth century's major poets. He was born on
September 26, 1888, in an old New England family.
Eliot attended Harvard University. In 1910, he left the United States for the Sorbonne. After a
year in Paris, he went back to Harvard to pursue a doctorate in philosophy, but returned to
Europe and settled in England in 1914. The following year, he married and began to work in
London, first as a teacher, later as a bank clerk, and eventually as a literary editor for the
publishing house Faber & Faber.
It was in London that Eliot came under the influence of his contemporary Ezra Pound, who
recognized his poetic genius at once, and assisted in the publication of his work in a number of
magazines. Eliot’s first book of poems, Prufrock and Other Observations (1917)
immediately established him as a leading poet of the avant-garde.
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (1885–1972) was an expatriate American poet
and critic, and a major figure in the early modernist movement. His
contribution to poetry began with his development of Imagism, a movement
derived from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry, stressing clarity,
precision and economy of language.
The avant-garde (from French, "advance guard" or "vanguard", literally "fore-guard" are
people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly in art, culture, and politics.
With the publication of The Waste Land (1922), now considered to be the most influential
poetic work of the 20th century, Eliot's reputation began to grow very fast. By 1930, and for
the next thirty years, he was the most dominant figure in poetry and literary criticism in the
English-speaking world.
Eliot was very much influenced by the English metaphysical poets of the 17th century, most
importantly John Donne, and the 19th century French symbolist poets. Mixing these two styles
he created a truly modern kind of poetry innovative in poetic technique and subject matter.
John Donne (1572–1631) was an English poet and preacher. He is
considered the pre-eminent representative of the metaphysical poetry. His
style is characterised by inventive metaphors, abrupt openings, paradoxes,
dramatic structure, eloquence and philosophic subjectmatter. Among his
favorite themes are love, God, death.
Symbolist poetry rejects fixed forms, technical conventions and literary imagery. It describes
thoughts and feelings in disconnected ways and expresses an inner ideal reality rather than the
�Content
objective world. Symbolist poets were influenced by the dark, introspective romanticism of
William Blake and Edgar Allan Poe.
Eliot’s poems reflected the disillusionment of a younger post-World-War-I generation with the
values and conventions of the Victorian era. In Prufrock Eliot conveys the sense of emptiness,
pessimism and lack of direction that characterized life in the beginning of the 20th century. The
Waste Land expresses horror the poet feels looking at the gloomy materialistic world of
nothingness surrounding him while he searches for the meaning of life.
It is known for its obscure nature: its transitions from satire to prophecy and backwards; its
abrupt changes of speaker, location, and time. Structural complexity is one of the reasons why
the poem has become a poetic counterpart to James Joyce's Ulysses, published in the same
year. Among its best-known phrases are "April is the cruellest month", "I will show you fear in a
handful of dust"and "Shantih shantih shantih". The Sanskrit mantra ends the poem.
The Waste Land was composed during a period of personal difficulty for Eliot, his marriage
with mentally unstable Vivienne Haigh-Wood was failing. The couple formally separated in
1933 and in 1938 Vivienne was confined in a lunatic asylum, where she remained until her death
in 1947.
Eliot’s relationship with his first wife became the subject of a 1984 play Tom
& Viv by British playwright Michael Hastings, which in 1994 was adapted as
a film.
After his conversion to Christianity in the late thirties, Eliot’s views became increasingly
conservative. In his essays and social criticism Eliot advocated traditionalism in religion,
society and literature. That seemed to contradict his previous pioneering poetic work. Eliot's
early works, especially The Waste Land (1922), are essentially negative about the possibility to
find piece and security in this world. In his later works including poems Ash Wednesday
(1930) and Four Quartets (1943) the poet’s ideal becomes more visible. Over time, as Eliot
searched for a way out of horror and despair, his vision became more spiritual. The poetry
Eliot wrote after his conversion to Christianity reflects more optimistic feelings of hope and
salvation.
Eliot’s religious evolution is also evident in his verse drama Murder in the Cathedral (1935),
that describes the death of archbishop Thomas a Becket in 1170. Other verse dramas include
The Family Reunion (1939), and The Cocktail Party (1949), Confidential Clerk (1954),
The Elder Statesman(1959).
Eliot became a British citizen in 1927. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.
Eliot was one of the most daring innovators of the twentieth-century poetry. He believed that
poetry should represent the complexities of modern civilization in language. Despite the
difficulty of Eliot’s works his influence on modern poetry was immense.
�Content
Link
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939) is a collection of whimsical poems by T. S.
Eliot about feline psychology and sociology, published by Faber and Faber. The poems were
written during the 1930s and included by Eliot, under his assumed name "Old Possum," in
letters to his godchildren. Probably the best-known musical adaptation of the poems is the
Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats. This musical premiered in London's West End in 1981
and on Broadway in 1982, and went on to become the longest-running Broadway show in
history, until it was beaten by another Andrew Lloyd Webber show, The Phantom of the
Opera.
Text
from Prufrock and Other Observations. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question….
10
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes;
There will be time, there will be time
15
20
25
�Content
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
30
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
35
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair–
(They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!")
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin–
(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all–
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all–
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
40
45
50
55
60
65
�Content
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a
platter,
I am no prophet–and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"–
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all."
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the
floor–
And this, and so much more?–
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
70
75
80
85
90
95
100
105
�Content
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous–
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
110
115
120
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
125
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
130
Analise the conceits used in the poem with the help of tenor – vehicle – ground
scheme, in which tenor is the thing described, vehicle is the figurative
expression of this thing, and ground stands for the common features between
them.
A conceit is a figure of speech which draws a comparison between two
strikingly different things. Conceits were particularly popular among the 17th
century Metaphisical poets, who created effective comparisons by exploiting all
areas of knowledge for the vehicles of their metaphors and similes. The revival
of interest in Metaphisical poetry in the 1920s led to the reappearance of the conceit as a
�Content
popular figure of speech.
How do you respond to Prufrock?
Is his dilemma universal??
Do you think that there is an element of Prufrock in everyone?
�Content
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) was born in Dublin in a protestant Irish
family. He disliked any organized training an his education was irregular. In 1876,
after working in an estate agent's office for a while he moved to London, where
he established himself as a leading music and theatre critic and became a
prominent member of the Fabian Society, for which he composed many
pamphlets.
The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to
advance the principles of socialism via gradual reformist means.
Shaw’s writing dealt with the most important issues of the day. He was an active supporter of
social reforms, and took part in campaigns that ranged from the movement to reform English
spelling to women’s rights and the abolition of private property.
Shaw began his literary career as a novelist. He also wrote reviews of music, art, books, and
theatre.
Shaw was a supporter of the new theatre of Ibsen.
Henrik Johan Ibsen (1828–1906) was a major 19th-century Norwegian
playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is one of the founders of
Modernism in theatre. He is the most frequently performed dramatist in the
world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House became the world's most
performed play by the early 20th century. Several of his plays were considered scandalous to
many of his era, when European theatre was required to model strict morals of family life and
propriety. Ibsen's work examined the realities that lay behind the surface, revealing much that
was disturbing to many contemporaries.
Shaw’s earliest dramas were called Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898). Some of them,
such as Widower's Houses and Mrs. Warren's Profession, attack social hypocrisy. Shaw
turned the stage into a forum of ideas.
Shaw believed that art did not exist for art’s sake. Art should be didactic, and it should aim to
reform. This belief tends to make Shaw sound like a dull and chilly preacher. He was often
accused of the lack of human passions.
In Shaw’s plays, even love did not solve all the problems, as it had in most Victorian plays.
This idea is openly expressed in the famous discussion on the "life force"from the third act of
Man and Superman (1903). This play is the dramatisation of woman's love chase of man.
Shaw’s theory of "life force"is much inspired by Nietzche’s "Übermensch": man is the spiritual
creator, whereas woman is the biological "life force"that must always triumph over him.
�Content
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philologist,
philosopher, cultural critic, poet and composer. He wrote several critical texts
on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, displaying
a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphorism. Nietzsche's key ideas include the
Will to Power, the "death of God", the Übermensch and eternal recurrence.
One of the key tenets of his philosophy is the concept of l"ife-affirmation,": I"f we affirm one
moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient,
neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and
sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event - and
in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and
affirmed". It further champions the creative powers of the individual to strive beyond social,
cultural, and moral contexts. His radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth has
been the focus of extensive commentary, and his influence remains substantial, particularly in
the continental philosophical schools of existentialism, postmodernism, and
post-structuralism. His ideas of individual overcoming and transcendence beyond structure
and context have had a profound impact on late-twentieth and early-twenty-first century
thinkers.
Man and Superman is a story of modern London life, where the ordinary man strives to
maintain his position as a gentleman, and the ordinary woman is concerned with marriage. The
law of nature is involved: money means nourishment, which is man's first concern; marriage
means children, which are woman's prime interest.
The serious business of love is left by men to women, who let men concern themselves with
nourishment. Shaw denies that there is anything revolutionary in this. In Shakespeare's plays,
the women always take the initiative, and the hunting female is found in all comedies. The basic
plot line of Man and Superman is the tragicomic love chase of man by woman.
In Shaw’s plays discussion sometimes overshadows the events. In Major Barbara (1905),
one of Shaw's most successful "discussion"plays, the audience's attention is held by the power
of the witty argumentation that man can achieve aesthetic salvation only through political
activity, not as an individual.
Shaw’s masterpiece Saint Joan (1923) recounts the well-known story of the life and trial of
Joan of Arc and extends it from the Middle Ages to the present.
Joan of Arc (1412–1431), nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans", is a heroine
of France and a Roman Catholic saint. She was born to a peasant family in
north-east France. Joan said she had received visions from God instructing
her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination late in
the Hundred Years' War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the
siege of Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence after the siege was lifted in
only nine days. Several additional swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims. On
23 May 1430 she was captured by the English, put on trial on a variety of charges and was burned at the
stake for heresy when she was about 19 years old.
�Content
Caesar and Cleopatra (1901) is also a historical play filled with allusions to modern times.
The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), facetiously classified as a tragedy by Shaw, is really a comedy
the humour of which is directed at the medical profession.
Bernard Shaw’s best known play Pygmalion (1912) is a comedy about a phonetics expert
who, as a kind of social experiment, attempts to make a lady out of an uneducated Cockney
flower-girl. Although not as intellectually complex as some of the other plays in Shaw's theatre
of ideas, Pygmalion also raises important questions about social class, human behavior, and
relations between the sexes.
In classical mythology, Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a
statue he had carved.
In 1925 Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died at the age of ninety-four.
In his long life Shaw wrote fifty plays of a variety and quality matched only by Shakespeare.
They gave him the opportunity to present and argue ideas that interested him. He preceded the
plays by prefaces which are often brilliant pamphlets, justifying and explaining the issues
behind the plays.
Shaw’s peculiar style consists in the combination of the dramatic, the comic, and the social.
His plays are never dull. Shaw’s plays were written to shock audiences and teach new social
and moral values. He conveys his message turning common things upside down. Shaw is a
master of anticlimax. He leads the viewers to expect a conventional conclusion, and then lets
them down.
To this day Shaw remains popular for a variety of reasons. In most cases the follies and evils
he attacked are still with us. The manner in which he launched his attacks is brilliant and witty.
He created some extraordinary parts for actors, especially for women.
Text
from Pigmalion. Act III
The scene below is Eliza’s introduction into polite society at an A
" t-Home", given by Higgins’
mother.
THE PARLOR-MAID [opening the door] Miss Doolittle. [She withdraws.]
HIGGINS [rising hastily and running to Mrs. Higgins] Here she is, mother. [He stands on
tiptoe and makes signs over his mother's head to Eliza to indicate to her which lady is her
hostess.]
�Content
[Eliza, who is exquisitely dressed, produces an impression of such remarkable distinction
and beauty as she enters that they all rise, quite flustered. Guided by Higgins's signals, she
comes to Mrs Higgins with studied grace.]
LIZA [speaking with pedantic correctness of pronunciation and great beauty of tone] How
do you do, Mrs. Higgins? [She gasps slightly in making sure of the H in Higgins, but is quite
successful.] Mr. Higgins told me I might come.
MRS HIGGINS [cordially] Quite right: I'm very glad indeed to see you.
PICKERING How do you do, Miss Doolittle?
LIZA [shaking hands with him] Colonel Pickering, is it not?
MRS EYNSFORD HILL I feel sure we have met before, Miss Doolittle. I remember your
eyes.
LIZA How do you do? [She sits down on the ottoman gracefully in the place just left vacant
by Higgins.]
MRS EYNSFORD HILL [introducing] My daughter Clara.
LIZA How do you do?
CLARA [impulsively] How do you do? [She sits down on the ottoman beside Eliza,
devouring her with her eyes.]
FREDDY [coming to their side of the ottoman] I've certainly had the pleasure.
MRS EYNSFORD HILL [introducing] My son Freddy.
LIZA How do you do?
[Freddy bows and sits down in the Elizabethan chair, infatuated.]
HIGGINS [suddenly] By George, yes: it all comes back to me! [They stare at him.] Covent
Garden! [Lamentably] What a damned thing!
MRS HIGGINS Henry, please! [He is about to sit on the edge of the table.] Don't sit on my
writing-table: You'll break it.
HIGGINS [sulkily] Sorry.
[He goes to the divan, stumbling into the fender and over the fire-irons on his way;
extricating himself with muttered imprecations; and finishing his disastrous journey by
throwing himself so impatiently on the divan that he almost breaks it. Mrs. Higgins looks at
him, but controls herself and says nothing.]
[A long and painful pause ensues.]
MRS HIGGINS [at last, conversationally] Will it rain, do you think?
LIZA The shallow depression in the west of these islands is likely to move slowly in an easterly
�Content
direction. There are no indications of any great change in the barometrical situation.
FREDDY Ha! ha! how awfully funny!
LIZA What is wrong with that, young man? I bet I got it right.
FREDDY Killing!
MRS EYNSFORD HILL I'm sure I hope it won't turn cold. There's so much influenza about.
It runs right through our whole family regularly every spring.
LIZA [darkly] My aunt died of influenza: So they said.
MRS EYNSFORD HILL [clicks her tongue sympathetically]!!!
LIZA [in the same tragic tone] But it's my belief they done the old woman in.
MRS HIGGINS [puzzled] Done her in?
LIZA Y-e-e-e-es, Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza? She come through
diphtheria right enough the year before. I saw her with my own eyes. Fairly blue with it, she
was. They all thought she was dead; but my father he kept ladling gin down her throat til she
came to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the spoon.
MRS EYNSFORD HILL [startled] Dear me!
LIZA [piling up the indictment] What call would a woman with that strength in her have to die
of influenza? What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody
pinched it; and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.
MRS EYNSFORD HILL What does doing her in mean?
HIGGINS [hastily] Oh, that's the new small talk. To do a person in means to kill them.
MRS EYNSFORD HILL [to Eliza, horrified] You surely don't believe that your aunt was
killed?
LIZA Do I not! Them she lived with would have killed her for a hat-pin, let alone a hat.
MRS EYNSFORD HILL But it can't have been right for your father to pour spirits down her
throat like that. It might have killed her.
LIZA Not her. Gin was mother's milk to her. Besides, he'd poured so much down his own
throat that he knew the good of it.
MRS EYNSFORD HILL Do you mean that he drank?
LIZA Drank! My word! Something chronic.
MRS EYNSFORD HILL How dreadful for you!
LIZA Not a bit. It never did him no harm what I could see. But then he did not keep it up
regular. [Cheerfully] On the burst, as you might say, from time to time. And always more
agreeable when he had a drop in. When he was out of work, my mother used to give him
�Content
fourpence and tell him to go out and not come back until he'd drunk himself cheerful and
loving-like. There's lots of women has to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live
with. [Now quite at her ease.] You see, it's like this. If a man has a bit of a conscience, it
always takes him when he's sober; and then it makes him low-spirited. A drop of booze just
takes that off and makes him happy. [To Freddy, who is in convulsions of suppressed
laughter.] Here! what are you sniggering at?
FREDDY The new small talk. You do it so awfully well.
How did Elisa’s speech betray her background?
Do you agree that a person’s speech is a matter of class distinction?
from Man and Superman, a Comedy and a Philosophy. Act I
TANNER. [left alone with Octavius, stares whimsically at him] Tavy: do you want to count for
something in the world?
OCTAVIUS. I want to count for something as a poet: I want to write a great play.
TANNER. With Ann as the heroine?
OCTAVIUS. Yes: I confess it.
TANNER. Take care, Tavy. The play with Ann as the heroine is all right; but if you're not very
careful, by Heaven she'll marry you.
OCTAVIUS. [sighing] No such luck, Jack!
TANNER. Why, man, your head is in the lioness's mouth: you are half swallowed already--in
three bites--Bite One, Ricky; Bite Two, Ticky; Bite Three, Tavy; and down you go.
OCTAVIUS. She is the same to everybody, Jack: you know her ways.
TANNER. Yes: she breaks everybody's back with the stroke of her paw; but the question is,
which of us will she eat? My own opinion is that she means to eat you.
OCTAVIUS. [rising, pettishly] It's horrible to talk like that about her when she is upstairs
crying for her father. But I do so want her to eat me that I can bear your brutalities because
they give me hope.
TANNER. Tavy; that's the devilish side of a woman's fascination: she makes you will your own
destruction.
OCTAVIUS. But it's not destruction: it's fulfilment.
TANNER. Yes, of HER purpose; and that purpose is neither her happiness nor yours, but
Nature's. Vitality in a woman is a blind fury of creation. She sacrifices herself to it: do you
�Content
think she will hesitate to sacrifice you?
OCTAVIUS. Why, it is just because she is self-sacrificing that she will not sacrifice those she
loves.
TANNER. That is the profoundest of mistakes, Tavy. It is the self-sacrificing women that
sacrifice others most recklessly. Because they are unselfish, they are kind in little things.
Because they have a purpose which is not their own purpose, but that of the whole universe, a
man is nothing to them but an instrument of that purpose.
OCTAVIUS. Don't be ungenerous, Jack. They take the tenderest care of us.
TANNER. Yes, as a soldier takes care of his rifle or a musician of his violin. But do they allow
us any purpose or freedom of our own? Will they lend us to one another? Can the strongest
man escape from them when once he is appropriated? They tremble when we are in danger,
and weep when we die; but the tears are not for us, but for a father wasted, a son's breeding
thrown away. They accuse us of treating them as a mere means to our pleasure; but how can
so feeble and transient a folly as a man's selfish pleasure enslave a woman as the whole
purpose of Nature embodied in a woman can enslave a man?
OCTAVIUS. What matter, if the slavery makes us happy?
TANNER. No matter at all if you have no purpose of your own, and are, like most men, a mere
breadwinner. But you, Tavy, are an artist: that is, you have a purpose as absorbing and as
unscrupulous as a woman's purpose.
OCTAVIUS. Not unscrupulous.
TANNER. Quite unscrupulous. The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot,
his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art. To women
he is half vivisector, half vampire. He gets into intimate relations with them to study them, to
strip the mask of convention from them, to surprise their inmost secrets, knowing that they
have the power to rouse his deepest creative energies, to rescue him from his cold reason, to
make him see visions and dream dreams, to inspire him, as he calls it. He persuades women
that they may do this for their own purpose whilst he really means them to do it for his. He
steals the mother's milk and blackens it to make printer's ink to scoff at her and glorify ideal
women with. He pretends to spare her the pangs of childbearing so that he may have for
himself the tenderness and fostering that belong of right to her children. Since marriage began,
the great artist has been known as a bad husband. But he is worse: he is a child-robber, a
bloodsucker, a hypocrite and a cheat. Perish the race and wither a thousand women if only the
sacrifice of them enable him to act Hamlet better, to paint a finer picture, to write a deeper
poem, a greater play, a profounder philosophy! For mark you, Tavy, the artist's work is to
show us ourselves as we really are. Our minds are nothing but this knowledge of ourselves;
and he who adds a jot to such knowledge creates new mind as surely as any woman creates
new men. In the rage of that creation he is as ruthless as the woman, as dangerous to her as she
to him, and as horribly fascinating. Of all human struggles there is none so treacherous and
remorseless as the struggle between the artist man and the mother woman. Which shall use up
�Content
the other? that is the issue between them. And it is all the deadlier because, in your romanticist
cant, they love one another.
OCTAVIUS. Even if it were so – and I don't admit it for a moment – it is out of the deadliest
struggles that we get the noblest characters.
TANNER. Remember that the next time you meet a grizzly bear or a Bengal tiger, Tavy.
OCTAVIUS. I meant where there is love, Jack.
TANNER. Oh, the tiger will love you. There is no love sincerer than the love of food. I think
Ann loves you that way: she patted your cheek as if it were a nicely underdone chop.
OCTAVIUS. You know, Jack, I should have to run away from you if I did not make it a fixed
rule not to mind anything you say. You come out with perfectly revolting things sometimes.
How does the author interpret the relation between a man and a woman? What
metaphors express the roles of a woman and a man in this relation?
Do you agree with the author’s view of marriage?
Choose some of Bernard Shaw’s quotes for commentary:
1. Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and
ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.
2. The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all
people and all time.
3. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to
adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
4. All great truths begin as blasphemies.
5. When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
6. The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.
7. A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent
doing nothing.
8. England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
�Content
9. I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form
could have invented the Nobel Prize.
10.I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.
11.Lack of money is the root of all evil.
12.Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.
13.Every man over forty is a scoundrel.
14.Reminiscences make one feel so deliciously aged and sad.
15.There is no love sincerer than the love of food.
16.A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
17.In Heaven an angel is nobody in particular.
18.A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.
19.We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is
the best policy.
20.Better never than late.
�Content
English Literature in the Second Half of the 20th Century
Historical Context
Development of Fiction
Development of Poetry
Development of Drama
�Content
Historical Context
In the late 1940s the government tried to stimulate the economy and provide social services: 20
percent of British industry came under the control of the state, National Health Service
programmes were introduced and low-rent council houses provided a lage number of people
with habitation. Although Britain had a huge debt and food rationing continued until 1954,
wages rose and living conditions continuously improved. Britain started to turn into a
consumer society. The second half of the 20th century was generally a period of prosperity.
Since 1950s many aspects of British life have altered dramatically, including the structure of
society and people’s lifestyles. Britain became less conservative developing a more tolerant
attitude to social, religious, and ethnic diversity. The phenomenal success of the Beatles in the
1960s signified the appearance of a counterculture.
A counterculture is a subculture whose values and norms of behavior differ
substantially from those of mainstream society. A countercultural movement
expresses the aspirations of a specific population during a well-defined era.
Prominent examples of countercultures in Europe and North America
include Romanticism (1790–1840), Bohemianism (1850–1910), the more
fragmentary counterculture of the Beat Generation (1944–1964), and perhaps most
prominently, the counterculture of the 1960s (1964–1974), usually associated with the hippie
subculture.
Young people started to reject the strict moral and social codes by which older generation
lived. They freely expressed their views and chose the way of life different from the
mainstream pattern. The mini-skirt for women and long hair for men became the symbol of
social revolution.
The mass immigration from the ex-colonies that started after World War II has changed British
society greatly. The more liberal social attitudes encouraged various groups to campaign for
better treatment. The government passed legislation to outlaw discrimination against women,
gays and ethnic minorities.
The economic problems such as inflation and unemployment, made the social problems still
more acute. The protests in the 1970s and 1980s were connected with the closing of coal
mines, car and steel plants.
In 1979 the Conservative Party won the election under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher.
Conservatives decided to close the mines. A strong trade union movement several times
brought the country into a standstill fighting for better salaries and against job losses. Thatcher
tried to reduce the power and influence of the trade unions accusing them of undermining
economy through strike action.
�Content
Iron Lady is a nickname that has frequently been used to describe female
heads of government around the world. The term describes a "strong willed"
woman. The iron metaphor was most famously applied to Margaret
Thatcher, and was coined by Captain Yuri Gavrilov in 1976 in the Soviet
newspaper Red Star, for her staunch opposition to the Soviet Union and
socialism. Due to the wide popularity of this epithet, it has since been applied to many women
political figures.
During her term of office Thatcher reshaped almost every aspect of British politics. Her
government revived the economy and strengthened the nation's foreign policy. She became the
first prime minister in the 20th century to win three consecutive elections. She was the
longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century and is currently the only woman to
have held the office. Her successor John Major won the general elections again in 1992. The
Conservative dominance came to an end with the election of the Labour Party under the
leadership of Tony Blair in 1997.
Both Conservatives and Labourists preferred the policy of moderation. As in the previous
periods in history, Britain showed a remarkable ability to avoid conflicts when street protests
and terrorist attacks brought other countries in Europe to serious social tensions.
British political stability was weakened by the controvercial attitude to the institution of
monarchy whose usefulness was brought into question in the end of the 20th century. Various
scandals involving the royal family made them unpopular until the tragic death of Princess
Diana in 1997 which proved that the monarchy was still a major unifying factor in British
society.
The Britain at the threshold of the third millennium was very different from that which entered
the second. The misty damp island that provided home for the Celts, Anglo-Saxons and
Normans became a home to a multicultural nation that was entering a new era in the
interconnected world.
�Content
Development of Fiction
The specific feature of modern literature is the variety of genres and styles. Since 1950s the
literary life in Great Britain has developed greatly. The new time brings new heroes, new
experience in theatrical life and poetry, new forms and standards in fiction. Liberal and
open-minded attitudes in society allowed authors to deal with a wide range of subject matter.
On the one hand, the themes in the modern literary works concern more global problems: the
Peace and the War, the environmental protection, the relations between the mankind and
Universe. But on the other hand, there are themes that have always been in the centre of public
attention: duties and obligations of an individual, moral choice, human nature, power and
money, etc.
An outstanding literary movement of the 1950s was the Angry Young Men, a term applied by
journalists to the authors and protagonists of some contemporary novels and plays that
expressed protest or resentment against the values of the British middle class. The post-war
changes had given a chance to a large number of young people from the more democratic
layers of society to receive higher education at universities. But on graduating, these students
found they had no prospects in life. There appeared works dealing with the characters of
young men who were angry with everything and everybody, because no one was interested in
their opinions.
The works that expressed "angry" attitudes included Kingsley Amis's (1922–1995) campus
novel Lucky Jim (1954), and John Braine's (1922–1986) novel of social ambition, Room at
the Top (1957). The label Andry Young Men is more appropriate to the anti-heroes of these
works than to the authors, whose views were interpreted as being socially radical.
As for the literary techniques, the Angry Young Men are conservatives. They looked upon
modernist writers of the twenties as museum pieces. The Angry Young Men are not especially
interested in the philosophical problems of men's existence. "The great questions I ask to
myself", Kingsley Amis says, "are those like 'How am I going to pay the electric bill?' "
The working-class or lower-middle class realism in the work of the Angry Young Men gave
way in the 1960s and 1970s to a less provincial outlook in English fiction.
In the second half of the 20th century the novel continued to be the leading genre. It developed
in many directions covering a wide range of forms, characters and themes.
John Ronald Tolkien (1892–1973), the author of the classic high fantasy
works The Hobbit (1937), The Lord of the Rings (1954–55) and The
Silmarillion (1977), was one of the most influential authors, whose fascinating
world of elves and goblins has inspired thousands of imitators.
�Content
High fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy fiction, defined either by its setting in
an imaginary world or by the epic stature of its characters, themes and plot.
Quintessential work of high fantasy is The Lord of the Rings. High fantasy
exists on one side of a spectrum, opposite low fantasy or urban fantasy,
which are set in the "real" world. Some works, such as The Chronicles of
Narnia, concern characters that travel between realistic and imaginary settings, and are thus
difficult to classify on this spectrum. High fantasy is often classified as epic fantasy; however,
although the two subgenres are extremely similar, the latter usually contains a wider range of
main characters.
William Golding (1911–1993) explored the basic nature of man. His books
often take the form of a moral allegory, in which the characters, as
representatives of the human race, reveal some of the dark aspects of human
nature. In his most famous novel Lord of the Flies (1954), a group of English
schoolboys left to themselves in a desert island, far from modern civilisation,
regress to a primitive state and turn to savagery. The name Lord of the Flies is a
literal translation of the Biblical Beelzebub.
Beelzebub is a contemporary name for the devil. In Christian and Biblical
sources, Beelzebub is another name for the devil. He is one of the seven
princes of Hell described as a demonic fly who is also known as the "Lord
of the Flies".
Allegorically the book represents the conflict between man’s desire to live by rules in a civilised
society and his desire to rule according to his own will, between groupthink and individuality,
between rational and emotional reactions, and between morality and immorality.
In The Inheritors (1955) Golding examines how Homo Sapiens gained control of the earth at
the expense of his predecessors Neanderthals. Golding won the Nobel Prize in Literature in
1983.
Graham Greene (1904–1991) was an acute observer of his fellow-man,
though often in a more humorous and light-hearted way than Golding. His
novels present a vast panorama of characters and storylines.
The most notable features of Green’s fiction are the deep psychological
analysis of his heroes and a very thoughtful attitude to the burning political
problems of the day. Green traveled around the world from Vietnam to West
Africa, Latin America and Haiti. Using these poor, hot and dusty tropical places as setting for
his stories, he shows characters caught up in challenging circumstances.
After The Power and the Glory (1940), which is Greene’s best novel, he rarely returns to the
English scene. Set in the 1930s, Mexico, the novel examines the themes of revolution and
religious persecution. It tells the story of a Roman Catholic "whisky priest" who is on the run.
�Content
With his chances getting fewer the priest is still reluctant to abandon those who need him. He
returns to hear the confession of a dying man, although he suspects it is a trap.
The Heart of the Matter (1948) tells the story of a police officer against the background of
political and social tensions in Central Africa. It is about the fate of a well-meaning man who
commits suicide to get out of the moral problems he was trying to solve.
The Asian setting stimulated Greene's The Quiet American (1955), which was about American
involvement in Indochina.
Cuba is the setting for the highly entertaining Our Man in Havana (1958). It is a social and
political satire attacking the inefficiency of the secret service.
The Human Factor (1978) stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for six months. In
this novel an agent falls in love with a black woman during an assignment in South Africa.
Graham Greene himself divides his novels into two main groups: "serious"novels marked with
pessimism and disillusionment, and novels of "entertainment"which are adventure detective
stories with exciting and violent plot. Adventure and suspense are constant elements in
Greene’s novels and many of his books have been made into successful films.
Both serious and and entertainment novels raise the issues of morality and faith. Greene’s
favourite themes are religion, sacrifice and grace. Few other writers wrote so powerfully about
the presence of sin, guilt and doubt in the world. As a kind of English Dostoevski, he directs
his characters to persistent examination of corruption within themselves. Suffering and
unhappiness are always there in Greene’s books. Through suffering his characters eventually
overcome their sins and achieve salvation.
Anthony Burgess (1917–1994) was one of the best known English literary
figures of the latter half of the twentieth century. He also composed over 250
musical works, and wanted to be regarded primarily as a composer rather
than a writer. Although Burgess was predominantly a comic writer, his
dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange (1962) remains his best known novel.
In 1971 it was adapted into a highly controversial film by Stanley Kubrick,
which was chiefly responsible for the popularity of the book. A Clockwork Orange is set in a
future society that has a culture of extreme youth violence. The novel's anti-hero, Alex, narrates
his violent exploits and his experiences with state authorities who wanted to reform him.
Burgess was a linguist, and the book is partially written in a form of Russian-influenced English
called Nadsat. According to Burgess, the novel was a jeu d'esprit (game of the spirit) written
in just three weeks.
Nadsat is a fictional register or argot used by the teenagers in A Clockwork
Orange. The name itself comes from the Russian suffix equivalent of '-teen'
as in 'thirteen' (-надцать, -nadtsat').
Burgess produced numerous other novels, including Earthly Powers (1980), regarded by
�Content
most critics as his greatest novel. Its two central characters represent different kinds of power
– Kenneth Toomey, a past-his-prime author of mediocre fiction, a man who has outlived his
contemporaries to survive into bitter, luxurious old age, living in self-exile on Malta; and Don
Carlo Campanati, a man of God and a candidate for canonisation, who rises through the
Vatican as a shrewd manipulator. Through the lives of these two modern men Burgess explores
the very essence of power in a story that spans from Hollywood, to Dublin, Nairobi, Paris, and
beyond.
John Fowles (1926–2005) earned an international reputation, with his books
translated into numerous languages, and several adapted as films. Fowles was
considered much influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, and
critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism.
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (1905–1980) was a French
philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer,
and literary critic. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature but
refused it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer
should not allow himself to be turned into an institution". Sartre was one of
the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism. In existentialism, the individual's starting
point is characterized by what has been called "the existential attitude", or a sense of
disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world. In this
world each individual–not society or religion–is solely responsible for giving meaning to life
and living it passionately and sincerely.
Albert Camus (1913–1960) was a French Nobel Prize winning author, journalist, and
philosopher. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He
wrote in his essay "The Rebel"that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of
nihilism (negation of one or more supposedly meaningful aspects of life) while still delving
deeply into individual and sexual freedom. Although often cited as a proponent of
existentialism, the philosophy with which Camus was associated during his own lifetime, he
rejected this particular label.
John Fowles produced several highly experimental novels.
His first novel The Collector (1963) is about a lonely clerk in a city hall, Frederick Clegg, who
collects butterflies in his spare time. Clegg is obsessed with Miranda Grey, an art student,
whom he admires from a distance. Then the young man kidnaps Miranda and locks her up in
the cellar of his house. Miranda tries to escape several times, but Clegg stops her. She also
tries to seduce him to convince him to let her go. Eventually Miranda becomes seriously ill and
dies. The story is told first from Clegg’s point of view, and then from Miranda’s with a return
in the last few pages to Clegg's narration of her illness and death.
Fowles’ novel The Magus (1965) was an instant best-seller that was in tune with 1960s "hippie"
experimental philosophy. It tells the story of Nicholas Urfe, a young British graduate who is
�Content
teaching English on a small Greek island. Urfe becomes acquainted with a master trickster
Maurice Conchis. Nicholas is gradually drawn into Conchis's psychological games, his
paradoxical views on life, his mysterious persona, and his eccentric masques. At first, Nicholas
takes these manipulations of Conchis, what the novel terms the "godgame,"to be a joke, but
they grow more elaborate and cruel. Nicholas loses his ability to determine what is real and
what is not. Against his will and knowledge, he becomes a performer in the godgame.
Eventually, Nicholas realises that the re-enactments of the Nazi occupation, the absurd plays
after de Sade, and the obscene parodies of Greek myths are not about Conchis' life, but his
own.
In the The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969) Fowles provides us with an original 20th
century interpretation of a Victorian love triangle. Although the novel develops along traditional
Victorian lines, the contemporary narrator continuously interjects to put a modern interpretation
on the events as they unfold and, instead of a traditional ending, the reader is offered two
possible endings to choose from. This combination of tradition and innovation could be
categorised as postmodern.
The term postmodernism is used to designate a multitude of trends in the arts,
philosophy, religion, technology and many other areas that come after and
deviate from the many 20th-century movements that constituted modernism. In
general, the postmodern view is cool, ironic, and accepting of the fragmentation
of contemporary existence. It tends to concentrate on surfaces rather than depths, to blur the
distinctions between high and low culture, and as a whole to challenge a wide variety of
traditional cultural values. In a postmodern novel the fundamental principles and assumptions
about the nature of fiction is questioned and challenged. To achieve the purpose the following
devices are used: Parody, Irony, Distortions of narrative time, Discontinuity and Blurring of
genres.
In The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles created a unique character of Sarah
Woodruff. Sarah has an existential view. She believes in the constant evolution of human self
and personality. Sarah rejected Charles inspite of the common expectation. She prefers
freedom to happiness. Charles finds Sarah very deep and profound in comparison with
Ernestine who stands for a superficial womanhood. It is Sarah who helped Charles to mature.
By putting Sarah (as an embodiment of a postmodern outlook) against Ernestine (as
representative of a Victorian outlook) John Fowles is questioning a set of fundamental
Victorian principles.
Writing by and about women has been a major feature of the literary world since World War II.
When the feminist movement came to prominence in the 1970s a new generation of women
writers enjoyed the freedom to express themselves with frankness and straightforwardness that
had never been seen before.
�Content
No female writer has been more prolific than Muriel Spark (1918–2006),
whose witty, satirical novels often examine the hidden strangeness of
individuals. Muriel Spark's novels are often comic but with disturbing
undertones. Dark humor permeates the novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
(1961), in which the main character, a Scottish schoolteacher turns out to be
very different from what she seems. It was successfully adapted for stage and
screen. Spark’s detached, ironic narrator observes ordinary people in ordinary situations. In
her novel Memento Mori (1958) she tells about peculiarities of old age under the shadow of
impending death.
Another woman writer to make a lasting impression on the literary world was
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999), an Irish writer and philosopher who followed the
tradition of novelists like Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and George Eliot, focusing on
the inner lives of individuals. She was also strongly influenced by Shakespeare.
Among Murdoch’s most recurrent themes are good and evil in a person’s life, relationships,
morality, the power of the unconscious, life of the mind, dramatic choice. Her novels often
include upper-middle-class male intellectuals caught in moral dilemmas, gay characters,
refugees, Anglo-Catholics with crises of faith, empathetic pets, curiously "knowing" children
and sometimes a powerful and almost demonic male "enchanter" who imposes his will on the
other characters. Murdoch’s effects are made by the contrast between her eccentric characters
and the underlying seriousness of her ideas.
Murdoch’s early comic work Under the Net (1954) is the story of a struggling young writer,
Jake Donaghue, a penniless flat-hunter, who is looking for his old girlfriend, Anna Quentin,
and her glamorous actress sister, Sadie. Through Sadie Jake resumes acquaintance with his
former roommate Hugo. As roommates, the two had many philosophical discussions, one of
which Jake turned into a not-very-successful novel, The Silencer. Jake fears his novel betrays
Hugo’s ideas. All these meetings involve Jake and his companion, Finn, in a series of
adventures that include the kidnapping of a film-star dog and a political riot in a film-set of
ancient Rome. Its mixture of the philosophical and the picaresque has made Under the Net one
of Murdoch's most popular novels.
Although she wrote primarily in a realistic manner, Murdoch sometimes introduced the
elements of symbolism and fantasy into her work. The Unicorn (1963) can be read as a
Gothic romance. The Black Prince (1973), whose name alludes to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, tells
about erotic obsessions of an ageing London author Bradley Pearson, who falls in love with
the daughter of a friend and literary rival, Arnold Baffin. The Black Prince is remarkable for the
structure of its narrative, which becomes more complicated with a series of afterwords by
subordinate characters suggesting selfish interpretations of the events.
Murdoch was awarded the Booker Prize in 1978 for The Sea, the Sea (1978), a novel about a
retired stage director who is trying to return his first love chasing his former lover after several
decades apart.
�Content
By the time her 26th and last novel, Jackson's Dilemma (1996), was published, Iris Murdoch
had become the Grande Dame of English Letters as well as a Dame of the British Empire.
Her influence on both moral philosophy and on the novel continues into the 21st century.
Sexual and feminist isssues were discussed in Angela Carter’s
(1940– 1992) novels The Magic Toyshop (1967), The Infernal Desire
Machine of Dr. Hoffman (1972), The Passion of New Eve (1977).
Angela Carter’s collection of short stories The Bloody Chamber (1979) is a
retelling of classic fairy tales with macabre irony and feminist themes. It
transformes the female protagonists from passive and colourless stereotypes
into assertive, sexual and adventurous heroines. It is Carter’s most representative work.
Carter’s main interest was in the world of fable, which she developed into a form of magic
realism. This term was first coined in Germany to describe a form of painting which mixed the
real with the imaginary.
Magical realism, or magic realism, is literature that accepts magic in the
rational world. It is also sometimes called fabulism, in reference to the
principles of fables, myths, and allegory. Magic realism portrays magical or
unreal elements as a natural part in a realistic everyday environment. In works of
magic realism the fantastic is treated without any sense of surprise or
amazemrnt. Its combination with the routine creates a rich, dreamlike atmosphere. Magic
realism is often associated with Latin American literature, particularly authors including Miguel
Angel Asturias, Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges and Isabel Allende. In English
literature, its chief exponents include Salman Rushdie and Alice Hoffman.
Carter’s Wise Children (1991) is a good example of magical realism in which the dividing line
between fantasy and reality is hard to find, and sometimes it disappears completely. The story
has a huge cast of fantastic characters and tells about unbelieveable events including farcial
mariages and adulteries, betrayals and reconciliations, deaths and resurrections. Most
characters are illegitimate, some knowingly, most unknowingly. The novel is very witty and full
of Shakespearean tricks such as mistaken identities and As any Shakespearean comedy it
celebrates the magic of show business.
Other writers noted for novels of ideas are Margaret Drabble
(born 1939) and her sister, A. S. Byatt (born 1936). Drabble
has explored the problems of contemporary educated women
in such novels as The Realms of Gold (1975) and The Gates
of Ivory (1991). She investigated the dilemmas faced by
intelligent women entering late middle age alone in The Seven
Sisters (2002). Byatt won the Booker Prize for Possession (1990), about a romantic
involvement between two academics. She completed an ambitious quartet of novels tracing
changing patterns of family life in England from the 1950s to the 1970s with A Whistling
�Content
Woman (2002).
Doris Lessing (1919–2013) moved from the early short stories collected as
African Stories (1965) to novels increasingly experimental in form and
concerned with the role of women in contemporary society. The Golden
Notebook (1962) is about a woman writer who is suffering from writer’s block
and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. In 1983 she completed a series of
five science-fiction novels under the collective title Canopus in Argos: Archives
(1979). The novel Love, Again (1995)is a compelling study of love and
sexuality in older women.
The success of women has been accompanied by the emergence of a number of accomplished
male writers whose works grow from and develop the great tradition of novel writing in
English. Of these, David Lodge (born 1935) could be regarded as part of the comic tradition
in British literature. His brilliantly funny trilogy including Changing Places (1965), Small
World (1984)and Nice Work (1988) is associated with a genre called campus fiction, in which
universities provide the setting for the novel.
His later works Therapy (1995) and Thinks (2000) raise such topics as aging, alternative
medicine, adultery and psychtherapy and continue to show his great talent for creating comic
characters and situations.
John Le Carré (born 1931), pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell, won popularity
for ingeniously complex espionage tales, loosely based on his own experience in the British
foreign service. Le Carré’s novels include The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963),
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974), The Russia House (1989), and The Constant Gardener
(2001).
Frederick Forsyth (born 1938) is an English author and occasional political commentator.
He is best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal (1971), The Odessa File (1972),
The Fourth Protocol (1984), The Dogs of War (1974), The Devil's Alternative (1979), The
Fist of God (1994), Icon (1999), Avenger (2003), The Afghan (2006),The Cobra (2010)
and The Kill List (2013).
Julian Barnes (born 1946) established his reputation with Flaubert’s Parrot (1984), which is
about scholarship and obsession. It was followed by other experimental and satiric works,
including England, England (1999). Barnes won the Man Booker Prize for his book The
Sense of an Ending (2011). It is narrated by a retired man named Tony Webster, who recalls
how he met Adrian Finn and other schoolmates and vowed to remain friends for life. When
the past catches up with Tony, he reflects on the paths he and his friends have taken.
Short stories and novels by Ian McEwan (born 1948) deal with moments of extreme crisis.
The Child Time (1987) is the story of a couple whose daughter disappeares in broad daylight
in a crowded shopping area. In Black Dogs (1992) the fateful incident that alters a person’s
life is the confrontation of a young bride withg two dogs during her honeymoon. In Enduring
Love (1997) the life-changing event is the rescue of a boy from a freak accident. In the rescue
�Content
attempt one man, a doctor, dies. Another stranger after witnessing a deadly accident develops
a morbid interest in the protagonist. In Atonement (2002), which won the National Book
Critics Circle Award, McEwan deals with a child’s lies and her later attempts to come to terms
with them by writing a book.
Sir Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) is the acclaimed creator of the global bestselling comic
fantasy Discworld series, the first of which, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983.
Pratchett's earliest Discworld novels were written to parody sword-and-sorcery fiction and
science-fiction novels. He imported numerous characters from classic literature, popular
culture and ancient history, always adding an unexpected twist. Characters, place names, and
titles in his books often contain puns, allusions and references. The world's medieval setting in
Discworld often includes modern innovations such as a public police force, guns, submarines,
cinema, the steam engine, journalism and banking. As the series progressed, Pratchett dropped
parody almost entirely, and the Discworld series turned into satire.
Martin Amis (born 1949) also produced ferocious satires of modern society in such works
as Money: A Suicide Note (1984) and The Information (1995).
Content
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
During World War II, a group of British schoolboys stranded on a Pacific island after their
plane crashed. Two of the boys, Ralph and Piggy, set up a democratic government with
Ralph as leader. A signal fire is set with the lens of Piggy's glasses to call passing ships to
rescue.
The school's choir leader, Jack, soon becomes obsessed with hunting the pigs. He abandons
any thought of being rescued, and eventually leaves the group to start a "tribe"with his choir
boys turned into hunters. The increasing fear of a supposed "beast"on the island made all the
boys except Ralph, Piggy, Simon and the twins Samneric (Sam and Eric) support Jack.
The beast on the mountain appears to be only the rotting corpse of a pilot whose plane had
been shot down near the island. Simon runs down from the mountain to share this happy
news. All the boys are engaged in a primal ritual celebrating the murder of a pig they have
just eaten. Mistaken to be the beast, Simon is killed by the boys' spears.
Ralph, Piggy, and Samneric refuse to join Jack's tribe. They struggle to keep a signal fire
burning on the beach. Then Jack and his hunters attack the four and steal Piggy's glasses
they need for pig-roasting fires. Piggy decides to go to the hunters’ base. Reluctantly, Ralph
and Samneric agree. As they arrive Jack begins to fight with Ralph. Samneric are seized at
Jack's command by the hunters and Roger, Jack's second-in-command, drops a large
boulder on the head of Piggy and kills him. Ralph alone runs away. Samneric betray the
secret of his hiding place. The hunters run after Ralph with their spears.
Ralph at last comes to the beach. The shelters he had built are in flames and, falling upon
�Content
the sand with nowhere left to run, Ralph looks up to see a naval officer. Rescue comes at last
to the boys' aid. Ralph breaks down in tears. Soon, all the hunters begin crying at the sight
of grown-ups on the beach. Ralph weeps for t"he end of innocence"and "the darkness of man's
heart."
The French Lieutenant's Woman, by John Fowles
Charles Smithson is visiting his fiancée in Lyme. Ernestina is the spoilt and shallow
daughter of middle-class parents who have made a great fortune and now wish to elevate
their child to the upper classes. While in Lyme, Charles meets Sarah Woodruff and is told
her story: she was seduced and abandoned by a French sailor and has since been an
outcast in the prudish provincial town.
Charles encounters Sarah several times during his stay in Lyme and finds himself drawn to
her, struck by how different she is from other women. She is intelligent and independent at a
time when the ideal woman was submissive and fragile. Charles becomes increasingly
fascinated with this unconventional woman.
Events come to a climax when Charles loses his chance of inheriting his uncle’s title and
Sarah loses her job as the companion to a bigoted old lady. In the dramatic aftermath of
these developments Charles realises the depth of his feelings for Sarah. He decides to break
his engagement with Ernestina and marry Sarah instead, sending word of his intentions to
Sarah via his manservant Sam. For his own reasons, Sam does not deliver this letter. Sarah
is that kind of girl who can sacrifice everything for freedom. She sacrificed even her love for
freedom.
When Charles looks for Sarah after breaking his engagement, he finds she has gone away
without leaving any word of her destination or any explanation. He searches for her in
London, Exeter and Lyme. He leaves England and travels across Europe, the Middle East
and the United States. Charles never forgets Sarah and he returns to London immediately
when his lawyer sends word that he has found her.
When Charles finally meets Sarah again, the story splits, with the author offering two
alternate endings for their relationship and leaving the reader to decide between the two.
In the first ending to the novel, the narrator describes Charles' visit to the address given by
the anonymous source. Charles is let into a relatively nice house, and recognizes the artist
Rossetti as he climbs the stairs to find Sarah. Sarah is dressed like a modern woman, and
she tells Charles that she is Rossetti's assistant and model. Charles begs Sarah to come
marry him, but she says she doesn't want to marry anyone - she is very happy with the life
she is leading. Charles suspects that she is still suffering; he begins to angrily accuse her of
bringing him there to torment him. Sarah calmly tells him that he misunderstands her. A
small girl child is brought to him - he understands that she was conceived during his first
and only sexual encounter with Sarah. Charles and Sarah embrace, and it seems - although
we are not told explicitly what will happen - that the two will stay together.
�Content
The second ending we are taken back to the point in Sarah and Charles' conversation where
he accuses her of lying to him in order to hurt him. He starts to leave - Sarah touches his
arm to restrain him - but he storms out of the room and out of the house. At the very end of
the novel, he comes to the conclusion that life must be endured, no matter how hopeless it is,
and that there is no 'quick fix' that will make everything all right.
Wise Children, by Angela Carter
Dora and Nora Chance are twin sisters in their eighties and are looking back over their
lives. Their father, the famous Shakespearean actor Melchior Hazard, disowned them at
birth. The girls followed in their father’s footsteps by taking up a career on the stage and
achieved some success as the singing and dancing Chance sisters.
When, at the age of thirteen, Melchior’s brother Perry, took them to see their father, but he
pretended he did not know who they were.
Most of the novel consists of Dora's memories. She provides the backstory of her natural
father, Melchior, her legal father, Peregrine Hazard, and her guardian, Grandma Chance.
Dora describes key events of her life including her early theatre performances, how she and
her sister deal with being rejected by their father, as well as the time that she spent in
Hollywood, producing a film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Dora and Nora attend Melchior's 100th birthday party. The date is Shakespeare's supposed
birthday, April, 23. There Melchior acknowledges they are his children for the first time in
their lives.
The novel ends with Dora and Nora being presented with twin babies to look after – a gift
from Peregrine. The magic element in Hazard-Chance family is that children are always
born in pairs. Dora and Nora realise that they "can't afford"to die until they've seen their
children grow up. The final line of the story is a message constantly conveyed throughout the
novel: W
" hat a joy it is to dance and sing!"
Text
from The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. Chapter 8. Gift for the Darkness
Simon had passed through the area of fruit trees but today the littluns had been too busy with
the fire on the beach and they had not pursued him there. He went on among the creepers until
he reached the great mat that was woven by the open space and crawled inside. Beyond the
screen of leaves the sunlight pelted down and the butterflies danced in the middle their
unending dance. He knelt down and the arrow of the sun fell on him. That other time the air
had seemed to vibrate with heat; but now it threatened. Soon the sweat was running from his
long coarse hair. He shifted restlessly but there was no avoiding the sun. Presently he was
thirsty, and then very thirsty. He continued to sit.
�Content
Far off along the beach, Jack was standing before a small group of boys. He was looking
brilliantly happy.
"Hunting, " he said. He sized them up. Each of them wore the remains of a black cap and ages
ago they had stood in two demure rows and their voices had been the song of angels.
"We'll hunt. I'm going to be chief. "
They nodded, and the crisis passed easily.
"And then--about the beast. "
They moved, looked at the forest.
"I say this. We aren't going to bother about the beast. "
He nodded at them.
"We're going to forget the beast. "
"That's right!"
"Yes!"
"Forget the beast!"
If Jack was astonished by their fervor he did not show it.
"And another thing. We shan't dream so much down here. This is near the end of the island. "
They agreed passionately out of the depths of their tormented private lives.
"Now listen. We might go later to the castle rock. But now I'm going to get more of the biguns
away from the conch and all that. We'll kill a pig and give a feast. " He paused and went on
more slowly. "And about the beast. When we kill we'll leave some of the kill for it. Then it
won't bother us, maybe. "
He stood up abruptly.
"We'll go into the forest now and hunt. "
He turned and trotted away and after a moment they followed him obediently.
They spread out, nervously, in the forest. Almost at once Jack found the dung and scattered
roots that told of pig and soon the track was fresh. Jack signaled the rest of the hunt to be
quiet and went forward by himself. He was happy and wore the damp darkness of the forest
like his old clothes. He crept down a slope to rocks and scattered trees by the sea.
The pigs lay, bloated bags of fat, sensuously enjoying the shadows under the trees. There was
no wind and they were unsuspicious; and practice had made Jack silent as the shadows. He
stole away again and instructed his hidden hunters. Presently they all began to inch forward
sweating in the silence and heat. Under the trees an ear flapped idly. A little apart from the rest,
sunk in deep maternal bliss, lay the largest sow of the lot. She was black and pink; and the
�Content
great bladder of her belly was fringed with a row of piglets that slept or burrowed and
squeaked.
Fifteen yards from the drove Jack stopped, and his arm, straightening, pointed at the sow. He
looked round in inquiry to make sure that everyone understood and the other boys nodded at
him. The row of right arms slid back.
"Now!"
The drove of pigs started up; and at a range of only ten yards the wooden spears with
fire-hardened points flew toward the chosen pig. One piglet, with a demented shriek, rushed
into the sea trailing Roger's spear behind it. The sow gave a gasping squeal and staggered up,
with two spears sticking in her fat flank. The boys shouted and rushed forward, the piglets
scattered and the sow burst the advancing line and went crashing away through the forest.
"After her!"
They raced along the pig-track, but the forest was too dark and tangled so that Jack, cursing,
stopped them and cast among the trees. Then he said nothing for a time but breathed fiercely
so that they were awed by him and looked at each other in uneasy admiration. Presently he
stabbed down at the ground with his finger.
"There – "
Before the others could examine the drop of blood, Jack had swerved off, judging a trace,
touching a bough that gave. So he followed, mysteriously right and assured, and the hunters
trod behind him.
He stopped before a covert.
"In there. "
They surrounded the covert but the sow got away with the sting of another spear in her flank.
The trailing butts hindered her and the sharp, cross-cut points were a torment. She blundered
into a tree, forcing a spear still deeper; and after that any of the hunters could follow her easily
by the drops of vivid blood. The afternoon wore on, hazy and dreadful with damp heat; the
sow staggered her way ahead of them, bleeding and mad, and the hunters followed, wedded to
her in lust, excited by the long chase and the dropped blood. They could see her now, nearly
got up with her, but she spurted with her last strength and held ahead of them again. They were
just behind her when she staggered into an open space where bright flowers grew and
butterflies danced round each other and the air was hot and still.
Here, struck down by the heat, the sow fell and the hunters hurled themselves at her. This
dreadful eruption from an unknown world made her frantic; she squealed and bucked and the
air was full of sweat and noise and blood and terror. Roger ran round the heap, prodding with
his spear whenever pigflesh appeared. Jack was on top of the sow, stabbing downward with
his knife. Roger found a lodgment for his point and began to push till he was leaning with his
whole weight. The spear moved forward inch by inch and the terrified squealing became a
highpitched scream. Then Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands.
�Content
The sow collapsed under them and they were heavy and fulfilled upon her. The butterflies still
danced, preoccupied in the center of the clearing.
At last the immediacy of the kill subsided. The boys drew back, and Jack stood up, holding
out his hands.
"Look. "
He giggled and flicked them while the boys laughed at his reeking palms. Then Jack grabbed
Maurice and rubbed the stuff over hischeeks. Roger began to withdraw his spear and boys
noticed it for the first time. Robert stabilized the thing in a phrase which was received
uproariously.
"Right up her ass!"
"Did you hear?"
"Did you hear what he said?"
"Right up her ass!"
This time Robert and Maurice acted the two parts; and Maurice's acting of the pig's efforts to
avoid the advancing spear was so funny that the boys cried with laughter.
At length even this palled. Jack began to clean his bloody hands on the rock. Then he started
work on the sow and paunched her, lugging out the hot bags of colored guts, pushing them
into a pile on the rock while the others watched him. He talked as he worked.
"We'll take the meat along the beach. I'll go back to the platform and invite them to a feast.
That should give us time. "
Roger spoke.
"Chief – "
"Uh – ?"
"How can we make a fire?"
Jack squatted back and frowned at the pig.
"We'll raid them and take fire. There must be four of you; Henry and you, Robert and Maurice.
We'll put on paint and sneak up; Roger can snatch a branch while I say what I want. The rest
of you can get this back to where we were. We'll build the fire there. And after that--"
He paused and stood up, looking at the shadows under the trees. His voice was lower when he
spoke again.
"But we'll leave part of the kill for . . . "
He knelt down again and was busy with his knife. The boys crowded round him. He spoke
over his shoulder to Roger.
�Content
"Sharpen a stick at both ends. "
Presently he stood up, holding the dripping sow's head in his hands.
"Where's that stick?"
"Here. "
"Ram one end in the earth. Oh – it's rock. Jam it in that crack. There. "
Jack held up the head and jammed the soft throat down on the pointed end of the stick which
pierced through into the mouth. He stood back and the head hung there, a little blood dribbling
down the stick.
Instinctively the boys drew back too; and the forest was very still. They listened, and the
loudest noise was the buzzing of flies over the spilled guts.
Jack spoke in a whisper.
"Pick up the pig. "
Maurice and Robert skewered the carcass, lifted the dead weight, and stood ready. In the
silence, and standing over the dry blood, they looked suddenly furtive.
Jack spoke loudly.
"This head is for the beast. It's a gift. "
The silence accepted the gift and awed them. The head remained there, dim-eyed, grinning
faintly, blood blackening between the teeth. All at once they were running away, as fast as they
could, through the forest toward the open beach.
Simon stayed where he was, a small brown image, concealed by the leaves. Even if he shut his
eyes the sow's head still remained like an after-image. The half-shut eyes were dim with the
infinite cynicism of adult life. They assured Simon that everything was a bad business.
"I know that. "
Simon discovered that he had spoken aloud. He opened his eyes quickly and there was the
head grinning amusedly in the strange daylight, ignoring the flies, the spilled guts, even ignoring
the indignity of being spiked on a stick.
He looked away, licking his dry lips.
A gift for the beast. Might not the beast come for it? The head, he thought, appeared to agree
with him. Run away, said the head silently, go back to the others. It was a joke really--why
should you bother? You were just wrong, that's all. A little headache, something you ate,
perhaps. Go back, child, said the head silently.
Simon looked up, feeling the weight of his wet hair, and gazed at the sky. Up there, for once,
were clouds, great bulging towers that sprouted away over the island, grey and cream and
copper-colored. The clouds were sitting on the land; they squeezed, produced moment by
�Content
moment this close, tormenting heat. Even the butterflies deserted the open space where the
obscene thing grinned and dripped. Simon lowered his head, carefully keeping his eyes shut,
then sheltered them with his hand. There were no shadows under the trees but everywhere a
pearly stillness, so that what was real seemed illusive and without definition. The pile of guts
was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while these flies found Simon. Gorged,
they alighted by his runnels of sweat and drank. They tickled under his nostrils and played
leapfrog on his thighs. They were black and iridescent green and without number; and in front
of Simon, the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned. At last Simon gave up and
looked back; saw the white teeth and dim eyes, the blood--and his gaze was held by that
ancient, inescapable recognition. In Simon's right temple, a pulse began to beat on the brain.
Why did Simon, being a secret observer of the hunt, recognise the happening as
a bad business?
What was the mysterious force that turned innocent children into cruel
monsters?
Explain the symbolic role of nature description.
from The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene. Part II. Chapter 1
Over by the door the mestizo was uneasily asleep.
How little his pride had to feed on-he had celebrated only four Masses this year, and he had
heard perhaps a hundred confessions. It seemed to him that the dunce of any seminary could
have done as well ... or better. He raised himself very carefully and began to move on his
naked toes across the floor. He must get to Carmen and away again quickly before this man …
the mouth was open, showing the pale hard toothless gums: in his sleep he was grunting and
struggling; then he collapsed upon the floor and lay still.
There was a sense of abandonment, as if he had given up every struggle from now on and lay
there a victim of some power. ... The priest had only to step over his legs and push the door-it
opened outwards.
He put one leg over the body and a hand gripped his ankle. The mestizo stared up at him,
"Where are you going?"
"I want to relieve myself," the priest said.
The hand still held his ankle. "Why can’t you do it here?" the man whined at him. "What's
preventing you, father? You are a father, aren't you?"
"I have a child", the priest said, "If that's what you mean."
"You know what I mean. You understand about God, don't you?" The hot hand clung.
"Perhaps you've got him there – in a pocket. You carry him around, don't you, in case there's
anybody sick. … Well, I'm sick. Why don't you give him to me? Or do you think he wouldn't
have anything to do with me ... if he knew?"
�Content
"You're feverish."
But the man wouldn't stop. The priest was reminded of an oil-gusher which some prospectors
had once struck near Concepcion – it wasn't a good enough field apparently to justify further
operations, but there it had stood for forty-eight hours against the sky, a black fountain
spouting out of the marshy useless soil and flowing away to waste fifty thousand gallons an
hour. It was like the religious sense in man, cracking suddenly upwards, a black pillar of fumes
and impurity, running to waste. "Shall I tell you what I've done – it's your business to listen.
I've taken money from women to do you know what, and I've given money to boys ..."
"I don't want to hear."
"It's your business."
"You're mistaken."
"Oh, no, I'm not. You can’t take me in. Listen. I've given money to boys – you know what I
mean. And I've eaten meat on Fridays." The awful jumble of the gross, the trivial, and the
grotesque shot up between the two yellow fangs, and the hand on the priest's ankle shook and
shook with the fever. "I've told lies. I haven't fasted in Lent for I don't know how many years.
Once I had two women-I'll tell you what I did ..." He had an immense self-importance: he was
unable to picture a world of which he was only a typical part – a world of treachery, violence,
and lust in which his shame was altogether insignificant. How often the priest had heard the
same confession – Man was so limited: he hadn't even the ingenuity to invent a new vice: the
animals knew as much. It was for this world that Christ had died: the more evil you saw and
heard about you, the greater glory lay around the death; it was too easy to die for what was
good or beautiful, for home or children or a civilization – it needed a God to die for the
half-hearted and the corrupt. He said: "Why do you tell me all this?"
The man lay exhausted, saying nothing: he was beginning to sweat, his hand loosed its hold on
the priest's ankle. He pushed the door open and went outside – the darkness was complete.
How to find the mule? He stood listening – something howled not very far away. He was
frightened. Back in the hut the candle burned – there was an odd bubbling sound: the man was
weeping. Again he was reminded of oil land, the little black pools and the bubbles blowing
slowly up and breaking and beginning again.
The priest struck a match and walked straight forward – one, two, three paces into a tree. A
match in that immense darkness was of no more value than a firefly. He whispered: "Mula,
mula" , afraid to call out in case the half-caste heard him; besides, it was unlikely that the stupid
beast would make any reply. He hated it – the lurching mandarin head, the munching greedy
mouth, the smell of blood and ordure. He struck another match and set off again, and again
after a few paces he met a tree. Inside the hut the gaseous sound of grief went on. He had got
to get to Carmen and away before that man found a means of communicating with the police.
He began again, quartering the clearing – one, two, three, four – and then a tree. Something
moved under his foot, and he thought of scorpions. One, two, three-and suddenly the
grotesque cry of the mule came out of the dark; it was hungry, or perhaps it smelt some
animal.
�Content
It was tethered a few yards behind the hut – the candle-flame swerved out of sight. His
matches were running low, but after two more attempts he found the mule. The half-caste had
stripped it and hidden the saddle: he couldn't waste time looking any more. He mounted, and
only then realized how impossible it was to make it move without even a piece of rope round
the neck-he tried twisting at its ears, but they had no more sensitivity than door-handles: it
stood planted there like an equestrian status. He struck a match and held the flame against its
side – it struck up suddenly with its back hoofs and he dropped the match: then it was still
again, with drooping sullen head and great antediluvian haunches. A voice said accusingly:
"You are leaving me here – to die."
"Nonsense," the priest said. "I am in a hurry. You will be all right in the morning, but I can't
wait."
There was a scuffle in the darkness and then a hand gripped his naked foot. "Don't leave me
alone," the voice said. "I appeal to you – as a Christian."
"You won't come to any harm here."
"How do you know, with the gringo somewhere about?"
"I don't know anything about the gringo. I've met nobody who has seen him. Besides, he's
only a man – like one of us."
"I won't be left alone. I have an instinct ..."
"Very well," the priest said wearily, "find the saddle." When they had saddled the mule they set
off again, the mestizo holding the stirrup. They were silent – sometimes the half-caste
stumbled, and the grey false dawn began; a small coal of cruel satisfaction glowed at the back
of the priest's mind – this was Judas sick and unsteady and scared in the dark. He had only to
beat the mule on to leave him stranded in the forest – once he dug in the point of his stick and
forced it forward at a weary trot and he could feel the pull, pull of the half-caste's arm on the
stirrup, holding him back. There was a groan – it sounded like Mother of God, and he let the
mule slacken its pace. He prayed silently: God forgive me: Christ had died for this man too:
how could he pretend with his pride and lust and cowardice to be any more worthy of that
death than this half-caste? This man intended to betray him for money which he needed, and he
had betrayed God not even for real lust. He said: "Are you sick?" and there was no reply. He
dismounted and said: "Get up. I'll walk for a while."
"I'm all right," the man said in a tone of hatred.
"Better get up.’
"You think you're very fine," the man said. "Helping your enemies. That's Christian, isn't it?"
"Are you my enemy?"
"That's what you think. You think I want seven hundred pesos – that's the reward. You think a
poor man like me can't afford not to tell the police. …"
"You're feverish."
�Content
The man said in a sick voice of cunning: "You're right, of course."
"Better mount." The man nearly fell: he had to shoulder him up. He leant hopelessly down from
the mule with his mouth almost on a level with the priest's, breathing bad air into the other's
face. He said: "A poor man has no choice, father. Now if I was a rich man – only a little rich –
I should be good."
The priest suddenly – for no reason – thought of the Children of Mary eating pastries. He
giggled and said: "I doubt it – If that were goodness ..."
What metaphor does the author use to describe people’s sins?
Interpret the priest’s thoughts about God dying for the half-hearted and the
corrupt.
Why did the priest finally help the mestizo? What does it have to do with Good
Samaritan idea?
What does the mestizo mean saying A
" poor man has no choice, father. Now if I was a rich
man – only a little rich – I should be good."?
from Under the Net, by Iris Murdoch
Events stream past us like these crowds and the face of each is seen only for a minute. What is
urgent is not urgent forever, but only ephemerally. All work, and all love, the search for wealth
and fame, the search for truth, life itself, are all made up of moments which pass and become
nothing. Yet through this shaft of nothings we drive onward with that miraculous vitality that
creates our precarious habitations in the past and the future. So we live; a spirit that broods
and hovers over the continual death of time, the lost meaning, the unrecaptured moment, the
unremembered face, until the final chop that ends all our moments and plunges that spirit back
into the void from which it came.
"I hate solitude, but I'm afraid of intimacy. The substance of my life is a private conversation
with myself which to turn into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. The company
which I need is the company which a pub or a cafe will provide. I have never wanted a
communion of souls. It's already hard enough to tell the truth to oneself."
"All the time when I speak to you, even now, I'm saying not precisely what I think, but what
will impress you and make you respond. That's so even between us - and how much more it's
so where there are stronger motives for deception. In fact, one's so used to this one hardly
sees it. The whole language is a machine for making falsehoods."
"When does one ever know a human being? Perhaps only after one has realized the
�Content
impossibility of knowledge and renounced the desire for it and finally ceased to feel even the
need of it. But then what one achieves is no longer knowledge, it is simply a kind of
co-existence; and this too is one of the guises of love."
Select a quote for your commentary.
from The Collector, by John Fowles
The first time I went to look for Miranda it was a few days after I went down to Southampton
to see off Aunt Annie; May loth, to be exact. I was back in London. I hadn’t got any real plan,
and I told Aunt Annie and Mabel I might go abroad, but I didn’t truly know. Aunt Annie was
scared, really, the night before they went she had a solemn talk with me about how I wasn’t to
marry, she hoped–that is, without her meeting the bride. She said a lot about it being my
money and my life and how generous I was and all that, but I could see she was really scared I
might marry some girl and they’d lose all the money they were so ashamed of, anyway. I don’t
blame her, it was natural, especially with a daughter who’s a cripple. I think people like Mabel
should be put out painlessly, but that’s beside the point.
What I thought I would do (I already, in preparation, bought the best equipment in London)
was to go to some of the localities where there were rare species and aberrations and get
proper series. I mean turn up and stay somewhere for as long as I liked, and go out and collect
and photograph. I had driving lessons before they went and I got a special van. There were a
lot of species I wanted–the Swallowtail for instance, the Black Hairstreak and the Large Blue,
rare Fritil-laries like the Heath and the Glanville. Things most collectors only get a go at once a
lifetime. There were moths too. I thought I might take them up.
What I’m trying to say is that having her as my guest happened suddenly, it wasn’t something I
planned the moment the money came.
Well, of course with Aunt Annie and Mabel out of the way I bought all the books I wanted,
some of them I didn’t know such things existed, as a matter of fact I was disgusted, I thought
here I am stuck in a hotel room with this stuff and it’s a lot different from what I used to dream
of about Miranda and me. Suddenly I saw I’d thought myself into thinking her completely gone
out of my life, as if we didn’t live within a few miles of each other (I was moved into the hotel
in Paddington then) and I hadn’t anyhow got all the time in the world to find out where she
lived. It was easy, I looked up the Slade School of Art in the telephone directory, and I waited
outside one morning in the van. The van was the one really big luxury I gave myself. It had a
special fitting in the back compartment, a camp bed you could let down and sleep in; I bought
it to carry all my equipment for when I moved round the country, and also I thought if I got a
van I wouldn’t always have to be taking Aunt Annie and Mabel around when they came back. I
didn’t buy it for the reason I did use it for. The whole idea was sudden, like a stroke of genius
almost.
�Content
The first morning I didn’t see her, but the next day at last I did. She came out with a lot of
other students, mostly young men. My heart beat very fast and I felt sick. I had the camera all
ready, but I couldn’t dare use it. She was just the same; she had a light way of walking and she
always wore flat heels so she didn’t have that mince like most girls. She didn’t think at all
about the men when she moved. Like a bird. All the time she was talking to a young man with
black hair, cut very short with a little fringe, very artistic-looking. There were six of them, but
then she and the young man crossed the street. I got out of the van and followed them. They
didn’t go far, into a coffee-bar.
I went into that coffee-bar, suddenly, I don’t know why, like I was drawn in by something else,
against my will almost. It was full of people, students and artists and such-like; they mostly had
that beatnik look. I remember there were weird faces and things on the walls. It was supposed
to be African, I think.
There were so many people and the noise and I felt so nervous I didn’t see her at first. She
was sitting in a second loom at the back. I sat on a stool at the counter where I could watch. I
didn’t dare look very often and the light in the other room wasn’t very good.
Then she was standing right next me. I was pretending to read a newspaper so I didn’t see her
get up. I felt my face was red, I stared at the words but I couldn’t read, I daren’t look the
smallest look–she was there almost touching me. She was in a check dress, dark blue and
white it was, her arms brown and bare, her hair all loose down her back.
She said, "Jenny, we’re absolutely broke, be an angel and let us have two cigarettes." The girl
behind the counter said, "Not again," or something, and she said, "Tomorrow, I swear," and
then, "Bless you," when the girl gave her two. It was all over in five seconds, she was back
with the young man, but hearing her voice turned her from a sort of dream person to a real one.
I can’t say what was special in her voice. Of course it was very educated, but it wasn’t
la-di-da, it wasn’t slimy, she didn’t beg the cigarettes or like demand them, she just asked for
them in an easy way and you didn’t have any class feeling. She spoke like she walked, as you
might say.
I paid as quick as possible and went back to the van and the Cremorne and my room. I was
really upset. It was partly that she had to borrow cigarettes because she had no money and I
had sixty thousand pounds (I gave Aunt Annie ten) ready to lay at her feet–because that is how
I felt. I felt I would do anything to know her, to please her, to be her friend, to be able to watch
her openly, not spy on her. To show how I was, I put five five-pound notes I had on me in an
envelope and addressed it to Miss Miranda Grey, the Slade School of Art . . . only of course I
didn’t post it. I would have if I could have seen her face when she opened it.
How does the author present Frederick’s feelings?
Do you recognise a maniac or a man in love in him?
Can you tell one from the other?
�Content
Development of Poetry
Modernism and Experimentation of the beginning of the 20th century continued in the richly
metaphorical poetry of the Welsh author Dylan Thomas (1914–1953), whose almost mystical
love of life and understanding of death were expressed in some of the most beautiful verse of
the middle of the century. His sensual imagery and complex poetic technique contrasted
favourably with the more common, socially oriented verse of his contemporaries. Thomas was
much influenced by the Bible, Metphysical Poetry, William Blake, Freud and Jung, creating
symbolic poems ful of Christian allusions, biological and bodily imagery.
Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), often referred to as C. G. Jung, was a
Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology.
Jung proposed and developed the concepts of extraversion and introversion;
archetypes, and the collective unconscious. His work has been influential in
psychiatry and in the study of religion, philosophy, archeology,
anthropology, literature, and related fields. He was a prolific writer, many of whose works were
not published until after his death.
After Thomas's death in 1953, a new generation of British poets emerged, some influenced by
him and some reacting against his influence. These poets became known as The Movement
and sought to appeal to the common reader with a nonsentimental poetry of the everyday,
written in colloquial language.
The Movement was a term coined in 1954 by J. D. Scott, literary editor of
The Spectator, to describe a group of writers including Philip Larkin, Ted
Hughes, Kingsley Amis, Donald Davie, D. J. Enright, John Wain, Elizabeth
Jennings, Thom Gunn, and Robert Conquest. The Movement The Movement
poets were considered anti-romantic, however Larkin and Hughes used romantic elements.
They rejected the Neo-Romanticism of Dylan Thomas’s poetry and the experimentation of
Modernists. To these poets, good poetry meant simple, traditional content and dignified form.
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) often wrote of deprivation and absence. His recurrent theme is
unfulfilled ambitions. Reality betrays expectation and produces disappointment. A mood of
defeat, pessimism and boredom pervades Larkin’s works. Flashes of ironic, often dark
humour are the only source of relief in his grim universe.
Ted Hughes (1930–1998), whose poetry is noted for its depiction of the cruelty of life,
became one of England’s most significant poets and was made Poet Laureate in 1984. Hughes
is considered to be a difficult poet. His original stress patterns, peculiar use of symbols and the
boldness and stricking quality of his language recall the Metaphysical Poets. He has been
described as a poet of pessimism and violence who, with blunt imagery, explores the darker
side of human nature and the condition of man trapped by God and Nature.
�Content
Prominent British poets of the late 20th century included Craig Raine (born 1944), Wendy
Cope (born 1945), James Fenton (born 1949), and Seamus Heaney (1939–2013).
Raine’s early collection, A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979), brings a fresh viewpoint
to many topics. Wendy Cope’s witty insights appear in Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis
(1986). Fenton’s collection Out of Danger (1994) covers love, war, and the political violence
he encountered as a war correspondent in southeast Asia.
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. In his early collections
of poems Death of a Naturalist (1966) and Door into the Dark (1969) Heaney portrays rural
life in simple lyrical language. He celebrates common people, their daily routines and the
rhythms of seasonal life.
In his later works Heaney analyses the violent past and troubled present of Ireland, his
motherland. His main message is peace, his main attitude is compassion.
Although Heaney’s poetry appears simple in its language and rhythm, its structure and
references are often complex.
Text
Do not go gentle into that good night, by Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
How do you interpret the message of the repeated lines in the poem?
Do you like the author’s idea about the resistance a man should put up to
death?
When I was a child, I thought,
Casually, that solitude
Never needed to be sought.
Something everybody had,
Like nakedness, it lay at hand,
Best Society, by Philip Larkin0
Much better stay in company!
To love you must have someone else,
Giving requires a legatee,
Good neighbours need whole parishfuls
Of folk to do it on - in short,
�Content
Not specially right or specially wrong,
A plentiful and obvious thing
Not at all hard to understand.
Our virtues are all social; if,
Deprived of solitude, you chafe,
It's clear you're not the virtuous sort.
Then, after twenty, it became
At once more difficult to get
And more desired - though all the same
More undesirable; for what
You are alone has, to achieve
The rank of fact, to be expressed
In terms of others, or it's just
A compensating make-believe.
Viciously, then, I lock my door.
The gas-fire breathes. The wind outside
Ushers in evening rain. Once more
Uncontradicting solitude
Supports me on its giant palm;
And like a sea-anemone
Or simple snail, there cautiously
Unfolds, emerges, what I am.
How does the concept of solitude develop with age? Can you think of another
phase in its development unmentioned in the poem?
Old Age Gets Up, by Ted Hughes
Stirs its ashes and embers, its burnt sticks
An eye powdered over, half melted and solid again
Ponders
Ideas that collapse
At the first touch of attention
The light at the window, so square and so same
So full-strong as ever, the window frame
A scaffold in space, for eyes to lean on
Supporting the body, shaped to its old work
Making small movements in gray air
Numbed from the blurred accident
Of having lived, the fatal, real injury
Under the amnesia
Something tries to save itself-searches
For defenses-but words evade
Like flies with their own notions
Old age slowly gets dressed
Heavily dosed with death's night
�Content
Sits on the bed's edge
Pulls its pieces together
Loosely tucks in its shirt
Compare this poem with the poem by Dylan Thomas about old age and death.
What do they tell us about the authors’ outlooks?
When all the others were away at Mass, by Seamus Heaney
When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other's work would bring us to our senses.
So while the parish priest at her bedside
Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
And some were responding and some crying
I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knivesNever closer the whole rest of our lives.
Who are the characters of the poem? What are these moment when we feel
particularly close to friends or loved ones? Give you own examples.
�Content
Development of Drama
Beginning in the 1950s the so-called Angry Young Men became a new conspicuous
movement in English drama. The plays of such dramatists as John Osborne (1929–1994),
Allan Sillitoe (1928–2010), Colin Wilson (1931–2013), Arnold Wesker (born 1932) ,
Shelagh Delaney (1938–2011), and John Arden (1930–2012) became extremely popular as
they reflected the moods of post-war middle class young people.
It was in the 1950s when "the angry young men" were graduating from new democratic
universities. Having received their degrees, they were thrown into empty boring existence with
no promise of change. They either started running small stores, or became teachers at schools
and provincial universities. At their homes there was dull monotony. They had a lot of
prejudices and no dreams. The only pleasure after a long hard day was a mug of cold beer.
Young people declared themselves "lost"and "betrayed", which made them angry and exasperated,
and they poured their hate and curses on each and every one.
The one thing that unites the writers of the Angry Young Men is the hero. No matter how
different the heroes of those works looked, all of them are young people belonging to middle
class intellectuals. Their life is made up of actions, not quite honest and decent, and it is always
determined by the infinite boredom, the sense of emptiness. Nothing thrills and excites them.
The main characters of Osborn’s Look Back in Anger (1956) Jimmy Porter "is
a tall, thin young man of about 25; wearing a very worn tweed jacket and
flannels. He is a disconcerting mixture of sincerity and cheerful malice, of
tenderness and freebooting cruelty; restless, importunate, full of pride, a
combination which alienates the sensitive and insensitive alike. To many he
may seem sensitive to the point of vulgarity. To others he is simply a loudmouth".
The plot of the play is not important. It is one of Osborne’s new devices in dramatic art. Look
Back in Anger is a play in which the personal theme of Jimmy Porter stands above action. The
events take place in Porter’s one-room flat in a large Midland town. Jimmy is sitting in an
armchair reading a paper. Alison, his wife, is ironing in the middle of the room. The picture is
ordinary and quite familiar. There are a lot of Jimmy’s monologues in the play, revealing his
attitude to life. Jimmy’s speeches are full of irritation. Often his anger takes the form of
swearing: "God, how I hate Sundays! It is always so depressing, always the same. We never
seem to get any further, do we? Always the same ritual. Reading the papers, drinking tea,
ironing. A few more hours, and another week is gone. Our youth is slipping away… let’s
pretend we are human beings , and that we are actually alive". … "Oh, brother, it’s such a
long time since I was with anyone who got enthusiastic about anything. … nobody thinks,
nobody cares. No beliefs, no convictions and no enthusiasm. Just another Sunday evening".
Jimmy’s speeches disclose the development of the main idea which permeates the whole play.
Jimmy hates the established order of things, but proposes no way out. Jimmy’s retreat into his
own inner world makes him a self-pitying egoist. Jimmy protests against religion, against
H-bomb, but achieves nothing. His bitterness and cruelty come from his demand for
recognition. That is why much of his anger is turned against Alison, his wife. His life becomes
�Content
a continuous attack on Alison, because of their misunderstanding. As a result, he ruins their
love, and she leaves him.
Alison’s friend, Helena, appears to be fascinated by Jimmy. But with Helena life seems to take
a very similar pattern. Nevertheless, at the end of the play Alison returns to Jimmy. They are
together again. They invent an amusing game: he is a bear, and she is a squirrel. It helps them
to escape from reality into their own lonely world.
The forthright language and strong emotions in Osborn’s play shocked the audience who had
been used to genteel conversation and refined behaviour.
Outside the literary mainstream was the Irish-born dramatist Samuel Beckett
(1906–1989), recipient in 1969 of the Nobel Prize in literature. Long a resident
in France, he wrote his laconic, ambiguously symbolic works in French and
translated them himself into English.
Beckett followed the example of Eugene Ionesco, who was one of the
representatives of the Theatre of the Absurd.
Eugène Ionesco (1909–1994) was a Romanian playwright who wrote
mostly in French, and one of the foremost figures of the French
Avant-garde theatre. Beyond ridiculing the most banal situations, Ionesco's
plays in a tangible way depict the solitude and insignificance of human
existence.
The term absurd stands for the unreasonable and illogical. The playwrights describe the absurd
elements of the human condition: "Cut off from religious roots, man is lost: all his actions have
become senseless, absurd, useless".
The idea that life was basically inexplicable gave dramatists great freedom to use the stage and
language as they pleased. The plays were absurd because they did not have a plot and the
dialogues were often dull and difficult to follow. Beckett in his most famous play Waiting for
Godot (1953) gives up traditional plot and setting and leaves his characters on a stage which is
completely bare except for a tree. Thus the audience is not distracted by the surroundings and
can concentrate on the dialogue.
In the play two homeless men are waiting for the enigmatic Godot. To pass the time they tell
jokes, play games, eat, sleep and speculate about God. When it is clear that Godot will not
arrive they consider suicide, but then simply decide to leave. The play ends with the two
characters motionless as they stare vacantly into the emptiness of the audience.
Beckett reduces down to the minimum relations, systems of thoughts and language in human
existence. The meaning of people’s lives is unknown to Beckett’s characters, but they continue
to fight, argue, love and consider existence and God. They speak in such bare terms that
Beckett, as he himself declared, shows us the absurdity even of speaking in our modern world,
each word being "an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness".
�Content
In his later works Beckett continued to push the boundaries of playwriting. In his works there
is almost no characterization, or plot, or final solution. They have dark and recurring themes:
man’s struggle against the futility of life, his sense of loneliness and boredom, and the
impossibility of establishing communication with others. People’s alienation is expressed in
such a language that does not help them to achieve meaningful communication.
Beckett’s experimental plays greatly influenced such British playwrights Harold Pinter and Tom
Stoppard.
The new ground that was broken by playwrights such as Beckett and Osborne opened the way
for one of the greatest periods in the history of English drama. The abolition of censorship and
the building of a National Theatre were just two steps on the road to the creation of a theatre
industry. Thanks to television and films, leading writers could make their works known to very
large audiences.
Both English and American audiences have enthusiastically received the plays of Joe Orton
(1933–1967) and Tom Stoppard (born 1937).
Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1964), Loot (1967), and What the Butler Saw (1969) are
farces dealing with the perverseness of modern morality.
Dazzling verbal ingenuity distinguishes Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
(1966). He took two minor characters from Hamlet and turned them into the protagonists of a
highly modern tragicomedy in which the language ranges from Shakespearian to music hall
banter. The portrayal of the city of Zurich and the lives of some of its famous inhabitants in
Travesties (1974) also achieved critical acclaim, as did the screenplay for the oscar-winning
film, Shakespeare in Love (1998). Stoppard’s inventiveness continued in his later plays that
explore such ideas as quantum mechanics, entropy, nature’s tendency toward disorder:
Hapgood (1988) and Arcadia (1993). Stoppard’s trilogy, The Coast of Utopia (2002),
chronicled conflicting views among radicals in 19th-century tsarist Russia.
Harold Pinter (1930–2008) along with Tom Stoppard is generally recognised as the leading
playwright of his day. His plays are characterised by a unique form of dialogue which is based
on simple staightforward colloquial speech. The dialogue often reveals how difficult it is for
characters to communicate with one another. This is evident in one of Pinter’s finest plays,
The Caretaker (1959), in which three slightly mentally unstable men indulge in irrational
conversations, as they argue about who of the three should leave their very small flat. Ponter
also wrote widely and very successfully for radio, television and film.
Michael Frayn (born 1933), best-known for his comedy Noises Off (1981) about the
theater, based the play Copenhagen (1998) on a 1941 meeting between two physicists
involved in atom-bomb research on opposite sides during World War II.
Alan Bennett (born 1934) has achieved popularity through the medium of television, in
particular thanks to the success of a series of six monologues called Talking Heads (1990).
Of his plays, two of the most successful centre around the world of espionage during the Cold
War. Both The Old Country (1978) and An Englishman Abroad (1983) are about British
�Content
spies in the Soviet Union. Much of Bennett’s appeal to contemporary audiences lies in his use
of clever satirical comedy in plays like The Madness of George III (1994).
Other important British dramatists of the late century included Alan Ayckbourn (born 1939),
Caryl Churchill (born 1938), and David Hare (1947).
Ayckbourn wrote farcical dramas about middle-class anxieties, including Absurd Person
Singular (1973) and Communicating Doors (1995). His comedies, set in middle-class
suburbia, take a very sarcastic look at supposedly normal lifestyles.
Churchill focused on gender and economics in provocative plays such as Cloud 9 (1979) and
Serious Money (1987) and presented a bleak future of barbarism in Far Away (2000).
Churchill is known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes,
dramatisation of the abuses of power, and exploration of sexual politics.
Hare’s politically engaged plays include Plenty (1978), a satire about postwar Britain, and The
Judas Kiss (1998) about the downfall of playwright Oscar Wilde.
Text
from Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett. Act II.
Estragon and Vladimir are two tramps waiting for the arrival of a certain Godot. They give
no reason why they are waiting. Even their staying together does not seem to be based on
any impelling reason: are they friends, or are they just together out of habit, or because they
can think of nothing else to do?
A boy appears in the play as a messenger of Godot.
BOY: Mister . . . (Vladimir turns.) Mister Albert . . .
VLADIMIR: Off we go again. (Pause.) Do you not recognize me?
BOY: No Sir.
VLADIMIR: It wasn't you came yesterday.
BOY: No Sir.
VLADIMIR: This is your first time.
BOY: Yes Sir.
Silence.
VLADIMIR: You have a message from Mr. Godot.
BOY: Yes Sir.
VLADIMIR: He won't come this evening.
BOY: No Sir.
VLADIMIR: But he'll come tomorrow.
BOY: Yes Sir.
VLADIMIR: Without fail.
BOY: Yes Sir.
�Content
Silence.
VLADIMIR: Did you meet anyone?
BOY: No Sir.
VLADIMIR: Two other . . . (he hesitates) . . . men?
BOY: I didn't see anyone, Sir.
Silence.
VLADIMIR: What does he do, Mr. Godot? (Silence.) Do you hear me?
BOY: Yes Sir.
VLADIMIR: Well?
BOY: He does nothing, Sir.
Silence.
VLADIMIR: How is your brother?
BOY: He's sick, Sir.
VLADIMIR: Perhaps it was he came yesterday.
BOY: I don't know, Sir.
Silence.
VLADIMIR: (softly). Has he a beard, Mr. Godot?
BOY: Yes Sir.
VLADIMIR: Fair or . . . (he hesitates) . . . or black?
BOY: I think it's white, Sir.
Silence.
VLADIMIR: Christ have mercy on us!
Silence.
BOY: What am I to tell Mr. Godot, Sir?
VLADIMIR: Tell him . . . (he hesitates) . . . tell him you saw me and that . . . (he hesitates) . . .
that you saw me. (Pause. Vladimir advances, the Boy recoils. Vladimir halts, the Boy halts.
With sudden violence.) You're sure you saw me, you won't come and tell me tomorrow that
you never saw me! (Silence. Vladimir makes a sudden spring forward, the Boy avoids him and
exits running. Silence. The sun sets, the moon rises. As in Act 1. Vladimir stands motionless
and bowed. Estragon wakes, takes off his boots, gets up with one in each hand and goes and
puts them down center front, then goes towards Vladimir.)
ESTRAGON: What's wrong with you?
VLADIMIR: Nothing.
ESTRAGON: I'm going.
VLADIMIR: So am I.
ESTRAGON: Was I long asleep?
VLADIMIR: I don't know.
Silence.
ESTRAGON: Where shall we go?
VLADIMIR: Not far.
ESTRAGON: Oh yes, let's go far away from here.
VLADIMIR: We can't.
�Content
ESTRAGON: Why not?
VLADIMIR: We have to come back tomorrow.
ESTRAGON: What for?
VLADIMIR: To wait for Godot.
ESTRAGON: Ah! (Silence.) He didn't come?
VLADIMIR: No.
ESTRAGON: And now it's too late.
VLADIMIR: Yes, now it's night.
ESTRAGON: And if we dropped him? (Pause.) If we dropped him?
VLADIMIR: He'd punish us. (Silence. He looks at the tree.) Everything's dead but the tree.
ESTRAGON: (looking at the tree). What is it?
VLADIMIR: It's the tree.
ESTRAGON: Yes, but what kind?
VLADIMIR: I don't know. A willow.
Estragon draws Vladimir towards the tree. They stand motionless before it. Silence.
ESTRAGON: Why don't we hang ourselves?
VLADIMIR: With what?
ESTRAGON: You haven't got a bit of rope?
VLADIMIR: No.
ESTRAGON: Then we can't.
Silence.
VLADIMIR: Let's go.
ESTRAGON: Wait, there's my belt.
VLADIMIR: It's too short.
ESTRAGON: You could hang onto my legs.
VLADIMIR: And who'd hang onto mine?
ESTRAGON: True.
VLADIMIR: Show me all the same. (Estragon loosens the cord that holds up his trousers
which, much too big for him, fall about his ankles. They look at the cord.) It might do in a
pinch. But is it strong enough?
ESTRAGON: We'll soon see. Here.
They each take an end of the cord and pull. It breaks. They almost fall.
VLADIMIR: Not worth a curse.
Silence.
ESTRAGON: You say we have to come back tomorrow?
VLADIMIR: Yes.
ESTRAGON: Then we can bring a good bit of rope.
VLADIMIR: Yes.
Silence.
ESTRAGON: Didi?
VLADIMIR: Yes.
ESTRAGON: I can't go on like this.
�Content
VLADIMIR: That's what you think.
ESTRAGON: If we parted? That might be better for us.
VLADIMIR: We'll hang ourselves tomorrow. (Pause.) Unless Godot comes.
ESTRAGON: And if he comes?
VLADIMIR: We'll be saved.
Vladimir takes off his hat (Lucky's), peers inside it, feels about inside it, shakes it, knocks on
the crown, puts it on again.
ESTRAGON: Well? Shall we go?
VLADIMIR: Pull on your trousers.
ESTRAGON: What?
VLADIMIR: Pull on your trousers.
ESTRAGON: You want me to pull off my trousers?
VLADIMIR: Pull ON your trousers.
ESTRAGON: (realizing his trousers are down). True.
He pulls up his trousers.
VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go?
ESTRAGON: Yes, let's go.
They do not move.
Curtain.
Find elements of the absurd in the passage.
Does the author mean Godot to be God?
What is the message of the play?
�Content
Reference List
Selected Bibliography:
1. Elements of Literature, Literature of England. – Holt, Reinhart & Winston. – 1989.
2. Kenneth Broadey, Fabio Malgaretti. Focus on English and American Literature. – Москва
: Айрис пресс. – 2003.
3. The Wordsworth Companion to Literature in English. – Wordsworth Edition Ltd. – 1994.
4. Denis Delaney, Ciaran Ward, Carla Rho Fiorina. Fields of Vision. Literature in the English
language. Volumes I, II. – Pearson Education Limited. Longman. – 2007.
5. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Third Edition. – Oxford University Press.
– 2004.
6. English and American Literature: A course of Lectures. Английская и американская
литература : курс лекций для школьников старших классов и студентов. – СанктПетербург : Учитель и ученик, КОРОНА-принт. – 2002.
7. What is the English We Read. Универсальная хрестоматия текстов на английском
языке / сост. Т. Н. Шишкина, Т. В. Леденева, М. А. Юрченко. – Москва : Проспект. –
2006.
8. Тумбина, О. В. Lectures on English Literature. Лекции по английской литературе V–
XX веков. – Санкт-Петербург : КАРО. – 2003.
9. Teachers & Students’ Guide to the British Literature : методическое пособие по
истории британской литературы для учителей и учащихся / сост. Н. Н. Часовая. –
Москва : Айрис-пресс. – 2002.
10. Guide to English and American Literature : учебное пособие по английской и
американской литературе / сост. О. В. Зубанова. – Москва : Менеджер. – 2004.
Internet Resources:
1. Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим
доступа: http://www.luminarium.org
2. About.com. Classic Literature. A History of English Literature by Robert Huntington
Fletcher [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://classiclit.about.com/library/bletexts/rfletcher/bl-rfletcher-history-table.htm
3. A brief history of English literature [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://
www.universalteacher.org.uk/lit/history.htm
4. History World. HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE [Электронный ресурс]. –
Режим доступа: http://historyworld.net/wrldhis/plaintexthistories.asp?historyid=aa08
5. Literarism. The Republic of Letters. English literature [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим
доступа: http://literarism.blogspot.ru
6. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://
en.wikipedia.org
�Content
7. Wikisource, the free library [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://
en.wikisource.org
8. Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа:
http://en.academic.ru
9. Bartleby.com: Great Books Online [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://
bartleby.com
10. Encyclopedia.com. Free Online Encyclopedia [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим
доступа: http://www.encyclopedia.com
11. Internet Encyclopedia of Philisophy [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://
www.iep.utm.edu
12. GradeSaver. Study Guide and essay Editing [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа:
http://www.gradesaver.com
13. Bookrags. Study Guide [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа:
http://
www.bookrags.com
14. Dictionary.com
[Электронный
ресурс].
–
Режим
доступа:
http://
dictionary.reference.com
15. Study Guides, Lesson Plans, Homework Help, Answers & More [Электронный
ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://www.enotes.com
16. Free Essays, Term Paper, Research Paper, and Book Report [Электронный ресурс]. –
Режим доступа: http://www.123helpme.com
17. Answers. The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life’s Questions [Электронный
ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://www.answers.com
18. E-Libra.ru. Электронная библиотека [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа:
http://e-libra.ru/read
19. Book Drum [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа: http://www.bookdrum.com
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Шевченко, Людмила Леонидовна
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
History of English Literature (from Romanticism to Modern Period)
Subject
The topic of the resource
1. Литературоведение. 2. Литература Европы — Великобритания — 18 в. — 19 в. — 20 в. 3. английская литература. 4. литературные жанры. 5. анализ художественного текста. 6. английские писатели. 7. английские поэты. 8. английский язык.
Description
An account of the resource
History of English Literature (from Romanticism to Modern Period) [Электронный ресурс] : учебное пособие / Л. Л. Шевченко. — 1 компьютерный файл (pdf; 22.9 MB). — Барнаул : АлтГПУ, 2016. — 236 с.
Учебное пособие предлагает материал для подготовки и проведения практических занятий по дисциплине «История литературы страны изучаемого языка». В нем представлен теоретический материал, охватывающий основные периоды английской литературы с конца 18 века по 20 век и включающий сведения о направлениях в развитии литературных жанров, авторах и их произведениях. В пособие включены тексты произведений, которые сопровождаются комментариями, вопросами и практическими заданиями, направленными на формирование у студентов навыков интерпретации и анализа художественного текста. В пособии даются определения изучаемых литературоведческих, культурологических и философских понятий, а также дополнительные сведения о персоналиях и событиях изучаемых эпох, которые позволят студентам расширить их кругозор. Материал данного учебного пособия может быть использован студентами при подготовке к экзамену по изучаемой дисциплине.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Шевченко, Людмила Леонидовна
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Алтайский государственный педагогический университет, 2016
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Алтайский государственный педагогический университет
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
30.05.2016
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
©Алтайский государственный педагогический университет, 2016
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf, exe
Language
A language of the resource
русский
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Учебное пособие
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
<a href="http://library.altspu.ru/dc/pdf/shevchenko1.pdf">http://library.altspu.ru/dc/pdf/shevchenko1.pdf</a><br /><a href="http://library.altspu.ru/dc/exe/shevchenko1.exe">http://library.altspu.ru/dc/exe/shevchenko1.exe</a>
анализ художественного текста
английская литература
английские писатели7английские поэты
английский язык
Литература Европы — Великобритания — 18 в. — 19 в. — 20 в.
литературные жанры
Литературоведение
-
http://books.altspu.ru/files/original/38/116/_[650].png
a534a9d55c0d9a7b4bb7a8c62ca6169b
http://books.altspu.ru/files/original/38/116/Shevchenko[_].pdf
29bb6196849b266e92622bd35405dfca
PDF Text
Text
Содержание
�Содержание
Об издании
Основной титульный экран
Дополнительный титульный экран непериодического издания – 1
Дополнительный титульный экран непериодического издания – 2
�Содержание
МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ
Федеральное государственное бюджетное образовательное учреждение
высшего образования
«Алтайский государственный педагогический университет»
(ФГБОУ ВО «АлтГПУ»)
The Outline of English Literature
Учебно-методическое пособие
Барнаул
ФГБОУ ВО «АлтГПУ»
2018
Об издании - 1, 2, 3.
�Содержание
УДК 821(091)(420)(075)
ББК 83.3(4Вел)я73
О-93
The Outline of English Literature [Электронный ресурс] : учебно-методическое пособие / сост.
Л. Л. Шевченко, И. Ю. Кочешкова, – Барнаул : АлтГПУ, 2018. – Систем. требования: PC не ниже
класса Intel Celeron 2 ГГц ; 512 Мb RAM ; Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10 ; Adobe Acrobat Reader ; SVGA
монитор с разрешением 1024х768 ; мышь.
Рецензент:
Шляхова М.М., кандидат филологических наук, доцент Алтайского государственного педагогического
университета
В пособии предлагается материал для подготовки и проведения практических занятий по
дисциплинам «История литературы страны изучаемого языка», «История литературы
Великобритании». Теоретический материал охватывает основные периоды английской литературы с
древних времен по XX век и включает сведения о направлениях в развитии литературных жанров,
авторах и их произведениях. Пособие содержит вопросы для семинарских занятий, глоссарий
изучаемых литературоведческих и культурологических понятий, список художественной литературы
для самостоятельного чтения.
Учебно-методическое пособие предназначено для студентов, обучающихся по направлению
«Лингвистика», профиль «Перевод и переводоведение» и «Педагогическое образование», профиль
«Английский язык» по очно-заочной и заочной форме обучения.
Рекомендовано к изданию редакционно-издательским советом АлтГПУ 29.03.2018 г.
Текстовое (символьное) электронное издание.
Системные требования:
PC не ниже класса Intel Celeron 2 ГГц ; 512 Мb RAM ; Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10 ; Adobe Acrobat Reader ;
SVGA монитор с разрешением 1024х768 ; мышь.
Об издании - 1, 2, 3.
�Содержание
Электронное издание создано при использовании программного обеспечения Sunrav BookOffice.
Объём издания – 1 080 КБ.
Дата подписания к использованию: 18.06.2018
Федеральное государственное бюджетное образовательное учреждение высшего образования
«Алтайский государственный педагогический университет» (ФГБОУ ВО «АлтГПУ»)
ул. Молодежная, 55, г. Барнаул, 656031
Тел. (385-2) 36-82-71, факс (385-2) 24-18-72
е-mail: rector@altspu.ru, http://www.altspu.ru
Об издании - 1, 2, 3.
�Содержание
Contents
Introduction
Section 1. The Outline of English Literature.
Anglo-Saxon Literature. English Literature in the Middle Ages
English Literature in the Time of Renaissance and in the Time of Puritan Revolution and Restoration
English Literature in the Enlightenment Period
English Romanticism
English Literature in the Victorian Period
English Literature of the 20th Century
Section 2. Seminars
Seminar 1. Anglo-Saxon Literature. English Literature in the Middle Ages
Seminar 2. Renaissance Poetry and Prose
Seminar 3. Renaissance Drama
Seminar 4. English Literature in the 17-18th centuries (Enlightenment)
Seminar 5. Romantic Poetry and Prose
Seminar 6. Victorian Poetry and Prose
Seminar 7. The 20th century. Modernism
Glossary of Literary Terms
Reading List
Selected Bibliography
�Содержание
Introduction
There are many reasons to study literature. Alongside with other forms of art literature participates in the mighty task
of rendering people’s lives, minds and hearts. Human experience contained in the works of literature is a vast
continuum of information from which we can benefit in various ways. We read books for educational purposes,
intellectual training, escape and enjoyment. We also read books because they can help us better understand what we
are.
For centuries people have accumulated and verified knowledge of human, the best works of literature being the
quintessence of all intellectual and spiritual achievements of their time. Studying History of Literature we can observe
culture in progress. Referring every single literary work to a particular epoch we can interpret its message in a broader
context of human evolution. We can observe the development of literary forms against the historical, social,
ideological, religious and all other kinds of changes. History and literature are inextricably intertwined. History is about
people who were products of their time with their own value systems. Study of literature enhances our appreciation of
history’s complexity, which in turn expands our appreciation of present political, social and cultural complexities and
better equips us to predict and prepare for the future.
This book offers a brief overview of the English literature from the Anglo-Saxon period till the 20th century.
The periods of English literature are presented chronologically. The general framework of each part in Section 1
follows a similar pattern. It includes an outline of historical, cultural and literary context, information on authors’ life
and work, contents of their major books. Section 2 gives Seminar questions (those marked with asterisk are meant
for individual study) and topics for presentations. It is followed by the Glossary of literary terms and the Reading
list. It is highly recommended to read all the suggested books before the beginning of the course.
�Содержание
Glossary of Literary Terms
Allegory is a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative
treatment of one subject under the guise of another; a symbolical narrative (E.g. Piers Plowman).
Alliteration (also known as “head rhyme” or “initial rhyme”), the repetition of the same sounds – usually initial
consonants of words or of stressed syllables – in any sequence of neighbouring words. Now an optional and
incidental decorative effect in verse or prose, it was once a required element in the poetry of Germanic languages.
Such poetry, in which alliteration rather than rhyme is the chief principle of repetition, is known as alliterative verse.
Ballad (Latin: ballare – to dance) is a songlike poem that was a popular verse form in the Middle Ages.
Blank verse is unrhymed poems.
Chivalric Romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that recounts the deeds of knights, ladies, and noble
families seeking honor, love, and adventure. The genre was popular in the aristocratic circles of Medieval Europe.
Comedy of Manners is a play satirising society’s manners. The Restoration comedy of manners reflected the life of
the Court, which was portrayed as being immoral, corrupt, shameless but also elegant, witty and intelligent. Its main
targets of criticism were middle-class values, conventions, hypocrisy and above all the institution of marriage.
Elegy (elegiac poem) is a mournful poem, typically a lament for the dead.
Epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serioussubject containing details of
heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation.
Epigram is a brief poem praising or making fun of either real or fictitious person.
Epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries,
newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic “documents” such as recordings
and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use. The epistolary form can add greater realism to a story.
Epitaph is a brief poem on a dead person.
Essay is a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic,
speculative, or interpretative.
Fables are usually short narratives making an edifying or cautionary point and often employing as characters animals
that speak and act like humans.
Fabliaux (singular: Fabliau) were funny metrical poems, full of indecent jokes, about cunning humbugs, silly old
merchants and their unfaithful wives. Together with fables fabliaux represented the literature of the town which did not
idealize characters as romances did.
Foot is the basic unit of metre which consists of one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables.
Heroic tragedy is a type of play popular during the Restoration era. Like a heroic poem or an epic, it is generally
built around a hero, a king, prince, or an army general, who faces the conflict placed between love and honour.
Heroic tragedy is composed in heroic verse (closed couplets in iambic pentameter).
Kenning is a type of literary trope, specifically circumlocution, in the form of a compound (usually two words, often
hyphenated) that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly
associated with Old Norse and later Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon poetry.
Metre is the regular arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables.
�Содержание
Modernism is the deliberate departure from tradition and the use of innovative forms of expression that distinguish
many styles in the arts and literature of the 1900s.
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music,
and architecture that draw inspiration from the “classical” art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome. The
main Neoclassical movement coincided with the 18th century Age of Enlightenment.
Pamphlet is an unbound booklet (i.e. without a hard cover or binding). During the 17–18th centuries religious dogma
and political issues were publicly debated in the form of pamphlets.
Pastoral poetry and prose speaks of light loves and labors of shepherds in idyllic country settings.
Picaresque novel (Spanish: “picaresca”, from “pícaro”, for “rogue” or “rascal”) is a genre of prose fiction which
depicts the adventures of a low social class hero, often criminal or dishonest, who lives by his wits in a corrupt
society. This style of novel originated in 16th century Spain and flourished throughout Europe in the 17th and 18th
centuries.
Refrain is a phrase, verse, or group of verses repeated at intervals throughout a song or poem, especially at the end
of each stanza.
Satire is a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or
ridicule.
Scop – was an Anglo-Saxon poet who was appointed by the early Germanic kings or soldiers to entertain them by
reciting poetry to the accompaniment of a harp or another stringed instrument. From the Old English word
“scieppan”, scop means “to create, form or shape”.
Sonnet is a lyric poems that is 14 lines long falling into three quatrains and a concluding couplet.
Tone is a literary technique that encompasses the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a
literary work. Tone may be formal, informal, intimate, solemn, somber, playful, serious, ironic, condescending, or
many other possible attitudes.
Treatise is a formal and systematic exposition in writing of the principles of a subject, generally longer and more
detailed than an essay.
Troubadours (English: minstrels) were a class of musicians and poets who wrote poems and music about chivalry
and love. They were medieval traveling entertainers who would sing and recite poetry to make a living.
Utopia is a community or society possessing highly desirable or near perfect qualities. The term is also used to
describe imagined societies portrayed in fiction.
�Содержание
Reading List
Poetry and drama:
1. Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales.
2. Английские и шотландские баллады / Пер. С. Маршака; Ред. Н.Г. Елиной, В.М. Жирмунского.
3. William Shakespeare.
•
Sonnets 18, 29, 44, 55, 106, 116, 130, 132, 137, 139, 141, 143, 146, 147.
•
Plays: Hamlet; Romeo and Juliet; Othello; Macbeth; Taming of the Shrew.
4. Robert Burns: selected poems.
5. William Wordsworth: selected poems.
6. Samuel Coleridge. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
7. George Byron. Child Harold’s Pilgrimage; Don Juan.
8. Percy Bysshe Shelley. Poems: Ode to the West Wind; To a Skylark; The Cloud; Song to the Men of
England.
9. Alfred Tennyson: selected poems.
10. Oscar Wilde. The Importance of Being Earnest.
11. George Bernard Shaw. Pygmalion; Heartbreak House.
Prose
1. Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe; The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders.
2. Jonathan Swift. Gulliver’s Travels.
3. Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
4. Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice.
5. Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist; Dombey and Son.
6. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
7. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
8. Emily Bronte. Wuthering Heights.
9. Thomas Hardy. Tess of the D’Urbervilles.
10. Robert Louis Stevenson. The strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
11. Lewis Carol. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
12. Herbert Wells. The Invisible Man; The Time Machine.
13. Aldous Huxley. Brave New World.
14. William Golding. Lord of the Flies.
�Содержание
Selected Bibliography
1. Английская и американская литература = English & American Literature : учебное пособие на
английском языке / авт.-сост. Н. Л. Утевская. – Изд. 2-е, испр. – Санкт-Петербург : Антология, 2012. –
400 с.
2. Броуди, К. Обзор английской и американской литературы = Focus on English and American Literature:
учебное пособие для учащихся старших классов школ, лицеев, гимназий, студентов вузов / К. Броуди,
Ф. Малгаретти. – Москва : Айрис-пресс, 2003. – 399 с.
3. Шевченко, Л. Л. History of English Literature (from Anglo-Saxons to the Age of Reason) [Электронный
ресурс] : учебное пособие / Л. Л. Шевченко ; Алтайский государственный педагогический университет.
– Барнаул : АлтГПУ, 2015. – 198 с. – Электрон. версия печ. публ. – URL: http://library.altspu.ru/dc/pdf/
shevchenko.pdf.
4. Шевченко, Л. Л. History of English Literature (from Romanticism to Modern Period) [Электронный ресурс] :
учебное пособие / Л. Л. Шевченко. – Барнаул : АлтГПУ, 2016. – 236 с. – Электрон. версия печ. публ. –
URL: http://library.altspu.ru/dc/pdf/shevchenko1.pdf.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Шевченко, Людмила Леонидовна
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Outline of English Literature
Subject
The topic of the resource
1. Литературоведение. 2. Литература Европы — Великобритания. 3. английская литература. 4. история литературы. 5. английские писатели. 6. литературные жанры.
Description
An account of the resource
The Outline of English Literature [Электронный ресурс] : учебно-методическое пособие / Алтайский государственный педагогический университет ; [сост. Л. Л. Шевченко, И. Ю. Кочешкова]. — Барнаул : АлтГПУ, 2018. — 88 с. — Дата подписания к использованию: 18.06.2018.
В пособии предлагается материал для подготовки и проведения практических занятий по дисциплинам «История литературы страны изучаемого языка», «История литературы Великобритании». Теоретический материал охватывает основные периоды английской литературы с древних времен по XX век и включает сведения о направлениях в развитии литературных жанров, авторах и их произведениях. Пособие содержит вопросы для семинарских занятий, глоссарий изучаемых литературоведческих и культурологических понятий, список художественной литературы для самостоятельного чтения. Учебно-методическое пособие предназначено для студентов, обучающихся по направлению «Лингвистика», профиль «Перевод и переводоведение» и «Педагогическое образование», профиль «Английский язык» по очно-заочной и заочной форме обучения.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
<em>Составители:</em><br />Шевченко, Людмила Леонидовна<br />Кочешкова, Ирина Юрьевна
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Алтайский государственный педагогический университет, 2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Алтайский государственный педагогический университет
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
18.06.2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
©Алтайский государственный педагогический университет, 2018
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf, exe
Language
A language of the resource
русский
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Учебно-методическое пособие
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
<URL:<a href="http://library.altspu.ru/dc/pdf/shevchenko2.pdf" target="_blank">http://library.altspu.ru/dc/pdf/shevchenko2.pdf</a>><br /> <URL:<a href="http://library.altspu.ru/dc/exe/shevchenko2.exe" target="_blank">http://library.altspu.ru/dc/exe/shevchenko2.exe</a>>
английская литература
английские писатели
история литературы
Литература Европы
литературные жанры
Литературоведение