British Literature Essay

This lesson is a continuance of the survey of British literature and will concentrate on literature from the Neoclassic Time period to today. This lesson is merely an overview of some of the writers and literary plants produced in England during a peculiar period. There are many other writers that made of import parts to the literature of this clip period. The periods of British Literature are:

Classical Period ( 1200 BC to 455 AD ) Medieval Period ( 455 AD to 1485 ) Renaissance and the Commonwealth Period ( 1485 to 1660 ) Neoclassic Period ( 1660 to 1790 ) Romantic Period ( 1790 to 1830 ) Victorian Period ( 1832 to 1901 ) Edwardian Era ( 1901 to 1910 ) Modernism ( 1914 to 1945 ) Post-Modernism Time period from 1945 to the present Neoclassic Period ( 1660-1790 ) The Enlightenment ( besides referred to as the Neoclassic Time period or the Age of Reason ) was based on the construct that people could happen flawlessness and felicity through ground and cognition. This basically humanist vision was characterized by a opposition to spiritual authorization.

The Enlightenment began during the seventeenth and 18th centuries in Europe and finally distribute to America. The Restoration. the Augustan Age. and the Age of Johnson were clip periods that were included in the Enlightenment. Literature from the colonial period and the beginning of the radical period in American literature developed during this clip. Two outstanding American writers of the epoch were Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. During the Restoration. British sovereign Charles II was restored to the throne ( hence the name of the epoch ) . taging the diminution of the Puritan influence on British literature.

Writers of the Neoclassical Period John Dryden Dryden ( 1631-1700 ) was an English poet and playwright. Some of his celebrated verse forms include “Astrea Redux. ” “Absalom and Achitophel. ” and “The Hind and the Panther. ” He is besides known for his drama All for Love. Dryden was the British poet laureate from 1670 to 1689. John Locke Locke ( 1631-1704 ) was an English philosopher who wrote the essay “Concerning Human Understanding. ” He believed that the lone manner a individual could derive cognition was through experience. Locke’s Two Treatises on Government promoted thoughts about democracy.

William Wycherley Wycherley ( 1640-1716 ) was an English playwright whose plants include Love in a Wood. The Country Wife. and The Plain Dealer. Samuel Pepys Samuel Pepys ( 1633-1703 ) was a authorities functionary and author who lived in England. His celebrated Diary is an of import beginning of the life styles and history of the English people. Aphra Behn Behn ( 1640-1689 ) was an English novelist and playwright and the first female to do a life from her authorship. Some of her plants include Oroonoko. The Forced Marriage. The Rover. and The Lucky Chance.

The Augustan Age ( 1700-1750 ) . named for the Roman emperor Augustus. witnessed a return to the Latin literature of the ancient Roman Empire. British authors were influenced by the plants of the ancient Roman poets Horace and Virgil during this epoch. Writers of the Augustan Age Joseph Addison Addison ( 1672-1719 ) was an English poet. litterateur. playwright. and member of Parliament. One of his well-known literary plant was the verse form “The Campaign. ” Sir Richard Steele Steele ( 1672-1729 ) was an litterateur and playwright from Ireland. With Joseph Addison. he founded the diaries The Tattler. The Spectator. and The Guardian.

He was elected to Parliament and was subsequently knighted. Two of his dramas include The Funeral and The Conscious Lovers. Jonathan Swift Swift ( 1667-1745 ) was an Irish ironist who used Juvenalian sarcasm to knock the society of his twenty-four hours in Gulliver’s Travels. Some of his other plants include A Tale of a Tub and A Modest Proposal. In 1694. he was ordained in the Church of England. Alexander Pope Pope ( 1688-1784 ) was a poet and author of sarcasm who was celebrated for his usage of the epic pair in his Hagiographas. Some of his plants include The Rape of the Lock. The Temple of Fame. An Essay on Man. and Moral Essays.

Daniel Defoe Defoe ( 1660-1731 ) was a journalist who wrote Robinson Crusoe. Some of his other plants include The True-Born Englishman. Moll Flanders. and A Journal of the Plague Year. he Age of Johnson. named for Samuel Johnson ( an of import figure in English literature in the late 1700s ) . lasted from 1750-1790. Writers of the Age of Johnson Samuel Johnson Johnson ( 1709-1784 ) was an English writer celebrated for his Dictionary of the English Language. The History of Rasselas. Prince of Abissinia. and The Lifes of the English Poets. He is besides remembered for organizing a group of authors called the Literary Club.

Oliver Goldsmith Goldsmith ( 1728-1774 ) was an English playwright. litterateur. poet. and novelist and was a member of the Literary Club. Goldsmith wrote the novel The Vicar of Wakefield. Other plants include the verse form “The Deserted Village” and the drama She Stoops to Conquer. Edmund Burke Burke ( 1729-1797 ) served as a member of Parliament during the American Revolution. He supported the rights of the settlers and urged the British authorities to compromise with the American settlements. Some of his Hagiographas were critical of the Gallic Revolution. Robert Burns Burns ( 1759-1796 ) was a Scots songster and poet.

Two of Burns’ better known vocals are “Auld Lang Syne” and “Comin’ Thro’ the Rye. ” James Boswell Boswell ( 1740-1795 ) was a Scots writer who wrote the life The Life of Samuel Johnson. He was a member of Samuel Johnson’s Literary Club. and the two work forces traveled together. Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides is an history of one of their trips. Edward Gibbon Gibbon ( 1737-1794 ) was a prima historian whose most celebrated work was the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Thomas Gray Gray ( 1716-1771 ) was an English poet whose manner was used by many of the Romantic authors.

His most celebrated work was Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Olaudah Equiano Equiano ( c. 1750 – c. 1797 ) was an African slave who was brought to the West Indies. He received some instruction and was subsequently granted his freedom by his maestro. He was the first black to compose an autobiography in England. He wrote The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. or Gustavus Vassa. the African in 1789. Romantic Period ( 1790-1830 ) Romanticism is the school of idea and period of literature in which emotion. passion. and imaginativeness are considered more of import than ground and intuition more of import than logic.

During the Romantic Period. most authors were discontented with commercial. inhuman. and standardised conditions. Many Romantic authors portrayed people in unrealistic state of affairss. To get away from modern life. the Romantics turned their involvement to remote and faraway topographic points. the medieval yesteryear. folklore and fables. nature. and the common people. Romantics glorified the person and believed that people must be free from restricting regulations and able to develop separately. The Romantic novels described exciting escapades. unexplained events. and the evil influences of compulsions. Writers of the Romantic Period William Blake.

Blake ( 1757-1827 ) was an English poet. creative person. and outstanding figure of Romanticism. Some of his plants included Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Blake created the illustrations in some of his books such as The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. William Wordsworth Wordsworth ( 1770-1850 ) was a Romantic poet whose literary plants focused on the beauty of nature. He teamed with Samuel Taylor Coleridge to compose Lyrical Ballads. taging the beginning of the Romantic motion. Other plants include The Solitary Reaper and the autobiographical verse form “Prelude. ” Samuel Coleridge Coleridge ( 1772-1834 ) was a poet and philosopher from England.

He coauthored Lyrical Ballads with William Wordsworth. His most celebrated plants include “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Kubla Khan. ” Percy Bysshe Shelly Shelly ( 1792-1822 ) was an English poet whose many verse forms contained political and spiritual subjects. His plants include “Ode to the West Wind. ” “The Cloud. ” and “The Skylark. ” John Keats Keats ( 1795-1821 ) was a poet who focused on decease. love. and beauty. His plants include “Ode to a Nightingale” and “On a Greek Urn. ” Sir Walter Scott Scott ( 1771-1832 ) was a Scots novelist and poet who became a attorney in 1792. He was credited with making the historical novel.

Scott became one of the taking literary figures of his twenty-four hours. Scott’s works of poesy include “The Lay of the Last Minstrel. ” “Marmion. ” and “The Lady of the Lake. ” His novels include Waverley. The Tale of Old Mortality. The Heart of Midlothian. Ivanhoe. The Talisman. St. Ronan’s Well. A Legend of Montrose. and Quentin Durward. Jane Austen Austen ( 1775-1814 ) was an English novelist who incorporated her observations of the manners and society of her clip. Through duologue and narrative. she allowed her characters to be guided by common sense and traditional values. Her more celebrated plants include Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice.

Gothic fresh Gothic novels use horror and mediaeval elements such as palaces and keeps. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Highs are illustrations of Gothic novels. Writers of Gothic Novels Ann Radcliffe Radcliffe ( 1764-1823 ) wrote The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian. The scene of most of her work involved guiltless immature adult females. dark cryptic palaces. and Lords with secret yesteryears. Horace Walpole Horace Walpole ( 1717-1797 ) wrote The Castle of Otranto. considered by some to be the first Gothic novel. every bit good as over 4. 000 published letters.

Writers in the Victorian Period ( 1832-1901 ) wrote about the life conditions of the lower category. The Victorian Period was besides marked by sentimental novels. The modern play appeared toward the terminal of the Victorian Age. Writers of the Victorian Period of Literature ( 1832-1901 ) Alfred Lord Tennyson Tennyson ( 1809-1892 ) served as the poet laureate of Great Britain from 1850 to 1892. Some of his plants include “Ulysses” and “The Charge of the Light Brigade. ” Robert Browning Browning ( 1812-1889 ) used dramatic soliloquy in his Hagiographas.

Some of his plants include “Pippa Passes. ” “The Pied Piper of Hamelin. ” “Bells and Pomegranates. ” and “My Last Duchess. ” Anne Bronte Anne Bronte ( 1820-1849 ) was the youngest of the three Bronte sisters. Her novels include Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Oscar Wilde Wilde ( 1854-1900 ) was an Irish writer who published merely one novel. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde wrote many comedies. including A Woman of No Importance and The Importance of Being Earnest. Thomas Carlyle Carlyle ( 1795-1881 ) was a Scots historiographer and litterateur who criticized the laissez faire philosophy that allowed people to make as they pleased.

His plants include Frederick the Great. George Bernard Shaw Shaw ( 1856-1950 ) was an Irish playwright and novelist and a member of the socialist Fabian Society. He wrote over 50 dramas including Pygmalion and won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Edward Lear Lear ( 1812-1888 ) was an English creative person and writer celebrated for his Limericks and children’s verse forms. Lear’s first publication was A Book of Nonsense. and his most celebrated children’s verse form was “The Owl and the Pussycat. ” Charlotte Bronte Charlotte Bronte ( 1816 – 1855 ) was an English writer best known for her fresh Jane Eyre.

With her sisters Emily and Anne. she published poesy written picturing their childhood phantasy universe. The verse forms were published under the male anonym of Currer. Ellis. and Acton Bell. Emily Bronte Emily Bronte ( 1818 – 1848 ) was one of the English Bronte sisters famous for their literary manner. Her lone novel was the Gothic Wuthering Heights. Charles Dickens Dickens ( 1812 – 1859 ) gained celebrity as a author of The Pickwick Papers. Many of his literary plants were based on his life experiences and societal conditions in England. His best known plants include A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations.

Pre-raphaelite Poets The Pre-Raphaelite poets ( named for the Italian painter Raphael ) of the Victorian Age wanted to return the morality of the medieval epoch to the modern universe. Dante Rossetti Rossetti ( 1828-1882 ) was considered a taking poet and painter in England during the 1800s. His poesy contained imagination and illustrations of symbolism. and his pictures included romantic scenes. His literary plants included Sister Helen and The House of Life. William Morris Morris ( 1834-1896 ) was an English creative person. poet. and societal reformist whose work reflected an involvement in mediaeval art and Gothic architecture.

His plants include The Life and Death of Jason. The Earthly Paradise. A Dream of John Ball. and News from Nowhere. Realism ( 1860 – 1914 ) Realist writers described life as it truly existed. Writers examined and exposed the societal. economic. and political jobs of society utilizing the idiom or linguistic communication of the people. Realists saw the corruptness of the Gilded Age and called for reform. They rejected Romanticism. which portrayed people in unrealistic state of affairss. Mark Twain. Bret Harte. and Henry James were authors of Realism. Transcendentalism ( 1800s ) .

Transcendentalism was a spiritual and philosophical motion in the early to middle 1800s. Ralph Waldo Emerson ( 1803-1882 ) was the leader of the Transcendentalist motion in America. He believed that people could derive cognition through the usage of their mind instead than from the experiences of their lives. The Transcendentalists rejected formal spiritual instructions. Naturalism Naturalists represented the utmost component of the Realism motion of literature. They believed that household history and environment were the chief influences on the development of a person’s character and that people had no control over their destiny.

Political. economic. societal. and heredity factors controlled the actions and destiny of the people. Naturalist authors exposed the maltreatments and agony of people in America. Upton Sinclair described in The Jungle. the predicament of the workers in the meat packing workss in Chicago. Stephen Crane wrote about the agonies of the soldiers during the Civil War in The Red Badge of Courage. Other Naturalist writers included Jack London. Theodore Dreiser. and Eugene O’Neill. Edwardian Period ( 1901-1910 ) This period of British Literature refers to the reign of Edward VII. the eldest boy of Queen Victoria and her hubby Albert.

Edward was interested in the humanistic disciplines and founded the Royal College of Music. Writers of the Edwardian Period H. G. Wells Wells ( 1866-1946 ) was a novelist. historian. and well-known writer of scientific discipline fiction. His literary plants include The Time Machine. The War of the Worlds. and The Shape of Things to Come. His Wealth and Happiness of Mankind addressed the societal demands of people in general. Arnold Bennet Bennet ( 1867-1931 ) was an English journalist. novelist. and dramatist. The movie The Madness of King George was an version of one of his dramas. One of his most celebrated plants was A Private Function.

Rupert Brook Brook ( 1887-1915 ) was an English poet whose Hagiographas described the lives of people who suffered through the horror of World War I. One of his most celebrated plants is The Soldier. John Masefield Masefield ( 1878-1967 ) was a novelist and poet laureate from England. His plant of poesy include “The Everlasting Mercy. ” “Dauber. ” and “Reynard the Fox” and the novels Sard Harker and The Bird of Dawning. Modernism ( 1914-1945 ) Modernism was a literary and cultural motion that did non back up the societal. political. or economic values of the 1800s.

Part of the ground for the motion off from the 1800s was due to the enormous devastation and loss of life that occurred during World War I. The Modernist motion included art. doctrine. architecture. and literature in both Europe and America. Writers of the Modernism Period William B. Yeats Yeats ( 1865-1939 ) was an Irish dramatist. poet. and playwright who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. Some of his plants include the verse form “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and the dramas The Countess Cathleen and The Land of Heart’s Desire. Seamus Heaney

Heaney ( 1939- ) is an Irish poet whose work focuses on the political relations and civilization of Northern Ireland. Some of his plants include The Spirit Level and Wintering Out and North. Dylan Thomas Thomas ( 1914-1953 ) was a Welsh poet who focused on the subjects of faith. decease. and love. His plants include Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog and Adventures in the Skin Trade. Virginia Woolf Woolf ( 1882-1941 ) was an English novelist. Her literary plants focused on societal and economic independency for adult females. Her novels include Mrs. Dalloway. The Years. and Between the Acts. Wilfred Owen.

Owen ( 1893-1918 ) was an English author who wrote about World War I. His poesy focuses on the subject that war is non a glorious venture. His plants include “Anthem for Doomed Youth. ” T. S. Eliot Eliot ( 1888–1965 ) was an American Born English poet and dramatist and one of the taking authors of the Modernist period of literature. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. Some of his work includes The Hollow Men. Ash Wednesday. Four Fours. Murder in the Cathedral. and The Cocktail Party. David Herbert Lawrence Lawrence ( 1885–1930 ) was a novelist whose literary plants focused on how work forces and adult females relate to each other.

His most celebrated work was Lady Chatterley’s Lover. His other plants include The Rainbow and The Studies in Authoritative American Literature. Siegfried Sassoon Sassoon ( 1886–1967 ) was a British poet and writer who wrote about the experiences of World War I. Sassoon’s literary plants include The Old Century and Rhymed Ruminations. Aldous Huxley Huxley ( 1894–1963 ) was an English poet and novelist. His novel Brave New World criticized how scientific discipline was destructing the ethical motives of English society. His other plants include Those Barren Leaves and Point Counter Point. Post-modernism Period ( 1945 to the nowadays )

Post-modernism includes some values and beliefs of the Modernism period. Its literature rejects traditional values of society and supports the anti-novel signifier. George Orwell Orwell’s ( 1903-1950 ) Hagiographas reflect his misgiving of authorities and political and societal political orientations. His plants include Nineteen Eighty-Four and the modern fable Animal Farm. Joseph Conrad Conrad ( 1857-1924 ) was a outstanding British novelist of the Post-modernist period. Some of his plants include Lord Jim and Under Western Eyes. Conrad was a established British citizen. holding been born in the Ukraine. James Joyce.

Joyce ( 1882-1941 ) was an Irish author who used the “stream of consciousness” technique. Some of his plants include Ulysses and Finnegans Wake and the short narrative aggregation Dubliners. Katherine Mansfield Mansfield ( 1888-1923 ) was a author from New Zealand whose pen name was Kathleen Beauchamp. Her plants include The Garden Party. Bliss. and In a German Pension. Doris Lessing Lessing ( 1919- ) is an English novelist and writer whose plants focus on the function of adult females in political relations and society. Some of her plants include The Grass is Singing. Children of Violence. Under My Skin. and Walking in the Shade.

Nadine Gordimer Gordimer ( 1923- ) is a South African novelist and short narrative author. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. Her literary plants include None to Attach to Me and The House Gun. Robert Graves Graves ( 1895-1985 ) was an English poet and author. His autobiography. Goodbye to All That. depict the horror of war. Graves’ other work include I Claudius and Claudius the God. Kingsley Amis Amis ( 1922–1995 ) was a novelist and poet from England. His literary plants include Lucky Jim. The Old Devils. The Riverside Villas Murder. The Green Man. and The Folks That Live on the Hill.

Anthony Powell Powell ( 1905–2000 ) was an English novelist and dramatist. His dramas include The Garden God and The Rest I’ll Whistle. Powell’s novels include Afternoon Men. Venusberg. From a View to a Death. and Agents and Patients. Powell’s autobiography. To Keep the Ball. was written in four volumes from 1976 to 1982. Muriel Spark Spark ( 1918- ) is a Scots novelist whose literary plants include The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. A Far Cry from Kensington. and Aiding and Abetting. A. S. Byatt Byatt ( 1936- ) is an English novelist. Her literary plants include Possession.

The Shadow of the Sun. and Babel Tower. Martin Amis Amis ( 1949- ) is an English journalist and novelist. Some of his plants include The Rachel Papers. London Fields. Night Train. and Henry Water. The information in this lesson will be a valuable resource for you in the survey of different periods of literature. Remember that this lesson is merely an overview of some of the writers and literary plants produced in Great Britain during this clip period. There are many other writers that made of import parts to the literature of this clip period that were non discussed in this lesson.