I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself, And falls on th’other. . . . – Macbeth

As it is a tragedy, foul has to counterfeit fair; an unwritten rule of a Shakespearean tragedy. In fact, “fair is foul and foul is fair” is the refrain of the play. The entire play revolves around the only theme of foul turning fair. The very first line of the first scene of the play spoken by the three witches shows the intensity of the theme. Similarly, in Hamlet, revenge is the theme built cleverly right from the beginning of the play and making it the driving force behind the character of Hamlet.

Paradox of Life

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. – Macbeth

Shakespeare’s tragedies reflect the paradox of life, in the sense that the calamity and suffering experienced by the tragic hero are contrasted with the previous happiness and glory. This paradox is very clear in the play Macbeth. Initially, Macbeth is portrayed as the most brave and loyal soldier of the nation and is rewarded by king Duncan for his bravery and love for the nation. However, Macbeth is not satisfied with whatever he gets and desires for more. This desire or over-ambitious nature leads him to think evil and act on it which is an extreme end of his real personality.

Catharsis

Any piece of literature, or any art form for that matter, is successful when it evokes pity, fear, and other such emotions in the audience. It is known as catharsis, where the audience feels sympathy for the character and empathizes his/her sufferings. If the play has the capacity to move the audience by its plot, the people who are reading the play or watching it in the theater can identify themselves with the characters and feel that they have similar experiences in their life.

Tragic Structure

A tragic story (Shakespearean) can be divided into four parts and they are as follows:

1. Exposition: Exposition is the initial part where the reader/audience gets to know the characters and their traits, the general setting of the story, the major conflict in the story and most importantly, the tragic flaw of the hero. Normally, exposition begins and ends in the first act itself, however, sometimes, there are some characters who enter late into the story.

2. Rising Action: Rising action develops through the second act and extends up to the third and the fourth act. This is the time when the plot gathers momentum and the action increases. The plot eventually reaches the crises where the hero makes a decision that changes the course of the play, sealing his own fate. For example, Macbeth kills Duncan in act II whereas Lear’s foolish decision to divide the kingdom occurs in act I. This is how the location of the crisis differs from play to play. By the end of the rising action, the hero is left alone for the rest of the story.

3. Falling Action: From the beginning of the fourth act, the opposite forces become active and start an open resist. They also start planning for the removal of the tragic hero as a result of which the power of the tragic hero starts declining.

4. Resolution: In the last and final act, the opposite forces reach the full power and defeat the isolated tragic hero. This is the time when the hero recognizes his faults, yet, cannot do anything about it.

Shakespeare wrote 10 tragedies in all namely, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens and Titus Andronicus out of which the four dark tragedies Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and King Lear are the most admired ones.

6. W. Shakespeare’s comedies. The analysis of any comedy. (“The Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “The Taming of the Shrew”, “Much Ado About Nothing”). W. Shakespeare’s historical plays.(в тетради)

7. English literature of 17 century. The Cavalier and Metaphysical poets. J. Donne, G. Herbert, A. Marwell; the main ideas of their poetry. An important group of 17th-century writers were the metaphysical poets. Metaphysical poetry makes use of conceits—that is, of farfetched similes and metaphors intended to startle the reader into an awareness of the relationships among things ordinarily not associated.

John Donne was the greatest of the metaphysical poets. His chief subject was love as it perfects humankind. He never treated the subject profanely. He was occasionally earthy, but only because he recognized that humans are creatures who must love in a natural way. His poem The Extasy is a celebration of sacramental love. His prose is as rich as his poetry, but nothing can match the mastery of such poetry as his Hymne to God My God, in My Sicknesse. (See also Donne, John.)

George Herbert, like Donne, was both a metaphysical poet and an Anglican priest. Some of Herbert's most effective poetry deals with humankind's thirst for God and with God's abounding love. Herbert's collection, The Temple (1633), was published posthumously (he probably did not intend his poetry to be published). Andrew Marvell, Richard Crashaw, and Henry Vaughan were other metaphysical poets of merit. Most easily understood, perhaps, is Marvell, at least in the well-loved lyric To His Coy Mistress. (See also Crashaw, Richard; Herbert, George; Marvell, Andrew.) John Donne (pronounced like done, IPA: /ˈdʌn/; 1572 – March 31, 1631) was a Jacobeanpoet and preacher, representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works, notable for their realistic and sensual style, include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems,Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and immediacy of metaphor, compared with that of his contemporaries.

The Cavalier poets were followers and supporters of Charles I. They wrote with a sense of elegance and in a style that emphasized wit and charm and the delicate play of words and ideas. Chief among the Cavalier group were Thomas Carew, Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling, and Robert Herrick. Herrick was a clergyman in the Church of England, but his ministerial duties did not prevent him from admiring a pretty face or the loveliness of the English landscape. His poems deal with familiar subjects.

6. English literature of 17 century. J. Milton’s poem “Paradise Lost”, the plot, the portrayal of Satan, the concept of God and man.

7. The literature of the Restoration period. W. Wyrcherley, W. Congreve.

8. English literature of 17 century. J. Dryden, the founder of classicism. The general characteristics of his works.

9. The early period of Enlightenment. ‘The Augustan Age’. The poetry of A. Pope. “The Rape of the Lock”.

10. English literature of the Enlightenment. D. Defoe’s novel “Robinson Crusoe” or in J. Swift’s novel “Gulliver’s Travels”, the satirical skill of the author.

11. English literature of the Enlightenment. S. Richardson and the peculiarities of the epistolary genre in the novel “Clarissa”./ H. Fielding “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling” and the comic representation of human nature.

12. The peculiarities of English drama of the 18^th century. R. Sheridan “School for Scandal”.

17. Pre-romanticism and its main features. The Gothic novel. W. Godwin. The depiction of gentry in the novels of J. Austen. The poetry of R. Burns. (“Highland Mary”, “Mary Morrison”, “Tom O’Shanter”) History

One can trace elements of the Gothic novel in earlier novels such as Ferdinand Count Fathom by Tobias Smollett, published in 1753; but the first full-fledged Gothic novel was The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, which appeared in 1764. Set in the thirteenth century, this tale involves princes, a castle, murder and a ghost, and purported - a common Gothic convention - to be a translation from an Italian original. The novel quickly created a new fashion in novel-writing, in which a large element consisted on playing on the emotions of the reader. Gothic fiction is thus a part of the wider movement of romanticism in literature and the arts, and of the reaction of the more measured "classical" style which had dominated literature in the first half of the eighteenth century.

Other writers jumped on the Gothic bandwagon, and Gothic novels stayed very popular well into the nineteenth century. Jane Austen made affectionate fun of them inNorthanger Abbey, as did Thomas Love Peacock in Nightmare Abbey. Among the key writers in the genre was Ann Radcliffe. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and the tales of Edgar Allan Poe incorporate many Gothic elements, as does much of the popular fiction - including many of the so-called "penny dreadfuls" - of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century the Titus Trilogy of Mervyn Peake is a major example of Gothic fiction.

Gothic literature influenced more mainstream writers, including Lord Byron and John Keats (especially in Isabella). The ghost story and the horror novel are direct descendants of the genre.

Characteristics of the Gothic novel

All Gothic novels introduce an element of terror, suspense and mystery. They generally incorporate many of the following:

• cliff-hanger chapter endings

• supernatural elements such as ghosts, magicians, werewolves, monsters and devils

• a medieval setting, often with a castle, dungeons, ruins, or a monastery

• mad characters

• merciless, flamboyant villains

• persecuted damsels

• curses which pass down the generations

• dark secrets

• the Inquisition

William Godwin (3 March 1756 – 7 April 1836) was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism.^[1] Godwin is most famous for two books that he published within the space of a year: An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, an attack on political institutions, and Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams, which attacks aristocratic privilege, but also is the first mystery novel. His first published work was an anonymous Life of Lord Chatham (1783). He published under his own name Sketches of History (1784), consisting of six sermons on the characters ofAaron, Hazael and Jesus, in which, though writing in the character of an orthodox Calvinist, he enunciates the proposition "God Himself has no right to be a tyrant." Introduced by Andrew Kippis, he began to write in 1785 for the New Annual Register and other periodicals, producing also three novels now forgotten. His main contributions for the "Annual Register" were theSketches of English History he wrote annually, which were yearly summaries of domestic and foreign political affairs. He joined a club called the "Revolutionists," and associated much with Lord Stanhope, Horne Tooke and Holcroft. In 1793, while the French Revolution was in full swing, Godwin published his great work on political science, Enquiry concerning Political Justice, and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness.

Major works

• Enquiry concerning Political Justice, and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness (1793)

• Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794)

• The Enquirer (1797)

• Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798)

• St. Leon (1799)

• Fleetwood (1805)

• Mandeville (1817)

• History of the Commonwealth (1824–28)

• Cloudesley: A Tale (1830)

• Thoughts on Man, his Nature, Productions, and Discoveries, Interspersed with some particulars respecting the author (1831)

• Deloraine (1833)

• Lives of the Necromancers

• Georgian society in Jane Austen's novels is the ever-present background of her work, the world in which all her characters are set. Entirely situated during the reign of George III, the novels of Jane Austen describe their everyday lives, their joys and sorrows, as well as their loves, and provide in the process an irreplaceable insight into the period.

• Jane Austen's novels deal with such varied subjects as the historical context, the social hierarchies of the time, the role and status of the clergy, gender roles, marriage, or the pastimes of well-off families. Without even the reader noticing, many details are broached, whether of daily life, of forgotten legal aspects, or of surprising customs, thus bringing life and authenticity to the English society of this period.

• Nevertheless, the point of view from which Jane Austen describes England is that of a woman of the English gentry (albeit from its lower fringes), belonging to a reasonably well-off family, well connected and remarkably well educated for the time, and living in a very small village of rural England around the late 1790s or early 19th century. Thus, some essential aspects of the Georgian era are virtually absent from her novelvons, such as the American Revolutionary War and the loss of the Thirteen Colonies, the French Revolution, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the birth of the British Empire. Indeed, rather than a depiction of the history of English society at large, Jane Austen's novels provide an understanding of everyday life in rural England at the turn of the 19th century. Jane Austen’s novels are set in the social context of the gentry, to which Jane Austen herself belonged. Some of her heroines have no fortune (Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park), others on the other hand are very well off (Emma), but the social class remains the same.

Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796) (also known as Rabbie Burns, Scotland's favourite son, the Ploughman Poet, Robden of Solway Firth, the Bard of Ayrshire and in Scotland as simply The Bard)^[1][2] was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is also in English and a "light" Scots dialect, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland. He also wrote in standard English, and in these his political or civil commentary is often at its most blunt. As well as making original compositions, Burns also collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them. His poem (and song) Auld Lang Syne is often sung at Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and Scots Wha Hae served for a long time as an unofficialnational anthem of the country. Other poems and songs of Burns that remain well-known across the world today include A Red, Red Rose; A Man's A Man for A' That; To a Louse; To a Mouse; The Battle of Sherramuir; Tam o' Shanter, and Ae Fond Kiss. All of R. Burn's poetry shows him to be one of great masters of lyrical

verse, warm patriot of his native country. He had always stood for liberty,

equality, justice and honesty. His poetry is deeply democratic and full of

criticism directed against the landlords, the government officials.

18. Sentimentalism. T. Gray, O. Goldsmith, L. Stern. The ideas of sentimentalism in their works (“An Elegy Written in the Country Church Yard”, “The Vicar of Wakefield”, “A Sentimental Journey Through France to Italy”. According to the sentimentalists, the dominant chord of human nature is feeling, and not reason, which is compromised by bourgeois practices. Sentimentalism did not break completely with the Enlightment. In sentimental literature of the Enlightenment the hero is more individualized, and his inner world is enriched by his ability to empathize and to respond sensitively to what is going on around him. The rich inner world of the common man was one of the chief discoveries and triumphs of sentimentalism. S Sentimental motifs (the natural idyll and melancholy contemplation, for example) first appeared in the poetry of J. Thomson ( The Seasons , 1730), E. Young ( Night Thoughts , 1742–45), and T. Gray ( Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard , 1751). A concrete social reflection of the village theme is found only in the poetry of the late sentimentalists of the 1770's and 1780's, such as O. Goldsmith, W. Cowper, and G. Crabbe, who allude to the impoverishment of the peasant masses and to deserted villages. Sentimental motifs are found in the psychological novels of S. Richardson and the later works of H. Fielding ( Amelia , 1752). However, sentimentalism attained its ultimate form in the works of L. Sterne, whose unfinished Sentimental Journey (1768) gave the sentimentalist movement its name. A

“An Elegy Written in the Country Church Yard”, The poem is not a conventional part of Theocritus 's elegiac tradition, because it does not mourn an individual. The poem lacks many standard features of the elegy: an invocation, mourners, flowers, and shepherds. The theme does not emphasise loss as do other elegies, and its natural setting is not a primary component of its theme.the

The Vicar of Wakefield is a novel by Irish author Oliver Goldsmith. It was written in 1761 and 1762, and published in 1766, and was one of the most popular and widely read 18th-century novels among Victorians. The novel is mentioned in George Eliot's Middlemarch, Jane Austen's Emma, Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Sarah Grand's The Heavenly Twins, Charlotte Brontë's The Professor and Villette, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, as well as hisDichtung und Wahrheit. Literature

A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy is a novel by the Irish-born English author Laurence Sterne, written and firstpublished in 1768, as Sterne was facing death. In 1765, Sterne travelled through France and Italy as far south as Naples, and after returning determined to describe his travels from a sentimental point of view. The novel can be seen as an epilogue to the possiblyunfinished work The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and also as an answer to Tobias Smollett's decidedly unsentimental Travels through France and Italy. (Sterne met Smollett during his travels in Europe, and strongly objected to his spleen, acerbity and quarrelsomeness. He modeled the character of Smelfungus on him.)

The novel was extremely popular and influential and helped establish travel writing as the dominant genre of the second half of the 18th century. Unlike prior travel accounts which stressed classical learning and objective non-personal points of view, A Sentimental Journeyemphasized the subjective discussions of personal taste and sentiments, of manners and morals over classical learning. Throughout the 1770s female travel writers began publishing significant numbers of sentimental travel accounts. Sentiment also became a favorite style among those expressing non-mainstream views including political radicalism.

The narrator is the Reverend Mr. Yorick, who is slyly represented to guileless readers as Sterne's barely disguised alter ego. The book recounts his various adventures, usually of the amorous type, in a series of self-contained episodes. The book is less eccentric and more elegant in style than Tristram Shandy and was better received by contemporary critics. It was published on February 27, and on March 18 Sterne died. the late 18th century that emerged as a reaction against the of the Enlightenment rationalism and the traditions

18. Romanticism. The founder of English Romanticism – W. Blake. (“London”/“Saw a Chapel”/ “The Garden of Love”) Blake, William (b. Nov. 28, 1757, London--d. Aug. 12, 1827, London)  English poet, painter, engraver; one of the earliest and greatest figures of Romanticism. Many of Blake's best poems are found in two collections: Songs of Innocence (1789) to which was added, in 1794, the Songs of Experience (unlike the earlier work, never published on its own). The complete 1794 collection was called Songs of Innocence and Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. Broadly speaking the collections look at human nature and society in optimistic and pessimistic terms, respectively - and Blake thinks that you need both sides to see the whole truth.

19. Romanticism. “The Lake poets”. W. Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge. The Lake Poets are a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of the nineteenth century. the Lake Poets, a small group of friends including William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. These early Romantic Poets brought a new emotionalism and introspection, William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads. In 1807, his Poems in Two Volumes were published, including " Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood ". Up to this point Wordsworth was known publicly only for Lyrical Ballads , and he hoped this collection would cement his reputation.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (  /ˈkoʊlrɪdʒ/; 21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834) was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as for his major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work, especially on Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. He coined many familiar words and phrases, including the celebrated suspension of disbelief. He was a major influence, via Emerson, on American transcendentalism.