Old
English - Anglo Saxon Period
The Old English Language also known as Anglo
Saxon was the earliest form of English. It was spoken from about 600 A.D. to
1100 A.D. Special studies is needed to read Old English since is completely
different from the modern English. Anglo-Saxon literature was in oral form and
later in the seventh century, it appeared in the written form. In old English
poetry descriptions of sad events and cruel situation are commoner than those
of happiness.
Poetry
The greatest old English poem is Beowulf. This first English epic was written in the
seventh century and the name of the author is still unknown. It is a story
about the heroic adventures of a hero, Beowulf, in about 3000 lines. The story
takes place in Denmark. Beowulf was a young warrior form southern Sweden who
went to Denmark to help King Hrothgar. Hrothgar’s great hall, Heorot, was
troubled by a lake monster called Grendel. Beowulf fought with Grendel bare
handed and killed it. Grendel’s mother came to take revenge, but Beowulf killed
her in her home in a lake.
Later, Beowulf became the king and ruled his country peacefully
for fifty years. In the end, he died of wounds that he had received while
fighting against a dragon.
Though Beowulf is
an old English poem, it has achieved a special position in old English
literature. This poem gives an interesting picture of life and the attitude of
people in those old days. It tells about the heroic deeds and fierce fights and
the sufferings of people. It describes about the life of the hall and the
terrible creatures with which Beowulf has to fight and defeat. This poem has
alliterative and stressed poetic lines without rhyme. Each half line has two
main beats. Things are being described indirectly and in a combination of
words.
Many of the Old English poems are related to religion and the
Bible. Genesis A and Genesis B are related to the creation of the world
and the fall of the angels. Exodus and Daniel are related to the Bible stories. Christ and Satandeal with events in
Christ’s life. Other Old English poems are Andreas and Guthlac. The second of these is in two parts, and may
have been written by two men. Guthlac was a holy man who was tempted in the
desert. Another of the better poems is The Dream of the Rood (the rood in Christ's
cross) is considered as one of the best English poems.
Caedmon and Cynewulf are the two important Old English poets.
Caedmon was a poor peasant who was asked by an angel to sing the praise of God.
Only a part of his songs remain. Cynewulf’s poems are religious and were
written in the eighth century. He wrote Juliana, The
Fates of the Apostles, Christ and Elene.
Old English lyrics include Deor's Complaint, The Husband's Message, The Wanderer and The Wife's Complaint. Deor is a singer who
has lost his lord's favour. So he complains, but tries to comfort himself by
remembering other sorrows of the world. On each one he says 'That passed over;
this may do so also.
There are many other poems in Old English. One of the better
ones is a late poem called The Battle
of Maldon. The battle was fought against the Danes in 991 and probably
the poem was written soon after that. It has been highly praised for the words
of courage which the leader uses.
Prose
Prose developed later than poetry. The development of prose took
place wholly in England as a result of Christianization. The oldest examples of
Old English prose are Laws written
at the beginning of the seventh century and Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which is a collection
of the early history of the country. King Alfred was an important prose writer
of Old English. He gave a great contribution to the development of old English
prose. He brought learning in England, and educated the people after he
translated a number of Latin books into English. Another important prose writer
was Aelfric, the writer of Homilies and Lives of Saints. His works were mostly
religious. His style is known as the best because he uses alliteration to join
his sentences together.
Middle English Period
The Middle English was spoken in England from about
100 A.D. to about 1500 A.D. It was much easier than the old English.
Poetry
The greatest poet of this
period was Geoffrey Chaucer, often called the father of English poetry. He is
one of the most skillful and attractive English writers of the entire history
of English literature. His great work was The Canterbury
Tales, which is in about 17000 lines. It is a collection of stories
told by pilgrims on a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. There are more than
twenty stories, but the descriptions of the characters are much more important
than their stories. They represent the English life and the various professions
like the knight, the merchant, the lawyer, the cook, the priest, and the
plowman. Chaucer’s characters are true-to-life and they represent their own
class and profession. One of the most enjoyable characters is wife of Bath.
Chaucer also wrote Troylus and Cryseyde and The
Legend of Good Women.
Another poet of Chaucer’s
time was William Langland, who wrote The Vision of Piers the Plowman.
It looks a lot older than Chaucer’s rhymed verse, though they are contemporary
writers. The characters in this poem are not as real as Chaucer’s. Langland
sadly says in his poem how most people prefer the false treasures of this world
than the true treasures of heaven. It describes the sorrows of the poor in
alliterative lines. This alliteration can be seen in another poem, as well as
in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It is a story
related to the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
Prose
Mostly the Middle English
prose was religious in nature. The Ancress is a prose
work mainly written for religious women. It tells them a lot about the rules of
life. Another work The Form of Perfect Living was
also written by Richard Rolle probably in the thirteen century. He is very
noted for his prose style and his work is important in the history of prose.
John Wycliffe, who was a
priest, made the Bible available for the common man. He translated the Bible
from Latin to English. His attack to the religious ideas could no longer been
tolerated so he had to leave Oxford. He believed that everyone ought to be
allowed to read the Bible. But the problem was that it was written in Latin and
uneducated people could not read it. That is why he arranged the production of
the whole Bible in English. He himself translated some part of it into English.
Another important prose work is Mort D’ Arthur by
Sir Thomas Malory. It is about the adventure of King Arthur and his Knights. It
has two themes: one is the search for the Holy Grail, and the other is Arthur’s
battles against his enemies.
Play
The first English plays,
called Miracle or Mystery plays were religious and were performed in or near
the churches. The subject matter of such plays was biblical, such as, the
disobedience of Adam and Eve, Noah and the great flood, Abraham and Isaac,
events in the life of the Christ and so on. They were acted by people of the
town on the wheeled stages so they could be moved to everywhere and the play
could be shown in different parts of the town. Though the miracles were serious
and religious in intention, English comedy grew out of them.
Miracle plays were
followed by Morality plays. There is no vast difference between these plays.
The hero of the Morality play always represents mankind and the other
characters are not people. They represent the abstract qualities like Truth,
Beauty, Evil, and Greed and so on. One of the best examples of such play
is Everyman. It is the story of the end of
Everyman’s life. When Death calls Everyman, he has to go to face Death. At this
time all his friends leave him except Good Deeds. These plays taught Christian
morality to the uneducated.
The interlude is the kind
of short, funny and humorous play, which was common in the late fifteenth and
early sixteenth centuries were acted away from the church. Such plays were
often acted between the acts of long Moralities or between the courses of a
feast. Professional actors in colleges or rich men’s houses or gardens showed
these little dramas. The best example of it is the Four P’s which
was written by John Heywood.
Elizabethan
Poetry
Elizabethan age was a great age of English
literature. During this time the writing of poetry was the part of education
among the educated people. That is why many books of poetry by different
writers appeared during this age.
The proper Elizabethan literary age began in 1579, but before
that year, Sir Thomas Wyatt and Earl of Surreymade their poetic
contributions. Sir Wyatt brought the sonnet form Italy and made it popular in
England. He followed the tradition of the Petrarchan sonnet with octave and
sestet. There was later changed into English sonnet style by Shakespeare, who
divided the sonnet into three quatrains summed up by a couplet. The Earl of
Surrey wrote the first blank verse in English. The Elizabethan age produced
many beautiful lyrics. One of the finest lyricists was Sir Philip Sidney.
William Shakespeare as Poet
The greatest dramatist Shakespeare was also a great poet of this age who wrote
around 130 sonnets and they are very famous in English literature. He developed
a new form of sonnet called the English sonnet or the Shakespearean sonnet,
which rhyme abab cdcd efef gg. It is different from Petrarchan sonnet. Many of
his sonnets refer to a girl, a rival poet and a dark-eyed beauty.
Edmund Spencer
Edmund Spencer was a famous poet who introduced the Elizabethan age properly.
In 1579, he wrote The Shepherd’s Calendar, a
poem in twelve books, one for each month of the year. His greatest work
was The Faerie Queen.
Though it was planned to be written in twelve books, he could complete six of
them. It is an allegorical work with three themes: a political theme, a moral
theme, and a fairy tale. More than the story, this work is known for its magic
feeling, wonderful music in verse, and the beauty of the sound. It is written
in Spenserian stanza of nine lines, with the rhyme scheme ababbcbcc.
Lyrics of the Elizabethan Age
The Elizabethan age produced many beautiful lyrics. One of the finest lyricists
was Sir Philip Sidney, who was a courtier, statesman, soldier and a poet. His
books of sonnets Astrophel and Stella was
printed in 1591, after his death. Another great poet was Sir Walter Raleigh,
who was also a soldier, sailor, explorer, courtier and a writer. Some examples
of best Elizabethan lyrics can be found in the plays of Shakespeare. His longer
poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece are rather cold and
without feelings. But the occasional lyrics found in his dramas are full of
feelings and passion. The famous dramatist Marlowe has also written some fine
lyrics.
The Metaphysical Poets
When the songs and sonnets of the great Elizabethan age passed away slowly, the
lyrical power began to lose its force. The following age, the Jacobean Age, was
more interested in the mind than in heart or eye. A group of poets, known as
the Metaphysical poets, began to write poems which were less beautiful and less
musical, but contained tricks of style and strange images. These poets tried to
say what they hoped had never been said before. They had their own thoughts and
they found their won manner of expressing them. They searched all fields of
knowledge, science, as well as, nature, for comparisons. This mad their poetry
difficult to understand.
The metaphysical style was started by John Donne, early in the
17th Century. Donne was a lawyer and a priest, and he also wrote religious
poetry. He wrote many good things but no perfect poetry. His songs and sonnets
are his finest works. He had made good use of direct speech to give a colloquial
touch to his poems. He also used dramatic realism in his poetry. He said
effective things in a few words.
The Metaphysical element was first seen in the love poems. If
followed the example of the Italian writers whom Donne had taken as his masters.
Donne’s influence was seen in the religious poets that followed him. One of
them was George Herbert. He wrote poetry that was simpler than Donne’s because
his experience was narrower. But his imagery appealed to the mind rather than
the senses. Henry Vaughan considered both Donne and Herbert as his masters. He
was more lyrical and gave sensitive descriptions of nature. Richard Crashaw
showed the influence of Donne in the use of conceits. But he gave importance to
the emotional and sentimental sides of conceits. Andrew Marvell combined
Donne’s wit with lyrical beauty.
Elizabethan
Drama
Drama was the chief literary glory of the
Elizabethan age. In the beginning, these dramas were not so well- written,
though the comedies were better than the tragedies. Ralph Roister Doister is
taken as the first regular English comedy. It was a kind of farce in rough
verse written by Nicholas Udall. Another comedy was Gammer Gurton’s Needle
acted at Cambridge University in 1566. Lyly improved the comedy in his prose
comedy Compaspe and Edimion.
Gorboduc, written by Thomas
Norton and Thomas Sackville, was the first regular tragedy. It was very dull
and written in poor blank verse. Thomas Kyd improved the tragedy by
writing The Spanish Tragedy. It is
a tragedy of blood and revenge.
Christopher Marlowe
The first great dramatist of the time was Christopher Marlowe. Though he lived
a short life, he wrote some powerful tragedies, which are counted among the
great works of English stage. He showed originality both in choice of subject
matter and the use of blank verse. His powerful blank verse strengthens the drama
and the development of character heightens the sense of tragedy. His first
tragedy Tamburlaine the Great is
written in blank verse with colorful images of power and violence.
The play brought a new kind of life to the English theatre.
Tamburlaine is the shepherd and a robber. The play presents his mad ambition
for political power and his rise to it. The kings who are defeated by his
armies are ill treated. The ruler of the Turkey is taken from place to place in
a cage like a wild animal. Other Kings have to pull Tamburlaine’s carriage.
When they get tired they are hanged. Though the play is filled with terrible
cruelty and violent language and action, Marlowe’s blank verse lines are
usually powerful and effective so the play was well received.
In the next play The Jew
of Malta a rich Jew refuses to pay taxes to the governor of Malta
so his property is taken from him and in revenge he begins a life of violence.
He helps the Turks when they attack Malta, and so they make him governor. But
he decides to kill all Turkish officers. Unluckily an enemy makes his secret
known and he himself is killed. The language of the play is not always violent.
He helps the Turks when they attack Malta, and so they make him governor. But
he decides to kill all the Turkish officers. Unluckily an enemy makes his
secret known and he himself is killed. The language of the play is not always
violent and forceful. The sound and rhythm are sometimes very fine.
Marlowe’s Dr.
Faustus is based on the well-known story of a man (Faustus) who sold
his soul to the devil in order to power and riches in the life. Faustus is mad
for intellectual power. He agrees to give his soul to the devil, Mephistopheles
in return for twenty-four years of splendid life. During these years the devil
must serve him and give him what he wants. Finally, when Faustus has to face
death, he is filled with fear and the end of the play is very tragic.
Edward the Second is
probably Marlowe’s best play. It is comparable to Shakespeare’s best historical
plays. It deals with English history and the story is about a young king who is
destroyed by his own weakness. Certainly, Marlowe’s writing sets an example for
other dramatists in the great Elizabethan age.
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare is taken as the finest dramatist of all times. He began his
career as a play actor and then moved to play writing. He had great dramatic as
well as poetic gift. His plays look like a living world of people. His
characters have both individual and universal qualities.
At the beginning Shakespeare wrote historical plays by improving
the works of other writings. He then gradually discovered his powers and
mastered his art. Some of his historical plays are Richard the Third and Richard the Second, King Henry the Fourth, Henry the Fifth and Henry the Sixth. In Richard the Third smooth blank verse
has been used where the sense usually ends with the line. In Richard the Second, there is rather more
freedom because the sense pushes through from one line to the next. King Henry the Fourth introduces a funny
fat knight, Sir John Falstaff. Henry
the Fifth is filled with the love of country and the spirit of war.
Shakespeare also wrote a good number of comedies. They are
generally better than his historical plays. The intrigues of gentlemen and the
love affair of young people are mainly the subject matter of his comedies. We
often do not find a great disaster and very sad events in them. Shakespeare
wrote comedies, which were mainly suitable for the Globe theatre. Among his
famous comedies are: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, and As you Like it.
With his growing power and matured skill, Shakespeare wrote his
tragedies. Romeo and Juliet is
his first tragedy which presents a tragic love affair. He wrote three Roman tragedies,
namely, Julies Caesar, Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra. His other four great
tragedies are Hamlet, King Lear,
Macbeth and Othello. The
central characters in these tragedies are always great men like King, Queen,
Prince and so on. The course of events is designed in such a way that it leads
the main characters to ruin because of their own error in judgment (tragic
flaw). This tragic flaw or the fatal weakness of character is clearly
noticeable in all his tragedies. For example, Antony is ruined because of his
love of comfort and love. Coriolanus is ruined by his terrible pride. The
hamlet’s tragic flaw is hesitation, inability to act when action is needed.
King Lear’s weakness is his openness to flattery. Shakespeare’s tragedies are
great and world famous because they have universal qualities that pass into the
heart of the human soul.
Shakespeare immense power and full maturity are reflected in his
last group of plays, which are called the romances. They are Cymbeline, The
Winter’s Tale and The
Tempest. These romances are neither fully tragedies nor comedies. Some
tragic situations are also found in them, but they end happily. The wrong doers
are forgiven. All these works are colored with the idea of forgiveness and
reconciliation. We also find beautiful islands and girls in them.
Benjamin Jonson
One of the great dramatists of Elizabethan age is Ben Jonson. His plays are
based on the theory of the four humors or elements (fire, water, air and soil)
and they are less beautiful and less attractive than Shakespeare’s. The ancient
writers influenced much of the Jonson’s idea. He believed in three unities that
are the unities of place, time and action.
Every Man in his Humour is
his famous play. Jonson’s main failure as a dramatist lies in the fact that a
humour for him was a special foolishness or the chief strong feeling in a man
like anxiety and jealousy. Therefore his characters are walking humorous and
not really human. Jonson wrote about twenty plays alone and others with other
playwrights. Of his comedies Volpone
the Fox, Every man out of his
Humour, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair and The Silent Woman are famous. His
tragedy Sejanus was
played at the Globe Theatre. He was also one of the best producers of masques
at this or any other time. These masques are dramatic entertainments with
dancing and music, which are more important than the story and characters.
Elizabethan
Prose
Many writers of the Elizabethan age translated
various books into English. Sir Thomas North translated Plutarch’ Lives of the
Noble Grecians and Romans. He was one of the best translators with a good
command of English. He also had the ability to weave words into powerful
sentences. He did not translate directly from Greek, but from a French
translation.
Shakespeare has also used some expressions of North’s work in
some of his famous dramas. Richard Hakluyt collected and published The Principal Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the
English Nation. At this time there was a great deal of travel and adventure on
the sea. This book includes the accounts of the voyages of different people.
Hakluyt left a lot of unpublished papers and some of these came into the
possession of Samuel Purchas. He published them under the title Purchase his Pilgrims. Two other books by
Purchase have titles, which are almost the same Purchase his Pilgrimage.
Some Early Novels
Some of the forms of novel also appeared during the Elizabethan age. John Lily
wrote a kind of novel named Euphues. He
started a fashion, which spread in books and conversation. It has a thin love
story. This style is filled with tricks and alliteration. The sentences are
rather long and complicated. This kind of language style was common among
ladies of the time. Even Shakespeare was influenced by this artificial style.
Another novelist of the other time was Thomas Nash, who wrote a
picaresque novel named The Life of Jacke Witton. This
sort of novel is about the adventure of bad (wicked) but lovable character. The
novels of this period could not create a basis for later development. The
fashion of these novels, died out very soon.
Francis Bacon
Bacon is one of the most famous prose writers of the time was Francis Bacon who
is also known as the father of the English prose. He wrote books both in
English and Latin. His aphoristic prose style is very popular. His essays are
full of remarkable thoughts. He could express great ideas in short and
effective sentences. His famous books are The Essays, The Advancement of Learning, The History of Henry
VII and The New
Atlantis.
Translation of Bible
During this period several translations of the Bible were made. William Tyndale
was a successful translator who translated the New Testament form the Greek and
the Old Testament from the Hebrew. He was later burnt to death for his beliefs.
The Authorized Version (A.V) of the Bible appeared in 1611. Forty-seven
translators worked in groups in different parts of the Bible in order to
translate it. This work was dependent chiefly on Wycliffe and Tyndale. The
language is beautiful, strong and pure. Many English writers are influenced by
the words of the Authorized Version of the Bible.
John Lyly
Lyly wrote a thin love story, Euphues which
is used for the purpose of giving Lyly's ideas in various talks and letters.
The style is filled with tricks and alliteration where as the sentences are
long and complicated and large number of similes is brought into this story.
Even Shakespeare was influenced by his artificial style.
Ben Jonson
The famous dramatist Ben Jonson, who is also known as the father of the English
literary criticism wrote a book names Timber of Discoveries. This book is a
collection of notes and ideas on many subjects. Jonson is of the opinion that a
critic should judge a work as a whole and he must have some poetic abilities.
He did not like Donne and Spenser, but always preferred Shakespeare.
Age
of John Milton
Undoubtedly Milton is regarded as one of the
greatest poets in English literature. He is second only to Shakespeare. He was
born in London in 1608, and educated at Christ’s College, Cambridge. As a
youth, Milton was very attractive, so at the College he was known as The Lady
of Christ’s. He was a highly learned man who had made a thorough study of the
Bible at home during his childhood.
John Milton
After leaving the University, he studied at home in Horton. He
lived a very moral and pure life. He was a very ambitions man who wanted to
write something remarkable which would bring glory to his own country. In order
to fulfill this great aim, he wrote Paradise Lost, which is comparable to
almost all the great epic of classical writers. His literary works can be
divided into three groups for convenience. At first, he wrote his shorter poems
at Horton. Next, came his prose work inspired by his Puritanism and his
political sympathies. His three greatest works belong to the last group.
First Group- Shorter Poems
At Horton, Milton studied Greek, Latin, English, French, and Italian poets. His
pastoral shorter poem L Allegoro (the
happy man) describes the joy of life in the country in spring season. The IL Penseroso (the thoughtful
man) describes his study during the day and his visits to a church in the
evenings of autumn season. Milton also wrote many sonnets and lyric poems. ‘On
Shakespeare’ and ‘On His Blindness’ are his famous sonnets. The second one is
his autobiographical poem written after his blindness. Lycidas is a sorrowful pastoral on the death of
his college friend Edward King.
Second Group- Prose Work
Milton’s prose work belongs to his second group of his work. They are mainly
concerned with church affairs, divorce and freedom. His best prose work is
probably The Areopagitica, A
Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing. In this work Milton is
pleading for the freedom of expression. This is good writing and it contains
little of the violent language of the other pamphlets. Calm reasoning and
smooth word go together, and the style is fairly simple. During the English
Civil War, he supported Cromwell and his parliamentarians through his political
pamphlets.
Third Group- Three Greatest Poems
It was only after the Restoration of Charles II that he wrote his best works.
By that time he had become blind and was out of favour. He wrote the Paradise Lost, a great epic about the
fall of Man through his disobedience of God. It was written in beautiful blank
verse and in twelve books. It shows his deep religious faith, great learning,
and fine command over the poetic skill. The scene is the whole universe,
including Heaven and Hell. Milton’s style is known as the grand style which has
suggestive power. Sometimes some unfamiliar words and constructions have also
been used.
Milton wrote another great poem titled Paradise Regained. It is more severe but
less splendid than his first epic poem. Samson Agonistes is a tragedy on the
Greek model. It describes the sorrowful last days of a blind prisoner, Samson
in the hands of the Philistines. Some of the sorrowful expressions of Samson
reflect Milton’s own personal feelings.
Lyric Poets
Apart from John Milton there were other several lyric-writers who have left us
sweet songs. One of them was Richard Lovelace, who wrote To Althea, from Prison and To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars. One of
the best living lyric poets of that time was Robert Herrick. He writes well
about the English country and its flowers. His love songs are also sweet.
At about this time Edmund Waller wrote some of the earliest
heroic couplets, a form of verse which was widely used in the next hundred and
fifty years. In this meter a couplet is a pair of lines, rhyming and of five
iambic feet. Waller wrote His Majesty's
Escape in the meter and he has been honoured for inventing the heroic
couplet, but there are other poets for whom the claim is made. They include
Shakespeare, who wrote in Othello, long
before Waller's poem
Restoration
Drama and Prose
The Restoration of King Charles II to the
English throne in 1660 brought a new change in English literature. Previously
closed theatres were opened again. New groups of writers began to write plays.
During the restoration period, we also notice some development
in prose work John Dryden wrote his critical work named Essay on Dramatic Poesy. In this work, Dryden
compares English drama with French drama. He points out the limitations of
French drama and considers English drama to be superior to French drama. He has
written it in a clear, reasonable and balanced way. His popularity as a critic
is also very great.
John Bunyan wrote two allegorical prose works, namely The Pilgrims Progress and The Holy War. The first allegorical
story presents Christian’s difficult journey to the heaven. Its best metaphor
is ‘life is a journey’. The English language has borrowed some phrases and
words from this work and they are commonly used in day-to-day conversation,
such as Vanity Fair, Slough of
Despond, Mr. Great Heart. In the second work he has presented his own
experience of the civil war. Bunyan sets an example of writing prose in clear
and simple style.
John Locke’s prose was also clear, earnest and without ornament,
though it lacks the balance in its sentences which gives Bunyan’s style its
charm. But Locke’s Essay on the Human
Understanding is one of the most important works of English philosophy.
It gave a new direction of thought, not only in England but in other countries
of Europe.
Samuel Pepys famous diary is also considered as a prose work.
His diary could not be read until 1852, because it was written in secret signs.
It gives the true picture of the social life of that time and describes some
events of the time in detail. His diary, which presents himself as a hero, is
very interesting and colorful work.
The Restoration Drama
We generally notice two kinds of developments in this period,
namely the Heroic plays and the Comedy of Manners. These plays were quite
different from Elizabethan plays in some ways. Heroic plays showed the heroic
virtues in noble men, and the women were described as wonderfully beautiful.
The tragic drama of this period was made up of heroic plays which were mainly
written in heroic couplet. The main character in these plays was torn between
the patriotic duty to their country and their duty as a lover. In these dramas
we find brave heroes, beautiful women, a great deal of shouting and nonsense
things.
John Dryden was a famous dramatist of restoration period. He was
a genius who had perfect command over stagecraft. His plays were greatly
successful on the stage. His best heroic plays were The Conquest of Granada and Aurengzebe which
he had used the rhymed form. The second one is about the struggle for empire in
India. His famous play All for Love deals
with the tragic love of Antony and Cleopatra and was written in blank verse. It
is supposed that he wrote this play by improving Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra. Of the tragedies by
other dramatist, there are three best heroic plays written by Thomas Otway.
They include Don Carlos, The
Orphan and Venice
Preserved. The last one was his well- received and best play.
A new type of comedy called the Comedy of Manners appeared the
end of the seventeenth century. This comedy was unique in itself. It was
written in prose. These plays were witty, difficult, bright and heartless. They
showed the life and manners of the upper-class society of the day. They laughed
at the fashionable society, their witty and fine conversation, and their
immoral behaviors. It was introduced by Sir George Etherege. It was mainly
confined to the rich, courtly and fashionable circle of London. Generally,
people from the country are ridiculed for their humbleness and lack of sophistication.
George Etherege wrote The Man of Mode (1696) which shows
the immoral manners of the society. William Wycherley, was a satirical
dramatist. His best works were The
Country Wife and The
Plain Dealer.
One of the famous dramatists who wrote Comedy of Manners was
William Congreve. His plays are not as coarse as the earlier plays. His Old Bachelor was a perfect comic picture of the
hypocritical society. It is about an old man who pretends to hate women, but
marries a bad one. The Double Dealer is
about angry lovers. Love for Love is
funnier and contains clever speeches and interesting, but foolish, characters.
His best play is The Way of the World. It
truly represents the comedy of manner of restoration period. When this play was
not well received, Congreve gave up writing plays in disgust.
John Vanbrugh a professional architect wrote three successful
comedies. They are The Relapse, The Provoked
Wifeand The Confederacy. Then
much later, another two dramatists Goldsmith and Sheridan wrote this type of
comedy, Sheridan’s important satirical play is The Critic which attacks drama and literary
criticism in a funny way.
Neoclassical
Poets
English poets from 1660 to 1798 are generally
known as neo-classical poets. They are called so because they had a great
respect for classical writers and imitated much from them. Order, correctness
and established rules were carefully observed. Set phrases and reasons were
commonly used in their poetry. For neo-classical writers, poetry was an
imitation of human life.
John Dryden is a famous poet of his time. Dryden wrote a great
allegorical satire named Absalom
and Achitophel. In this poem he had used a biblical story in order to attack
the politicians of his time. Another satire is MacFlecknoewhich attacks a rival poet named Shadwell.
Dryden had a good command of heroic couplets through which he could write
biting satires. The Ode for Saint
Cecilia’s Day and Alexander’s
Feast are his best short poems. During the later years of his
life Dryden translated many classical works of great writers from Greek and
Latin.
Alexander Pope is another famous satirical poet of the
eighteenth century. Though Pope was physically weak because of his long
illness, he wrote Essay on Criticism while
he was still young. The book contains some remarkable expressions. In his
delightful poem The Rape of the Lock he
uses a trivial subject matter and treats it significantly. In his satirical
poem The Dunciad Pope
laughs at the poor poets who are writing for their living. He sometimes has
misused his genius by attacking the individual in his poems which now seem of
little importance. His later poems are the Essay on Man and four Moral Essays. The first one is somewhat philosophical.
Like Dryden, he also translated some classical works of Homer.
During this time most of the poets commonly wrote poems about
the man and his city life. But unlike other poets James Thomson turned to
nature and wrote four poems on the seasons in blank verse. They are Winter, Summer, Spring and Autumn. But he could not avoid languages of his time. Thomson wrote
another good poem The Castle of Indolence in
Spenserian stanza. It contains beautiful sleepy language.
Thomas Gray was also a great poet of this age. He belonged to a
group of poets who are sometimes called the Churchyard school of the
poets. The Elegy Written in a
Country Churchyard is one of the best poems in English by Gray. In this poem
he expresses the sorrowful feelings which arise in his mind on seeing the
graves of the poor country people buried near the church. His ode The Bard is a very sad song. In his Ode on a Distant Prospect of Elton College he
describes the schoolboys who are happy and careless about the troubles in the
coming days of their lives.
William Blake is a poet as well as an artist. Most of his poems
are mysterious. It is very difficult to understand the meaning of some poems by
him. Blake was a visionary poet and he never believed in earthly things. His
great poetic works are Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Of these, two poetic
works, the second one is darker and heavier than the first one. It presents the
painful realities of life.
Robert Burns was a Scottish farmer whose lyrics became famous.
He wrote hundreds of songs and lyrics, and among them Mary Morrison, John Anderson and The Banks O’ Doon are famous. His
love-songs include ‘My love is like a red, red rose’. He had a deep
understanding of animals and love for them. Even a mouse brought a gentle poem
from his pen.
One more eighteenth-century poet is worth our special notice:
William Cowper’s verse shows the beginning of the swing away from the formal
classical style of Pope towards the simpler, more natural expression which we
shall see in Wordsworth and Coleridge.
The Churchyard School of Poets
The 18th Century was an age of great prose. Until its close,
there was only second rate poetry. In the closing years, a change took place in
the character of its verse that finally led to the fine Romantic poetry. The
change was first seen in James Thomson’s The Seasons. It was a collection of
four poems in blank verse: Winter (1726), Summer, Spring and Autumn (1730). These poems described woods, fields, birds and
deserts. Though he occasionally used the artificial language of the age, he
started a new trend in English poetry.
During this period, a group of young poets chose death for their
subject. These poets are sometimes called the Churchyard School of poets. One
of them was Edward Young. His Night
Thoughts was very popular and was written in good blank verse. In
this, he deals with life, death, the future world and God. It has a sad and
dark atmosphere filled with strange imaginations. Robert Blair also wrote in
the same tone and used the blank verse. In his poem The Grave, he requests the dead to come back and tell
about the grave.
The finest poet of this school was Thomas Gray. His Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is
one of the most beautiful and famous English poems. In this elegy, he expresses
his sad thoughts as he looks at the graves of the poor villagers in the
churchyard of Stoke Poges. He thinks of what they would have become it, they
had received the opportunity. But he feels sorry for them because they could
not go to the cities to become famous. His ode The Bardis a sad song by a Welsh bard. He curses King
Edward I and his race for killing all the bards of Wales.
Some poets turned to the past to escape from the orderliness of
the 18th Century. Thomas Percy’s Reliques
of Ancient English Poetry brought to light many old poems from the
darkness of the past.
Eighteenth
Century Prose
Eighteenth century period is supposed to be
very fertile period in the development of prose work. The writer slowly turned
into reasonable things. The prose was thought to be a good medium in order to
express more elaborate ideas and arguments. The earlier development in
journalism also gave rise to prose work to some extent.
Daniel Defoe is a good prose writer as well as the first English
journalist. He began to publish the early London newspaper The Review and ran it for nine years. He has finely
described the Great Plague in London in
his Journal of the Plague Year (1722).
Robinson Crusoe is his famous work. It is a story based on the
real events of a sailor who quarreled with his captain and was left alone on an
island for four years. Two famous writers as well as journalists Richard Steel
and Joseph Addison worked together in publishing the newspaper like The Tatler and The Spectator. They wrote many famous
and good essays on various subjects and published in their newspaper. They also
wrote actions of imaginary characters. Their works written in pure and simple
English helped much to the development of the novel.
Perhaps Jonathan Swift was the greatest English satirist. He has
written many bitter satirical works which severely attack the social evils and
human wickedness. He wrote The
Battle of the Books in favor of ancient writers. His Tale of Tub attacks on
religious ideas. Swift wrote his famous satire, A Modest Proposal in order to attack
the injustice of English rulers to the poverty of Irish people. Gulliver’s Travels is the most popular
satire of Swift. It is very popular among the young children as a beautiful
story. It is written in four books. It contains the accounts of an English
captain Gulliver’s adventurous voyage to different imaginary places like
Lilliput and Brobdingnag. There are many strange and unusual descriptions in
it. It powerfully attacks on man’s wickedness and stupidity.
Dr. Samuel Johnson was another famous literary personality of
this period, who wrote all sorts of literary works because of his poverty. He
compiled a Dictionary and published it into five times in his lifetime. It was
his famous and major work. His Lives
of the Poets is a critical work which he wrote carefully and obviously
towards the later part of his life. He also wrote a kind of novel entitled Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. Apart from this, he
wrote many essays on various subjects.
Edward Gibbon wrote The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in six books. It is
the greatest historical work in English literature which covers the events of
thirteen centuries and relates the ancient to the modern world. It is written
in splendid prose and is clear, complete and usually correct. It deals with
various religious, Roman law, Persian politics, the attacks of uncivilized
tribes and many other affairs.
Edmund Broke was mainly famous for his fine oratorical prose.
His works Speech on American
Taxation, Speech on Conciliation with America and Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol contain
some of his best speeches. He was always in favor of people’s freedom and hated
the slavery and cruelty of the government. Being related to the parliament, he
gave many speeches. Later in his life, he wrote Reflections on the French Revolution. It
made him famous in all parts of Europe.
English Novels in the Eighteenth Century
During the half of the eighteenth century, we notice the real
beginning of the English novel. Although sometimes Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is called the first
English novel, it lacks some essential qualities. More appropriately Samuel
Richardson’s Pamela is
the first English novel. Richardson discovered his talent as a novelist at the
age of fifty-one. Pamela is
written in the form of a series of letters. It contains a simple love story of
a virtuous servant girl who eventually married her master. Richardson’s next
novel Clarissa Harlow appeared
in eight volumes. It is his masterpiece, which is far better than the previous
one. The plot of this novel is a remarkable achievement.
Henry Fielding’s first novel Joseph Andrews is a kind of satire
on Pamela. Its hero is supposed to be a brother of Pamela. In the later part to
the novel Fielding’s interest shifted on another character named Parson
Adams. Tom Jones is
the greatest and longest novel of Fielding. It is both a comic and an amoral
novel about a boy Tom, who is found and brought up in Mr. Allworthy’s house.
His satirical work The History of Jonathan
Wild the Great deals with the life of real notorious criminal.
Another novelist Tobias Smollett worked in picaresque tradition.
He presented a new sort of social realities of life in his novels. His
novel Roderick Random is
a powerful but less pleasing. It describes bitterly the life of those who sail
the seas. Another novel Peregrine
Pickle is concerned with the adventures and travels of a wicked
hero. Smollett seems less violent in this novel Humphrey Clinker which appeared in
the form of a letter. It contains the account of the journey of a family. His
books often give us interesting information about life and society in his time.
Laurence Sterner revealed a whole new concept of form in novel
by writing his famous novel Tristram
Shandy. There is no better organization and order in the story. It
gives a great surprise and confusion to the reader. The hero actually appears
in the middle of the novel. There are rows of stars, solid black pages and
blank pages in the novel. Thus, Sterne gives the readers a shock of surprise by
writing a strange sort of novel. His other works are not so confusing and are
in better prose.
Horace Walpole wrote a set of novels, which are known as novel
of terror. Such novels include the description of horrible events and the
scene, supernatural elements, and so on. His novel The Castle of Otranto is about the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It has some strange descriptions concerning
the activities of a huge ghost.
William Beckford also wrote the same kind of novel of horror
named Vathek. It
was first written in French and was translated into English. Its story is about
a man Vathek who becomes the servant of a devil. The novel has some strange and
wonderful descriptions including Vathek’s visit to the underground hall of the
devil which is full of riches. But he is severely punished by the devil for his
crimes.
Mrs. Ann Radcliff is another novelist who wrote the novel of
terror. We find that her novels are of better qualities than the novels of
another writer. She had a real feeling for nature. She mixes horrible
descriptions with the fine descriptions of nature. The Mysteries of Udolpho is her famous
novel, which has the setting of the Apennine Mountains. There are unusual
scenes and sights in the novel such as moving walls, secret passage and strange
events. There is a girl, Emily who is kept in a castle by her aunt’s husband, a
wicked person. In an event she sees a dark curtain in a locked room and wants
to look behind it. She sees a dead body with blood on the floor below and
faints there. The writer describes such strange events one after another. She
also wrote other four novels.
The Gothic Novel or The Novel of Terror
The Novel of Terror is the peculiar product of the later
eighteenth century. It is a new type of romantic fiction inspired by the
general interest in medieval life and art, in ancient ballads, and in Gothic
castles and churches The story is full of mystery and violent emotion, set in a
far-away time and place, with ghosts, spirits, and satanic forces, and with
descriptions of old unhappy far-off things and battles. The central figure is,
usually, a serous and restless villain. The beautiful, innocent and sensitive
heroine has to be rescued by a brave lover. The scent is usually a haunted
castle or a dark room of an old church, full of secret passages and private
chambers. The background is wild and desolate nature. The supernatural forces
also help with physical and mental violence. In this mysterious background
there is romantic love.
Horace Walpole wrote The
Castle of Otranto (1764), a novel about the medieval age. It contains
descriptions of impossible events, such as the destruction of a building by a
ghost inside it. William Beckford wrote Vathek (1786), with a background of ancient Arabia.
It is about the grandson of Harun-al Rashid becoming a slave of Eblis, the
devil. Vathek commits horrible crimes with Eblis, and in the end, he is
punished in hell.
The most popular novelist of the Novel of Terror was Mrs. Ann
Radcliff. Her novels are better quality because she provides the explanations
for the mysterious happenings in her novels. She had a real feeling for nature.
She causes interest by describing strange scenes and sights, such as moving
walls and secret passages. Her great novel The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) is about
Emily, who is held captive in a castle by her uncle. Her other novels
were Romance of the Forest and The Italian. She also wrote A Sicilian Romance (1790) and An Italian Romance (1791)
Romantic
Poets
Romantic poets are also called the early
nineteenth- century poets. These poets revolted against the poetic tradition of
the eighteenth century. They turned to the nature. They disliked the set rules
and orders of the neo-classical poets. Instead, they gave too much focus on
emotion, imagination, originality and freedom in their poetry. Simple and
commonly used natural language was chosen for their poetry.
The publication of the first edition of the Lyrical Ballad marks
the beginning of the romantic period in English literature. It was combined
work produced together by Wordsworth and Coleridge. Poetry was defined in a new
light in this work. Much emphasis was given on simple language, imagination,
originality and poetic freedom. Nature was thought to be a proper subject
matter for poetry. It was a work of great change and experimentation in terms
of poetry. Its publication gave a shock to the traditional poets and critics of
the eighteenth century. They considered the language too simple.
William Wordsworth
Wordsworth is regarded as a forerunner of the romantic period.
He brought a completely new approach to the writing of poetry. He had a great
love for nature. Nature was God for him because it was a source of his poetic
inspiration. Because of his poetic ability and imagination Wordsworth could
paint ordinary things with beauty, poetic ability and imagination. Wordsworth
could paint ordinary things with beauty and charm. His main purpose was to make
ordinary things seem wonderful in his poetry. Though “Wordsworth argued that
the language of poetry should be very simple, he could not truly apply it to
his all poetry.
Wordsworth wrote many poems and sonnets. In his poem Tintern Abbey the poet remembers
his childhood days and describes the lovely view of the nature Westminster Bridge and London are among his best sonnets. The Prelude is his greatest long and
autobiographical poem. It contains the own experience of French Revolution. The
poet also describes the gradual growth of his poetic genius in this poem. The Excursion is his great
philosophical work which he planned but never completed.
S.T. Coleridge
Coleridge is also an important leading figure of the Romantic age.
He is both a great critic and poet. He is also a literary partner of
Wordsworth. Both of them worked together to publish the Lyrical Ballad. Coleridge could make
mysterious events acceptable to a reader’s mind.
Coleridge’s famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was
published in the first edition of the Lyrical Ballads. In this poem, an old
sailor describes some mysterious events which occurred during the voyages. The
wind failed, the water supply ended and all other sailors died of thirst. All
these strange misfortunes happened because the old sailor had shot a great
bird. Finally the curse is lifted and he is able to return home.
Another good poem of Coleridge is Christabel. It is also magical and mysterious.
Christabel finds a beautiful lady Geraldine alone in the forest and brings her
home. But later on it is known that she is an evil spirit in the form of
Geraldine.
Kubla Khan is one of the most
famous poems of Coleridge. The poem is a poetic vision which he saw in his
dream and recorded it as a poem, later on. But he couldn’t remember the whole
dream because of some interference while recording. The poem contains the
descriptions of the buildings which were built among the caves, woods and
rivers. The poet seems successful in producing a strange and magical picture.
Lord Byron
Though Bryon was a romantic figure, the classics had a great
influence upon his poetry. His poetry is powerful but it lacks the poetical
qualities of Wordsworth and Coleridge. His carelessly written poetry is often
strong and beautiful. Byron’s poem Childe
Harold is written in the Spenserian stanza. It tells the story of
a man who goes off to travel far and wide because he is disgusted with life’s
foolish pleasures. Don Juan a
long poem of astonishing adventure is also a satire which attacks some of
Byron’s enemies. It starts with a shipwreck and continues with its later
results. But the main story is often left and the poet puts forward ideas on
various subjects. Byron also wrote a number of short poems which are popular.
P. B. Shelley
Shelley was a great romantic poet who belonged to the second
generation of romantic poets. He was a very revolutionary and uncompromising
figure, but his popularity as a lyric poet is undoubtedly very great. He
struggled against the causes of human misery and against accepted religions.
His first important poem Alastor,
or The Spirit of Solitude is written in blank verse and shows the
Wordsworth’s influence. It expresses joy in the universe and sorrow for the
violent feelings of men. His fine poem Adonis is an elegy on the death of Keats. He wrote many beautiful
lyrics in fine language. One of his finest sonnets, Ozymandias, expresses the uselessness and the shortness
of all earthly power. Some of his best lyrics include The Cloud, To a Skylark and Ode to the West Wind. These poems express his
free spirit, forceful imagination and desire to change the world.
John Keats
Keats blossomed early and died young. He was inspired by reading
Spenser. He developed self- discipline both in feeling and skill which Shelley
never attained. For Keats sensation was a path to the knowledge and it was the
poet’s duty to express it in words. His early poem Endymion is based on old ideas of religion so it
was criticized. Keats wrote many beautiful poems in rich detail and accused
Shelly of using thin language. He is also famous for his great odes and
sonnets. The Ode to a
Nightingale is his greatly admired poem. His To Autumn is a poem of scenes season and a mood.
On First Looking into
Chapman’s Homer is one the best sonnets of Keats. He also wrote a good
ballad entitled La Belle Dame Sans Merci in
which, a Knight dreams of his lady but later on he finds himself alone.
The Lake Poets
The lake poets are the romantic poets who liked the Lake
District in the north-west England and lived in it. These poets are William
Wordsworth, Samuel Tailor Coleridge, and Robert Southey. William Wordsworth was
a poet of nature and had the ability to make even an ordinary thing charming.
He is said to have democratized poetry and made poetry available for the
farmers and shepherd. In the preface to the later edition of the Lyrical Ballads (1802) he said that the
language of poetry should be the language of the common man. According to him
poetry was a spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in
tranquility. His well known short poems are The Daffodils, The Solitary Reaper and Lucy. In Lines Written above Tintern Abbey, the poet returns to
a scene of his boyhood. His best sonnets are Westminster Bridge, an emotional view of London
asleep, and London, which
is a cry for help in the troubles of the world. The Prelude, in fourteen books, describes the poet’s own
progress in poetry and thought. It has an autobiographical element.
S. T. Coleridge had the ability to make mysterious events
acceptable to a reader’s mind. His poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner appeared
in the first edition of the Lyrical
Ballads. In this, an old sailor describes some strange misfortunes that
happened to his ship when he killed an albatross. The mysterious surroundings
of the silent ship are described in magic words. Two other important poems are Christabel and Kubla Khan. The first one tells about Christabel and
Geraldine, and the second describes Kubla Khan’s great palace in Xanadu. It
contains both mysterious and supernatural elements in the description of the
palace, set among gardens, rivers, forests and caves of ice.
Robert Southey was less important of the lake poets. He wrote a
great amount of prose and poetry. His poems often told a story and were set in
far-away lands. The Inchcape Rock and The Battle of Blenheim are two of his
shorter poems.
Victorian
Poets
Victorian poets are also known as later
nineteenth-century poets. Most of the writing of this period reflects current
social, economic, and intellectual problems. The poetry of this period shows
the crisis of religion and philosophy because of the development of science.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Tennyson is one of the most skilled and self-conscious poets of
the Victorian age. He is typical Victorian who adopted the conventional
religious and social views and values of his age. His early poems were not much
accepted, but gradually he sharpened his skill.
Tennyson's later poems are serious, thoughtful and musical. His
poem The Idylls of the King is
preferred by many people even today. In Morte D Arthur he turned Malory’s
story into poetry. He did experiment with different meters. In his long
poem In Memoriam he
laments for the death of his friend Arthur Hallam. Tennyson’s shorter poems are
generally better than longer ones. Ulysses is
his most controlled and perfectly written poem which presents the heroic voice
of the aged hero. The Princess is
the collection of his fine lyric which shows his best mysterious and musical
quality.
Robert Browning
Browning is a major Victorian poet who voiced the mood of
optimism in his works. For Browning the intellect was more important than the
music. His great knowledge was the result of his self-study and travels. His
reputation is higher as the writer of dramatic monologue. One of his successful
dramatic poems is Pippa Passes. We
find many such poems in his dramas, but his natural gift was in poetry.
Sometimes we notice his poetic style very difficult. It is because of his
unusual knowledge of words and his strange sentence structure. Sordello is a good example of his difficult
poem. The Ring and the Book is
a poem based on a book that he found in Florence. Asolando is a collection of many fine poems which
was published on the day of Browning death.
Mathew Arnold
Arnold was a great poet and critic of his time. He had been a
professor of poetry in Oxford for ten years. His works truly represent his age.
A sad undertone runs through nearly all his poetry. His views of modern life,
of its complexity, its sick hurry and divided aims are present in his poetry.
Arnold was also the headmaster of Rugby School. He wrote a poem
entitled Rugby Chapel. Thyrsis is a poem of lament for his friend,
Clough. In his poem The Scholar Gipsy the
poet talks about an Oxford man who joins a band of gypsies and wanders with
them. Memorial Verses is
his sad poem in which the poet laments for the deaths of many poets at home and
abroad. He also wrote a critical sonnet of Shakespeare, whom he praised too
much. One of his other poems, Empedocles
on Etna, has been highly praised, perhaps because it is not altogether
sad.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Rossetti was a poet as well as a noted painter. His sonnets are
among the most musical in English. Many critics have accused him of writing a
moral poems belonging to the Fleshy School of poetry. But he argued that poetry
ought to be based on the senses. Many of his poetic lines are written in a way
a painter’s eye captures the beauty of the thing. Rosseti wrote about nature
with his eye on it, but did not feel it in his bones as Wordsworth does.
Rossetti was too fond of alliteration.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Another great poetess of this time was Elizabeth Barrett, who,
on her marriage, became Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Some of her poems are too
long, but in a sonnet she could not write too much because the form is limited
to fourteen lines. Thus much of her best work is contained in Sonnets from the Portuguese. She pretended at first
that these sonnets were translated from the Portuguese; they were really an
entirely original expression of her love for Robert Browning.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Swinburne followed the poetic style of Rossetti, but could not
use alliteration so much successfully in his poems as did Rossetti. Critics
argue that his poetry does not contain much thought, though it can be sung
well. When his work Poems and Ballads appeared
in 1866, he was much blamed for moral reasons. A later book of Poems and Ballads is not so much
offensive as the previous one. It shows his interest in French writers and
includes the laments for them. Tristram
of Lyonesse is usually considered to be his best work. It tells the
undying story of Tristram and Iseult.
Edward Fitzgerald
One of the greatest poetic translators was Edward Fitzgerald. He
translated six of Calderon’s plays the Agamemnon of Aeschylus and the Rubaiyat of the Persian poet Omar
Khayyam. Most translations lose something and are not as good as the originals.
But this book is considered by some Persian scholars to be better than Omar
Khayyam’s work. In this translation of the Rubaiyat, he entirely omitted the hidden meanings of
the original. The other poets of this age are Arthur Clough, and Christina
Rossetti.
Fleshly School of Poetry or the
Pre-Raphaelites
The Fleshly School Poets or the Pre-Raphaelites were inspired by
the Italian painters before Raphael. In 1848, a group of three young painters,
who were also poets, founded the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. They followed a
medieval outlook, art for the sake of art, sensuous and clear word painting,
and a poetry rich in music and melody. Due to their detailed description of
scene and situation, and the frank and free dealing of sexual passion, they are
also referred to as the ‘Fleshly School’.
D. G. Rossetti was the chief among these young poets, as well as
painters. He is sometimes criticized as a fleshly poet because his poems
contain sensuous pictures of feminine beauty. But he combines the physical
beauty with spiritual beauty in The
Blessed Demozel. He also wrote about nature, but instead of feeling like
Wordsworth, he studied it. He was also fond of alliteration, as in “flying hair
and fluttering hem”.
A. C. Swinburne was a follower of D. G. Rossetti, but he misused
alliteration. He wrote much political verse, but he had a new rich music in his
verse drama Atlanta in Calydon.
Though his music is good, there is a lack of thought in his poetry. He was also
criticized for moral reasons when his Poems and Ballads was published in 1866.
His best work is considered to be Tristram
of Lyonese.
William Morris was also influenced by Rossetti. His early
works The Defense of Guenevere
and Other Poems (1858), The
Life and Death of Jason (1867), and The Earthly Paradise (1870) are purely
romantic in method and style, with an undertone of sadness
Nineteenth
Century Novelist
The nineteenth-century novelists are also known
as Victorian novelists and it was considered as the greatest age of English
novel. During this period, many famous novelists wrote a number of great
novels. Generally the subject matter of the Victorian novel was social life and
relationship such as love, marriage, quarrelling and reconciliation, social
gatherings, gain and loss of money and so on. Some great novelist of this
period also created the complexities of symbolic meaning.
Jane Austen
Jane Austen is the first great English woman novelist. She
raised the whole genre to a new level of art. Though, she wrote her novels in
the troubled years of the French Revolution, which present calm pictures of
social life. In her novel she shows a remarkable insight into the relation
between social convention and individual temperament. Some of her great novels
include Sense and Sensibility,
Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion and
so on. She brought the novel of manners and family life to its highest point of
perfection. Her novels have nothing to do with the ugliness of the outside
world. Her knowledge of social life was very deep and true. She has painted her
characters in a remarkable way, but the young men in her novels are less
attractive.
Sir Walter Scott
He is known as the founder of the historical novel. In his work
we find a deep sense of Scottish history and nationalism. At first, he tried to
write poetry but soon discovered that he couldn’t write good poetry. Then he
turned away from it, studied the works of other novelists and himself began to
write novels. Perhaps Waverley is his first novel. Some of his other well known
novels are Guy Mannering, The
Antiquary, Old Mortality, Wood Stock and so on. His
novels tell the stories of history, but they lack depth and interest. Sometimes
his style is heavy and difficult because of the use of flowery language and
Scottish dialect.
Charles Dickens
He is one of the greatest English novelists. He gave the English
novel and new life, place and importance. His novels reveal the social evils of
his time caused by the industrial development in England. He had a keen eye for
lively characters and colorful urban life. Some of his major novels are Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby and so
on. Most of his novels are crowded with characters like hungry children,
thieves, murderers, men in debt, poor and dirty men and women. Unpleasant
situations, sad and miserable scenes are very common with them. However, he has
presented the exact picture of social evils, and in a deep sense, he had a
corrective desire behind his writing.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Thackeray imitated the tradition of Fielding and Goldsmith. His
novels are concerned with the higher state of life and people instead of poor.
He presents the picture of eighteenth-century English society. His characters
are not produced in order to express violent feelings, but we find strange
qualities in his characters. His best known novel Vanity Fair is about the
adventure of two girls. Apart from his historical novels he wrote Pendennis and The Newcomes.
Charlotte Bronte
She lived a lonely life in a village in Yorkshire. She was
sensitive, passionate and sensuous by temperament. But she was involved in the
external world more than her sister Emily. The Professor her first novel
describes the events in the life of a schoolmaster in Brussels city. Her best
novel is Jane Eyre. It is
about a poor and ugly girl who is brought up by a cruel aunt. She is treated
badly by her aunt and sent to a miserable school. As a private teacher, she
goes to teach the daughter of Mr. Rochester and falls in love with him. When
she knows that his wife is still alive, she leaves the house. Later on, she
knows about his wife’s death and his miserable condition. Then she returns
there, marries him and shares his sorrows. At times, we find the expression of
strong feelings. In spite of its unattractive heroine, it is very successful
novel. Her other novels are not so much remarkable.
Emily Bronte
She also passed a lonely life like her sister Charlotte. She
wrote one of the greatest English novels, Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff, a
passionate boy falls in love with Catherine. She ignores him and marries Edgar.
Then Heathcliff begins a life of cruelly and revenge. He marries Edgar’s sister
and treats her very cruelly. The novel is full of uncontrolled passions and
emotions. The story of the novel is concerned with two families. Because of its
strong emotional quality the novel has been compared to Shakespeare’s King Lear. In the opinion of some critics, no woman
could have written it; but others say one man could not have written all the
plays of Shakespeare! In fact, her only novel Wuthering Heights hold an important
position in history of the English novel.
Joseph Conrad
He was born and brought up in Poland. Nearly at the age of
twenty-three, he went to Britain, picked up the English language and joined the
British Navy. He had widely traveled in many places. His novels are written in
his fine style better than many Englishmen. He had a good sense of loyalty and
endurance which he considered to be the essential qualities of human being. In
his novels, he has shown how the lack of faithfulness and morality and material
greed corrupts human being and human relations. Usually his language is
difficult and his outlook is very broad. His best novels are Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Under Western Eyes, Heart of
Darkness and Typhoon.
Thomas Hardy
He is a great novelist of unusual power and integrity who added
a new dimension to the familiar realism of the Victorian novel. His novels are
set mostly among the trees, low hills, farms and fields of Wessex (the county
of Dorset). His novels catch the picture of local color. The indifferent
attitude of nature towards human happiness and destiny and mostly pictures of
human beings struggling against their fate are the main facts underlying in all
the novels of Hardy.
Hardy’s fourth novel Far
From the Madding Crowd takes a closer look at
the nature and consequences of human emotions. Its theme is the contrast
between patient and generous devotion and selfish passion. Bathsheba Everdene
is betrayed by the false love of Sergeant Troy. On the other hand, Gabriel Oak
a shepherd loves her truly and remains loyal to her. At least his faithfulness
is rewarded and he is married to Bathsheba Everdene. The novel has a beautiful
pastoral setting. The human struggle against their blind faith has been finely
portrayed in the novel.
The Mayor of Casterbridge shows
a greater mastery of Hardy’s material than can be found in his other mature
novels. It is genuine tragedy and most perfectly written work of Hardy. It
presents the tragic story of Michael, who is destroyed by his excessive
drinking habit. In the fit of drinking, he sells his wife and children for some
money. Later he regrets for his mistake and gives up drinking. He becomes a
rich man through hard work and is made The Mayor of Casterbridge. But when his
wife returns after many years, he begins drinking again and dies miserably.
Among his other tragic novels, Tess of the D’ Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure are famous. Hardy
also wrote a few novels of romance, which include A Pair of Blue Eyes and The Trumpet Major.
The Women Novelists of the Nineteenth Century
The Victorian Age is a great age of women novelists. Though Jane
Austen started writing at the end of the eighteenth century, her important
novels were written in the first two decades of the nineteenth century.
Austen’s novels are calm pictures of society life. She perfected the novel of
family life. She had a true and deep knowledge of the social life of the
English middle classes. She created living characters. Her plot construction,
her characterization, her irony and satire made her a great novelist. Her first
novel was Sense and Sensibility,
published in 1811. Later came Pride
and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.
Mary Shelly, the wife of the famous
poet P.B. Shelley, wrote a famous novel of terror Frankenstein in 1818. It was started as a ghost
story. The Genevan student Frankenstein makes a human body and given it life.
Because of its ugliness, the monster becomes lonely and destructive. Her The Last Man (1826) was about
the slow destruction of the human race by disease.
Charlotte Bronte was
brought up in Yorkshire in poor surroundings. She wrote her first novel The Professor (1846) in Brussels.
Her next novel Villette was
an autobiographical novel about a beauty less and moneyless teacher. Her finest
novel Jane Eire also
described the life of a poor and beautiful girl. Along with historical
tradition, her novels have a mixture of realism and romance.
Charlotte’s sisters Emily
Bronte and Anne
Bronte also wrote novels. Emily wrote one of the greatest of
English novels Wuthering Heights. It is
a tragic novel of love, revenge and cruelty. Anne Bronte, the youngest,
wrote Agnes Grey and The Tenant of the Wildfall Hall.
George Eliot was the pen name of
Mary Ann Evans, who wrote intellectual novels. Her first novel Adam Bede(1859) was influenced by her childhood
memories. He had the ability to draw characters and describe scenes skillfully.
She also had pity and humor. Her other novels are The Mill on the Floss, Silas Mariner, the
historical novel Romola,
and Middlemarch.
Mrs. Elisabeth Gaskell used
the novel as a medium of social reform. Her famous novel Cranford (1853) was a fine picture of life in a
village. Her other novel Mary
Barton showed deep feelings for the poor people working in the
factories. Ruth was
a story of an orphan girl. North
and South showed the comparative English lives, the poor north and
the happy south
Nineteenth
Century Prose
With the arrival of romanticism, the nineteenth
century prose reached a new stage and became for the first time a literary norm
of its own. The essay of this time became highly personal and often whimsical.
They also contained the wanderings of the writer’s tastes and likes and
dislikes. In this way, we notice the growth of familiar essays which
represented another aspect of the romantic exploration of personality.
Samuel Butler
He is a great Victorian satirist. His famous work Erewhon is a satire on the Victorian concept of
morality, religion, duty and social ideas. His attacks on the manners and
customs of English people of the Victorian period, in particular, were orthodox
and very much conventional in their belief.
He does this by presenting an imaginary country which is cut off
from the world by high mountains. He describes strange manners, things and
ideas of this imaginary land and its people. If the people of Erewhon are sick,
ugly or so, they are thought to be criminals and are taken to prison. If
somebody commits a crime, he is sent to the hospital for the treatment instead
of in the prison for punishment. Machines are not allowed there because they
are thought to be dangerous. Butler aims to satirize the contemporary society
and its foolish ideas through such unusual descriptions.
William Hazlitt
He is more vigorous and less mannered essayist than Lamb. He was
a plain speaker who brought to the English Essay a new kind of life and
commitment. The range of subjects of his essays is greater than Lamb. He
develops a fast-moving, hard-hitting prose, which is called literary-colloquial
English. His major work was literary criticism. He wrote Characters of Shakespeare’s plays,
Lectures on the English poets, English
Comic Writers and so on.
Thomas De Quincey
De Quincey was a manner less and angry person, but he was a good
prose writer. His autobiographical essay Confessions of an English Opium Eater made
him famous. The essay tells the story and the dream of his early life. He also
describes how he began to take opium to reduce his pain and anxiety. He could
write essays both in plain and ornamented language according to the subject of
the essay. He has written many essays on various subjects. His Reminiscences of the English Lake Poets contain
some good chapters on Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Thomas Carlyle
He was a selfish and unenthusiastic personality who hardly
listened to others. His style was forceful and violent. His guiding aims in his
life were truth, work and courage. One of his famous works is Sartor Resartus [The Tailor
Repaired]. The first part of it deals with his Clothe Philosophy that all human
arrangements are like clothes and do not last long. The second part is an
autobiography of Carlyle himself.
Charles Robert Darwin & Alfred Russell
Wallace
Darwin’s popularity as a prose writer was mainly because of his
scientific writing, which was the result of his long, continuous study and
enquiries. After twenty years of his hard study he wrote his famous book The Origin of Specieswhich contains facts
about the nature and surroundings of plants and animals. Alfred Russell Wallace
wrote an essay about natural selection and sent it to Darwin. Both of these
great men shared the same ideas at the same time. The most important book of
Darwin is The Descent of Man. It
deals with the origin of the human race. But Wallace did not agree with the
ideas expressed in this work.
John Ruskin
He was a student of art so his prose work is mainly concerned
with art. He argued that morality was very essential quality of a good painter.
In Modern Painters he
appreciated the paintings of some modern artist like Turner. He supported the
Gothic style of architecture in The
Seven Lamps of Architecture. He felt very angry when the industrial
development ruined the natural beauty of the countryside. The beauty that he
desired has been described in his works in a rich ornamented language of the
Bible. Some of his later works are related with economics and education
Twentieth
Century Novels and Prose
The novels of the nineteenth century were
written at a time when there was confidence and stability in British society.
But the twentieth-century novels are influenced by the changes in beliefs and
political ideas after the events of the First World War and the disappearance
of the British Empire. This change can be noticed if we look at the works of
the two writers who are not so far from other in terms of time.
August Wilson
His novels present a picture of modern twentieth century life
and its problems. But he uses the traditional form of novel. His novels contain
various sorts of characters, but all of them belong to the same middle class
social group. His stories, which belong to his earlier collections, are
satirical and express moral judgments indirectly. His Anglo Saxon Attitude is about a
historian’s life who is compelled by some events to tell the truth. His another
novel The Middle Age of
Mrs. Eliot is about a woman’s life who makes herself familiar with the
outside world around her, in spite of the family’s suggestion to live a lonely
life after her husband. Her other novels are No Laughing Matter and As If By Magic.
Rudyard Kipling
He was born and brought up in India. He spent most of his adult
life there when it was under the rule of the British Empire. In his best
works, The Jungle Book and Kim he has written with great confidence about Indian
wildlife, British army, Navy, power and glory of the British Empire. At this
time the power and influence of British Empire was at its height. Kipling wrote
with the hope that the beliefs and values of his stories are accepted and
shared completely by his readers.
E. M. Forster
Forster wrote novels a short time later than Kipling. He held
the different view of India and the British Empire. The main theme of this
novel was human relationship. Howard’s
End explores the relation between inward feeling and outward
behavior. There are two families The Wilcoxes and the Schlegel, who believes in
two different aspects of life, material and spiritual, respectively. Foster’s
theme is how to connect these two aspects of life, the outer and the inner.
Only this connection will make human love of a higher and greater kind.
A Passage to India is
a Forster’s masterpiece in which he takes the relations between the English and
the Indians in the early 1920’s. Adela Quested, and English girl comes to India
to marry an English officer. She makes friendship with some Indians and travels
with them. Once she accuses an Indian of sexually attacking her in the cave.
The case begins in the court. This incidence breaks the relationship between
the English and the Indians. Forster as a liberal humanist is on the side of
Indian independence. His main theme in this novel is the importance of bringing
together opposites in order to create unity.
Arnold Bennett
He used the traditional form of the novel, but with realistic
presentation of the details of the characters. Most of his novels are set in
the five towns, the center of English Pottery industry. His novels deal with
the lives of the same sort of people of the industrial society. They present
the dull and difficult picture of life. His famous novels include, Clayhanger, Hilda
Lessways and These
Twain.
H. G. Wells
He also often took characters from a lower social level, but
many of his characters are given a chance of happiness. Kipps and The
History of Mr Polly both deal with men working in shops. They think that money
and running away change their lives. But they do not bring them what they hoped
for. At the end of the novels they know better what they need to be happy.
Wells also used modern scientific advances in his novels in a new way. The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds and The First Men on the Moon, use the material of
science. He also wrote Ann Veronicaabout a
girl who wants to choose for herself what to do in life, which in many ways
also looks ahead to the women's movement much later this century.
Somerset Maugham
He is good novelist, but his popularity as a story writer is
even higher. His first novel, Lisa of
Lambeth presents a realistic picture of slum life. Of Human Bondage is his autobiographical
novel which shows the difficulties that the writer met in his early life.
In The Moon and Sixpence a
French artist tries to break away and fight against the conventional society.
Maugham satirizes the social and literary life of the English people in Cakes and Ale. Ashendenis his well known collection of short stories.
His stories often have a bitter or unexpected ending.
D. H. Lawrence
He created a new kind of novel. He believed that a novelist’s
duty is to show how a person’s view of his own personality is influenced by the
conventions of language, family and religion and how a person’s relation with
other people is always changing. Sons
and Lovers is his autobiographical novel, which deals about his
attachment to his mother. Paul Morel, the hero of the novel is brought in the
English Midlands as Lawrence was brought up. The novel is mainly concerned with
the relationship between Paul and his mother. Paul wants to be a creative
artist, but for this he has to free himself from the influence of his mother
and take his own decisions in his personal matters. The novel ends with the
mother’s death and a sort of liberation for the hero.
The Rainbow deals with the
story of three couples of families of different ages. He takes three
generations and explores all the basic human relationship- relationship between
man and his environment, men and woman, intellect and instinct and different
generations. The first couple has a deep and loving understanding of each
other, the second couple has a physical passion for each other, and the third
couple use language as a wall to keep them apart and each tries to force their
own wishes on the other.
James Joyce
He was born and brought up in Ireland. He is noted for his
experimental use of language and exploration of new literary method. Dubliners are his collection of short stories
which gives the realistic pictures of Dublin life with symbolic meaning. The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is
his autobiographical novel in which Joyce has appeared in the form of his hero,
Stephan Dedalus, who is under the influence of Irish nationality, politics and
religion. But he realizes that the artist must be outside the society in order
to be objective. So to make himself free he escapes from Dublin life.
James Joyce’s Ulysses is
one of the strangest novels written in English. Stephen Dedalus also appears as
a character in Ulysses. The
central character, Leopold Bloom is an antihero rather than a hero. The
characters and some events of the novel have been derived from Old Greek
stories, as the title suggests. The novel is concerned with the artist and the
nature of the artistic creation. Joyce has used stream of consciousness
technique a new style of writing, in this novel. It is funny, satirical and
partly realistic work and it contains many literary references and many kinds
of language.
Virginia Woolf
She has also used the technique of stream of consciousness in
her novels. But unlike Joyce she is interested to explore the consciousness in
her novels. But unlike Joyce she is interested to explore the consciousness of
her novels. To the Lighthouse has
an abrupt opening without any background of setting. A family is on holiday in
Scotland. The intense of James Ramsay, a six year boy to visit to the
lighthouse by boat is prevented by his father, Mr. Ramsay. The novel ends with
the revisiting of the house by the same family ten years later. James Ramsay finally
goes to the lighthouse with his father unwillingly. He hates his father both
for preventing him to go at the earlier time as well as insisting him to go at
last. The novel presents a fine pattern of symbolic relations and the study of
the moral and psychological problems.
Woolf’s Orlando might
be called a symbolic biography of the author’s friend, Victoria Saukville-West,
with the hero, Orlando. In the novel, Orlando begins as a man in the sixteenth
century and ends as a man in 1928. It is a lively and humorous work containing
a considerable number of private jokes. Woolf also wrote other novels and
critical writings.
Graham Greene
He divides his many books into two groups. In the first group
there are sophisticated adventure stories which he calls entertainments. His
next group contains serous novels in which he explores the difference between
human decency and religious virtue, between moral intention and irreligious
act. The characters, which are seen nearer to God, are failure than those who
are successful in worldly affairs. Brighton
Rock and The
Power and the Glory are his famous novels.
William Golding
He is a symbolic novelist. His first and well known novel Lord of the Flies has been probably
the most powerful English novel written since the war. It is the story told
with clear realism and symbolic meaning of a group of small children wrecked on
a desert island. The novel shows how the effects of civilization break down and
they return to their essential animal nature. For, Golding it is the essential
nature of all human beings. His later novels also contain his sense of human
inadequacy and his own vision of man.
Anthony Burgess
He wrote various sorts of novels. He praised Joyce and imitated
his way of using language. His early three novels, which have the setting of
Malaya take a lot form Forster’s A
Passage to India. A Clockwork Orange is his most famous
novel, which present the picture of the future in which a character named Alex
willingly chooses the evil course in his life. He intends to hurt the people
and to make them suffer the pain because he takes delight in doing so. Later he
is taken to the doctor for cure. Burgess here wants to make a moral point that
Alex can choose both the options, either good or evil. The language of the
novel contains words from other languages, particularly Russian. The Wanting Seed is his satirical
novel, which has the setting of the future England.
Evelyn Waugh
He is famous as the greatest comic novelist of the century. He
satirizes the unpleasant situations by presenting comic events of characters
who are often treated unkindly. The events of comic situations are impossible
to believe, but they are very amusing indeed. His first novel Decline and Fall is about a young
man’s innocence and the world’s dishonesty. Scoop is a very humorous novel in which a wrong British reporter
is sent to East Africa during the war. When he returns another man is rewarded
for the act which the first man did not do. His later novels Men at Armsand Officers and Gentleman are serious and
religious.
George Orwell
He became a very famous writer, mainly because of his political
and critical writing. His best works are written on the political subjects.
There is no doubt that he is considered to be the most important political
writer after the war. Orwell presents with great clarity, the realities of
social and political life of this time.
In the novel Nineteen
Eighty-Four he describes how government uses language in order to hide
the truth and betray the people. The novel gives a picture of a future world
where the state provides a kind of television for the people to watch. The
state slowly changes people’s language and only such words are left in use
among the people, which are suitable for the purpose of the state. Thus, the
language and action are controlled in order to control the people by the state
Orwell realizes that people must be given their freedom and the state should
not control them so strictly.
Animal Farm is his best-known
novel. It is a political allegory which presents wrong political events and
revolution which were carried out just to capture the power and rule over the
country. He satirizes the absolute power holders who always believed in
suppressing the people and fulfilling their selfish desires. This is very well
done by the novelist by using the animal characters. In the story of the novels
the animals on the farm are led by the pigs to dismiss their master Jones. But
when they hold the power, they become as selfish and cruel as their master
Jones.
Women Writers of Twentieth Century Novels and
Prose
One of the interesting development in the twentieth century
literature is the remarkable increase in the number of women writers especially
novelist. Some woman novelist, generally deals with the same kind of subjects
as men do, for example, Virginia Woolf and Iris Murdoch.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
Her novels deal with the family life in a very original way. She
presents the reality of Victorian family life in her novels. Mostly her cruel
and evil characters succeed where as good characters remain unsuccessful in
their lives. No force form outside or inside can change her characters. The bad
are never punished and good are never rewarded. In her novels she deals with
the traditions of the Victorian family to show that the realities of their
lives are basically cruel and destructive. Her famous novels include Brothers and Sisters, Parents and Children and A Heritage and its History.
Doris Lessing
She is mainly concerned with the women’s problems in her novels.
Her first novel, The Grass is Singing is
about the sad life of a poor white farmer’s wife. It has the setting of
Southern Africa. In Children of Violence the
central character, Martha Quest, tries to break away from old social ideas and
traditions in order to live a free life. In her famous novel, The Golden Notebook, Lessing deals with
women’s lives, beliefs and problems with her great courage, power and honesty.
She explores how the pressures of the social and political events have been put
on women. The people in the novel are seen hostile and unfriendly towards
women. They hurt and treat female characters cruelly because they themselves
are weak.
Margaret Drabble
Her novels also present women as main characters. But they do
not express ideas and feelings much about themselves; rather they are concerned
mainly to receive higher education. In her novels, The Millstone and The Waterfall the central
characters who find themselves in loneliness and frustration are brought into
the happy world with love and human feelings. Drabble creates a picture of
unhappy in The Ice Age. The
people in the novel are seen unhappy because they only live in one part of
their personality. It is shown as a danger to the whole of society.
Over a few decades there has been a tremendous interest in the
books written by and about women. Virago Press has helped in this field by
publishing the books about women and their experience. Several important women
writers from the first half of the country include Rebecca West, Elizabeth
Bowen, Storm Jameson and Rosamond Lehman. They have found a new audience in
this way.
Science Fiction
The stories which are based on developments in science
technology are known as science fiction. Because of the development in science
many writers have turned to the subject of science in their writing. Their work
includes either exciting developments or fictional developments of the future.
Early science fiction falls into three main areas: -
* If the present scientific developments are carried further, it may be
dangerous to man and destroy the human races.
* What may happen after man has defeated the problem of war, disease and
poverty-perhaps he will be able to go beyond the limits of the human body and
gain some of qualities of machines.
* Although man may have lost something of natural life on earth; he can
explore the world of space.
Many writers who have been mentioned in terms of their other
work have also written science fiction. One of such writers is H.G. Wells. He
was very interested in the scientific advances of his age and looked ahead to
imagine what the result might be in the future. He was optimistic about the
advantages of science. Many of his novels present a struggle between two ways
of life, the human and the non-human. Like Wells there are other writers who have
written in the area of science fiction, such as E. M. Forster, Aldous Huxley,
Kingsley Amis and Doris Lessing. George Orwell and Anthony Burgess also give
pictures of a future world in their work.
There is another group of writers who have mainly written science
fiction. John Wyndham in The Day
of the Triffidsand The Krakam Wakes show
a different world after the destruction of present society. Brian Aldiss has
written many books in this area. His Graybeard presents a group of people trying to be
alive even after the destruction of most of the world. Arthur C. Clarke has
written many science fictions, including The City and the Stars. His 2001: A Space Odyssey is about the
exploration in the space
Twentieth
Century Drama
Although the twentieth-century drama is the
product of the individual writer’s ideas and experience, we often find some
general features in common. They share some beliefs and concerns for their
work. They try to show some parts of the realistic picture of the daily lives
of common people on stage.
George Bernard Shaw
He is one of the greatest dramatists of English literature. Shaw
believed that drama should be concerned with politics, philosophy and social
problems. He wanted to satirize not the invented characters in the plays but
the audience. In Arms and the Man and The Devil’s Discipline he enjoyed in
showing the just opposite of what his audience expected. He believed in the
theory of Life Force or Creative Evolution, the power which forces man to value
life as a great gift and a struggle for a better world. The working of his
philosophical theory can be found in some of his plays such as –Man and
Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra and Saint Joan. The main purpose behind his
writing was to cause shock and offence in the mind of the audience.
In Arms and the Man and The Devil’s Discipline Shaw enjoyed in
showing the just opposite of what his audience expected. Shaw believed in the
theory of Life Force or Creative Evolution, the power which forces man to value
life as a great gift and a struggle for a better world. The working of his
philosophical theory can be found in some of his plays such as –Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra and Saint Joan.
John Galsworthy
He followed the traditional form of the well-made play. His
plays contain the social and political evils. Those characters who suffer from
these evils are treated with great kindness by the writers. In Strife he shows the progress of a strike and the
suffering and difficulty caused by it. His, another play, Justice is about the fate of a man who writes a
false signature on a cheque, finds himself in great trouble and kills himself.
Sean O’Casey
He was an Irishman and his plays are concerned with the
political events of Ireland, which happened in the earlier period of this
century. In his plays the misery and suffering of the innocent people caused by
political events are seen from the point of view of the ordinary people. The shadow of a Gunman and Juno and the
Paycock were set at the time of the Irish war of independence and
the Irish civil war respectively. Similarly, The Plough and the Stars deals with the
Irish rising against the British in 1916. In his play, mostly the sufferers
from the realities of war are women rather than men.
Arnold Wesker
His plays express a deep sense of social criticism. He shows
that the everyday life of ordinary people in a realistic way. The Kitchen shows the miserable life of the people
who work in a large restaurant. His other three plays,Chicken Soup with Barley, Roots and I am Talking about Jerusalem deals
with the lives of the same member of the social and political events. Chips with Everything deals with the
class system in the British Air Force. The main theme of his later plays is the
importance of escaping from the social pressures in modern society.
Samuel Beckett
He started a new kind of fashion in drama. He did not follow the
traditional form of well-made play. He believed in absurdism and his plays try
to show the essential tragic condition of the modern man. For Beckett human
life is absurd and happiness in human life is never possible.
Waiting for Godot is
one of his most remarkable works in English drama. The play has plot and action.
It is divided into two parts. Nothings happen in the play except two tramps
wait for the arrival of the mysterious Godot. They hope that Godot will give
some direction in their lives. Godot never comes, and they do not know who he
is. Perhaps it may not exist. But they keep on waiting for him. The play
presents the essence of the human condition in a deep sense. Like Godot,
happiness and aim in human life are always out of reach. The pain and fear of
the two men have been presented in a humorous way.
Happy Days is the most
despairing play of Beckett. A woman, Winnie is the central character in the
play. In the other plays of Beckett the characters seem to be hopelessly
struggling against the emptiness and pointlessness of their lives. But Winnie
tries to be happy, in spite of the trouble and terrible events in her life. She
is ready to accept her lot with cheerfulness. She does not care whatever
happens in her life. For this reason this has been described as Beckett’s most
despairing play.
Endgame and Krapp’s Last Tape are among his other
plays. Beckett is interested in those characters who refuse not only love, but
also any relationship with anyone else. They are lost and unhappy. His language
is very carefully used, and there is much humor in his plays than the despair
of their themes might suggest.
Harold Pinter
He is also a famous dramatist of twentieth-century. The central
theme of his play is the impossibility of communication between characters in a
closed situation. In his early plays the comfort and safety of the closed
situation, often a room, is compared with the dangers of the world and the
strangers’ outsiders. The world is full of dangers so there is fear and
difficulty in communicating with other individuals, especially with the
strangers of the outside world.
The Birthday Party presents
the closed, comfortable situation of a small lodging-house where the arrival of
two mysterious strangers causes a lot of fear and danger. The reason why the
strangers have come to collect on of the people living there is never fully
explained.
The Caretaker also
presents a closed situation and the arrival of a stranger, and world tramp. But
in this play the stranger becomes the victim of uncertainty and suspicions. In
spite of some touches of humor, the play leaves the strongest impression of the
sense of emptiness in the lives of characters. The play No Man’s Land presents the fear,
danger and suspicion which grow between two old men who were friends and had
known each other very well during the time of their youth. One friend had
become rich and successful now and the other has become poor and completely a
failure. They cannot believe each other fully and there is a feeling of fear
and doubt between them. In a deep sense they are enemies. Though one of the
friends is rich, he is hopeless and feeling less. In some ways he seems a real
failure than the poor man.
Oscar Wilde
He took a new type of dramatic tradition ahead and his plays had
a greater influence upon other writers. Wilde belonged to the esthetic movement
which believed in art less as an escape from than as a substitute for life. The Importance of Being Earnest is the
most popular of his comedies. The play achieves its comic effect by showing the
just opposite of what is believed or usual through its witty language. The play
presents an English society of upper-class leisure which is emptied of true
moral, emotional and physical reality. In Wild’s work the manner of expressing
the ideas is more important than the matter.
John Osborne
Osborne is a famous dramatist who belonged to a group of British
writers known as Angry Young Man. This group of writers shows hostility towards
the traditions, standards and manners of the society. The production of
Osborne’s famous play Look Back in Anger marked
the opening of an important new stage in twentieth-century English drama. The
play presents a new kind of hero who is angry young man and his anger is
directed at the society. He fights against the social pressures which made him
feel angry. His other plays are Luther,
A Patriot for Me and Watch It Come Down.
The 20th Century Drama Summary
The 20th century dramas can be grouped into several categories
according to the general tendencies:
1. Realistic dramas: One
group of dramas shows the daily lives of ordinary people in a realistic way.
They often contain social and political criticism. John Galsworthy, in his
plays like Strife and Justice described social and political evils
with great sympathy for the people who hopelessly and helplessly suffer them.
G.B. Shaw shocked his audiences with completely new points of view and ways of
looking at themselves and the society in plays like Arms and the Man, The Devil’s Disciple, Major Barbara, etc. Sean O’Casey shows
concern for innocent victims of the political events in The Shadow of a Gunman and Juno and The Paycock. J.M
Synge described the lives of the ordinary people of the Aran Islands of Ireland
in Playboy of the Western
World. Other dramatists of this group are Arnold Wesker, Trevor
Griffith and Edward Bond.
2. Search of Identity: The
second group of dramas is related to the individual’s search for identity in an
unfriendly outside world, and the fear and difficulty of communicating with
others. Samuel Beckett, in his Waiting
for Godot, Endgame,
and Krapp’s Last Tape describe
characters who refuse any real relationship with others; they are lost and
unhappy, and have only the pleasure of language left. Harold Pinter also shows
the impossibility of communication between characters in a closed situation, as
in The Birthday Party and The Caretaker.
3. Dramas with language
for witty and comic effect: In such dramas, the
language is used not only to express feelings and beliefs of characters, but
also used for a witty or comic effect to contrast with the seriousness of the theme.
The dramatists of this group are Oscar Wilde, Joe Orton and Tom Stoppard.
Apart from these three groups, there were some verse plays of
T.S. Eliot as Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion and Cocktail Party. Some dramatist wrote
traditional plays as in the plays of J.B. Priestley and Terence Rattigan. John
Osborne presented a new type of hero the angry young man in Look Back in Anger
Twentieth
Century Poetry
The most striking thing in twentieth-century
English literature is the revolution in poetic taste and practice. Various
movements and changes had a greater influence upon modern poetry. Though poets
are often influenced by each other and sometimes, share a common outlook, their
style and the ways of writing differ from each other. So modern poetry is
essentially a private art form and it contains very much a story of individual
poets.
T. S. Eliot
He is one of the most remarkable of English poets. He had great
influence on poetry for more than forty years. He sees poetry and ceremony as forces
that can give meaning to the emptiness and confusion of the modern world. He
gives great importance to the forces that make it possible for spiritual as
well as physical life to continue.
The Waste Land is
Eliot’s major work. It is very long and complex poem. The poem contains many
old myths, literary allusions, languages, music as well as different kinds of
characters. There is spiritual dryness in the wasteland where renewal of life
is impossible. The poem shows the emptiness and meaninglessness of modern life
and modern world. Eliot sees the root cause of modern world’s unhappiness and
confusion is the people’s inability to bring together the different areas of
their experiences to make a complete and healthy whole.
W. B. Yeats
He was, without doubt, one of the greatest English poets. By
birth and temperament, he was the poet of the Irish traditions. Irish history,
people, language, traditions and nationalism are always in the mind of the poet
when he is writing, though the theme of his later poetry in universal. The use
of symbol and imagery and the combination of magic and mystery also become
characteristic of Yeats, great poetry. At times we find the use of classical
and Celtic mythology in his poetry. His later poetry uses plainer language in its
description of human nature.
Thomas Hardy
Hardy is regarded as a great English poet of this century. He
wrote poetry throughout his long life and considered it more important than his
novels. As a poet, he sets out to show the other side of common emotions. His
poetry does not suggest that life is a bitter tragedy. Hardy believes that life
is hard and uncertain, but the man possesses the strength to tolerate its
hardship and continues to struggle in life. His poetry shows great delight in
the natural beauty of the world and at the touch of humor in events. Hardy
describes human hardship and suffering by looking at them from a distance.
Though his language is generally direct, at times, it is loaded with unusual
words and sentences.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
He was a poet of religious faith. He appears as a devout humble
Christian. The theme of his poetry is the relationship of man to God and the
problem of suffering in a world created by God. In brief the poetic development
of Hopkins is the story of the development of a religious poet. Hopkins also
appeals to his readers as a natural poet. He was a keen observer of nature. He
regarded nature as an agent of the lord. In order to use the rhythm in the most
natural way he developed his own rhythm called sprung rhythm. His work had a
greater influence upon other poets.
W. H. Auden
Auden is one of the most famous poets of the modern age. He was
born in England and later in his life he went to stay in America. He mainly
wrote his early poems in political and social themes. They are the poems of
examinations of the contemporary English situation. Some of his poems directly
deal with political events and their effect on people’s lives. The poems which
he wrote in America are concerned very closely with the individual in contemporary
organized society. He expresses a strong sense of the realities of everyday
life.
Dylan Thomas
He is a famous poet who was born and brought up in Wales. His
language is not plain and simple. It is full of life, energy, feeling and
strength. Thomas religious poetry sometimes attains the strength of the spoken
Welsh words. His work praises and delights in natural forces. His purpose of
writing was to touch and show people their won human feelings.
Ted Hughes
Hughes’ poetry is concerned with strong and violent forces of
nature. He is influenced by D. H. Lawrence. By making the animals and birds the
subjects of many of his poems, the poet intends to express the human condition.
Therefore, his animals are powerful as symbols. Hughes attempts to capture the
mystery of life and experience of animal characterization.
Robert Grave
He is one of the important poets of this century. Many of his
poems are love poems. In such poems he deals with as a central subject the
relationship between man and woman. He shows how physical love between man and
women can bring back life to the world and the lost sense of innocence and
wonder to human relationship.
R. S. Thomas
Thomas is Welsh and he is a clergyman by profession. Thomas
follows the tradition of British poets who have written about the country. His
poems deal with the hardship of country life. Country landscape and scene are
beautiful to look at from a distance, but if one gets closer to them, he
becomes aware of discomfort and hardship of life. His poems express the sense
that difficulty in life can be tolerated only by love of men and love of God,
since the qualities of mind alone are not enough.
Philip Larkin
Larkin is one of the most important poets since the war. He is
the central figure of the group who began Movement poetry. This group of poets
rejected the tradition of Dylan Thomas that poetry should express high emotion
and feeling and forces of nature. Their subject trend to be smaller and their
language more clearly controlled. In much of the poetry there is a sense that
reality is dull and unattractive, but that living through a dream is equally
impossible. Larkin is very much influenced by Hardy and like him he also looks
back to the past because the real happiness seems to have been lost in the present.
Stevie Smith
Smith is a naïve writer, whose voice is always clear and
unmistakable and whose expression is spontaneous. She writes poems in her
simple language and she treats common reality and experience of people in them.
Many of her poems concerned with good and evil carry on a direct debate over
the mystery of religion. She writes about her dislike of cruel people and gives
sharp and critical description of how people behave to each other. Her aim of
writing was ethical and didactic as well as to be entertained.
Seamus Heaney
Heaney is an Irish poet who is influenced by R. S. Thomas and
Ted Hughes. Like them, he writes of the countryside and of the natural world in
his early poems. His later poems move from private history to the public events
of the past and how they have influenced the present political and military
situation in Northern Ireland. Heaney is attempting to go beyond the daily
events of the life around him and to discover the forces below his country’s
history that can bring back life and hope. He received the Noble Prize for
literature in 1995.
War Poets
Rupert Brooke
One of the most famous poets of the war is Brooke. But he does
not express the painful view of the suffering caused by the war in his poetry.
The romantic and patriotic view of many soldiers at the beginning of the war is
reflected in one of his most famous poems. For Brooke death for a soldier was a
great sacrifice for his country. The poet has been criticized for not
responding to the horrors of war.
Siegfried Sassoon
Other war poets have truly expressed the painful realities of
war. As an English soldier Sassoon fought in France and gathered the real
experience of the destructive war. In his poems his anger is directed at the
pointlessness of war. He severely attacks those military senior officers who
plunged the innocent solider into the war. He hates those people at home who
ignored the misery and sufferings of the soldiers. The poets accuse them of
believing the false heroic stories of war told by government.
Wilfred Owen
He is the best-known English poet of the First World War. Like
Sassoon, he describes the realities of war-pain, horror and the suffering of
the soldier in his poem. He mentions how the war destroyed the soldiers’
happiness and damaged their mind permanently. Owen did not accept the romantic
and patriotic view of the war as Brooke did.
Isaac Rosenberg
He belonged to a working-class family and served as an ordinary
soldier in the war. He had not received much formal education. So his
experience of life in the war is different from other poets. This is reflected
in the language of his poetry and in the events he describes. He did not follow
the models and traditions of earlier poetry. He has used a new form of poetry
to describe his new experience. His language has great life and energy.
Conclusion
When the World War I came in 1914, the poets’ minds were filled
with heroic and nationalistic feelings. Their poems gave a romantic and
patriotic view. Rupert Brooke wrote representative poems giving a traditional
view of war. His five war sonnets represent the romantic and enthusiastic
feelings of the people. But in the later poets, we see the sad realities of
war.
Siegfried Sassoon had fought in France and seen the death and
destruction. In his poems, he expresses his anger towards the uselessness of
war. He hated the patriotic people of England, who just believed the government
propaganda, and were unknown about the sorrows and sufferings of the soldiers.
He was himself wounded in the war in Europe.
Wilfred Owen is the most popular poet of World War I. His poems
show the danger, discomfort, and suffering of the soldiers in the trenches.
They show how war harms the minds and happiness of the soldiers. In his poem,
StrangeMeeting he
describes that even the enemy soldiers are human beings like them. In Disabled he wrote about the soldiers disabled by
war. He himself died in the war.
Isaac Rosenberg came from a working class family and served as a
common soldier during the war. His language was not so refined, but it had a
great life and energy. The difficulties of the trench life and the inhumanity
of killing is described in his poems, Break of Day in the Trenches and Dead Man’s Dump.
The poets of the World War II were very different. As many
people had suffered the darker side of life during the after-war period, they
did not have the same hope and enthusiasm. These poets often showed a sense of
tiredness and a sense of helplessness. The language was also plain and simple.
Some of the poets of World War II were Sidney Keyes, Alun Lewis, Roy Fuller and
Keith Douglas
