39) English Literature (pick up a dozen of most significant writers and be ready to say a few words about the books they wrote)

1) Beowulf is the most important poem of the Anglo-Saxon period. Though the Angles brought Beowulf with them to England, it has nothing to do with it. The epic is not even about the Anglo-Saxons, but about the Scandinavians when they lived on the continent in the 3^rd or 4^th century. The story of Beowulf was written down in the 10^th century by an unknown author, and the manuscript is now kept in the British Museum. Its social interest lies in the vivid description of the life of that period, of the manners an customs of the people at that time, of the relations among the members of the society and in the portrayal of their towns, ships and feasts. Beowulf is of the early masterpieces of the Anglo-Saxon or Old English language. The poem is famous for it metaphors. For instance, the poet calls the sea “the swan’s road”, the body – “the bone house”, a warrior – “a hero- in-battle”

2) Jane Austen (1757-1817) - Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature.

Pride and Prejudice. - Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage in the society of the landed gentry (поместное дворянство) of early 19th-century England.

3) William Blake (1757-1827)

Poet and mystic

The Tyger (1794)

4) The Bronte sisters

Charlotte Bronte –Jane Eyre. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York.

Jane Eyre is a first-person narrative of the title character. The novel goes through five distinct stages: Jane's childhood at Gateshead, where she is emotionally and physically abused by her aunt and cousins; her education at Lowood School, where she acquires friends and role models but also suffers privations and oppression; her time as the governess of Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with her Byronic employer, Edward Rochester; her time with the Rivers family during which her earnest but cold clergyman cousin, St John Rivers, proposes to her; and the finale with her reunion with, and marriage to, her beloved Rochester.

Emily Bronte – Withering Heights – Грозовой перевал

5) Lewis Carroll (1831-1898)

Real name –Charles Lutwidge Dodgeson.

Novelist, poet , photographer, mathematical lecturer at Oxford

Alice in Wonderland (1865)-social satire + whimsical fairy tale. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world (Wonderland) populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as children. It is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre, and its narrative course and structure have been enormously influential,especially in the fantasy genre.