The Beauty of English Literature

I often get to read beautiful advertisements, social media posts and articles on literature from all across the world. From Isabel Allende and her revolutionary literature, to William Faulkner's southern gothic masterpieces. From the ultra-descriptive family narratives of Junichiro Tanazaki to the gorgeous philosophical poetry of Rumi - I have read so much about other countries over these years. I wanted to return the favour; so this is less of a rant and more of a share. I want us all to appreciate a little bit of English Literature because let's face it - we have Shakespeare.

Sorry, it had to be said 😂.

But of course, this is going to be a comprehensive account so I won't be able to cover everything. I just want you to see some of the beautiful things I love about literature in this country.

The Beauty of English Literature

Old English Literature:

Beowulf is perhaps one of the best known stories in all of English History. An epic poem of over 3'000 lines, it is unknown who wrote it, but it tells the narrative of Beowulf who goes to fight Grendel after seeing others in distress from his attacks. But after defeating Grendel, must fight Grendel's mother who wishes to avenge her son. Soon after this, there is yet another battle to be undertaken. Written mostly in a West Saxon dialect of Old English, nobody knows who first wrote it down and nobody really knows exactly where it came from and when.

Old English was packed full of oral tradition and telling stories of old heroes and kings. Inspired by those who came to the shores from the north, these stories have themes of family, love, human kindness and standing up to adversity. These are the stories that quintessentially make up the country and we need to revisit them in times of darkness. Why we ever left them behind I will never know. The younger generations no longer know about Beowulf or the story of helping your fellow human being when they are in trouble. Perhaps reigniting this story can help us regain the dissipating empathy in Gen-Z and Alpha.

I have been to the British Library a few times. It is the library which holds the only known copy of the full saga, often referred to as the Nowell Codex (as it was owned once by the 16th century antiquarian Laurence Nowell). They and other manuscripts are part of the British Library's 'Cotton Collection', passed down to the library by Sir Robert Cotton (who acquired the manuscript from Nowell). It would be the 'Cotton Collection' and the vast donation of manuscripts by Sir Robert Cotton on his deathbed which would become the basis for what is The British Library today. Another manuscript found in the collection was one of only a few remaining by Bede.

Middle English Literature:

Well, if you're not sold on Old English literature, then you're probably going to be sold on Middle English Literature. After the Norman Conquest, there were far more troubadour tales coming in from France and, mixed with the hero narratives and the building of Edward the Confessor's Westminster Abbey all collaborate to become: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. If this doesn't make you want to go out and find the grail then I don't know what will.

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is a story I was personally introduced to through children's books at school and then later on in Sir Thomas Mallory's Morte D'Arthur. There are several versions of these narratives including Geoffrey of Monmouth and Chrétien de Troyes (I know he's French but the mythology is still English) which possibly means that we have the three best versions written here. I adore Arthurian Legend because it is filled with the same mythologies and metaphors, the same meanings that we see in Beowulf. These include but are not limited to: helping those in need, advocating and fighting for peace and unity and most importantly, a great love for the nation and its tradition of heroes and storytelling.

Of course though there were other developments in literature around this time, such as a Middle English Bible which helped establish the language and make certain, bits and pieces of vocabulary and how they were to be used. And more obviously we have the social satire, the poem Piers Plowman by William Langland.

Again, as we move through the Medieval Period we come across perhaps one of the greatest writers in all of the English Language: Geoffrey Chaucer.

We all know that Chaucer wrote The Cantebury Tales and honestly, that book brings out so many emotions. It's funny for a start, I don't think people honestly appreciate the satire that this book brings to the table. Some of the most famous stories in the bunch of tales about people going to the shrine of Thomas Beckett are The Wife of Bath's Tale (which is among my personal favourites) and then there's The Knight's Tale (which was made into a movie of a similar name in 2001 starring the late Heath Ledger). Finally there is one that is still studied amongst some people at school (hopefully or I'm way behind on what I know about that situation), The Prologue, which serves as a frame for the whole narrative.

I recall reading The Canterbury Tales whilst at school though it wasn't actually covered at school. A teacher had recommended I read it though I don't really remember which one. Of course, I had half-expected it to be a tome, and in fact it is this quite short (and often regarded as), incomplete book. To say I devoured it would be an understatement. In The Canterbury Tales you really do see all walks of life coming together. Inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (which I studied as part of my undergraduate dissertation, please don't ask what it was about - I think back on it now and it keeps me up at night) which was in turn inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy (another one of my dissertation texts), Chaucer really does set his Canterbury Tales up as the English equivalent.

The Renaissance in England:

Often referred to (and rightly so) as Early Modern English, we see English literature written in a consistent vernacular style, some of which is obviously more verbose than others. Of course, we know of the early English Renaissance poet Thomas Wyatt, but he isn't really who we are all here to discuss is he? Well, we are just going to have to wait a little bit longer because I'd like to chatter on about Christopher Marlowe for a bit.

Christopher Marlowe wrote plays like Dr Faustus and The Jew of Malta which are two brilliant plays (one is a little bit more problematic than the other) but Dr Fausts is the one that is closer to my heart. For many years I studied Dr Faustus, looking at how Marlowe had adapted the Germanic myth for English theatre. He took the idea of a Medieval morality play and created something terrifying and spectacle out of it. It would obviously be Goethe's version that many people are more familiar with but, if you haven't already definitely read Christopher Marlowe's verbose, technical and dark masterpiece of a doomed man destined to be dragged to hell. Out of the few plays Marlowe wrote over his lifetime, it is safe to say that the two I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph are probably the best.

Now on to the man himself, Mr. William Shakespeare - the greatest of any writer in the English Language ever and it's not even close. Shakespeare's history as an actor probably brought him closer than anyone to what kind of wordage sells best in the theatre and on top of that, the kinds of plays people liked to see. Love's Labour's Lost was amongst Queen Elizabeth I's favourite plays, so much so that she invited Shakespeare and his cast to give her and her closest people a private performance of it in 1594. Shakespeare would go on to write many of England's favourite plays including but not limited to: The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar and Henry V.

My personal favourite Shakespeare plays are the two Richards (Richard II and Richard III) and I think I have repeated that multiple times at this point. The way in which Shakespeare used language was not, as we seem to believe today, verbose or purposefully obtuse. In fact, it could be understood at several levels. Shakespeare would become the marker we took for the beginning of 'modern' English since it is so close to the way we understand the language today.

Let's take a look at some of the late Renaissance writers, such as a poet named John Donne who wrote what is known as Metaphysical Poetry. The Metaphysicals were really interesting to me when I was at school and I read quite a bit of John Donne, Andrew Marvell and Thomas Carew. There was a whole collection of metaphysicals I studied which you can find here. And I am going to say this, the way in which these poets can work in a conceit is still pretty much unrivalled, it is a brilliant display of wording and philosophy combined to create something incredibly creative, bold and something that has extreme depth.

Of course though, we cannot possibly move on anywhere without addressing the epic Paradise Lost by John Milton. Milton starts in media res of a blank verse poem and tells the story of Adam and Eve in which we see something entirely new and original in his take on the Biblical story. In fact, many of the stories that we in the modern day associate with the story of 'The Fallen Angel' actually come from Paradise Lost (well, at least they come from Milton's epic version of the story - there have been sources to suggest that the fallen angel narrative is a bit longer than what we would like to believe). As he had written Paradise Lost and it was admired by Samuel Johnson (though the two differed on politics) he also came to be revered by one of the next groups we will be looking at: the Romantics.

The Restoration and the Augustan Age:

Obviously, Paradise Lost was published during the Restoration, but the writing probably started somewhere in the late Renaissance (things were moving pretty quickly and everyone really wanted to forget that interregnum thing actually happened). But I would like to take the time to talk about a wonderful woman named Aphra Behn.

Aphra Behn was the first professional female writer in England, gaining fame from her most well-known work: The Rover (1677). It is a bawdy comedy that explores love, freedom and gender roles and Behn's success was groundbreaking for women of the time, showing that women could have careers in the theatre as well. Apart from that though, she had a career as a spy for the British Government during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. He experiences as a spy in the Netherlands influenced some of her writings concerning power dynamics and human behaviour. On top of all of this, Aphra Behn also wrong novels. One of these was Oroonoko (1688) which is now considered to be the first example of the English novel in history. It explores slavery and race, looking particularly at African characters.

After the Restoration, there's the Augustan age, characterised by philosophy and nonfiction writings. These include those by Francis Bacon, John Locke and Isaac Newton. This was obviously followed closely by the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

This is really where the novel started to grow, Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift and Pamela by Samuel Richardson were massively successful. Samuel Johnson compiled the first fully formed dictionary and Oliver Goldsmith was writing The Vicar of Wakefield. But one of the bigger novels yet to come was the absolutely hilarious satirical brilliance that is Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. At this point we are in the age of sensibility and moving into Jane Austen's territory. With her writings, she also enjoyed reading. Frances Burney was one of the authors typical enjoyed by Jane Austen.

Romanticism:

As we move over the graveyard poets, we come to Edmund Burke's Philosophical Enquiry where he seeks to define and explore what the sublime is, something that will come into play on the second leg of the Romantic era more than anything. But also at this time, we have a changing land - England is about to go through the industrial revolution and the cities are about to get larger and more smoggy, losing their agricultural touch and making William Wordsworth quite upset.

William Wordsworth is probably one of the most well-known names in English Literature after Shakespeare, his poetry was often about how nature can teach us things that are quintessential to being great human beings. He eventually teamed up with another poet named Samuel Taylor Coleridge and wrote a whole new kind of poetry. This would be called The Lyrical Ballads and contained one of Coleridge's most incredible poems: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I had a cup with a comic strip depicting a scene of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner on it, it was pretty cool. But that's off topic.

As we move forwards, we see the rise of the gothic with Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto. But the main text of that subculture is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. William Blake was also a man who worked gothic tropes into his poetry though, we have poems such as the cold, dreary and dark London which shows us how the industrial revolution had completely crippled the vulnerable members of society with no remorse whatsoever. The brutal truth we are confronted with here should have given rise to social change - if enough people read it at the time, which they didn't.

Lord Byron, my personal favourite poet, and Percy Shelley took over the scene and it was with them on a trip to Lake Geneva that Mary Shelley would write her seminal novel that changed the face of horror to include Science Fiction. Percy Shelley, before dying young (which seemed to characterise his generation) wrote Adonais, an elegy for the death of fellow poet John Keats. When Shelley died (at just 29 from drowning at sea), Byron would soon follow when he would take his place in the Greek War of Independence, coming down with Malaria and taking to his deathbed at just 36 years' old. Mary Shelley's death would close the Romantic era as she passed away with her husband's heart still in her room. It was retrieved from the burning of Percy's body by the biographer Edward Trelawney, who passed it on to Mary as a gift, only partly calcified.

John Clare's poetry was something I looked a lot at, absolutely so in a book about the way in which his poetry depicts a sense of place. As we close the Romantic era with the death of William Wordsworth and the postuhumous publication of The Prelude, the Victorian era has already started to take shape.

The Victorian Era:

Less characterised by the subcultures it created than those it expanded on, the Victorian Era seems to starts rolling on with writers like Benjamin Disraeli, George Eliot and probably to some extent, Matthew Arnold. But one of the most prolific writers, and I mean up there with William Shakespeare and William Wordsworth, is Charles Dickens.

Charles Dickens was born in 1812 and suffered some setbacks in his life such as having to have a job at a very young age making labels for bottles. But, on the broader landscape of the Victorian era, he set his novels within the plights of children even less fortunate than himself. Oliver Twist was one of his long string of novels where he would comment and critique the treatment of children in London, especially those who are poor. Many of his novels have been adapted into films and plays over the years and he continues to be widely read amongst many of us in England and across the world today.

The Brontes were also amazing. One of my personal favourite novels in the world (probably in the top ten) is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. It's a semi-autobiography about a woman who must grow up in an advanced family member's abusive household and then goes on to be a governess to a young girl. She ends up falling in love with the dark owner of the home only to discover he has some horrifying secrets. Apart from this, we have Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte. All of the three daughters would die young, their brother also died young after producing the only known (famed) portrait of them together.

As we move on to the end of the Victorian times, we start to see my favourite era which is closer to the fin-de-siècle or the decadent subculture. We start to see the darker, more scandalous books like The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and move into books like Dracula and The Picture of Dorian Gray. These were reflective again, of the insecurities and fears of the era. Perhaps one of the most incredible and expansive of all literary eras of English.

Conclusion

This has been a bit longer than I wanted it to be and I know I haven't covered the modernist era yet but I think that deserves its own story. I may sit here and write about Virginia Woolf for pages and pages if I'm not careful. I also want to give the fin-de-siècle its own separate essay which is why I didn't say much about it here. As my favourite era of English literature - I want to do it justice. I hope you have enjoyed it all so far!