History of British Literature. General characteristics of English literature: from the early Middle Ages to postmodernism. Famous English writers and their works

PREFACE

This textbook is intended for students of the humanities faculties of pedagogical universities and for students of English literature in the faculties of foreign languages. It presents the main phenomena of the history of English literature from its origins in the early Middle Ages to the present. The development of one of the richest literatures in the world is traced, which gave humanity Chaucer, Shakespeare, Defoe, Swift, Byron, Dickens, Shaw and many other wonderful novelists, playwrights and poets. The work of each of them is associated with a certain era, reflects the characteristics of their time, conveys the thoughts, feelings and aspirations of their contemporaries. But, becoming the property of national culture, great works of art do not lose their significance for subsequent eras. Their value is eternal.

English literature is an integral part of world culture. The best traditions English art enriched world literature; The works of the masters of English prose and poetry, translated into many languages, won recognition far beyond the borders of England.

The acquaintance of Russian readers with Shakespeare and Defoe, Byron and Dickens has its own history. Their work, like the legacy of many other English writers, has long enjoyed recognition and love in Russia. Shakespeare's tragedies were played by the greatest actors of the Russian theater; Belinsky wrote about English realism, comparing it with Gogol direction in Russian literature; Byron's poetry attracted Pushkin; L. Tolstoy admired Dickens's novels. In turn, Russian literature, its brilliant writers Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov influenced the work of many English writers.

The literature of England has come a long way and difficult path development, it is connected with the history of the country and its people, it conveys the features of the English national character. Its originality was manifested in medieval poetry, in the poems of Chaucer, in the bold flight of thought of Thomas More, in the comedies and tragedies of Shakespeare; it was reflected in the satire of Swift, in the comic epics of Fielding, in the rebellious spirit of the romantic poetry of Byron, in the paradoxes of Shaw and the humor of Dickens.

The following main periods are distinguished in the history of English literature: the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the 17th century, the Enlightenment of the 18th century, the 19th century, the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, the 20th century. (periods 1918-1945 and 1945-1990s).

In its main points, the periodization of English literature corresponds to the periodization of the literary process of other European countries (France, Germany, Italy, etc.). However, the historical development of England is characterized by some features related to the fact that the bourgeois revolution occurred in England in the middle of the 17th century, i.e. much earlier than in France. The development of capitalism proceeded at a faster pace in England. England has become a kind of classical country capitalist relations with all their inherent contradictions, which also affected the nature of her literary development.

English literature developed in Great Britain. Its origins originate in the oral folk poetry of the tribes that inhabited the British Isles. The original inhabitants of these lands - the Celts - were under Roman rule (I-V centuries), then were attacked by the Anglo-Saxons (5th century), who, in turn, in the 11th century. were conquered by descendants Scandinavian Vikings- Normans. The language of the Anglo-Saxon tribes was subject to Celtic, Latin and Scandinavian influences. The mixture of different ethnic principles determined the originality of the literature of the early Middle Ages.

Formation of the English nation and national literary language takes place in the 14th century. The establishment of literary English is associated with the activities of Chaucer, whose work marked the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. His “Canterbury Tales” is an important stage in the development of English literature; The process of formation of English realism with Chaucer’s inherent skill in depicting characters, humor, and satirical ridicule of social vices originates in them. During the Renaissance, English literature is characterized by the intensive development of philosophical thought, especially clearly represented in the works of Bacon, the founder of English materialism, and in More's Utopia, which proclaimed the possibility of a society without private property. More made important contributions to the development socialist ideas and laid the foundation for the utopian novel of modern times.

Renaissance English poetry, distinguished by its diversity of genres, reached a high level. In the work of the humanist poets Wyeth, Surry, Sidney and Spencer, the art of the sonnet, allegorical and pastoral poem, and elegy reached great heights. The sonnet form developed by Sidney was adopted by Shakespeare, and the “Spenserian stanza” became the property of the poetry of the romantics - Byron and Shelley. In an atmosphere of national upsurge, the Renaissance is experiencing a period of prosperity English theater and dramaturgy. Green, Kyd, and Marlowe prepared the dramatic art of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's global significance lies in the realism and nationalism of his work. A humanist writer whose works were the pinnacle of English poetry and dramaturgy of the Renaissance, Shakespeare conveyed the movement of history, the turning point character and tragic contradictions of his time, addressed the most pressing political problems, and created unforgettably bright, multifaceted characters of the heroes. The problem of “man and history” became the main one in his work. Shakespeare's legacy is an ever-living and inexhaustible source of thoughts, plots, and images for writers of subsequent generations. The Shakespearean tradition - the tradition of realism and nationalism - is immortal. She largely determined the development of drama, lyrics and the novel of modern times.

The bourgeois revolution of the 17th century played an important role in the history of England and the development of literature. The humanistic ideals of the Renaissance came into conflict with the inhumane essence of the bourgeois order. And yet they continued their lives in the works of writers who reflected the rise of the people's liberation movement and the intensification of the class struggle. The focus of the socio-political, aesthetic and ethical ideas of this turbulent era was the work of Milton - the largest public figure, poet and thinker of the 17th century. His works reflected the events of the English bourgeois revolution and the mood of the masses. Milton's poetry - link between the cultural traditions of the Renaissance and the educational thought of the 18th century. The images of rebellious tyrant fighters he created laid the foundations new tradition, continued by the English romantics XIX century- Byron and Shelley.

Milton's poems and lyrics, Bunyan's allegorical stories, Donne's poems, treatises, religious and political sermons, the first experiments in English literary criticism belonging to Dryden - all this together constitutes a unique genre system of the English literature XVII V.

XVIII century - This is the age of Enlightenment, the age of the industrial revolution, important achievements in technology and science. Enlightenment became widespread in European countries; it was an advanced ideological movement associated with the liberation struggle aimed at replacing feudalism with capitalist forms of relations. The Enlighteners believed in the power of reason and subjected it to critical judgment of the existing order.

In the conditions of England, where the bourgeois revolution occurred earlier than in other countries (with the exception of the Netherlands), the 18th century. became a period of strengthening of the bourgeois order. The uniqueness of the literature of the era is connected with this. The ideas and culture of the Enlightenment originated here earlier than on the continent, and the contradictions of the Enlightenment ideology became more pronounced, which is fully explained by the inconsistency of bourgeois reality with the ideal of a harmonious society. Literary trends of the 18th century. - classicism (the poetry of Pope), educational realism (the pinnacle of which is the work of Fielding), sentimentalism, which developed as a reaction to the rationalism of the Enlightenment (Thomson, Jung, Gray, Goldsmith, Stern). The genre forms of literature of the English Enlightenment are diverse: pamphlet, essay, farce, comedy, bourgeois drama, “ballad opera”, poem, elegy. The leading genre is the novel, represented in its various modifications in the works of Defoe, Swift, Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Goldsmith, Stern.

The traditions of the educational novel continued their life in the works of English critical realists of the 19th century. -Dickens and Thackeray; Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" marked the beginning of the development of "Robinsonades" in world literature; Stern's psychologism became a school of excellence for novelists of subsequent generations. At the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. A new direction is being formed in English literature - romanticism.

Features of social political life England was conditioned for a longer period than in others European countries, the existence of the romantic movement. Its beginning is associated with the pre-romanticism of the 18th century, the final stage dates back to the end of the 19th century. The heyday of romanticism, which emerged as a special movement under the influence of the French bourgeois revolution of 1789-1794, occurred at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries.

The originality of the romantic movement is determined by the transitional nature of the era, the change feudal society bourgeois, not accepted and condemned by romantics. Romanticism in England with particular force reflected the alienation of personality, the fragmentation of consciousness and psychology of an individual living in a period of transitional and unstable times, full of tragic contradictions, an intense struggle between the new and the old. In romantic art, there was a desire to depict the individual as valuable in itself, living with his own bright inner world.

The transitional and preparatory stage in the formation of romanticism as a reaction to the Enlightenment was pre-romanticism, represented in England by the work of such writers and poets as Godwin, Chatterton, Radcliffe, Walpole, Blake. The pre-romanticists contrasted the rationalistic aesthetics of classicism with the emotional principle, the sensitivity of the sentimentalists with the mystery and enigma of passions; They are characterized by an interest in folklore.

Formation aesthetic views and the principles of the English romantics is determined both by the peculiarities of their contemporary reality and by the nature of their attitude to the philosophical and aesthetic concepts of the Enlightenment. The optimistic ideas of the enlighteners, their belief in the possibility of social improvement in accordance with the laws of reason, were critically revised by the romantics. The Enlightenment's views on human nature were subject to a decisive re-evaluation: the romantics were not satisfied with the rational-materialist interpretation of man and his existence. They emphasized the emotional principle in a person, not the mind, but the imagination, the contradictions inherent in the inner world of a person, constant intense quests, the rebellion of the spirit, combined with aspiration to the ideal and a sense of irony, an understanding of the impossibility of achieving it.

The work of the English romantics is influenced by the national tradition of fantastic-utopian, allegorical and symbolic depiction of life, the tradition of a special dramatic disclosure of lyrical themes. At the same time, educational ideas are also strong (in Byron, Scott, Hazlitt).

The Romantics were united in their desire to pave the way for new art. However, sharp aesthetic polemics never ceased between writers of different ideological and political orientations. Ideological and philosophical disagreements and differences gave rise to several movements within romanticism. In English romanticism, the boundaries between movements were very clearly defined. In the literature of England of the Romantic era, the “Lake School” (“Leucists”), to which Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey belonged, stood out; revolutionary romantics - Byron and Shelley; London romantics - Keate, Lamb, Hazlitt. The combination of romanticism with pronounced features of realism is characteristic of the work of Scott, the creator of the historical novel.

The genre system of romanticism is characterized mainly by a variety of poetic forms (lyric poems, lyric-epic and satirical poem, philosophical poem, novel in verse, etc.). A significant contribution to the development of the novel was the work of Scott, whose historicism played an important role in the formation realistic novel XIX century In the 30-40s. XIX century as the leading direction in English literature is established critical realism. It reaches its heyday during the period of the highest rise of the Chartist movement - in the second half of the 40s.

Critical realism is formed on the basis of the cultural achievements of previous eras, absorbs the traditions of educational realism and romanticism; At the same time, the development of realism was marked by the emergence of a new aesthetics, new principles for the depiction of man and reality. The most important object of artistic representation becomes a person in his connection with specific historical conditions of existence. Personality is shown in its conditioning by the social environment. Social determinism, which has become a fundamental principle for critical realists, is combined with historicism as a specific system that helps to reveal the patterns of phenomena in reality. In English art, the movement towards establishing relationships between the individual and society began long before the 19th century. However, only in the 19th century. Dickens and Thackeray, Bronte and Gaskell were able to show their heroes as organically included in the social structure of contemporary England.

In the history of England, the middle of the 19th century. - a period of intense social and ideological struggle. At this time, a galaxy of Chartist poets and publicists (Jones, Linton, Garney and others) appeared in England. Chartist literature adopted and continued the traditions of democratic art XVIII V. (Godwin, Paine), revolutionary poetry and journalism of the romantics (Byron, Shelley). The innovation of Chartist literature was manifested in the creation of the image of a proletarian fighter.

In the second half of the 19th century. New trends emerged in the literary process in England. In the works of J. Eliot, and later in the works of Meredith, Butler and Hardy, new principles for creating character and depicting the inner world of a person are developed. Satirical sharpness and journalistic passion are replaced by closer attention to the sphere of the spiritual life of the heroes, through the prism of which the conflicts of reality are revealed. The peculiarities of the literature of this period were manifested in the process of its psychologization, in the dramatization of the novel, the intensification of its tragic beginning and bitter irony.

On turn of XIX-XX centuries The literary process in England is characterized by the intensity and complexity of its development. Aesthetic subjectivism is defended by Pater, who influenced Oscar Wilde; “literature of action” is represented by Kipling; the socialist ideal is proclaimed by Morris; the traditions of the realistic novel are refracted in the works of Bennett and Galsworthy.

First World War 1914-1918 marked the beginning of a new period in history and literature. The flourishing of English modernism is associated with the activities of Joyce, Eliot, Woolf and Lawrence. Their work revealed a new artistic thinking, a new artistic language. During the period between the two world wars they continued their creative path and writers of the older generation - Shaw, Wells, Galsworthy, Forster. In the 20th century and especially intensively after the Second World War British Empire is going through a period of collapse. The national liberation struggle of the peoples of colonial and dependent countries changed the position of Great Britain on the world stage. It lost its position as a colonial power, which could not but have a significant impact on the restructuring of the national self-awareness of the British, stimulating the desire to realize the novelty of the current situation in the world and within the country and its “English essence.”

Hopes associated with the end of the war gave way to disappointment; the unsettled state of the younger generation caused a mood of criticism, irritation, nostalgia, and deep dissatisfaction. The galaxy of “angry young writers” is a characteristic phenomenon in the literary life of post-war England in the 50s. In the 60-70s. The attention of many writers was attracted by the problem of the effectiveness of scientific and technological achievements for the destinies of mankind. Developing in conditions of aggravated social and racial contradictions, the labor and student movements, literature could not help but react to the instability of the emerging situation. The process of searching for a unifying “national idea” begins. Deindustrialization gave rise to a return to the dream of a “merry old England”, opposed to the cult of technicization, which did not live up to the hopes placed on it.

In the genre system of English literature of the modern era, the leading place, as in previous eras, belongs to the novel. IN modern novel various and at the same time interrelated features of the genre typology appear (epic and dramatic novel, panoramic and metaphorical, lyrical and documentary, intensive and extensive, centripetal and centrifugal, objective and subjective). The attraction to dramatic and tragic structure is combined with satirical beginning. The form of the epic cycle develops. The largest English novelists in modern English literature are Green, Waugh, Snow, Golding, Murdoch, Spark, Fowles. Among playwrights, Osborne, Bond and Pinter gained wide fame; Poets include Robert Graves and Dylan Thomas.

In the 19th century, English literature played an increasingly important role in world culture, remaining a humanistic art centered on the problems of man and his place in this world. The main artistic systems of the 19th century. interpreted human personality differently. The Romantics emphasized the exclusivity of their heroes, rebelling against the classicist concept of the uniformity of human nature and trying to emphasize the individual traits of his character. The titanism of the romantic hero as a person served as an invariable reason for his conflict with environment, which was sometimes not helped by the transfer of the action of works from the modern world to past historical eras, from reality to an exotic, fantastic setting. The consolidation in the late 1830s and early 1840s can be seen as a reaction to the romantic free play of the imagination. positions of realistic art, aimed at understanding the problems of an ordinary person taken from the life, deprived of traditional heroic qualities, and the opportunity to demonstrate these qualities. However, it should be remembered that romantic and realistic art XIX centuries developed in parallel, only at the beginning of the century romanticism occupied a dominant position, and in the 1830s. Realistic art has become increasingly relevant. Thus, in the era of the unconditional dominance of romanticism, Jane Austen worked, and contemporaries of Dickens, Thackeray and J. Eliot were the romantics A. Tennyson and R. Browning.

The features of English romanticism, the conditional date of birth of which is considered to be the publication of W. Wordsworth's preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800), are determined by the specifics of the socio-historical and spiritual development of British society. The bourgeois revolution, which was being prepared by continental enlighteners, occurred in a moderate, almost bloodless form in England back in 1688-1689. and received the name “Glorious”: thanks to her, the bourgeoisie, along with the aristocracy, gained political power and throughout the 18th century. its role in the political life of the state steadily increased. Moreover, already from the middle of the 18th century. dissatisfaction with the results of socio-political development begins to show in English literature. The Industrial Revolution gave rise to the rapid growth of cities and, at the same time, acute social problems that affected not only the residents of gradually decaying and depopulated villages, but also overpopulated industrial centers. All this taken together led to disappointment in the prospects for social development and scientific and technological progress, in bourgeois civilization as a whole. The crisis of educational ideology gave rise to a romantic worldview, the basis of which was the discord between the ideal and reality, which determined the need to affirm the intrinsic value of a spiritually rich and creative personality. A critical attitude towards reality encouraged the English romantics to look for their ideals outside the bourgeois world. This is the root of their obvious reluctance to depict the present, to which they preferred either the past or the future, often presented in an embellished, idealized guise.

The Enlightenment hope in the possibilities of reason is replaced by the idea of ​​a cognitive imagination. In flights of fancy, the romantics saw divine revelation, believing that it was the creative imagination that could reveal true beauty peace. The cult of liberated fantasy determined the specificity of the artistic means favored by the romantics - allegory, grotesque and symbol.

English romanticism rejects the normative aesthetics of classicism, abandons the strict hierarchy of genres, the romantics boldly move along the path of experimentation, creating works of synthetic genres, such as lyrical dramas and lyric epic poems. Refusing to slavishly copy antique models, they drew inspiration from national history and folklore, from the works of the greatest English poets of the 16th-17th centuries. Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton. Shakespeare becomes the banner of English romanticism, Shakespearean criticism develops, and the work of the great Elizabethan acquires the meaning of a symbol of genius and absolute creative freedom. Essentially, the establishment of the cult of Shakespeare was the logical end of a centuries-long dispute between admirers of the ancient (“ancient”) and supporters modern literature(“new”), which ended in a convincing victory for the latter. An important role in the growing attention to folk art was played by T. Percy’s collection of folk ballads and “The Works of Ossian, son of Fingal” (1765) by J. Macpherson, who passed off his own fantasies on the themes of the Celtic epic as a translation of the works of the legendary bard. A critical attitude towards the materialism of the Age of Enlightenment gave rise to interest in idealistic philosophy, which left its mark on the character artistic images romantic literature.

In contrast to the average idea of ​​an abstract person developed by the Enlightenment, English romantics create images of bright individuals, exceptional heroes, whose special character traits are revealed in exceptional situations. IN romantic works a specific emotional atmosphere is created that allows the authors to show the deep and powerful passions that overwhelm their heroes. A characteristic feature of the literature of this period is an interest in an extraordinary personality with its exaggerated passions. At the same time, the methods of psychological analysis that entered literature during this period were subsequently adopted by realists of the mid-19th century, who used them to describe the characters of ordinary heroes.

Despite all the obvious dissimilarity from the Enlightenment, the English romantics, with their rebellious pathos of negating the aesthetic doctrines of their predecessors, in fact, to a certain extent, remain faithful to the traditions of the previous stage in the development of literature. They do not reject the Enlightenment concept of the “natural man”, the Enlightenment view of nature as a great good principle, they also strive for justice, which would extend to all members of society. Thus, W. Scott considered himself a student of Fielding, and J. G. Byron, in the historical plays of the Italian period, obviously adhered to the principles of classicist drama.

A powerful stimulus to the development of English romanticism as a literary movement was such events as the American War of Independence (1775-1783), the centenary of the Glorious Revolution and the Great French Revolution of 1789. The reaction to the events in France in England was ambiguous, and with the beginning After the Jacobin terror, even the most optimistic Englishmen, who welcomed, in the words of Burns, the Parisian “tree of freedom,” took a balanced protective position. However, the wind of revolutionary change blowing from France gave rise to the desire for personal freedom, including freedom of creativity, which determined the fundamental character of romantic culture.

English romantics creatively perceived romantic ideas born in continental Europe. The theoretical developments of the early German romantics and Madame de Staël turned out to be especially important for them. At the same time, the romantic type of consciousness in England was also formed under the influence of national philosophical and social ideas. In England, the mood of these years gave rise to a fairly extensive journalistic literature that tried to comprehend both the results of the French Revolution and the English experience of bourgeois development, especially the significance of the industrial revolution of the 18th century. and its social economic consequences. The works of Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Thomas Paine (1737-1809) and William Godwin (1756-1836) had the greatest public resonance.

Burke was one of the first in England to categorically condemn the events in France. In his treatise “Reflections on the French Revolution” (1790), he defended the rights of monarchs, rejecting the right of peoples to violently overthrow their power. Being an opponent of revolutionary coups, Burke spoke out for the gradual reform of society based on national traditions. He did not deny the need to provide certain rights to democratic layers of the population, especially the peasantry, but he saw the backbone of the state only in the monarchy and the nobility loyal to it. The radically minded Paine held a different point of view. Participated in the American War of Independence on the side of the Americans, in the pamphlet “ Common sense"(1776) he made a declaration of the right of peoples to overthrow bad rulers. In The Rights of Man (1791-1792), Paine continued his harsh criticism of the monarchy, arguing for the right of the people to change the political form of government in their country. In the French Revolution, the author saw an event that corresponded to the needs of the socio-historical development of the French people. At the same time, he expressed thoughts about the lag government system Great Britain from the needs of the nation inhabiting it. The greatest resonance in England was caused by Godwin's work “Discourse on Political Justice and its Influence on General Virtue and Welfare” (1793), in which the source of social inequality was called economic inequality, which in turn stemmed from the existence of private property. Godwin's ideas, anticipating utopian socialism, grew out of the works of French enlighteners, primarily Helvetius and Rousseau, but the violence associated with the French Revolution aroused Godwin's rejection. The ways to transform the world were to be persuasion, a positive example, and the power of public opinion. At the same time, Godwin opposed public property, and also denied the very idea of ​​the state, family or any other organized community of people. As a champion of individualism bordering on anarchism, Godwin influenced all the English romantics in one way or another.

English romanticism seems to be a heterogeneous movement. According to chronological principles, the English romantics can be divided into two generations: the “elders”, who began writing at the end of the 18th century, include representatives of the “Lake School”, the “younger” - Byron, Shelley, Keete, Thomas Moore (1779-1852). Such a classification is very conditional: for example, the work of Scott, who emerged as a poet already at the turn of the century, and as a prose writer - starting in 1814, does not fit into it. The work of William Blake (1757-1827), whose works were -really “discovered” only three decades after his death. However, it was Blake who developed ideas about the futility of the mind, which is devoid of imagination, about the exclusivity of the poet, who can discern the truth and reveal the unknown to readers. At the same time, the mystical symbolism inherent in Blake's work distinguishes him from the work of other early romantics.

The century of romanticism in England was marked by the flowering of lyrical genres of poetry, the birth of the historical novel, the creator of which was W. Scott. Romantic prose of this period is also represented by essays (C. Lamb (1775-1834), W. Hazlitt (1778-1830), L. Hunt (1784-1859), T. Carlyle (1795-1881) and others) and a number of “late Gothic » novels, among which a special place is occupied by the one standing at the origins of modern science fiction"Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus" (1818) by Mary Shelley (1797-1851).

Back at the beginning of the 19th century. in relation to the novel, the influence of the classicist hierarchy of genres was felt, according to which the novel was classified as “low” and was considered suitable only for entertaining the reader. Thanks to the works of V. Scott, the attitude towards the novel changed radically: it acquired educational significance. T. Carlyle further expanded the idea of ​​the possibilities of the novel, who added to the requirements of entertainment and education also the requirement to depict deep and significant conflicts in the novel in Shakespearean style. The new attitude to the novel gave rise to a wide discussion of issues related to the theory of the genre, which became the main object of search for English aesthetic thought and artistic practice in the 19th century.

19th century realism acts as a successor to the realistic traditions of literature of the Age of Enlightenment. The concept of social determination of human character is borrowed from the Enlightenment realists, but the new generation of realists cannot ignore the experience of the romantics, inheriting from them the idea of ​​the determination of personality by its contemporary historical situation. Great Britain, along with France and Russia, is one of the countries where 19th-century realism. developed earlier than in other national literatures. If the national coloring of romanticism itself resulted from its aesthetic principles, then national specifics realism, which certainly exists in all literature, is explained both by the peculiarities of the socio-historical development of a particular country and by the specifics national mentality. For example, in England with its Protestant-Puritan traditions, especially in early stage development realism XIX c., a stable moralizing tendency is noticeable. As a trend, didacticism continues in the realistic novel of later years. All realists of the 19th century shared the opinion that the future of England depended on the moral level of its people, and they all believed that the fate of a nation was decided by the high morality of the absolute majority, and not by the exceptional. moral qualities individual outstanding personalities.

In the conditions of the “turbulent” 1830s and the “hungry” 1840s. English writers had to turn their face to reality, and from the late 1830s. in the work of English novelists took a leading place modern theme. Works of classics of realism of the 19th century. - S. Bronte, C. Dickens, E. Gaskell and W. M. Thackeray - are distinguished by acute social-critical pathos. Outstanding novelists directed all the power of their talent to make their contemporaries horrified by the state of society and try to change it for the better. If Dickens and Gaskell were closer to the preaching tendencies and ideas of Christian charity, which determined the ethical content of their novels, then Thackeray tried to eradicate the shortcomings through flagellating Juvenal satire and irony reaching the point of sarcasm, and III. Brontë sought to establish the ideal of an independent, self-valued individual, whose very existence would serve as a role model and an openly unspoken reproach to contemporary readers.

The works of these authors affirm aesthetic principles realism of the 19th century, a hero of a new type appears, the so-called “little” (as opposed to the titanic rebel hero of the era of romanticism) man, who came into the novel directly from life. Heroes of the English realistic novel of the 19th century. determined not only by the social environment or innate inclinations; their fates, like the fates of romantic heroes since Scott's time, depend on the historical setting of their existence. The interpretation of the hero’s interaction with the outside world becomes more difficult. Using the canons of the family novel and the novel of education, so popular in the works of educational realists of the 18th century, English authors of the mid-19th century. explored in depth the inner world of their heroes, intensively developing techniques of psychological writing and preparing the ground for the emergence of their own psychological novel. In Thackeray's novel “The History of Pendennis” (1848-1850), the first reflective hero in the history of English realism appeared - Arthur Pendennis.

Chronologically, the heyday of realism in the 19th century. in England coincides with the beginning of the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). Moreover, the concept of “Victorian era” usually includes the second half of the 19th century, leaving out the first 13 years of the reign famous queen. At the same time, Dickens, Thackeray, Bronte and Gaskell, who entered the literary arena in the 1830-1840s, are usually classified as Victorian writers.

In realistic aesthetics, the concept of romantic duality is replaced by a dialectical approach to the facts of life, the desire to see in reality both bad and positive, worthy of praise and increase. Thus, in the very nature of realistic art, aimed at an adequate reflection of life, there is a tendency towards a balanced, objective depiction of life. As realism developed in the 19th century. the tendency towards objectivity in the depiction of events is increasing, which is reflected in the debate about truthfulness in art. On the one hand, the photographically accurate reproduction of life on the pages was elevated to the absolute virtue of realistic art. work of art, on the other hand, the artist’s right to play with imagination was defended, since only it could help to comprehend and typify the entire diversity of life. One of the prominent critics of the second half of the 19th century, Leslie Stephen, expressed the idea that sometimes the importance of verisimilitude in literary work is overrated, and suggested that the novelist in his art should combine the ordinary with the fantastic, since verisimilitude is the only possible means of achieving truthfulness in art.

19th century realism for a long time was called “critical,” which rightly characterizes its ethical orientation, which makes realists and romantics akin to their rejection of modernity with its diminishing moral criteria. However, under the influence of the philosophy of positivism that spread in the middle of the century (O. Comte, I. Taine, E. Renan and others in France, J. St. Mill, G. Spencer and others in England) and events in socio-political life, among which the most important were the decline of the Chartist movement, the aggravation of the situation in Ireland and the revolutionary events of 1848 in Europe, which deprived the illusion of the possibility of quick and effective change way of life, English realism, without abandoning the search for the laws governing the world, significantly deepened everyday writing tendencies. Unlike the literature of France, where positivism became the philosophical basis of naturalism, this direction did not take root in English literature, primarily because the strict morality of the Victorian era imposed a taboo on the depiction of man as a biological being, excluding the possibility of frank display of physiological scenes. At the same time, in the works of a number of English writers of the last third of the 19th - early 20th centuries. one can trace the influence of naturalism, which encouraged them to determine the fate of the heroes by a fatal combination of circumstances, understood as the inexorable dictate of the environment, in which the action of some abstract, blind, irrational force is manifested. In this sense, naturalistic tendencies can be traced in the works of J. Eliot, George Gissing (1857-1903), George Moore (1852-1933), Arthur Morrison (1863-1945) and T. Hardy, but none of these authors implemented life of the key requirement of the aesthetics of naturalism, without limiting itself to a strictly “scientific” recording of facts. On the contrary, analytical tendencies are clearly expressed in their work, pictures of the development of personality and society are given, cause-and-effect relationships of phenomena are explored, which brings these writers closer to the classical realists of the 19th century.

The country's confident progress along the bourgeois path of development raised doubts among many progressive-minded people about the possibility of changing anything in the existing order of things. The desire to reveal the vices of the social mechanism and push the world to eradicate them is replaced in literature by apathy, disappointment, and disbelief in the very possibility of comprehending laws. human existence. Thackeray's later works (1850-1860s), with their desire for scrupulous accuracy in reflecting reality, gave impetus to the development of the so-called ordinary, or everyday, realism, represented primarily by the works of J. Eliot and E. Trollope. The traditions of English realistic prose in the works of these authors are combined with the tangible influence of the ideas of leading English positivist philosophers - Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), George Henry Lewis (1817-1878), and to a lesser extent - Henry Thomas Buckle (1821 - 1862).

Extending the laws of nature to human society, Spencer put forward the concept of society as a single biological organism, likening its various classes to specialized organs and proving that social well-being as a whole depends on proper operation individual organs and the harmonic correspondence between them. This theory established the inevitability of class and racial inequality. Under the influence of the evolutionary theory of development of Charles Darwin, Spencer believed that fundamental changes in the social organism can only occur through a long evolutionary path, thereby affirming the inviolability of the modern state of society throughout the foreseeable historical future. The theorizing of Buckle, who, following Taine, considered civilization to be a function determined by natural (geographical, climatic, etc.) factors, led to similar conclusions. Based on the ideas of the French positivist O. Comte, J. G. Lois believed that at the modern stage of development of knowledge, both science and art should focus on the study of specific, individual phenomena, without pretending to reveal the connections between them.

The idea of ​​smooth evolutionary change public life as if supported by practice: the length of the working day was reduced, in August 1868 it came into effect new law about elections, according to which for the first time representatives of the working class who had reached the age of majority received the right to vote (worker deputies were first elected to parliament in 1874), in the 1870-1880s. the improvement of the state's political system continued. In 1872, secret voting was introduced in parliamentary elections, in 1883, a law against bribery of voters was adopted, and in 1884, the principle of “one person - one vote,” which had previously been constantly violated, was legislated. Another year later, the country was divided into electoral districts based on population, which created the basis for more equitable representation of the people in the country's parliament. At the same time, a two-party system dominated English political life, giving rise to the alternation of conservatives and liberals in power. Now, in order to win the elections, both parties actively rushed “to the people”, laying down principles of working with voters that have not lost their relevance to this day. At the same time, such obvious successes in the democratization of society did not lead to a qualitative change in the life of the nation. In the 1880-1890s. Among the English intelligentsia, the ideas of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), who rejected the idea of ​​progress and argued that the world order was based not on laws comprehended by reason, but on a certain blind “world will”, which was useless to resist, became widespread. All this explains why in the last decades of the 19th century. In the works of realist writers, one can hear more and more clearly the hopeless tragic tone in which stories about the clashes of the individual with the inert Victorian society are colored. The most powerful theme of a person’s discord with the environment to which he belongs and the dictates of which he feels is presented in the works of J. Meredith (1828-1909) and T. Hardy. S. Butler (1835-1902) created his works in line with classical realistic satire, aiming them against the everyday and religious hypocrisy of the Victorians.

The feeling of the tragedy of existence prompted artists of the second half of the 19th century. seek peace of mind in a distraction from major social problems and dramatic conflicts in the setting. Many novelists of the second half of the 19th century. actively tried to overcome the didacticism inherent in the work of their predecessors, to give the novel entertainment, which in recent decades has been supplanted by serious social, political and moral issues. Thus, developing the traditions of Dickens in general and not shying away from socially significant topics, W. Collins sought to captivate his readers and intrigue them, sometimes deviating from the main principle for realism of following the truth of life in favor of playing with the imagination. An even more obvious interest in the mysterious and extraordinary is observed in the works of neo-romantic writers - R. L. Stevenson (1850-1894), J. Conrad (1857-1924), A. Conan Doyle (1859-1930), close to them J. R. Kipling (1865-1936).

Neo-romanticism is born from the need to move away from documentary-accurate reproduction of unpleasant reality in literature. However, the works related to neo-romanticism are so heterogeneous that it is often considered not a literary movement, but only a stylistic trend. Neo-romanticism synthesizes features of both romantic and realistic aesthetics. Neo-romantic writers are united by their rejection of down-to-earth heroes, to whom they contrast images of courageous, courageous people who reveal their qualities in a series of unusual adventures. Sometimes the neo-romantic hero acts in exceptional circumstances, but at the same time his actions are always realistically motivated and psychologically conditioned.

Throughout the 19th century. there has been a tendency to view the art world as the antithesis of depressing reality. By the end of the century in England, as in other countries Western Europe, decadent moods spread, aestheticism emerged, which put forward the cult of “pure art.” If the immediate predecessors of the aesthetes, J. Ruskin (1819-1900) and the Pre-Raphaelites, a group of poets and painters who strived for beauty and synthesis of the arts, placed one of the key places in their aesthetics on the moral meaning of the work, then the aesthetes led by O. Wilde protested against the imposition of any worldly ethical standards on works of art. They expressed their protest against bourgeois utilitarianism in the thesis about the uselessness of all art. Aesthetes also rejected realistic objectivism, proclaiming the cult of the subjective principle in art. Aestheticism as the leading decadent trend in England developed in equally under the influence French poetry 1850-1870s and national literary traditions. It was an outburst of protest against the wretchedness of existence, but the attempt to escape reality into the world of beauty turned out to be untenable, and by the beginning of the 20th century. aestheticism as literary movement exhausted itself.

In general, the literary process in England in the 19th century. can be characterized by the interaction - interpenetration and mutual repulsion - of the elements of the main directions listed above. Such a dynamic picture of English literature of this period sometimes prompts us to consider the work of individual authors as aesthetically transitional phenomena. For example, in the work of Charles Dickens, who is traditionally considered a classic of realism of the 19th century, the influence of romantic aesthetics is obvious; Scott’s historical novel is a natural product of the era of romanticism, but at that time contains elements of realism; the work of T. Hardy should be considered as synthesis of aesthetic ideas of classical realism and naturalism, etc. Besides, creative individuality all sorts of things outstanding writer invariably distinguishes him from his fellow writers, and the master’s belonging to one or another literary movement should be judged by his adherence to the main set of aesthetic ideas, which makes it possible to establish his inherent type of artistic consciousness. This approach makes it possible, for example, to classify authors as dissimilar to each other as Wordsworth and Byron as romanticism, Dickens and Thackeray, W. Collins and J. Eliot as realism, R. L. Stevenson and A. Conan Doyle as neo-romanticism .

English literature– this is a centuries-old history, magnificent writers, unique works that reflect the characteristics of the national character. We grow up with the books of these great authors, we develop with their help. It is impossible to convey the importance of English writers and the contribution they made to world literature. We offer you 10 internationally recognized masterpieces of English literature.

1. William Shakespeare - “King Lear”

The story of King Lear is the story of a man blinded by his own despotism, who in his declining years is confronted for the first time with the bitter truth of life. Endowed with unlimited power, Lear decides to divide his kingdom between his three daughters Cordelia, Goneril and Regan. On the day of his abdication, he expects flattering speeches and assurances of tender love from them. He knows in advance what his daughters will say, but he longs to once again listen to the praises addressed to him in the presence of the court and foreigners. Lear invites the youngest of them and the most beloved Cordelia to talk about his love in such a way that her words will prompt him to give her a “more extensive share than his sisters.” But proud Cordelia refuses to perform this ritual with dignity. A fog of rage obscures Lear’s eyes and, considering her refusal an attack on his power and dignity, he curses his daughter. Having disinherited her, King Lear abdicates the throne in favor of his eldest daughters Goneril and Regan, without realizing dire consequences of his actions...

2. George Gordon Byron - “Don Juan”

“I am looking for a hero!..” Thus begins the poem “Don Juan”, written by the great English poet George Gordon Byron. And his attention was attracted by a hero well known in world literature. But the image of the young Spanish nobleman Don Juan, who became a symbol of the seducer and womanizer, takes on new depth in Byron. He is unable to resist his passions. But often he himself becomes the object of harassment from women...

3. John Galsworthy - “The Forsyte Saga”

“The Forsyte Saga” is life itself, in all its tragedy, in joys and losses, a life that is not very happy, but accomplished and unique.
The first volume of “The Forsyte Saga” includes a trilogy consisting of novels: “The Owner,” “In the Loop,” “For Rent,” which presents the history of the Forsyte family over many years.

4. David Lawrence - “Women in Love”

David Herbert Lawrence shocked the consciousness of his contemporaries with the freedom with which he wrote about the relationship of the sexes. In the famous novels about the Brenguin family - “The Rainbow” (which was banned immediately after publication) and “Women in Love” (published in a limited edition, and in 1922 a censorship trial of its author took place) Lawrence describes the story of several married couples. Women in Love was filmed by Ken Russell in 1969 and won an Oscar.
“My great religion is the belief in blood and flesh, that they are wiser than the intellect. Our minds may make mistakes, but what our blood feels, believes, and says is always true.”

5. Somerset Maugham - “The Moon and a Penny”

One of best works Maugham. A novel about which literary critics have been arguing for many decades, but still cannot come to a common opinion - should the story of the tragic life and death of the English artist Strickland be considered a kind of “free biography” of Paul Gauguin?
Whether this is true or not, “The Moon and a Penny” still remains the true pinnacle of English literature of the 20th century.

6. Oscar Wilde - “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

Oscar Wilde is a great English writer who gained fame as a brilliant stylist, an inimitable wit, an extraordinary personality of his time, a man whose name, through the efforts of enemies and a gossip-hungry mob, became a symbol of depravity. This edition includes the famous novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - the most successful and most scandalous of all the books created by Wilde.

7. Charles Dickens - “David Copperfield”

The famous novel “David Copperfield” by the great English writer Charles Dickens has gained the love and recognition of readers all over the world. Largely autobiographical, this novel tells the story of a boy forced to fight alone against a cruel, bleak world inhabited by evil teachers, selfish factory owners and soulless servants of the law. In this unequal war, David can only be saved by moral firmness, purity of heart and extraordinary talent, capable of turning a dirty ragamuffin into the greatest writer in England.

8. Bernard Shaw - “Pygmalimon”

The play begins on a summer evening in Covent Garden in London. A sudden torrential downpour of rain caught the pedestrians by surprise and forced them to take shelter under the portal of St. Paul's Cathedral. Among those gathered were professor of phonetics Henry Higgins and researcher of Indian dialects Colonel Pickering, who specially came from India to see the professor. Unexpected meeting delights both of them. The men begin a lively conversation, into which an incredibly dirty flower girl intervenes. While begging the gentlemen to buy a bouquet of violets from her, she makes such unimaginable inarticulate sounds that it horrifies Professor Higgins, who is discussing the advantages of his method of teaching phonetics. The annoyed professor swears to the colonel that thanks to his lessons, this dirty woman can easily become a saleswoman in a flower shop, where now she will not even be allowed to enter the door. Moreover, he swears that in three months he will be able to pass her off as the duchess at the envoy's reception.
Higgins gets down to business with great enthusiasm. Obsessed with the idea of ​​turning a simple street girl into a real lady at any cost, he is absolutely confident of success, and does not think at all about the consequences of his experiment, which will radically change not only the fate of Eliza (that’s the girl’s name), but also his own life .

9. William Thackeray - “Vanity Fair”

The pinnacle of creativity of the English writer, journalist and graphic artist William Makepeace Thackeray was the novel “Vanity Fair”. All the characters in the novel - positive and negative - are involved, according to the author, in an “eternal circle of grief and suffering.” Rich in events, rich in subtle observations of the life of its time, imbued with irony and sarcasm, the novel “Vanity Fair” took pride of place in the list of masterpieces of world literature.

10. Jane Austen - “Sense and Sensibility”

“Sense and Sensibility” is one of best novels the wonderful English writer Jane Austen, who is rightly called the “First Lady” British literature. Among her most famous works are such masterpieces as “Pride and Prejudice”, “Emma”, “Northanger Abbey” and others. “Sense and Sensibility” is a so-called novel of morals, representing love stories two sisters: one of them is restrained and reasonable, the other with all passion gives herself over to emotional experiences. Heart dramas against the background of the conventions of society and ideas about duty and honor become a real “education of feelings” and are crowned with well-deserved happiness. The life of a large family, the characters and the twists and turns of the plot are described by Jane Austen easily, ironically and heartfeltly, with inimitable humor and purely English restraint.

The selection includes the most famous works of English writers. These are British novels, detective stories and stories popular with readers around the world. We didn't stop at one genre or time. There is science fiction, fantasy, humorous stories, dystopias, children's adventures and other masterpieces from the Middle Ages to the present. The books are different, but they have something in common. All of them made a tangible contribution to the development of world literature and art, reflecting the national characteristics of the inhabitants of Great Britain. 


Famous English writers

Let's not forget about Iris Murdoch, John le Carre, JK Rowling, Ian McEwan, Joanne Harris, Julian Barnes and other talented contemporary English writers. Another shining example gifted author - Kazuo Ishiguro. In 2017, this famous British writer of Japanese origin received the Nobel Prize in Literature. The selection includes his novel about touching love and a sense of duty, “The Remains of the Day.” Add and read. And then be sure to watch the excellent film adaptation - starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson - “At the End of the Day” (dir. James Ivory, 1993).

Literary awards and film adaptations

These works are a treasure trove of inspiration for directors, producers, and screenwriters. It’s hard to imagine that if Bernard Shaw had not written the play “Pygmalion,” we would not have seen the stunning transformation of Audrey Hepburn from an illiterate flower girl into a sophisticated aristocrat. We are talking about the film “My Fair Lady” (dir. George Cukor, 1964).

From modern books and their successful film adaptations, pay attention to The Long Fall. Nick Hornby wrote an ironic novel about the relationship between good human communication and the desire to live. The film of the same name with Pierce Brosnan and Toni Collette (dir. Pascal Chomel, 2013) turned out to be soulful and life-affirming.

Geographical information

The selection of English writers and their works was impressive - more than 70 books. This is a real book challenge! Add the books you like and immerse yourself in a slightly prim, but so elegant world!

Everyone knows the plot of Daniel Defoe's novel. However, the book contains many other interesting details about the organization of Robinson’s life on the island, his biography, and inner experiences. If you ask a person who has not read the book to describe Robinson’s character, he is unlikely to cope with this task.

In the popular consciousness, Crusoe is a smart character without character, feelings or history. The novel reveals the image of the main character, which allows you to look at the plot from a different angle.

Why you need to read

To get acquainted with one of the most famous adventure novels and find out who Robinson Crusoe really was.

Swift does not openly challenge society. Like a true Englishman, he does it correctly and witty. His satire is so subtle that Gulliver's Travels can be read as an ordinary fairy tale.

Why you need to read

For children, Swift's novel is a fun and unusual adventure story. Adults need to read it to get acquainted with one of the most famous artistic satires.

This novel, let it artistically and not the most outstanding, definitely iconic in the history of literature. After all, in many ways he predetermined the development of the scientific genre.

But this is not just entertaining reading. It raises problems of the relationship between creator and creation, God and man. Who is responsible for creating a being who is destined to suffer?

Why you need to read

To get acquainted with one of the main works of science fiction, as well as to experience complex issues that are often lost in film adaptations.

It is difficult to single out Shakespeare's best play. There are at least five of them: “Hamlet”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “Othello”, “King Lear”, “Macbeth”. The unique style and deep understanding of life's contradictions made Shakespeare's works an immortal classic, relevant at all times.

Why you need to read

To begin to understand poetry, literature and life. And also to find the answer to the question, what is better: to be or not to be?

The main theme of English literature in the early 19th century was social criticism. Thackeray in his novel denounces his contemporary society with the ideals of success and material enrichment. To be in society means to be sinful - this is approximately Thackeray’s conclusion regarding his social environment.

After all, the successes and joys of yesterday lose their meaning when a well-known (albeit unknown) tomorrow looms ahead, which we all will sooner or later have to think about.

Why you need to read

To learn to relate more simply to life and the opinions of others. After all, everyone in society is infected with “fair ambitions” that have no real value.

The language of the novel is beautiful, and the dialogue is an example of English wit. Oscar Wilde is a subtle psychologist, which is why his characters turned out to be so complex and multifaceted.

This book is about human vice, cynicism, the difference between the beauty of the soul and body. If you think about it, to some extent each of us is Dorian Gray. Only we do not have a mirror on which sins would be imprinted.

Why you need to read

To enjoy the stunning language of Britain's wittiest writer, to see how much one's moral character can deviate from one's appearance, and to become a little better person. Wilde's work is a spiritual portrait not only of his era, but of all humanity.

The ancient Greek myth about a sculptor who fell in love with his creation takes on a new, socially significant meaning in Bernard Shaw's play. How should a work feel towards its author if this work is a person? How can it relate to the creator - the one who made it in accordance with his ideals?

Why you need to read

This is the most famous play Bernard Shaw. It is often staged in theaters. According to many critics, Pygmalion is a landmark work of English drama.

A universally recognized masterpiece of English literature, familiar to many from cartoons. Who, at the mention of Mowgli, does not hear Kaa’s drawn-out hiss in his head: “Man-cub...”?

Why you need to read

As an adult, it is unlikely that anyone will take up The Jungle Book. A person has only one childhood to enjoy Kipling's creation and appreciate it. So be sure to introduce your children to the classics! They will be grateful to you.

And again the Soviet cartoon comes to mind. It's really good, and the dialogue in it is almost entirely taken from the book. However, the images of the characters and the general mood of the story in the original source are different.

Stevenson's novel is realistic and quite harsh in places. But this is a good adventure work that every child and adult will read with pleasure. Boardings, sea wolves, wooden legs- the marine theme beckons and attracts.

Why you need to read

Because it's fun and exciting. In addition, the novel is divided into quotes, which everyone should know.

Interest in the deductive abilities of the great detective is still great today thanks to the huge number of film adaptations. Many people are familiar with the classic detective story only from films. But there are many film adaptations, but there is only one collection of stories, but what a one!

Why you need to read

H. G. Wells was in many ways a pioneer in the genre of science fiction. Before him, people were not at odds with, he was the first to write about time travel. Without the Time Machine, we would not have seen either the film Back to the Future or the cult TV series Doctor Who.

They say that all life is a dream, and a nasty, pathetic one at that, short nap, although you still won’t dream of another one.

Why you need to read

To look at the origins of many science fiction ideas that have become popular in modern culture.