Introduction
British literature had gone through changes throughout history. These changes have resulted from various reasons that affected the literature directly. This essay attempts to analyze the changes in British literature from the Anglo-Saxon period and up to the seventeenth century.
Analysis
Beowulf – is one of the examples of medieval heroic epos. The poem arose on the basis of the ancient German legends, which are related to heathen times. Beowulf narrates the adventures of the courageous Beowulf, who freed Denmark from the terrible sea monster Grendel. In its composition, the poem about Beowulf is a complex phenomenon. The edition that reached our time testifies that the fairytale motives assumed as the basis for narrations were rewritten subsequently in correspondence to the principles of a heroic epic.
The literature of the 15th century, with rare exceptions, was not characterized by high brightness and force, if it predominated by the pale, imitative, to the extreme edifying creations, then oral popular poetry survived at that time noticeable bloom. It was characterized by the creative energy of the masses. Still, until our time the large impression produce many English and Scottish medieval ballads. To them willingly turned himself Shakespeare in his dramas “The Tragedy of Macbeth, a classic tale of power, ambition, and murder”.
The cycle of sonnets arose from an even more profound inducement: to approve the value of personal experience, usually love, as is to imagine a world or universe. Being extremely prevalent at the time, this form has given remarkable examples, which include Sonnets by Shakespeare, Spenser, and Petrarch.
Going further, as a whole the literature (with exception of dramaturgy) from the restoration of the monarchy to the rise of the queen in 1702 it was in striking contrast with the ease of the dispositions of court society, the witticism, and the spirit of merriment in the compositions of its representatives. Specifically, were at this time created the great works, which personified Puritan values. The classical century became the witness of the appearance of a new literary form – English novel, the leading genre of the present. This prolonged development of English prose e.g. Swift’s work and the improvement of its style preceded so that it could become the means of the analysis of character.
The time of English romanticism correctly is designated as a movement rather than a century: the most important compositions of its representatives came into being in the 26 years period from 1798 (lyric ballads of Wordsworth and Coleridge) to 1824 (the year of Lord Byron’s death). But these 26 years were some of the most fruitful in English literature. The first great poet of romantic motion was William Blake who in the song of Innocence and the song of Experience, after turning to the deceptive simplicity, “children’s” style in writing; he with the caustic irony attacked the institute of the church, the political and economic system. Thus, as the basis of the songs he put the righteous anger against the formal limitedness of the 18th century’s concepts “rationality” and “order”.
Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 and ruled until her death in 1901. Like Elizabeth, Victoria gave its name not only to political but also to the literary era. The victorian era was also a century of vigorous expansions, imperial ambitions, and deep faith in the future of England and the entire humanity. Poets of the Victorian era in no less than the novelists were both heirs and opponents of the revolution of romanticism. The creativity of the three great Victorian poets, Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold, can be likened in trying to look away from mirrors of the romantic imagination to the real picture in 19century and again make the voice of poetry to be worthy of public conscience of time.
Works Cited
McDougal Littell Literature. British Literature. : Mcdougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin, 1992.