British literature

British literature refers to literature associated with of postcolonialism.[3] However, Britain’s legacy survives
the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. around the world, as a shared history of British presence
This includes literatures from England, Northern Ireland, and cultural influence in the Commonwealth of Nations
Scotland and Wales. By far the largest part of British has produced a substantial body of writing in English and
literature has been written in the English language, with many other languages.[4][5]
English literature developing into a global phenomenon,
because of its use in the former colonies of Britain. In
addition the story of British literature involves writings
in Anglo-Norman, Anglo-Saxon, Cornish, Guernésiais, 2 Old British and late medieval lit-
Jèrriais, Latin, Manx, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh and erature: 449–1500
other languages. Literature in Northern Ireland includes
writings in English, Irish and Ulster Scots. Irish writers
have played an important part in the development of lit- 2.1 Latin literature
erature in England and Scotland, but though the whole of
Ireland was politically part of the United Kingdom be- Main article: Anglo-Latin literature
tween January 1801 and December 1922, it is controver-
sial to describe Irish literature as British. For some this
Chroniclers such as Bede (672/3–735), with his Historia
includes works by authors from Northern Ireland.
ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, and Gildas (c. 500–570),
with his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, were figures
in the development of indigenous Latin literature, mostly
1 British identity ecclesiastical, in the centuries following the withdrawal of
the Roman Empire around the year 410.
Definitions of 'British literature' are bound up with his- Adomnán's (627/8–704) most important work is the Vita
torical shifts of British identity. Changing consciousness Columbae, a hagiography of Columba, and the most im-
of English national identity, Scottish national identity, portant surviving work written in early medieval Scot-
Welsh nationalism, and the effects of British imperial- land. It is a vital source for knowledge of the Picts, as
ism have altered interpretations of how the literatures of well as an insight into the life of Iona Abbey and the early
Britain have interacted. In addition the impact of Irish medieval Gaelic monk. The vita of Columba contains a
nationalism, that led to the partition of the island of Ire- story that has been interpreted as the first reference to the
land in 1921, means that literature of the Republic of Ire- Loch Ness Monster.
land is not British, although the identity of literature from
Northern Ireland, as part of the literature of the United Written just after or possibly contemporarily with Adom-
Kingdom, may fall within the overlapping identities of nán’s Vita Columbae, the Vita Sancti Cuthberti (c. 699–
Irish and British literature, where “the naming of the ter- 705) is the first piece of Northumbrian Latin writing and
ritory has always been, in literary, geographical or histor- the earliest piece of English Latin hagiography.[6]
ical contexts, a politically charged activity”.[1] The Historia Brittonum composed in the 9th century is
Welsh literature in English (previously called Anglo- traditionally ascribed to Nennius. It is the earliest source
Welsh literature) is the works written in the English lan- which presents King Arthur as a historical figure, and is
guage by Welsh writers, especially if their subject matter the source of several stories which were repeated and am-
relates to Wales. It has been recognised as a distinctive plified by later authors.
entity only since the 20th century. The need for a sepa- Latin continued in use as a language of learning long after
rate identity for this kind of writing arose because of the the Reformation had established the vernaculars as litur-
parallel development of modern Welsh-language litera- gical languages for the élites. In Scotland, Latin as a lit-
ture.[2] erary language thrived into the 17th century as Scottish
The use of the label Celtic fringe as applied to non- writers writing in Latin were able to engage with their
English, or traditionally non-English-speaking areas, has audiences on an equal basis in a prestige language with-
been criticized as a colonial attitude to marginalise out feeling hampered by their less confident handling of
these cultures, and the literatures of Ireland, Scotland English.[7]
and Wales is being studied through the methodology Utopia is a work of fiction and political philosophy by

1
2 2 OLD BRITISH AND LATE MEDIEVAL LITERATURE: 449–1500

Thomas More (1478–1535) published in 1516. The composing for Scottish or Pictish patrons, and Scottish
book, written in Latin, is a frame narrative primarily de-poets composing for Irish patrons.[9] The Book of Deer, a
picting a fictional island society and its religious, social
10th-century Latin Gospel Book with early-12th-century
and political customs. additions in Latin, Old Irish and Scottish Gaelic, is noted
New Atlantis is a utopian novel by Sir Francis Bacon for containing the earliest surviving Gaelic writing from
(1561–1626), published in Latin (as Nova Atlantis) in Scotland.
1624 and in English in 1627. In this work, Bacon por-
trayed a vision of the future of human discovery and
knowledge, expressing his aspirations and ideals for hu-
mankind. The novel depicts the creation of a utopian
land where “generosity and enlightenment, dignity and
splendour, piety and public spirit” are the commonly held
qualities of the inhabitants of the mythical Bensalem.
The plan and organisation of his ideal college, Salomon’s
House (or Solomon’s House), envisioned the modern re-
search university in both applied and pure sciences.
Scotsman George Buchanan (1506–1582) was the Re-
naissance writer from Great Britain who had the greatest
international reputation, being considered the finest Latin
poet since classical times.[8] As he wrote mostly in Latin,
his works travelled across Europe as did he himself.
Amongst poets who wrote poems in Latin in the 17th cen-
tury were George Herbert (1593–1633) (who also wrote
poems in Greek), and John Milton (1608–74).
Philosopher Thomas Hobbes' Elementa Philosophica de
Cive (1642–1658) was in Latin. However, things were
changing and by about 1700 the growing movement for
the use of national languages (already found earlier in
literature and the Protestant religious movement) had
reached academia, and an example of the transition is
Isaac Newton's writing career, which began in New Latin A facsimile page of Y Gododdin c. 1275
and ended in English: Philosophiae Naturalis Principia
Mathematica in Latin Opticks, 1704, in English.
In Medieval Welsh literature the period before 1100 is
known as the period of Y Cynfeirdd (“The earliest po-
ets”) or Yr Hengerdd (“The old poetry”). It roughly dates
2.2 Early Celtic literature
from the birth of the Welsh language until the arrival of
Gaelic language and literature from Ireland became es- the Normans in Wales towards the end of the 11th cen-
tablished in the West of Scotland between the 4th and tury. Y Gododdin is a medieval Welsh poem consisting
6th centuries. Until the development of Scottish Gaelic of a series of elegies to the men of the Britonnic king-
literature with a distinct identity, there was a shared lit- dom of Gododdin and its allies who, according to the
erary culture between Gaelic-speaking Ireland and Scot- conventional interpretation, died fighting the Angles of
land. The literary Gaelic language used in Scotland Deira and Bernicia at a place named Catraeth in c. AD
that was inherited from Irish is sometimes known as 600. It is traditionally ascribed to the bard Aneirin, and
Classical Gaelic. The Hiberno-Scottish mission from the survives only in one manuscript, known as the Book of
6th century spread Christianity and established monas- Aneirin. The poem is recorded in a manuscript of the
teries and centres of writing. Gaelic literature in Scot- second half of the 13th century, and it has been dated to
land includes a celebration, attributed to the Irish monk anywhere between the 7th and the early 11th centuries.
Adomnán, of the Pictish King Bridei's (671–93) victory The text is partly written in Middle Welsh orthography
over the Northumbrians at the Battle of Dun Nechtain and partly in Old Welsh. The early date would place its
(685). Pictish, the now extinct Brythonic language spo- oral composition to soon after the battle, presumably in
ken in Scotland, has left no record of poetry, but poetry the Hen Ogledd (“Old North”) in [10][11]
what would have been
composed in Gaelic for Pictish kings is known. By the the Cumbric variety of Brythonic. Others consider
9th century, Gaelic speakers controlled Pictish territory it the work of a poet in medieval Wales, composed in the
and Gaelic was spoken throughout Scotland and used as 9th, 10th or 11th century. Even a 9th-century date would
a literary language. However, there was great cultural ex- make it one of the oldest surviving Welsh works of poetry.
change between Scotland and Ireland, with Irish poets The name Mabinogion is a convenient label for a col-
2.4 Old English literature: c.658–1100 3

lection eleven prose stories collated from two medieval

Welsh manuscripts known as the White book of Rhyd-
derch (Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch) (c. 1350) and the Red
Book of Hergest (Llyfr Coch Hergest) (1382–1410). They
are written in Middle Welsh, the common literary lan-
guage between the end of the eleventh century and the
fourteenth century. They include the four tales that
form Pedair Cainc y Mabinogi (“The Four Branches of
the Mabinogi”). The tales draw on pre-Christian Celtic
mythology, international folktale motifs, and early me-
dieval historical traditions. While some details may hark
back to older Iron Age traditions, each of these tales is
the product of a highly developed medieval Welsh nar-
rative tradition, both oral and written. Lady Charlotte
Guest in the mid-19th century was the first to publish En-
glish translations of the collection, popularising the name
“Mabinogion” at the same time.
No Cornish literature survives from the Primitive Cor-
nish period (c. 600–800 AD). The earliest written record
of the Cornish language, dating from the 9th century, is
a gloss in a Latin manuscript of the Consolation of Phi-
losophy, which used the words ud rocashaas. The phrase
means “it (the mind) hated the gloomy places”.[12][13]

2.3 Old Norse literature

Main article: Old Norse literature
First page facsimile of Beowulf
From the 8th to the 15th centuries, Vikings and Norse
settlers and their descendents colonised parts of what is
now modern Scotland. Some Old Norse poetry survives
drawal of the Romans, and “ending soon after the Nor-
relating to this period. The Orkneyinga saga (also called
man Conquest” in 1066; that is, c. 1100–50.[16] These
the History of the Earls of Orkney) is a historical narra-
works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography,
tive of the history of the Orkney Islands, from their cap-
sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles, rid-
ture by the Norwegian king in the ninth century onwards
dles, and others.[17] In all there are about 400 surviving
until about 1200.[14] 20th-century poet George Mackay
manuscripts from the period.[18] The earliest surviving
Brown was influenced by the saga, notably for his 1973
work of literature in Old English is Cædmon’s Hymn,
novel Magnus. The Icelandic Njáls saga includes actions
which was probably composed between 658-680.
taking place in Orkney and Wales. Besides these Ice-
landic sagas a few examples, sometimes fragmentary, of Nearly all Anglo-Saxon authors are anonymous:[17]
Norse poetry composed in Scotland survive.[7] Among twelve are known by name from Medieval sources, but
the runic inscriptions at Maeshowe is a text identified as only four of those are known by their vernacular works
irregular verse.[15] Scandinavian cultural contacts in the to us today with any certainty: Cædmon, Bede, Alfred
Danelaw also left legacies in literature. Höfuðlausn or the Great, and Cynewulf. Cædmon is the earliest English
the "Head’s Ransom" is a skaldic poem attributed to Egill poet whose name is known. Cædmon’s only known sur-
Skalla-Grímsson in praise of king Eirik Bloodaxe in the viving work is Cædmon’s Hymn, probably dating from the
kingdom of Northumbria. late 7th century. The poem is one of the earliest attested
examples of Old English and is, with the runic Ruthwell
Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, one of three can-
2.4 Old English literature: c.658–1100 didates for the earliest attested example of Old English
poetry. It is also one of the earliest recorded examples of
Main article: Old English literature sustained poetry in a Germanic language. The Wanderer
Old English literature, or Anglo-Saxon literature, en- is an Old English poem preserved only in an anthology
compasses the surviving literature written in Old English known as the Exeter Book, a manuscript dating from the
in Anglo-Saxon England, in the period after the settle- late 10th century. It counts 115 lines of alliterative verse.
ment of the Saxons and other Germanic tribes in Eng- As often the case in Anglo-Saxon verse, the composer
land, as the Jutes and the Angles, c.450, after the with- and compiler are anonymous, and within the manuscript
4 2 OLD BRITISH AND LATE MEDIEVAL LITERATURE: 449–1500

the poem is untitled. The Wanderer conveys the medita- of Boethius are a series of Old English alliterative poems
tions of a solitary exile on his past glories as a warrior in adapted from the Latin metra of the Consolation of Phi-
his lord’s band of retainers, his present hardships and the losophy soon after the prose translation.
values of forbearance and faith in the heavenly Lord.
The epic poem Beowulf is the most famous work in Old 2.5 Late medieval literature: 1100–1500
English, and has achieved national epic status in England,
despite not being set in England. A hero of the Geats, Main articles: Anglo-Norman literature, Middle English
Beowulf battles three antagonists: Grendel, Grendel’s literature, Scottish literature in the Middle Ages and
mother, and a Dragon. The only surviving manuscript Medieval Welsh literature
is the Nowell Codex. The precise date of the manuscript The linguistic diversity of the islands in the medieval
is debated, but most estimates place it close to the year
1000.
Chronicles contained a range of historical and literary ac-
counts; one notable example is the Anglo-Saxon Chroni-
cle. This is a collection of annals in Old English chroni-
cling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. Nine manuscripts
survive in whole or in part, though not all are of equal
historical value and none of them is the original version.
The oldest seems to have been started towards the end of
Alfred’s reign in the 9th century, while the most recent
was written at Peterborough Abbey in 1116. Almost all
of the material in the Chronicle is in the form of annals,
by year; the earliest are dated at 60 BC (the annals’ date
for Caesar’s invasions of Britain), and historical material
follows up to the year in which the chronicle was writ-
ten, at which point contemporary records begin. These
manuscripts collectively are known as the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle.
Battle of Maldon is the name given to an Old English
poem of uncertain date celebrating the real Battle of Mal-
don of 991, at which the Anglo-Saxons failed to prevent
a Viking invasion. Only 325 lines of the poem are extant;
both the beginning and the ending are lost.
The Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity after Sir Bedivere casts King Arthur's sword Excalibur back to the Lady
their arrival in England. A popular poem, The Dream of the Lake. The Arthurian Cycle has influenced British literature
of the Rood, was inscribed upon the Ruthwell Cross. across languages and down the centuries.
Judith is a retelling of the story found in the Latin Bible’s
Book of Judith of the beheader of the Assyrian general period, with each of the languages producing literatures
Holofernes. The Old English Martyrology is a Mercian at various times which contributed to the rich variety of
collection of hagiographies. Ælfric of Eynsham was a artistic production, made British literature distinctive and
prolific 10th-century writer of hagiographies and homi- innovative.[20]
lies.
Latin literature circulated among the educated classes.
Old English poetry falls broadly into two styles or fields Gerald of Wales's most distinguished works are those
of reference, the heroic Germanic and the Christian. The dealing with Wales and Ireland, with his two late-12th-
most popular and well-known understanding of Old En- century books in Latin on his beloved Wales the most im-
glish poetry continues to be alliterative verse. The system portant: Itinerarium Cambriae and Descriptio Cambriae
is based upon accent, alliteration, the quantity of vowels, which tell us much about Welsh history and geography.
and patterns of syllabic accentuation. It consists of five
Following the Norman Conquest of 1066, the develop-
permutations on a base verse scheme; any one of the five
ment of Anglo-Norman literature in the Anglo-Norman
types can be used in any verse. The system was inherited
realm introduced literary trends from Continental Eu-
from and exists in one form or another in all of the older
rope such as the chanson de geste. However, the in-
Germanic languages.
digenous development of Anglo-Norman literature was
Several Old English poems are adaptations of late clas- precocious in comparison to continental Oïl literature:
sical philosophical texts. The longest is a 10th-century Geoffrey Gaimar produced the earliest rhymed chroni-
translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy con- cle; Benedeit, the earliest adventure narrative inspired by
tained in the Cotton manuscript Otho A.vi.[19] The Metres Celtic sources; Jordan Fantosme, the earliest eyewitness
2.5 Late medieval literature: 1100–1500 5

historiography; Philippe de Thaun, the earliest scientific Roman de Rou placed the Dukes of Normandy within an
literature.[20] epic context.[21]
Religious literature continued to enjoy popularity. The Prophecy of Merlin is a 12th-century poem writ-
Hagiographies continued to be written, adapted and ten in Latin hexameters by John of Cornwall, which he
translated: for example, The Life of Saint Audrey, claimed was based or revived from a lost manuscript in
Eadmer's contemporary biography of Anselm of Canter- the Cornish language. Marginal notes on Cornish vocabu-
bury, and the South English Legendary. lary are among the earliest known writings in the Cornish
[24]
The Roman de Fergus was the earliest piece of non-Celtic language.
vernacular literature to come from Scotland. As the Nor- At the end of the 12th century, Layamon's Brut adapted
man nobles of Scotland assimilated to indigenous culture Wace to make the first English language work to discuss
they commissioned Scots versions of popular continen- the legends of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
tal romances, for example: Launcelot o the Laik and The It was also the first historiography written in English since
Buik o Alexander. the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
While chroniclers such as William of Malmesbury and The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba is a short chronicle
Henry of Huntingdon attempted to weave such histori- of the Kings of Alba. It was written in Hiberno-Latin
cal information they had access to into coherent narra- but displays some knowledge of contemporary Middle
tives, other writers took more creative approaches to their Irish orthography and probably put together in the early
material.[21] 13th century by the man who wrote de Situ Albanie. The
Geoffrey of Monmouth was one of the major figures in original text was without doubt written in Scotland, prob-
ably in the early 11th century, shortly after the reign
the development of British history and the popularity for
the tales of King Arthur. He is best known for his chron- of Kenneth II, the last reign it relates. It is possible
icle Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of that more Middle Irish literature was written in medieval
Britain) of 1136, which spread Celtic motifs to a wider Scotland than is often thought, but has not survived be-
audience, including accounts of Arthur’s father Uther cause the Gaelic literary establishment of eastern Scot-
Pendragon, wizard Merlin, and sword Caliburnus (named land died out before the 14th century. Thomas Owen
as Excalibur in some manuscripts of Wace). Clancy has argued that the Lebor Bretnach, the so-called
“Irish Nennius”, was written in Scotland, and probably at
Culhwch and Olwen is a Welsh tale about a hero con- the monastery in Abernethy, but this text survives only
nected with Arthur and his warriors, and is the longest from manuscripts preserved in Ireland.[25] Other liter-
of the surviving Welsh prose tales. It is perhaps the earli- ary work that has survived includes that of the prolific
est extant Arthurian tale and one of Wales’ earliest extant poet Gille Brighde Albanach. About 1218, Gille Brighde
prose texts. wrote a poem—Heading for Damietta—on his experi-
ences of the Fifth Crusade.[26] The major corpus of Me-
dieval Scottish Gaelic poetry, The Book of the Dean of
Lismore was compiled by the brothers James and Donald
MacGregor in the early decades of the sixteenth century.
Beside Scottish Gaelic verse it contains a large number
of poems composed in Ireland as well verse and prose in
Scots and Latin. The subject matter includes love poetry,
heroic ballads and philosophical pieces. It also is notable
for containing poetry by at least four women.[27]
Early English Jewish literature developed after the
Norman Conquest with Jewish settlement in England.
Berechiah ha-Nakdan is known chiefly as the author
of a 13th-century set of over a hundred fables, called
Wace, the earliest known Jersey poet, developed the Arthurian Mishle Shualim, (Fox Fables), which are derived from
legend and chronicled the Dukes of Normandy
both Berachyah’s own inventions and some borrowed
and reworked from Aesop's fables, the Talmud, and the
The 12th-century poet Wace (c. 1110[22] – after Hindus.[28] The collection also contains fables conveying
1174[23] ), who was born in Jersey and brought up in the same plots and morals as those of Marie de France.
mainland Normandy, is considered the founder of Jer- The development of Jewish literature in mediaeval Eng-
sey literature and contributed to the development of the land ended with the Edict of Expulsion of 1290.
Arthurian legend in British literature. His Brut showed
Matthew Paris (c. 1200 – 1259), a Benedictine monk,
the interest of Norman patrons in the mythologising of
wrote a number of works in the 13th century. Some were
the new English territories of the Anglo-Norman realm
written in Latin, some in Anglo-Norman or French verse.
by building on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History, and in-
troduced King Arthur’s Round Table to literature. His In the later medieval period a new form of English now
6 2 OLD BRITISH AND LATE MEDIEVAL LITERATURE: 449–1500

known as Middle English evolved. This is the earliest

form which is comprehensible to modern readers and lis-
teners, albeit not easily. Middle English Bible transla-
tions, notably Wycliffe’s Bible, helped to establish En-
glish as a literary language. Wycliffe’s Bible is the name
now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle
English that were made under the direction of, or at the
instigation of, John Wycliffe. They appeared over a pe-
riod from approximately 1382 to 1395.[29] These Bible
translations were the chief inspiration and chief cause of
the Lollard movement, a pre-Reformation movement that
rejected many of the distinctive teachings of the Roman
Catholic Church. In the early Middle Ages, most Western
Christian people encountered the Bible only in the form
of oral versions of scriptures, verses and homilies in Latin
(other sources were mystery plays, usually conducted in
the vernacular, and popular iconography). Though rela-
tively few people could read at this time, Wycliffe’s idea
was to translate the Bible into the vernacular, saying “it
helpeth Christian men to study the Gospel in that tongue
in which they know best Christ’s sentence”.[30] Although
unauthorised, the work was popular and Wycliffite Bible
texts are the most common manuscript literature in Mid-
dle English and over 250 manuscripts of the Wycliffite Geoffrey Chaucer, father of English literature
Bible survive.
Romances appear in English from the 13th century, with Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 1400), known as the Fa-
King Horn and Havelock the Dane, based on Anglo- ther of English literature, is widely considered the greatest
Norman originals such as the Romance of Horn.[20] English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to
Piers Plowman (written c. 1360–1387) or Visio Willelmi have been buried in Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.
de Petro Plowman (William’s Vision of Piers Plowman) is Among his many works, which include The Book of the
a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Duchess, the House of Fame, the Legend of Good Women
Langland. It is written in unrhymed alliterative verse and Troilus and Criseyde. Chaucer is best known today
divided into sections called “passus” (Latin for “step”). for The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories writ-
Piers is considered by many critics to be one of the early ten in Middle English (mostly written in verse although
great works of English literature along with Chaucer’s some are in prose), that are presented as part of a story-
Canterbury Tales and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel to-
during the Middle Ages. gether on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint
Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late-14th-century
this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark
Middle English alliterative romance. It is one of the
on their return. Chaucer is a crucial figure in develop-
better-known Arthurian stories, of an established type
ing the legitimacy of the vernacular, Middle English, at
known as the “beheading game”. Developing from
a time when the dominant literary languages in England
Welsh, Irish and English tradition Sir Gawain highlights
were French and Latin. The first recorded association
the importance of honour and chivalry. It is an impor-
of Valentine’s Day with romantic love is in Chaucer’s
tant poem in the romance genre, which typically involves
Parlement of Foules of 1382.[33]
a hero who goes on a quest that tests his prowess. “Pre-
served in the same manuscript with Sir Gawayne were The multilingual nature of the audience for literature in
three other poems, now generally accepted as the work the 14th century can be illustrated by the example of
of its author. These are two alliterative poems of moral John Gower (c. 1330 – October 1408). A contemporary
teaching, Patience and Purity, and an intricate elegiac of William Langland and a personal friend of Geoffrey
poem, Pearl. The author of Sir Gawayne and the other Chaucer, Gower is remembered primarily for three ma-
poems is frequently referred to as 'the Pearl Poet.' "[31] jor works, the Mirroir de l'Omme, Vox Clamantis, and
The English dialect of these poems from the Midlands Confessio Amantis, three long poems written in Anglo-
is markedly different from that of the London-based Norman, Latin and, Middle English respectively, which
[34]
Chaucer and though influenced by French in the scenes are united by common moral and political themes.
at court in Sir Gawain, there are in the poems also has Women writers were also active, such as Marie de France
many dialect words, often of Scandinavian origin, that in the 12th century and Julian of Norwich in the early
belonged to northwest England.[32] 14th century. Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love (circa
2.5 Late medieval literature: 1100–1500 7

1393) is believed to be the first published book written frey Chaucer’s version.[38] Henryson’s cogent psycholog-
by a woman in the English language.[35] Margery Kempe ical drama makes the poem a major works of northern
(c. 1373 – after 1438) is known for writing The Book of renaissance literature. The poem was written in Middle
Margery Kempe, a work considered by some to be the first Scots; a modern English translation by Seamus Heaney
autobiography in the English language, which chronicles, was published in 2004. For the Scottish Literary Renais-
to some extent, her extensive pilgrimages to various holy sance in the mid-twentieth century, Dunbar was a touch-
sites in Europe and Asia. stone. Many tried to imitate his style, and “high-brow”
Dafydd ap Gwilym (c. 1315/1320 – c. 1350/1370), is subject matter, such as Hugh MacDiarmid and Sydney
Goodsir Smith. As MacDiarmid himself said, they had
regarded as one of the leading Welsh poets and amongst
the great poets of Europe in the Middle Ages. His main to go “back to Dunbar”.[39] Gavin Douglas (c. 1474 –
September 1522) was a Scottish bishop, makar and trans-
themes were love and nature. The influence of wider
European ideas of courtly love, as exemplified in the lator. Although he had an important political career,
it is for his poetry that he is now chiefly remembered.
troubadour poetry of Provençal, is seen as a significant
influence on his poetry. He was an innovative poet who His principal pioneering achievement was the Eneados
(1553), a full and faithful vernacular translation of the
was responsible for popularising the metre known as the
"cywydd" and first to use it for praise. But perhaps his Aeneid of Virgil and the first successful example of its
greatest innovation was to make himself the main focus of kind in any Anglic language.[40] Sir David Lyndsay of
his poetry, in poems such as "The Girls of Llanbadarn", the Mount, (also spelled Lindsay) (c. 1490 – c. 1555)
"Trouble at a Tavern", "The Wind" and "The Seagull". was a Scottish poet whose works reflect the spirit of the
By its very nature, most of the work of the traditional Renaissance.
Welsh court poets kept their own personalities far from In the Cornish language Passhyon agan Arloedh (“The
their poetry, whereas Dafydd ap Gwilym’s poems are full Passion of our Lord”), a poem of 259 eight-line verses
of his own feelings and experiences. written in 1375, is one of the earliest surviving works
Since at least the 14th century, poetry in English has been of Cornish literature. The most important work of lit-
written in Ireland and by Irish writers abroad. erature surviving from the Middle Cornish period is An
Ordinale Kernewek (“The Cornish Ordinalia"), a 9000-
From c. 1100 until c. 1600 Welsh poetry can be divided line religious drama composed around the year 1400.
roughly into two distinct periods: the period of the Po- The longest single surviving work of Cornish literature is
ets of the Princes (Beirdd y Tywysogion, also called Y Bywnans Meriasek (The Life of Meriasek), a play dated
Gogynfeirdd) who worked before the loss of Welsh inde- 1504, but probably copied from an earlier manuscript.
pendence in 1282 and the Poets of the Nobility (Beirdd
yr Uchelwyr) who worked from 1282 until the period Le Morte d'Arthur, is Sir Thomas Malory's 15th-century
of the English incorporation of Wales in the 16th cen- compilation of some French and English Arthurian ro-
tury. The earliest poem in English by a Welsh poet mances, was among the earliest books printed in England,
(Ieuan ap Hywel Swrdwal's Hymn to the Virgin[36] ) dates printed by Caxton in 1485. It was popular and influential
from about 1470. The Latin and English poem Flen flyys in the later revival of interest in the Arthurian legends.
written around 1475, is chiefly famous for containing in
coded form the first known written usage in English of Medieval drama
a particular profane term in the English language. A
cywydd attributed to Tudur Penllyn (fl. c. 1420 – 1490)
Main article: Medieval theatre
is written in alternate Welsh and English sections, and
depicts the poet attempting to seduce an unwilling En-
glishwoman, exploiting their mutual incomprehension for In the Middle Ages, drama in the vernacular languages
comic effect.[37] of Europe may have emerged from religious enactments
of the liturgy. Mystery plays were presented on the
Among the earliest Lowland Scots literature is Barbour’s
porch of the cathedrals or by strolling players on feast
Brus (14th century). Whyntoun's Kronykil and Blind
days. Miracle and mystery plays, along with moralities
Harry's Wallace date from the 15th century. From the
and interludes, later evolved into more elaborate forms of
13th century much literature based around the royal
drama, such as was seen on the Elizabethan stages. An-
court in Edinburgh and from the 14th century at the
other form of medieval theatre was the mummers’ plays,
University of St Andrews, which was founded early in
a form of early street theatre associated with the Morris
that century. Major writers from the 15th century in-
dance, concentrating on themes such as Saint George and
clude Henrysoun, Dunbar, Douglas and Lyndsay. The
the Dragon and Robin Hood. These were folk tales re-
works of Chaucer had an influence on Scottish writers.
telling old stories, and the actors travelled from town to
Robert Henryson’s (c. 1460–1500) most famous work
town performing these for their audiences in return for
is the narrative poem The Testament of Cresseid, which
money and hospitality.
imagines a tragic fate for Cressida, in the medieval story
of Troilus and Criseyde, which was left untold in Geof- Mystery plays and miracle plays (sometimes distin-
guished as two different forms,[41] although the terms
8 3 THE RENAISSANCE: 1500–1660

are often used interchangeably) are among the earli- Like John Bunyan's allegory Pilgrim’s Progress, Every-
est formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Me- man (1678) examines the question of Christian salva-
dieval mystery plays focused on the representation of tion through the use of allegorical characters. The play
Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompany- is the allegorical accounting of the life of Everyman,
ing antiphonal song. They developed from the 10th to who represents all mankind. In the course of the action,
the 16th century, reaching the height of their popular- All the characters are also allegorical, each personifying
ity in the 15th century before being rendered obsolete by an abstract idea such as Fellowship, (material) Goods,
the rise of professional theatre. The name derives from and Knowledge and the conflict between good and evil
mystery used in its sense of miracle,[42] but an occasion- is dramatised by the interactions between characters.
ally quoted derivation is from misterium, meaning craft, a
play performed by the craft guilds.[43]
There are four complete or nearly complete extant En- 3 The Renaissance: 1500–1660
glish biblical collections of plays from the late medieval
period; although these collections are sometimes referred
to as “cycles,” it is now believed that this term may at- The English Renaissance and the Renaissance in Scot-
tribute to these collections more coherence than they in land date from the late 15th century to the early 17th
fact possess. The most complete is the York cycle of century. Italian literary influences arrived in Britain: the
forty-eight pageants. They were performed in the city sonnet form was introduced into English by Thomas Wy-
of York, from the middle of the fourteenth century un- att in the early 16th century, and developed by Henry
til 1569. There are also the Towneley plays of thirty- Howard, Earl of Surrey, (1516/1517 – 1547), who also
two pageants, once thought to have been a true 'cycle' introduced blank verse into England, with his transla-
of plays and most likely performed around the Feast of tion of Virgil's Aeneid in c. 1540.[47] Chaucerian, clas-
Corpus Christi probably in the town of Wakefield, Eng- sical and French literary language continued to influence
land during the late Middle Ages until 1576. The Ludus Scots literature up until the Reformation, and Latin re-
Coventriae (also called the N Town plays" or Hegge cy- mained an important literary language in Scotland in the
cle), now generally agreed to be a redacted compilation 17th century, long after its literary importance in Eng-
of at least three older, unrelated plays, and the Chester land had waned. The Complaynt of Scotland shows the
cycle of twenty-four pageants, now generally agreed to interplay of language and ideas between the kingdoms of
be an Elizabethan reconstruction of older medieval tradi- Scotland and England in the years leading up to the 1603
tions. Besides the Middle English drama, there are three Union of the Crowns. During the Jacobean debate on the
surviving plays in Cornish known as the Ordinalia. Union, a tradition of prophetic literature going back to
the Prophetiae Merlini was invoked. The Whole Proph-
These biblical plays differ widely in content. Most con- esie of Scotland of 1603 treated Merlin’s prophecies as
tain episodes such as the Fall of Lucifer, the Creation and authoritative.[48] Sir William Alexander, writing in praise
Fall of Man, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, Abra- of King James, invoked the prophetic tradition and dated
ham and Isaac, the Nativity, the Raising of Lazarus, the it to 300 years before the king’s birth (the middle of the
Passion, and the Resurrection. Other pageants included 13th century). This timing tied it to the Scottish writer,
the story of Moses, the Procession of the Prophets, Christ’s Thomas the Rhymer. The use of “Great Britain” as a ti-
Baptism, the Temptation in the Wilderness, and the As- tle of the kingdom as united by James was considered
sumption and Coronation of the Virgin. In given cycles, to reference Brutus of Troy, of the Anglo-Welsh tradi-
the plays came to be sponsored by the newly emerging tional foundation myth. A mythological consonance was
Medieval craft guilds.[44][45] seen by some at the time between what were different
Having grown out of the religiously based mystery plays traditions.[49]
of the Middle Ages, the morality play is a genre of The spread of printing affected the transmission of liter-
Medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment, whichature across Britain and Ireland. The first book printed
represented a shift towards a more secular base for Eu- in English, William Caxton's own translation of Recuyell
ropean theatre. In their own time, these plays were of the Historyes of Troye, was printed abroad in 1473,
known as “interludes”, a broader term given to dramas to be followed by the establishment of the first printing
with or without a moral theme.[46] Morality plays are press in England in 1474. The establishment of a print-
a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by ing press in Scotland under royal patent from James IV in
personifications of various moral attributes who try to 1507 made it easier to disseminate Scottish literature.[50]
prompt him to choose a Godly life over one of evil. The The first printing press in Ireland followed later in 1551.
plays were most popular in Europe during the 15th and Although the first book in Welsh to be printed was
16th centuries. produced by John Prise in 1546, restrictions on print-
The Somonyng of Everyman (The Summoning of Ev- ing meant that only clandestine presses, such as that of
eryman) (c. 1509–19), usually referred to simply as Robert Gwyn who published Y Drych Cristionogawl in
Everyman, is a late-15th-century English morality play. 1586/1587, could operate in Wales until 1695. The first
legal printing press to be set up in Wales was in 1718
3.1 Elizabethan and Jacobean eras: 1558–1625 9

by Isaac Carter.[36] The first printed work in Manx dates instability that followed in the kingdom.
from 1707: a translation of a Prayer Book catechism in Scotsman George Buchanan (1506–1582) was the Re-
English by Bishop Thomas Wilson. Printing arrived even naissance writer from Britain (and Ireland) who had the
later in other parts of Britain and Ireland: the first print- greatest international reputation, being considered the
ing press in Jersey was set up by Mathieu Alexandre in finest Latin poet since classical times.[8] As he wrote
1784.[51] The earliest datable text in Manx (preserved in mostly in Latin, his works travelled across Europe as did
18th-century manuscripts), a poetic history of the Isle of he himself. His Latin paraphrases of the Hebrew Psalms
Man from the introduction of Christianity, dates to the (composed while Buchanan was imprisoned by the In-
16th century at the latest.
quisition in Portugal) remained in print for centuries and
were used into the 19th century for the purposes of study-
ing Latin. His two original plays, Jepthes and Baptistes,
are the earliest extant plays of substance written by a Scot
and were influential on the development of French and
Portuguese drama.[7]

3.1 Elizabethan and Jacobean eras: 1558–

1625
Main articles: Elizabethan literature and Jacobean era
literature

The overlapping Elizabethan era (1558–1603: the reign

of Queen Elizabeth I of England) and Jacobean era
(1567–1625: the reign of King James VI of Scotland,
who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as
James I) saw the development of Britishness in litera-
ture. Since 1541, monarchs of England had also styled
their Irish territory as a Kingdom, while Wales became
more closely integrated into the Kingdom of England un-
der Henry VIII. In anticipation of James VI’s expected
inheritance of the English throne, court masques in Eng-
land were already developing the new literary imagery
of a united “Great Britain”, sometimes delving into Ro-
man and Celtic sources.[55] William Camden's Britannia,
Thomas More book Utopia, illustration of imaginary island, a county-by-county description of Great Britain and Ire-
1516 land, was an influential work of chorography: a study
relating landscape, geography, antiquarianism, and his-
Sir Thomas More coined the word "utopia", a name he tory. Britannia came to be viewed as the personification
gave to the ideal, imaginary island nation whose politi- of Britain, in imagery that was developed during the reign
cal system he described in Utopia, written in Latin and of Queen Elizabeth I.
published in 1516. In the later 16th century, English poetry was charac-
In the late fifteenth century, Scots prose began to develop terised by elaboration of language and extensive allusion
as a genre and to demonstrate classical and humanist to classical myths. Edmund Spenser (1555–99) was the
influences[52] as the Renaissance reached Scotland. The author of The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantasti-
first complete surviving work includes John Ireland's The cal allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth
Meroure of Wyssdome (1490).[53] There were also prose I. The works of Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) a poet,
translations of French books of chivalry that survive from courtier and soldier, include Astrophel and Stella, The De-
the 1450s, including The Book of the Law of Armys and fence of Poetry, and The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.
the Order of Knychthode and the treatise Secretum Secre- Poems intended to be set to music as songs, such as by
torum, an Arabic work believed to be Aristotle’s advice Thomas Campion, became popular as printed literature
to Alexander the Great.[54] was disseminated more widely in households (see English
The landmark work in the reign of James IV of Scotland Madrigal School). Jane Lumley (1537–1578) was the
was Gavin Douglas's Eneados, the first complete transla- first person to translate Euripides into English. Her trans-
tion of a major classical text in an Anglian language, fin- lation of Iphigeneia at Aulis is the first known dramatic
ished in 1513. Its reception however was overshadowed work by a woman in English.[56]
by the Flodden defeat that same year, and the political During the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and then
10 3 THE RENAISSANCE: 1500–1660

not a man of letters by profession, and probably had

only some grammar school education. He was neither
a lawyer, nor an aristocrat as the “university wits” that
had monopolised the English stage when he started writ-
ing. But he was very gifted and versatile, and he sur-
passed “professionals” as Robert Greene who mocked
this “shake-scene” of low origins. Shakespeare wrote
plays in a variety of genres, including histories, tragedies,
comedies and the late romances, or tragicomedies. His
early classical and Italianate comedies, like A Comedy of
Errors, containing tight double plots and precise comic
sequences, give way in the mid-1590s to the roman-
tic atmosphere of his greatest comedies.[57] A Midsum-
mer Night’s Dream is a witty mixture of romance, fairy
magic, and comic lowlife scenes.[58] Shakespeare’s next
comedy, the equally romantic Merchant of Venice, can
be problematic because of how it portrays Shylock, a
vengeful Jewish moneylender.[59] The wit and wordplay
of Much Ado About Nothing,[60] the charming rural set-
ting of As You Like It, and the lively merrymaking of
Twelfth Night complete Shakespeare’s sequence of great
comedies.[61] After the lyrical Richard II, written almost
entirely in verse, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy
William Shakespeare's career straddled the change of Tudor and
into the histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, parts 1 and
Stuart dynasties and encompassed English history and the emerg- 2, and Henry V. His characters become more complex
ing imperial idea of the 17th century and tender as he switches deftly between comic and seri-
ous scenes, prose and poetry, and achieves the narrative
variety of his mature work.[62] This period begins and
James I (1603–25), in the late 16th and early 17th cen- ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the famous
tury, a London-centred culture, that was both courtly and romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence, love,
popular, produced great poetry and drama. The English and death;[63] and Julius Caesar—based on Sir Thomas
playwrights were intrigued by Italian model: a conspic- North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives—
uous community of Italian actors had settled in London. which introduced a new kind of drama.[64] In the early
The linguist and lexicographer John Florio (1553–1625), 17th century, Shakespeare wrote the so-called "problem
whose father was Italian, was a royal language tutor at plays", Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and
the Court of James I, and a possible friend and influ- All’s Well That Ends Well, as well as a number of his best
ence on William Shakespeare, had brought much of the known tragedies, including Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth,
Italian language and culture to England. He was also the King Lear and Anthony and Cleopatra.[65] The plots of
translator of Montaigne into English. The earliest Eliza- Shakespeare’s tragedies often hinge on such fatal errors
bethan plays include Gorboduc (1561), by Sackville and or flaws, which overturn order and destroy the hero and
Norton, and Thomas Kyd's (1558–94) revenge tragedy those he loves.[66] In his final period, Shakespeare turned
The Spanish Tragedy (1592). Highly popular and influ- to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more
ential in its time, The Spanish Tragedy established a new major plays: Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tem-
genre in English literature theatre, the revenge play or pest, as well as the collaboration, Pericles, Prince of Tyre.
revenge tragedy. Its plot contains several violent mur- Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver
ders and includes as one of its characters a personification in tone than the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with
of Revenge. The Spanish Tragedy was often referred reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially tragic
to, or parodied, in works written by other Elizabethan errors.[67] Some commentators have seen this change in
playwrights, including William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, mood as evidence of a more serene view of life on Shake-
and Christopher Marlowe. Many elements of The Span- speare’s part, but it may merely reflect the theatrical fash-
ish Tragedy, such as the play-within-a-play used to trap ion of the day.[68] Shakespeare collaborated on two fur-
a murderer and a ghost intent on vengeance, appear in ther surviving plays, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kins-
Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Thomas Kyd is frequently pro- men, probably with John Fletcher.[69]
posed as the author of the hypothetical Ur-Hamlet that Shakespeare also popularised the English sonnet which
may have been one of Shakespeare’s primary sources for made significant changes to Petrarch's model. A collec-
Hamlet. tion of 154 by sonnets, dealing with themes such as the
William Shakespeare stands out in this period as a poet passage of time, love, beauty and mortality, were first
and playwright as yet unsurpassed. Shakespeare was published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES
3.1 Elizabethan and Jacobean eras: 1558–1625 11

SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. (although sonnets dle Ages and his characters embody the theory of hu-
138 and 144 had previously been published in the 1599 mours. According to this contemporary medical theory,
miscellany The Passionate Pilgrim). The first 17 po- behavioural differences result from a prevalence of one
ems, traditionally called the procreation sonnets, are ad- of the body’s four “humours” (blood, phlegm, black bile,
dressed to a young man urging him to marry and have and yellow bile) over the other three; these humours cor-
children to immortalise his beauty by passing it to the respond with the four elements of the universe: air, wa-
next generation.[70] Other sonnets express the speaker’s ter, fire, and earth. However, the stock types of Latin
love for a young man; brood upon loneliness, death, and literature were an equal influence.[71] Jonson therefore
the transience of life; seem to criticise the young man for tends to create types or caricatures. However, in his best
preferring a rival poet; express ambiguous feelings for the work, characters are “so vitally rendered as to take on
speaker’s mistress; and pun on the poet’s name. The final a being that transcends the type”.[72] He is a master of
two sonnets are allegorical treatments of Greek epigrams style, and a brilliant satirist. Jonson’s famous comedy
referring to the “little love-god” Cupid. Volpone (1605 or 1606) shows how a group of scam-
Other important figures in Elizabethan theatre include mers are fooled by a top con-artist, vice being punished by
vice, virtue meting out its reward. Other major plays by
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593), Thomas Dekker (c.
1572 – 1632), John Fletcher (1579–1625) and Francis Jonson are Epicoene (1609), The Alchemist (1610), and
Beaumont (1584–1616). Marlowe’s subject matter is dif- Bartholomew Fair (1614).
ferent from Shakespeare’s as it focuses more on the moral A popular style of theatre during Jacobean times was
drama of the renaissance man than any other thing. Mar- the revenge play, which had been popularised earlier in
lowe was fascinated and terrified by the new frontiers the Elizabethan era by Thomas Kyd (1558–94), and then
opened by modern science. Drawing on German lore, subsequently developed by John Webster (1578–1632)
he introduced the story of Faust to England in his play in the 17th century. Webster’s most famous plays are
Doctor Faustus (c. 1592), a scientist and magician who The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1613).
is obsessed by the thirst of knowledge and the desire to Other revenge tragedies include The Changeling written
push man’s technological power to its limits. He acquires by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley, The Athe-
supernatural gifts that even allow him to go back in time ist’s Tragedy by Cyril Tourneur, first published in 1611,
and wed Helen of Troy, but at the end of his twenty-four Christopher Marlow's The Jew of Malta, The Revenge of
years’ covenant with the devil he has to surrender his soul Bussy D'Ambois by George Chapman, The Malcontent (c.
to him. Beaumont and Fletcher are less-known, but they 1603) of John Marston and John Ford's 'Tis Pity She’s
may have helped Shakespeare write some of his best dra- a Whore. Besides Hamlet, other plays of Shakespeare’s
mas, and were popular at the time. One of Beaumont and with at least some revenge elements, are Titus Androni-
Fletcher’s chief merits was that of realising how feudalism cus, Julius Caesar and Macbeth.
and chivalry had turned into snobbery and make-believe The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry, a
and that new social classes were on the rise. Beaumont’s
closet drama written by Elizabeth Tanfield Cary (1585–
comedy, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607), satirises 1639) and first published in 1613, was the first origi-
the rising middle class and especially of those nouveaux
nal play in English known to have been written by a
riches who pretend to dictate literary taste without know- woman. Elizabeth Melville (1582[?] – 1640) is the earli-
ing much literature at all. est known Scottish woman writer to have her work appear
in print.[73] Melville first published Ane Godlie Dreame,
a Calvinist dream-vision poem which describes the reli-
gious experience of a woman active in the Scottish Ref-
ormation, in 1603 in Scots, and then translated it into En-
glish, probably the following year.[74]
George Chapman (?1559-?1634) was a successful play-
wright who produced comedies (his collaboration on
Eastward Hoe led to his brief imprisonment in 1605
as it offended the King with its anti-Scottish senti-
ment), tragedies (most notably Bussy D'Ambois) and court
masques (The Memorable Masque of the Middle Temple
and Lincoln’s Inn), but who is remembered chiefly for his
translation in 1616 of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into En-
glish verse. This was the first ever complete translation
Title page of Bartholomew Fair: A Comedy. of either poem into the English language. The transla-
tion had a profound influence on English literature and in-
After Shakespeare’s death, the poet and dramatist Ben spired the sonnet On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer
Jonson (1572–1637) was the leading literary figure of the from John Keats. The highly popular tale of the Trojan
Jacobean era. Jonson’s aesthetics hark back to the Mid- War had previously only been available to English readers
12 3 THE RENAISSANCE: 1500–1660

only in Medieval epic retellings, such as Caxton’s Recuyell tween an eagle (representing secular authority, particu-
of the Historyes of Troye. larly Cromwell); a dove (representing the Puritans); and
David Lyndsay's Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis a raven (representing the Anglican establishment).
(1552), is a surviving example of a Scots dramatic tra- While historically Welsh literature in English might be
dition in the period that has otherwise largely been lost. said to begin with the fifteenth-century bard Ieuan ap
James Wedderburn is recorded as having written anti- Hywel Swrdwal, well into the nineteenth century English
Catholic tragedies and comedies in Scots around 1540 was spoken by few in Wales. The only significant Welsh
before being forced to flee into exile. Although the pro- poet in this period writing in English was George Her-
paganda value of drama in the Scottish Reformation was bert (1593–1633) from Montgomeryshire, though some
important, the Kirk hardened its attitude to such pub- see him as clearly belonging to the English tradition.[78]
lic entertainments. In 1599 James VI had to intervene
to overturn a prohibition on attending performances by
a visiting theatre troupe from England. Scottish drama
did not succeed in becoming a popular artform in the
face of religious opposition and the absence of King and
court after 1603. As with drama in England, only a small
proportion of plays written and performed were actually
published, and the smaller production in Scotland meant
that a much less significant record of Scottish drama re-
mains to us.[8] The ribald verse play in Scots, Philotus,[75]
is known from an anonymous edition published in Lon-
don in 1603.[76]
At the end of the 16th century, James VI of Scotland
founded the Castalian Band, a group of makars and mu-
sicians in the court, based on the model of the Pléiade in
France. The courtier and makar Alexander Montgomerie
was a leading member. Ane Schort Treatise conteining
some Reulis and Cautelis to be observit and eschewit in
Scottis poesie is a treatise to describe and propose the ideal
standard for poets, written in 1584 by the 19-year-old
James VI of Scotland and first published in Edinburgh.
However this Scottish cultural centre was lost after the
1603 Union of the Crowns when James shifted his court
to London. From 1603, London was the unrivalled cul- Francis Bacon
tural capital of Britain and Ireland.
Drama in Wales as a literary tradition dates to morality
Petrarchan and English influence also spread to Scotland,
plays from north-east Wales in the second half of the 15th
where William Drummond of Hawthornden's pastoral
century. The development of Renaissance theatre in Eng-
poetry evoked a stable, ordered classicism in contrast to
land did not have great influence in Wales as the gentry
what he criticised as a desire by poets to transform ev-
found different forms of artistic patronage. One surviv-
erything with "metaphysical Ideas and Scholastical Quid-
[77] ing example of Welsh literary drama is Troelus a Chresyd,
dities". This has been taken as the earliest labelling
an anonymous adaptation from poems by Henrysoun and
of Metaphysical poets. Drummond of Hawthornden has
Chaucer dating to around 1600. With no urban centres
been described as the “most accomplished poet to write
[7] to compare to England to support regular stages, moral-
in English in seventeenth-century Scotland”.
ity plays and interludes continued to circulate in inn-yard
The Renaissance in Wales was marked by humanism theatres and fairs, supplemented by visiting troupes per-
and scholarship. The Welsh language, its grammar and forming English repertoire.[36]
lexicography, was studied for the first time and bibli-
Philosopher Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626) wrote the
cal studies flourished. Welsh writers such as John Owen
utopian novel New Atlantis, and coined the phrase
and William Vaughan wrote in Latin or English to com-
"Knowledge is Power". Francis Godwin's 1638 The Man
municate their ideas outside Wales, but the humanists
in the Moone recounts an imaginary voyage to the moon
were unsuccessful in opening the established practices
[36] and is now regarded as the first work of science fiction in
of professional Welsh poets to Renaissance influences.
English literature.[79]
From the Reformation until the 19th century most liter-
ature in the Welsh language was religious in character. Besides Shakespeare the major poets of the early 17th
Morgan Llwyd's Llyfr y Tri Aderyn (“The Book of the century included the Metaphysical poets John Donne
Three Birds”) (1653) took the form of a dialogue be- (1572–1631) and George Herbert (1593–1633). Influ-
enced by continental Baroque, and taking as his subject
3.3 The late Renaissance or Caroline period: 1625–1660 13

matter both Christian mysticism and eroticism, Donne’s of the Isles, and printed in 1567. This is considered
metaphysical poetry uses unconventional or “unpoetic” the first printed book in Scottish Gaelic though the lan-
figures, such as a compass or a mosquito, to reach sur- guage resembles classical Irish.[83] The Irish translation
prise effects. For example, in “Valediction: Forbidding of the Bible dating from the Elizabethan period was in
Mourning”, one of Donne’s Songs and Sonnets, the points use in Scotland until the Bible was translated into Scot-
of a compass represent two lovers, the woman who is tish Gaelic.[84] James Kirkwood (1650–1709) promoted
home, waiting, being the centre, the farther point being Gaelic education and attempted to provide a version
her lover sailing away from her. But the larger the dis- of William Bedell’s Bible translations into Irish, edited
tance, the more the hands of the compass lean to each by his friend Robert Kirk (1644–1692), which failed,
other: separation makes love grow fonder. The paradox though he did succeed in publishing a Psalter in Gaelic
or the oxymoron is a constant in this poetry whose fears (1684).[85][86]
and anxieties also speak of a world of spiritual certain- The Book of Common Prayer was translated into French
ties shaken by the modern discoveries of geography and
by Jerseyman Jean Durel, later Dean of Windsor, and
science, one that is no longer the centre of the universe. published for use in the Channel Islands in 1663 as An-
glicanism was established as the state religion after the
Stuart Restoration.
3.2 The Reformation and vernacular liter-
The Book of Common Prayer and Bible were translated
ature into Manx in the 17th and 18th centuries. The printing
of prayers for the poor families was projected by Thomas
At the Reformation, the translation of liturgy and Bible Wilson in a memorandum of Whit-Sunday 1699, but was
into vernacular languages provided new literary models. not carried out until 30 May 1707, the date of issue of
The Book of Common Prayer and the Authorized King his Principles and Duties of Christianity ... in English and
James Version of the Bible have been hugely influen- Manks, with short and plain directions and prayers, 1707.
tial. The King James Bible, one of the biggest transla- This was the first book published in Manx, and is often
tion projects in the history of English up to this time, was styled the Manx Catechism. The Gospel of St. Matthew
started in 1604 and completed in 1611. It represents the was translated, with the help of his vicars-general in 1722
culmination of a tradition of Bible translation into English and published in 1748 under the sponsorship of his suc-
from the original languages that began with the work of cessor as bishop, Mark Hildesley. The remaining Gospels
William Tyndale (previous translations into English had and the Acts were also translated into Manx under his su-
relied on the Vulgate). It became the standard Bible of pervision, but not published. Hildesley printed the New
the Church of England, and some consider it one of the Testament and the Book of Common Prayer, translated,
greatest literary works of all time. under his direction, by the clergy of the diocese, and the
Old Testament was finished and transcribed in Decem-
The earliest surviving examples of Cornish prose are
ber 1772, at the time of the bishop’s death.[87] The Manx
Pregothow Treger (The Tregear Homilies) a set of 66
Bible established a standard for written Manx. A tradi-
sermons translated from English by John Tregear 1555–
tion of Manx carvals, religious songs or carols, devel-
1557.
oped. Religious literature was common, but secular writ-
In 1567 William Salesbury's Welsh translations of the ing much rarer.
New Testament and Book of Common prayer were pub-
lished. William Morgan’s translation of the whole Bible
followed in 1588 and remained the standard Welsh Bible
until well into the 20th century.
3.3 The late Renaissance or Caroline pe-
riod: 1625–1660
The first Irish translation of the New Testament was be-
gun by Nicholas Walsh, Bishop of Ossory, continued Main article: Caroline era
by John Kearney (Treasurer of St Patrick’s, Dublin), his
The Metaphysical poets continued writing in this period.
assistant, and Dr. Nehemiah Donellan, Archbishop of Both John Donne and George Herbert died after 1625,
Tuam, and finally completed by William O'Domhnuill but there was a second generation of metaphysical po-
(William Daniell, Archbishop of Tuam in succession to
ets, consisting of Andrew Marvell (1621–1678), Thomas
Donellan). Their work was printed in 1602.[80] The Traherne (1636 or 1637–1674) and Henry Vaughan
work of translating the Old Testament was undertaken by
(1622–1695). Another important group of poets at this
William Bedell (1571–1642), Bishop of Kilmore, who time were the Cavalier poets. They were an important
completed his translation within the reign of Charles
group of writers, who came from the classes that sup-
the First. However, it was not published until 1685,ported King Charles I during the Wars of the Three King-
in a revised version by Narcissus Marsh (1638–1713),doms (1639–51). (King Charles reigned from 1625 and
Archbishop of Dublin.[81][82] was executed 1649). The best known of the Cavalier
The Book of Common Order was translated into Scot- poets are Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Thomas
tish Gaelic by Séon Carsuel (John Carswell), Bishop Carew, and Sir John Suckling. They “were not a formal
14 4 NEOCLASSICISM: 1660–1798

Samuel Pepys, took the diary beyond mere business transaction

notes, into the realm of the personal

John Milton. His religious epic poem Paradise Lost was pub-
[88] lished in 1667.
group, but all were influenced” by Ben Jonson. Most
of the Cavalier poets were courtiers, with notable excep-
tions. For example, Robert Herrick was not a courtier, cording to legend, Urquhart died in a fit of laughter on
but his style marks him as a Cavalier poet. Cavalier works receiving news of the Restoration of Charles II.[8]
make use of allegory and classical allusions, and are in-
fluence by Latin authors Horace, Cicero, and Ovid.[89]
John Milton (1608–74) is one of the greatest English 4 Neoclassicism: 1660–1798
poets, who wrote at a time of religious flux and polit-
ical upheaval. He is generally seen as the last major This period is also described as the Neoclassical age or
poet of the English Renaissance, though his major epic Age of reason.
poems were written in the Restoration period, includ-
ing. Paradise Lost (1671). Among the important poems
Milton wrote during this period are L'Allegro, 1631; Il 4.1 The Restoration: 1660–1700
Penseroso, 1634; Comus (a masque), 1638; and Lycidas,
(1638). His later major works are: Paradise Regained, Main articles: Restoration literature and Restoration
1671; Samson Agonistes, 1671. Milton’s works reflect comedy
deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self-
determination, and the urgent issues and political turbu- The Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 launched a
lence of his day. Writing in English, Latin, and Italian, fresh start for literature, both in celebration of the new
he achieved international renown within his lifetime, and worldly and playful court of the king, and in reaction to
his celebrated Areopagitica (1644), written in condem- it. Theatres in England reopened after having been closed
nation of pre-publication censorship, is among history’s during the protectorship of Oliver Cromwell, Puritanism
most influential and impassioned defences of free speech lost its momentum, and the bawdy "Restoration com-
and freedom of the press. William Hayley's 1796 biog- edy" became a recognisable genre. In addition, women
raphy called him the “greatest English author”,[90] and were allowed to perform on stage for the first time. The
he remains generally regarded “as one of the preeminent Mercurius Caledonius, founded in Edinburgh in 1660
writers in the English language”.[91] by the playwright Thomas Sydserf, was Scotland's first
Thomas Urquhart (1611–1660), a Scottish Royalist, newspaper.[92] Sydserf was behind the establishment in
translated Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel into En- Edinburgh of the first regular theatre in Scotland, and his
glish, a translation that has achieved its “own creative 1667 play Tarugo’s Wiles: or, The Coffee-House, based on
identity”,[8] and has been described as “the greatest Scot- a Spanish play, was produced in London to amazement
tish translation since Gavin Douglas’s Eneados".[7] Ac- that a Scot could write such excellent English. He was
4.1 The Restoration: 1660–1700 15

also among the first to translate Cyrano de Bergerac into form, genre, and content. He was part of a “mob of gen-
English; his Σεληναρχία, or the Government of the World tlemen who wrote with ease”,[95] who continued to pro-
in the Moon (1659).[7] Scottish poet John Ogilby, who duce their poetry in manuscripts, rather than in publica-
was the first Irish Master of the Revels, had established tion. As a consequence, some of Rochester’s work deals
the Werburgh Street Theatre, the first theatre in Ireland, with topical concerns, such as satires of courtly affairs
in the 1630s. It was closed by the Puritans in 1641. The in libels, to parodies of the styles of his contemporaries,
Restoration of the monarchy in Ireland enabled Ogilby such as Sir Charles Scroope. He is also notable for his
to resume his position as Master of the Revels and open impromptus,[96] Voltaire, who spoke of Rochester as “the
the first Theatre Royal in Dublin in 1662 in Smock Al- man of genius, the great poet”, admired his satire for its
ley. In 1662 Katherine Philips went to Dublin where “energy and fire” and translated some lines into French to
she completed a translation of Pierre Corneille's Pompée, “display the shining imagination his lordship only could
produced with great success in 1663 in the Smock Alley boast”.[97]
Theatre, and printed in the same year both in Dublin and
John Dryden (1631–1700) was an English poet, literary
London. Although other women had translated or writ- critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the lit-
ten dramas, her translation of Pompey broke new ground
erary life of Restoration England to such a point that the
as the first rhymed version of a French tragedy in English period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of
and the first English play written by a woman to be per- Dryden. He established the heroic couplet as a standard
formed on the professional stage. Aphra Behn (one of the form of English poetry by writing successful satires, re-
women writers dubbed "The fair triumvirate of wit") was ligious pieces, fables, epigrams, compliments, prologues,
a prolific dramatist and one of the first English profes- and plays with it; he also introduced the alexandrine and
sional female writers. Her greatest dramatic success was triplet into the form. In his poems, translations, and crit-
The Rover (1677). icism, he established a poetic diction appropriate to the
heroic couplet. Dryden’s greatest achievements were in
satiric verse in works like the mock-heroic MacFlecknoe
(1682). W. H. Auden referred to him as “the master of
the middle style” that was a model for his contemporaries
and for much of the 18th century.[98] The considerable
loss felt by the English literary community at his death
was evident from the elegies that it inspired.[99] Alexander
Pope (1688–1744) was heavily influenced by Dryden, and
often borrowed from him; other writers in the 18th cen-
tury were equally influenced by both Dryden and Pope.
Iain Lom (c. 1624 – c. 1710) was a Royalist Scot-
tish Gaelic poet appointed poet laureate in Scotland by
Charles II at the Restoration. He delivered a eulogy for
the coronation, and remained loyal to the Stuarts after
1688, opposing the Williamites and later, in his vitupera-
tive Oran an Aghaidh an Aonaidh, the 1707 Union of the
Parliaments.[8] Though Ben Jonson had been poet laure-
ate to James I in England, this was not then a formal po-
sition and the formal title of Poet Laureate, as a royal of-
fice, was first conferred by letters patent on John Dryden
in 1670. The post then became a regular British institu-
tion.
Aphra Behn Diarists John Evelyn (1620–1706) and Samuel Pepys
(1633–1703) depicted everyday London life and the cul-
Behn’s depiction of the character Willmore in The Rover tural scene of the times. Their works are among the most
and the witty, poetry-reciting rake Dorimant in George important primary sources for the Restoration period in
Etherege's The Man of Mode (1676) are seen as a satire England, and consists of eyewitness accounts of many
on John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680), an great events, such as the Great Plague of London (1644–
English libertine poet, and a wit of the Restoration court. 5), and the Great Fire of London (1666). Cín Lae Uí
His contemporary Andrew Marvell described him as Mhealláin is an account of the Irish Confederate Wars
“the best English satirist”, and he is generally considered which “reflected the Ulster Catholic point of view” writ-
to be the most considerable poet and the most learned ten by Tarlach Ó Mealláin. James Melville's diary is writ-
among the Restoration wits.[93] His A Satyr Against Rea- ten in a vigorous, fresh style, and is especially direct in its
son and Mankind is assumed to be a Hobbesian critique of descriptions of Scottish contemporaries and an original
rationalism.[94] Rochester’s poetic work varies widely in authority for the period, written with much naïveté, and
16 4 NEOCLASSICISM: 1660–1798

revealing an attractive personality.

Described as “an account of the progress of the Con-
federate war from the outbreak of rebellion in 1641 un-
til February 1647” its text “reflected the Ulster Catholic
point of view.”
The publication of The Pilgrim’s Progress (Part I:1678;
1684), established the Puritan preacher John Bunyan
(1628–88) as a notable writer. Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s
Progress is an allegory of personal salvation and a guide to
the Christian life. Bunyan writes about how the individ-
ual can prevail against the temptations of mind and body
that threaten damnation. The book is written in a straight-
forward narrative and shows influence from both drama
and biography, and yet it also shows an awareness of the
grand allegorical tradition found in Edmund Spenser.
Nicholas Boson (1624–1708) wrote three significant
texts in Cornish, Nebbaz gerriau dro tho Carnoack (A
Few Words about Cornish) between 1675 and 1708;
Jowan Chy-an-Horth, py, An try foynt a skyans (John of
Chyannor, or, The three points of wisdom), published
by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, though written earlier; and
The Dutchess of Cornwall’s Progress, partly in English, Portrait of Tobias Smollett.
now known only in fragments. The first two are the
only known surviving Cornish prose texts from the 17th
century.[100] tle impact on the literature of England nor on national
In Scotland, after the 17th century, anglicisation in- consciousness among English writers. The situation in
creased, though Lowland Scots was still spoken by the Scotland was different: the desire to maintain a cultural
vast majority of the population, and Scottish Gaelic by a identity while partaking of the advantages offered by the
minority. At the time, many of the oral ballads from the English literary market and English literary standard lan-
borders and the North East were written down. Writers guage led to what has been described as the “invention of
of the period include Robert Sempill (c. 1595 – 1665), British literature” by Scottish writers. English writers, if
Lady Wardlaw and Lady Grizel Baillie. they considered Britain at all, tended to assume it was
merely England writ large; Scottish writers were more
clearly aware of the new state as a “cultural amalgam
4.2 The Augustan age: 1700–1750 comprising more than just England”.[102] James Thom-
son's "Rule Britannia!" is an example of the Scottish
Main articles: Augustan literature and Augustan prose championing of this new national and literary identity.
With the invention of British literature came the devel-
The late 17th, early 18th century (1689–1750) in English opment of the first British novels, in contrast to the En-
literature is known as the Augustan Age. Writers at this glish novel of the 18th century which continued to deal
time “greatly admired their Roman counterparts, imitated with England and English concerns rather than exploring [102]
their works and frequently drew parallels between” con- the changed political, social and literary environment.
temporary world and the age of the Roman emperor Au- Tobias Smollett (1721–71) was a Scottish pioneer of the
gustus (27 AD – BC 14)[101] (see Augustan literature (an- British novel, exploring the prejudices inherent within the
cient Rome) ). Some of the major writers in this period new social structure of Britain through comic picaresque
were John Dryden (1631–1700), Jonathan Swift (1667– novels. His The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748)
1745), William Congreve, (1670–1729), Joseph Addison is the first major [102]
novel written in English to have a Scots-
(1672–1719), Richard Steele (1672–1729), Alexander man as hero, and the multinational voices represented
Pope (1688–1744), Henry Fielding (1707–54), Samuel in the narrative confront Anglocentric prejudices only
Johnson (1709–84). two years after the Battle of Culloden. The Expedition
of Humphry Clinker (1771) brings together characters
from the extremes of Britain to question how cultural and
4.2.1 The “invention of British literature” linguistic differences can be accommodated within the
new British identity, and influenced Charles Dickens.[103]
The Union of the Parliaments of Scotland and England Richard Cumberland wrote patriotic comedies depicting
in 1707 to form a single Kingdom of Great Britain and characters taken from the “outskirts of the empire,” and
the creation of a joint state by the Acts of Union had lit- intended to vindicate the good elements of the Scots,
4.2 The Augustan age: 1700–1750 17

Irish, and colonials from English prejudice.[104] His most

popular play, "The West Indian" (1771) was performed in
North America and the West Indies. It was the first En-
glish language play known to have been staged in Jersey
(on 5 May 1792).;[105] Boden translated it into German,
and Goethe acted in it at the Weimar court.[104]

4.2.2 Prose, including the novel

Main article: Augustan prose

In prose, the earlier part of the period was overshadowed

by the development of the English essay. Joseph Addison
and Richard Steele's The Spectator established the form of
the British periodical essay, inventing the pose of the de-
tached observer of human life who can meditate upon the
world without advocating any specific changes in it. Pe-
riodical essays bloomed into journalistic writings; such
as Samuel Johnson's “Reports of the Debates of the Sen-
ate of Lilliput”, titled to disguise the actual proceeding of
parliament as it was illegal for any Parliamentary Reports
to be reproduced in print. However, this was also the time
when the English novel, first emerging in the Restoration,
developed into a major art form. Daniel Defoe turned
from journalism and writing criminal lives for the press
to writing fictional criminal lives with Roxana and Moll
Flanders. Daniel Defoe's 1719 castaway novel Robinson Crusoe, with
Edward Cave created the first general-interest magazine Crusoe standing over Man Friday after freeing him from the can-
in 1731 with The Gentleman’s Magazine. He was the first nibals
to use the term “magazine” on the analogy of a military
storehouse of varied material. The Daily Courant, first
published on 11 March 1702 in Fleet Street, was the first
British daily newspaper. The News Letter is one of North-
ern Ireland’s main daily newspapers and is the oldest En-
glish language general daily newspaper still in publication
in the world, having first been printed in 1737.[106][107] The English novel has generally been seen as begin-
The Press and Journal is a daily regional newspaper serv- ning with Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) and
[111]
ing the northern counties of Scotland including the cities Moll Flanders (1722), though John Bunyan’s The
of Aberdeen and Inverness. Established in 1747, it is Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) and Aphra Behn's, Oroonoko
Scotland’s oldest daily newspaper.[108] (see also History (1688) are also contenders, while earlier works such as
of British newspapers) Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, and even the “Pro-
logue” to Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales have been
John Newbery made children’s literature a sustainable suggested.[112] The rise of the novel as an important lit-
and profitable part of the literary market, and he pub- erary genre is generally associated with the growth of
lished his most popular story The History of Little Goody the middle class in England. Other major 18th-century
Two-Shoes in 1765. British novelists are Samuel Richardson (1689–1761),
The English pictorial satirist and editorial cartoonist author of the epistolary novels Pamela, or Virtue Re-
William Hogarth (1697–1764) has been credited with warded (1740) and Clarissa (1747–48); Henry Fielding
pioneering Western sequential art. His work ranged (1707–54), who wrote Joseph Andrews (1742) and The
from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pic- History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749).
tures called “modern moral subjects”. Much of his work Anglo-Irish literature achieved an ambiguous indepen-
satirises contemporary politics and customs.[109] dence in the 18th century with the emergence of writers
A seminal book in piracy, A General History of the such as Jonathan Swift,[1] whose important early novel
Pyrates 1724, was published in London, and contained Gulliver’s Travels (1726, amended 1735) is both a satire
biographies of several notorious English pirates such as of human nature, as well as a parody of travellers’ tales
Blackbeard and Calico Jack.[110] like Robinson Crusoe.[113]
18 4 NEOCLASSICISM: 1660–1798

been in a constant state of re-evaluation. His high artifice,

strict prosody, and, at times, the sheer cruelty of his satire
were an object of derision for the Romantic poets, and it
was not until the 1930s that his reputation was revived.
Pope is now considered the dominant poetic voice of his
century, a model of prosodic elegance, biting wit, and an
enduring, demanding moral force.[114] The Rape of the
Lock and The Dunciad are masterpieces of the mock-epic
genre.[115]

Jonathan Swift's distinctive satirical style has given rise to the ad-
jective "Swiftian"

4.2.3 Drama in the Augustan age

See also: Restoration Comedy

Although documented history of Irish theatre began at

least as early as 1601, the earliest Irish dramatists of
note were William Congreve (1670–1729), one of the
most interesting writers of Restoration comedies and au-
thor of The Way of the World (1700) and playwright,
George Farquhar (?1677–1707), The Recruiting Officer Ellis Wynne's Gweledigaetheu y Bardd Cwsc ('Visions of
(1706). Anglo-Irish drama in the 18th century also in- the Sleeping Bard'), first published in London in 1703,
cludes Charles Macklin (?1699–1797), and Arthur Mur- is regarded as a Welsh language classic. It is generally
phy (1727–1805).[1] said that no better model exists of such 'pure' idiomatic
The age of Augustan drama was brought to an end by the Welsh, before writers had become influenced by English
censorship established by the Licensing Act 1737. Af- style and method.
ter 1737, authors with strong political or philosophical A mover in the classical revival of Welsh literature in
points to make would no longer turn to the stage as their the 18th century was Lewis Morris, one of the founders
first hope of making a living, and novels began to have in 1751 of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, a
dramatic structures involving only normal human beings, Welsh literary society in London—at that time the most
as the stage was closed off for serious authors. Prior to important centre of Welsh publishing.[36] He set out to
the Licensing Act 1737, theatre was the first choice for counter the trend among patrons of Welsh literature to
most wits. After it, the novel was. turn towards English culture. A writer himself, he cir-
culated prose and poetry in Welsh composed by himself
and, to the extent they were satirical, influenced by Swift.
4.2.4 Poetry in the Augustan age
He attempted to recreate a classic school of Welsh po-
etry with his support for Goronwy Owen and other Au-
Main article: Augustan poetry gustans. Goronwy Owen, when young, had written poetry
in Welsh and Latin and returned to the classical tradition
The most outstanding poet of the age is Alexander Pope in 1751 with the intention of establishing new ideals for
(1688–1744), whose major works include: The Rape of Welsh poetry: no longer fawning on patrons but adopting
the Lock (1712; enlarged in 1714); a translation of the the manner of Horace to express Christian behaviour. His
Iliad (1715–20); a translation of the Odyssey (1725–26); plans for a Miltonic epic were never achieved, but influ-
The Dunciad (1728; 1743). Since his death, Pope has enced the aims of eisteddfodau competitions through the
4.3 The roots of Romanticism: 1750–1798 19

19th century.[116]
In the Scots-speaking areas of Ulster there was tradi-
tionally a considerable demand for the work of Scottish
poets, often in locally printed editions. These included
Alexander Montgomerie's The Cherrie and the Slae in
1700, over a decade later an edition of poems by Sir
David Lindsay, and nine printings of Allan Ramsay's The
Gentle shepherd between 1743 and 1793.
The Habbie stanza was developed as a Scottish poetic
form.
The Scottish Gaelic Enlightenment figure Alasdair mac
Mhaighstir Alasdair compiled the first secular book in
Scottish Gaelic to be printed: Leabhar a Theagasc Ain-
minnin (1741), a Gaelic-English glossary. The second
secular book in Scottish Gaelic to be published was his
poetry collection Ais-Eiridh na Sean Chánoin Albannaich
(The Resurrection of the Ancient Scottish Language).
His lexicography and poetry was informed by his study of
old Gaelic manuscripts, an antiquarian interest which also
influenced the orthography he employed. As an observer
of the natural world of Scotland and a Jacobite rebel,
Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair was the most overtly
nationalist poet in Gaelic of the 18th century. His Ais-
Eiridh na Sean Chánoin Albannaich was reported to have Robert Burns inspired many vernacular writers across Britain
been burned in public by the hangman in Edinburgh.[7] and Ireland with works such as Auld Lang Syne, A Red, Red
He was influenced by James Thomson’s The Seasons Rose and Halloween.
as well as by Gaelic “village poets” such as Iain Mac
Fhearchair (John MacCodrum). As part of the oral lit-
erature of the Highlands, few of the works of such vil- ture as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biogra-
lage poets were published at the time, although some have pher, editor and lexicographer. Johnson has been de-
been collected since.[7] scribed as “arguably the most distinguished man of let-
Scottish Gaelic poets produced laments on the Jacobite ters in English history”.[117] He is also the subject of
defeats of 1715 and 1745. Mairghread nighean Lach- “the most famous single work of biographical art in the
lainn and Catriona Nic Fhearghais are among woman po- whole of literature": James Boswell's Life of Samuel
ets who reflected on the crushing effects on traditional Johnson (1791).[118] His early works include the poems
Gaelic culture of the aftermath of the Jacobite uprisings. "London" and “his most impressive poem” "The Vanity
A consequent sense of desolation pervaded the works of of Human Wishes" (1749).[119] Both poems are mod-
Scottish Gaelic writers such as Dughall Bochanan which elled on Juvenal's satires.[119] After nine years of work,
mirrored many of the themes of the graveyard poets writ- Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language was pub-
ing in England.[7] A legacy of Jacobite verse was later lished in 1755; it had a far-reaching effect on Modern
compiled (and adapted) by James Hogg in his Jacobite English and has been described as “one of the greatest sin-
Reliques (1819). gle achievements of scholarship.”[120] This work brought
Johnson popularity and success. Until the completion of
The first printed Jèrriais literature appears in the first
the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, Johnson’s
newspapers following the introduction of the printing
was viewed as the pre-eminent British dictionary.[121]
press at the end of the 18th century. The earliest iden-
His later works included essays, an influential annotated
tified dated example of printed poetry in Jèrriais is a
edition of William Shakespeare’s plays (1765), and the
fragment by Matchi L'Gé (Matthew Le Geyt 1777–1849)
widely read tale Rasselas (1759). In 1763, he befriended
dated 1795.
James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland;
Johnson described their travels in A Journey to the West-
ern Islands of Scotland (1786). Towards the end of his
4.3 The roots of Romanticism: 1750–1798 life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the
Most Eminent English Poets (1779–81), a collection of bi-
The second half of the 18th century is sometimes called ographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century po-
the “Age of Johnson”. Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), ets. Through works such as the “Dictionary, his edition
often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English au- of Shakespeare, and his Lives of the Poets in particular, he
thor who made lasting contributions to English litera- helped invent what we now call English Literature”.[119]
20 4 NEOCLASSICISM: 1660–1798

The second half of the 18th century saw the emergence of tional response, both from their readers and characters.
three major Irish authors Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774), They feature scenes of distress and tenderness, and the
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) and Laurence plot is arranged to advance emotions rather than action.
Sterne (1713–68). Goldsmith settled in London in 1756, The result is a valorisation of “fine feeling,” displaying
where he published the novel The Vicar of Wakefield the characters as a model for refined, sensitive emotional
(1766), a pastoral poem The Deserted Village (1770) and effect. The ability to display feelings was thought to show
two plays, The Good-Natur'd Man 1768 and She Stoops character and experience, and to shape social life and
to Conquer 1773. This latter was a huge success and is relations.[124] Among the most famous sentimental nov-
still regularly revived. Sheridan was born in Dublin into a els in English are Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue
family with a strong literary and theatrical tradition. The Rewarded (1740), Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield
family moved to England in the 1750s. His first play, The (1766), Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759–67),
Rivals 1775, was performed at Covent Garden and was Sentimental Journey (1768), Henry Brooke's The Fool
an instant success. He went on to become the most sig- of Quality (1765–70), Henry Mackenzie's The Man of
nificant London playwright of the late 18th century with Feeling (1771) and Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent
plays like The School for Scandal and The Critic. Both (1800).[125]
Goldsmith and Sheridan reacted against the sentimental Another novel genre also developed in this period. In
comedy of the 18th-century theatre, writing plays closer 1778, Frances Burney (1752–1840) wrote Evelina, one
to the style of Restoration comedy.[122] Sterne published of the first novel’s of manners.[126] Social behaviour in
his famous novel Tristram Shandy in parts between 1759 public and private settings accounts for much of the plot
and 1767.[123] of Evelina. This is mirrored in other novels that were
particularly popular at the beginning of the 19th century,
especially those of Jane Austen. Fanny Burney’s novels’
indeed “were enjoyed and admired by Jane Austen".[127]
The period of intellectual and scientific accomplishments
in Scotland in the latter part of the 18th century has been
called the Scottish Enlightenment. Important early works
were David Hume's (1711–76) Treatise on Human Nature
(1738) and Essays, Moral and Political (1741). Adam
Smith (1723–90) was another important philosopher in
Scotland at this time, author of the first modern work
of economics, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of
the Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith is cited as the “fa-
ther of modern economics” and is still among the most
influential thinkers in the field of economics today.[128]
Scottish Common Sense Realism is another important
school of philosophy that originated in the ideas of Scot-
tish philosophers Thomas Reid (1710–96), Adam Fergu-
son (1723–1816) and Dugald Stewart (1753–1828) dur-
ing the 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment. Scottish
philosophy was dominated by Scottish Common Sense
Realism, which shared some characteristics with Roman-
ticism, and it would be a major influence on the develop-
ment of one of the most important offshoots of Romanti-
cism in New England, Transcendentalism, particularly in
the writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82).[129]
The Encyclopædia Britannica was first published between
Charles Robert Leslie's painting of Uncle Toby and Widow Wad- 1768 and 1771 in Edinburgh. In part, it was conceived in
man flirting in Sterne’s Tristram Shandy reaction to the French Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and
Jean le Rond d'Alembert (published 1751–1772), which
The sentimental novel or the novel of sensibility is a genre had been inspired by Chambers’s Cyclopaedia (first edi-
which developed during the second half of the 18th cen- tion 1728). The Britannica was primarily a Scottish en-
tury. It celebrates the emotional and intellectual concepts terprise; it is one of the most enduring legacies of the
of sentiment, sentimentalism, and sensibility. Sentimen- Scottish Enlightenment.[130]
talism, which is to be distinguished from sensibility, was The demand for the works of Scottish poets in the Scots-
a fashion in both poetry and prose fiction beginning in speaking areas of Ulster continued in the second half
the eighteenth century in reaction to the rationalism of of the 18th century with nine printings of Allan Ram-
the Augustan Age. Sentimental novels relied on emo-
4.3 The roots of Romanticism: 1750–1798 21

say's The Gentle shepherd between 1743 and 1793, and

an edition of Robert Burns' poetry in 1787, the same
year as the Edinburgh edition, followed by reprints in
1789, 1793 and 1800. Among other Scottish poets
published in Ulster were James Hogg and Robert Tan-
nahill. In 1780, Dumfries poet John Mayne makes note
of pranks at Halloween; “What fearfu' pranks ensue!", as
well as the supernatural associated with the night, “Bogies”
(ghosts).[131] Robert Burns’ 1785 poem Halloween is re-
cited by Scots at Halloween, and Burns was influenced by
Mayne’s composition.[131][132]
Some 60 to 70 volumes of Ulster rhyming weaver poetry
were published between 1750 and 1850, the peak being
in the decades 1810 to 1840. These weaver poets, such
as James Orr (1770–1816), looked to Scotland for their
cultural and literary models and were not simple imita-
tors but clearly inheritors of the same literary tradition
following the same poetic and orthographic practices; it
is not always immediately possible to distinguish tradi-
tional Scots writing from Scotland and Ulster.
The graveyard poets were a number of pre-Romantic
English poets, writing in the 1740s and later, whose
works are characterised by their gloomy meditations on
mortality, “skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms” in
the context of the graveyard.[133] To this was added, by
later practitioners, a feeling for the 'sublime' and un-
canny, and an interest in ancient English poetic forms
and folk poetry.[134] They are often considered pre-
cursors of the Gothic genre.[135] The poets include;
Thomas Gray (1716–71), whose Elegy Written in a Coun-
try Churchyard (1751) is “the best known product of of Otranto. The Gothic fiction genre combines elements
this kind of sensibility";[136] William Cowper (1731– of horror and romance. The pioneering gothic novel-
1800); Christopher Smart (1722–71); Thomas Chat- ist Ann Radcliffe introduced the brooding figure of the
terton (1752–70); Robert Blair (1699–1746), author gothic villain which later developed into the Byronic hero.
of The Grave (1743), “which celebrates the horror of Her most popular and influential work, The Mysteries
death";[137] and Edward Young (1683–1765), whose The of Udolpho (1794), is frequently cited as the archetypal
Complaint, or Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immor- Gothic novel. Vathek (1786) by William Beckford, and
tality (1742–45), is another “noted example of the grave- The Monk (1796) by Matthew Lewis, were other notable
yard genre”.[138] Other precursors of Romanticism are the early works in both the gothic and horror genres. Iolo
poets James Thomson (1700–48) and James Macpher- Morganwg, founder of the Gorsedd, first came to public
son (1736–96), the Gothic novel and the novel of sen- notice in 1789 when he produced Barddoniaeth Dafydd
sibility.[139] Significant foreign influences were the Ger- ab Gwilym, a collection of the poetry of the 14th-century
mans Goethe, Schiller and August Wilhelm Schlegel and Dafydd ap Gwilym. Included in this edition was a large
French philosopher and writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau number of previously unknown poems by Dafydd that he
(1712–78).[140] Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry claimed to have discovered; these poems are regarded as
into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful Williams’ first literary forgeries.[142] In 1794 he published
(1757) is another important influence.[141] The changing some of his own poetry, which was later collected in the
landscape, brought about by the industrial and agricul- two-volume Poems, Lyric and Pastoral. Essentially his
tural revolutions, with the expansion of the city and de- only genuine work, it proved quite popular.[142]
population of the countryside, was another influences on
Although William Williams Pantycelyn was claimed
the growth of the Romantic movement in Britain. The by Saunders Lewis as the first poet of the Romantic
poor condition of workers, the new class conflicts andmovement, and Iolo Morganwg’s antiquarian enthusiasms
the pollution of the environment, led to a reaction against
fed an appetite elsewhere for Romantic ideas, a true
urbanism and industrialisation and a new emphasis on the
movement of Romanticism in Welsh literature only de-
beauty and value of nature. veloped in the 19th century when it overlapped with
[36]
Also foreshadowing Romanticism was Gothic fiction, in Aestheticism.
works such as Horace Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle James Macpherson (1736–96) was the first Scottish poet
22 5 19TH-CENTURY LITERATURE

to gain an international reputation. Claiming to have

found poetry written by the ancient bard Ossian, he pub-
lished translations that acquired international popularity,
being proclaimed as a Celtic equivalent of the Classical
epics. Fingal, written in 1762, was speedily translated
into many European languages, and its appreciation of
natural beauty and treatment of the ancient legend has
been credited more than any single work with bring-
ing about the Romantic movement in European, and es-
pecially in German literature, through its influence on
Johann Gottfried von Herder and Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe.[143] It was also popularised in France by fig-
ures that included Napoleon.[144] Eventually it became
clear that the poems were not direct translations from
the Gaelic, but flowery adaptations made to suit the
aesthetic expectations of his audience.[145] Both Robert
Burns (1759–96) and Walter Scott (1771–1832) were
highly influenced by the Ossian cycle.
Robert Burns (1759–1796) was a pioneer of the Roman-
tic movement, and after his death he became a cultural
icon in Scotland. As well as writing poems, Burns also
collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising
or adapting them. His Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Di-
alect was published in 1786. Among poems and songs of
Burns that remain well known across the world are, “Auld
Lang Syne"; "A Red, Red Rose"; "A Man’s A Man for A'
That"; "To a Louse"; "To a Mouse"; "The Battle of Sher-
ramuir"; "Tam o' Shanter" and "Ae Fond Kiss".
The importance of translation in spreading the influence
of English literature to other cultures of the islands can William Blake's "The Tyger", published in his Songs of Inno-
be exemplified by the abridged Manx version of Paradise cence and of Experience is a work of Romanticism
Lost by John Milton published in 1796 by Thomas Chris-
tian. The influence also went the other way as Romanti-
cism discovered inspiration in the literatures and legends and the crowning of Queen Victoria in 1837 as its end,
of the Celtic countries of the islands. The Ossian hoax even though, for example, William Wordsworth lived un-
typifies the growth of this interest. til 1850 and William Blake published before 1798. The
writers of this period, however, “did not think of them-
The interest in Celtic bards such as the supposed Ossian
selves as 'Romantics’ ", and the term was first used by
inspired a reaction in England that saw Shakespeare be-
[7] critics of the Victorian period.[146]
ing termed “the Bard” or the “Bard of Avon”. The 1769
Shakespeare Jubilee was an example of what was deri- The Romantic period was one of major social change
sively called bardolatry as Shakespeare was held up as an in England, because of the depopulation of the country-
example of transcendent genius, the ideal of the Roman- side and the rapid development of overcrowded indus-
tic poet. trial cities, that took place in the period roughly between
1750 and 1850. The movement of so many people in
England was the result of two forces: the Agricultural
Revolution, that involved the Enclosure of the land, drove
5 19th-century literature workers off the land, and the Industrial Revolution which
provided them employment, “in the factories and mills,
5.1 Romanticism: 1798–1837 operated by machines driven by steam-power".[147] In-
deed, Romanticism may be seen in part as a reaction to
[148]
Main articles: Romanticism § English literature and the Industrial Revolution, though it was also a revolt
Romanticism in Scotland against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age
Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual of Enlightenment, as well a reaction against the scientific
[149]
movement that originated in Europe toward the end of rationalisation of nature. The French Revolution was
the 18th century. Various dates are given for the Ro- an especially important influence on the political thinking
[150]
mantic period in British literature, but here the publish- of many of the Romantic poets.
ing of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 is taken as the beginning, The landscape is often prominent in the poetry of this
5.1 Romanticism: 1798–1837 23

period, so that it the Romantics, especially perhaps set in the distant Scottish past.[153]
Wordsworth, are often described as 'nature poets’. How- The early Romantic Poets brought a new emotionalism
ever, the longer Romantic 'nature poems’ have a wider and introspection, and their emergence is marked by the
concern because they are usually meditations on “an emo- first romantic manifesto in English literature, the “Pref-
tional problem or personal crisis”.[151] ace” to Lyrical Ballads (1798). In it Wordsworth dis-
cusses what he sees as the elements of a new type of
poetry, one based on the “real language of men” and
which avoids the poetic diction of much 18th-century po-
etry. Here, Wordsworth gives his famous definition of
poetry, as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful emo-
tions recollected in tranquility” which “takes its origin
from emotion recollected in tranquility.” The poems in
Lyrical Ballads were mostly by Wordsworth, although
Coleridge contributed the long "Rime of the Ancient
Mariner", a tragic ballad about the survival of one sailor
through a series of supernatural events on his voyage
through the south seas which involves the slaying of an
albatross. Coleridge is also especially remembered for
"Kubla Khan", "Frost at Midnight", “Dejection: an Ode”,
"Christabel" and his major prose work Biographia Lit-
eraria. His critical work, especially on Shakespeare,
was highly influential, and he helped introduce German
idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture.[154] Co-
leridge and Wordsworth, along with Thomas Carlyle,
were a major influence, through Emerson, on American
transcendentalism.[155] Among Wordsworth’s most im-
portant poems, are "Michael", "Lines Composed a Few
Miles Above Tintern Abbey", "Resolution and Indepen-
dence", "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollec-
tions of Early Childhood" and the long, autobiographical,
William Blake is considered a seminal figure in the history of
both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age
epic The Prelude. The Prelude was begun in 1799 but
published posthumously in 1850.

The poet, painter, and printmaker William Blake (1757– Robert Southey (1774–1843) was another of the so-
1827) was one of the first of the English Romantic po- called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years from
ets. Largely disconnected from the major streams of the 1813 to his death in 1843. Although his fame has been
literature of the time, Blake was generally unrecognised long eclipsed by that of his contemporaries and friends
during his lifetime, but is now considered a seminal fig- William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His
ure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of most enduring contribution to literary history is perhaps
the Romantic Age. Considered mad by contemporaries the children’s classic, The Story of the Three Bears, the ba-
for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is held in high regard sis of the original Goldilocks story. Thomas De Quincey
by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and (1785–1859) was an English essayist, best known for his
for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821),[156] an au-
his work. Among his most important works are Songs of tobiographical account of his laudanum and its effect on
Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794) “and his life. William Hazlitt (1778–1830), friend of both
profound and difficult 'prophecies’ " such as Visions of Coleridge and Wordsworth, is another important essay-
the Daughters of Albion (1793), The First Book of Urizen ist at this time, though today he is best known for his
(1794), Milton (1804–?11), and “Jerusalem: the Emana- literary criticism, especially Characters of Shakespeare’s
tion of the Giant Albion” (1804–?20).[152] Plays (1817–18).[157]

After Blake, among the earliest Romantics were the The second generation of Romantic poets includes Lord
Lake Poets, a small group of friends, including William Byron (1788–1824), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
Wordsworth (1770–1850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge and John Keats (1795–1821). Byron, however, was still
(1772–1834), Robert Southey (1774–1843) and journal- influenced by 18th-century satirists and was, perhaps the
ist Thomas de Quincey (1785–1859). However, at the least 'romantic' of the three, preferring “the brilliant wit
time Walter Scott (1771–1832) was the most famous of Pope to what he called the 'wrong poetical system' of
poet. Scott achieved immediate success with his long his Romantic contemporaries”.[158] Byron achieved enor-
narrative poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel in 1805, fol- mous fame and influence throughout Europe with works
lowed by the full epic poem Marmion in 1808. Both were exploiting the violence and drama of their exotic and his-
24 5 19TH-CENTURY LITERATURE

Byron, was the third major romantic poet of the second

generation. Generally regarded as among the finest lyric
poets in the English language, Shelley is perhaps best
known for poems such as Ozymandias, Ode to the West
Wind, To a Skylark, Music, When Soft Voices Die, The
Cloud, The Masque of Anarchy and Adonaïs, an elegy
written on the death of Keats. Shelley’s early profession
of atheism, in the tract “The Necessity of Atheism”, led
to his expulsion from Oxford[169] and branded him as a
radical agitator and thinker, setting an early pattern of
marginalisation and ostracism from the intellectual and
political circles of his time. His close circle of admir-
ers, however, included the most progressive thinkers of
the day, including his future father-in-law, philosopher
William Godwin. A work like Queen Mab (1813) re-
veal Shelley, “as the direct heir to the French and British
revolutionary intellectuals of the 1790s.[170] Shelley be-
came an idol of the next three or four generations of
poets, including important Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite
poets such as Robert Browning, and Dante Gabriel Ros-
setti.[171] Shelley’s influential poem The Masque of Anar-
chy (1819) calls for nonviolence in protest and political
Lord Byron action. It is perhaps the first modern statement of the
principle of nonviolent protest.[172] Mahatma Gandhi's
passive resistance was influenced and inspired by Shel-
ley’s verse, and Gandhi would often quote the poem to
torical settings. Goethe called Byron “undoubtedly the vast audiences.[173]
greatest genius of our century”.[159] However, despite the
success of Childe Harold and other works, Byron was
forced to leave England for good in 1816 and seek asy-
lum on the Continent, because, among other things, of
his alleged incestuous affair with his half-sister Augusta
Leigh.[160] Between 1819 and 1824 Byron published his
unfinished epic satire Don Juan, which, though initially
condemned by the critics, “was much admired by Goethe
who translated part of it”[161]
Though John Keats shared Byron and Shelley’s radical
politics, “his best poetry is not political”.[162] but is es-
pecially noted for its sensuous music and imagery, along
with a concern with material beauty and the transience of
life.[163] Among his most famous works are: "The Eve
of St Agnes", "Ode to Psyche", "La Belle Dame sans
Merci", "Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode on a Grecian Urn",
"Ode on Melancholy", "To Autumn" and the incomplete
Hyperion, a 'philosophical' poem in blank verse, which
was “conceived on the model of Milton's Paradise Lost
".[164] Keats has always been regarded as a major Roman-
tic “and his stature as a poet has grown steadily through
all changes of fashion”.[165] In 1882, Swinburne wrote in
the Encyclopædia Britannica that “the Ode to a Nightin-
gale, [is] one of the final masterpieces of human work in Mary Shelley
all time and for all ages”.[166] More recently critic Helen
Vendler stated the odes “are a group of works in which the
Mary Shelley (1797–1851) is remembered as the author
English language find ultimate embodiment”.[167] Keats’ of Frankenstein (1818), an important Gothic novel, as
letters “are among the finest in English” and important well as being an early example of science fiction.[174]
“for their discussion of his aesthetic ideas”, including The plot of this is said to have come from a waking
'negative capability' ".[168] dream she had, in the company of Percy Shelley, Lord
Percy Shelley, famous for his association with Keats and Byron, and John Polidori, following a conversation about
5.1 Romanticism: 1798–1837 25

galvanism and the feasibility of returning a corpse or as-

sembled body parts to life, and on the experiments of
the 18th-century natural philosopher and poet Erasmus
Darwin, who was said to have animated dead matter.[175]
Sitting around a log fire at Byron’s villa, the company
also amused themselves by reading German ghost stories,
prompting Byron to suggest they each write their own
supernatural tale.
Another important poet in this period was John Clare
(1793–1864), Clare was the son of a farm labourer, who
came to be known for his celebratory representations
of the English countryside and his lamentation for the
changes taking place in rural England.[176] Between 1820
and 1841 Clare published for collections of poems. His
poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th
century and he is often now considered to be among
the most important 19th-century poets.[177] His biogra-
pher Jonathan Bate states that Clare was “the greatest
labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No
one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural
childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self”.[178]
George Crabbe (1754–1832) was an English poet who,
during the Romantic period, wrote “closely observed, re-
alistic portraits of rural life [...] in the heroic couplets of Jane Austen
the Augustan age".[179] Lord Byron who was an admirer
of Crabbe’s poetry, described him as “nature’s sternest sibility (1811), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815) and
painter, yet the best”.[180] Modern critic Frank Whitehead Persuasion (1818).
has said that “Crabbe, in his verse tales in particular, is
an important–indeed, a major–poet whose work has been
and still is seriously undervalued.”[181] Crabbe’s works in-
clude The Village (1783), Poems (1807), The Borough
(1810), and his poetry collections Tales (1812) and Tales
of the Hall (1819).
Major novelists in this period were the Englishwoman
Jane Austen (1775–1817) and the Scotsman Sir Walter
Scott (1771–1832), while Gothic fiction of various kinds
also flourished. Austen’s works satirise the novels of sen-
sibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part
of the transition to 19th-century realism.[182] Her plots,
though fundamentally comic, highlight the dependence
of women on marriage to secure social standing and eco-
nomic security.[183] Austen brings to light the hardships
women faced, who usually did not inherit money, could
not work and where their only chance in life depended on
the man they married. She reveals not only the difficulties
women faced in her day, but also what was expected of
men and of the careers they had to follow. This she does
with wit and humour and with endings where all char-
acters, good or bad, receive exactly what they deserve.
Austen’s work brought her little personal fame and only
a few positive reviews during her lifetime, but the publi- Sir Walter Scott, 1822
cation in 1869 of her nephew’s A Memoir of Jane Austen
introduced her to a wider public, and by the 1940s she The most important British novelist at the beginning of
had become accepted as a major writer. The second half the early 19th century was Sir Walter Scott, who was not
of the 20th century saw a proliferation of Austen scholar- only a highly successful British novelist, but “the great-
ship and the emergence of a Janeite fan culture. Austen’s est single influence on fiction in the 19th century [...]
works include Pride and Prejudice (1813) Sense and Sen- [and] a European figure”.[184] Scott’s novel writing ca-
26 5 19TH-CENTURY LITERATURE

reer was launched in 1814 with Waverley, often called Britain and Ireland were exploring the conflicts of their
the first historical novel, and was followed by Ivanhoe. own non-English identities.<ref name=Crawford
The Waverley Novels, including The Antiquary, Old Mor-
tality, The Heart of Midlothian, and whose subject is
Scottish history, are now generally regarded as Scott’s
masterpieces.[185] He was one of the most popular novel-
ist of the era and his historical romances inspired a gener-
ation of painters, composers, and writers throughout Eu-
rope, including Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn and
J. M. W. Turner. His novels also inspired many op-
eras, of which the most famous are Lucia di Lammermoor
(1835) by Donizetti and Bizet's, La jolie fille de Perth, The
Fair Maid of Perth (1867).[186] However, Austen is today
widely read and the source for films and television series,
while Scott is neglected.
Ewen MacLachlan (Gaelic: Eoghan MacLachlainn)
(1775–1822) was a Scots poet of this period who trans-
lated the first eight books of Homer's Iliad into Scottish
Gaelic. He also composed and published his own Gaelic
Attempts in Verse (1807) and Metrical Effusions (1816),
and contributed greatly to the 1828 Gaelic–English Dic-
tionary. Charles Dickens

The 1830s and 1840s saw the rise of social novel, that
5.2 Victorian literature: 1837–1901 “arose out of the social and political upheavals which fol-
lowed the Reform Act of 1832".[193] This was in many
See also: Victorian literature ways a reaction to rapid industrialisation, and the social,
political and economic issues associated with it, and was
a means of commenting on abuses of government and
industry and the suffering of the poor, who were not
5.2.1 Victorian fiction profiting from England’s economic prosperity.[194] Sto-
ries of the working class poor were directed toward mid-
The novel It was in the Victorian era (1837–1901) dle class to help create sympathy and promote change.
that the novel became the leading literary genre in An early example is Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist (1837–
English.[187] Women played an important part in this 38). Other significant early example of this genre are
rising popularity both as authors and as readers.[188] Sybil, or The Two Nations, a novel by Benjamin Dis-
Monthly serialising of fiction encouraged this surge in raeli (1804–81) and Charles Kingsley's (1819–75) Alton
popularity, due to a combination of the rise of literacy, Locke (1849).
technological advances in printing, and improved eco- Charles Dickens (1812–70) emerged on the literary scene
nomics of distribution.[189] Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Pa- in the late 1830s and soon became probably the most fa-
pers, was published in twenty parts between April 1836 mous novelist in the history of British literature. One of
and November 1837.[190] Both Dickens and Thackeray his most popular works to this day is A Christmas Carol
frequently published this way.[191] However, the stan- (1843). Dickens fiercely satirised various aspects of so-
dard practice of publishing three volume editions con- ciety, including the workhouse in Oliver Twist, the fail-
tinued until the end of the 19th century.[192] Circulating ures of the legal system in Bleak House, the dehuman-
libraries, that allowed books to be borrowed for an annual ising effect of money in Dombey and Son and the influ-
subscription, were a further factor in the rising popularity ence of the philosophy of utilitarianism in factories, ed-
of the novel. ucation etc., in Hard Times. However some critics have
Although London, as imperial capital, was the pre- suggested that Dickens’ sentimentality blunts the impact
eminent centre for literature and publishing, the pluri- of his satire.[195] In more recent years Dickens has been
centric nature of British culture and the growing sophis- most admired for his later novels, such as Dombey and
tication of provincial towns and cities as rapid industrial- Son (1846–48), Bleak House (1852–53) and Little Dorrit
isation progressed meant that literature developed in the (1855–57), Great Expectations (1860–1), and Our Mu-
provinces. The Lake Poets (William Wordsworth and S. tual Friend (1864–65).[196] An early rival to Dickens was
T. Coleridge), the Brontës, George Eliot and Elizabeth William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–63), who during
Gaskell are all figures who strengthened the provincial the Victorian period ranked second only to him, but he is
trend in the literature of England, examining questions of now much less read and is known almost exclusively for
Englishness at the same time as other writers throughout Vanity Fair (1847). In that novel he satirises whole swaths
5.2 Victorian literature: 1837–1901 27

of humanity while retaining a light touch. It features his Adam Bede was published in 1859, and she was a ma-
most memorable character, the engagingly roguish Becky jor novelist of the mid-Victorian period. Her works, es-
Sharp. pecially Middlemarch 1871-2), are important examples
The Brontë sisters, Emily, Charlotte and Anne, were of literary realism, and are admired for their combina-
other significant novelists in the 1840s and 1850s. Their tion of high Victorian literary detail, with an intellectual
novels caused a sensation when they were first pub- breadth that removes them from the narrow geographic
lished but were subsequently accepted as classics. They confines they[204]often depict, that has led to comparisons
had written compulsively from early childhood and were with Tolstoy. While her reputation declined some-
what after her death,[205] in the 20th century she was
first published, at their own expense, in 1846 as po-
ets under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. championed by a new breed of critics, most notably by
Virginia Woolf, who called Middlemarch “one of the few
The following year the three sisters each published a [206]
novel. Charlotte Brontë's (1816–55) work was Jane English novels written for grown-up people”. Various
film and television adaptations of Eliot’s books have also
Eyre, which is written in an innovative style that com- [207]
bines naturalism with gothic melodrama, and broke new introduced her to a wider readership.
ground in being written from an intensely first-person George Meredith (1828–1909) is best remembered for
female perspective.[197] Emily Brontë's (1818–48) novel his novels The Ordeal of Richard Fevered (1859) and The
was Wuthering Heights and, according to Juliet Gar- Egotist (1879). “His reputation stood very high well into”
diner, “the vivid sexual passion and power of its lan- the 20th century but then seriously declined.[208]
guage and imagery impressed, bewildered and appalled Victor Hugo spent 18 years in exile in the Channel Is-
reviewers,”[198] and led the Victorian public and many lands, 1852–1870. He completed Les Misérables in
early reviewers to think that it had been written by a Guernsey and Les Travailleurs de la mer was written and
man.[199] Even though it received mixed reviews when set in Guernsey and has been described as “the finest
it first came out, and was often condemned for its por- British novel written in French”.[209] Hugo used some of
trayal of amoral passion, the book subsequently became Guernsey poet George Métivier's work as material in his
an English literary classic.[200] The third Brontë novel of novels.[210]
1847 was Anne Brontë's (1820–49) Agnes Grey, which
deals with the lonely life of a governess. Anne Brontë's
second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), is per-
haps the most shocking of the Brontës’ novels. In seeking
to present the truth in literature, Anne’s depiction of al-
coholism and debauchery was profoundly disturbing to
19th-century sensibilities.[201] Charlotte Brontë's Shirley
was published in 1849, Villette in 1853, and The Professor
in 1857.
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–65) was also a successful writer
and her first novel, Mary Barton, was published anony-
mously in 1848. Gaskell’s North and South contrasts
the lifestyle in the industrial north of England with the
wealthier south. Even though her writing conforms to
H. G. Wells studying in London, taken circa 1890
Victorian conventions, Gaskell usually frames her sto-
ries as critiques of contemporary attitudes, and her early
works focused on factory work in southeast Lancashire. An interest in rural matters and the changing social and
She always emphasised the role of women, with complex economic situation of the countryside is seen in the nov-
narratives and dynamic female characters.[202] els of Thomas Hardy (1840–1928). A Victorian realist,
in the tradition of George Eliot, he was also influenced
Anthony Trollope's (1815–82) was one of the most suc- both in his novels and poetry by Romanticism, especially
cessful, prolific and respected English novelists of the by William Wordsworth.[211] Charles Darwin is another
Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works are set in the important influence on Thomas Hardy.[212] Like Charles
imaginary west country county of Barsetshire, including Dickens he was also highly critical of much in Victorian
The Warden (1855) and Barchester Towers (1857). Trol- society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural
lope’s novels portray the lives of the landowning and pro- society. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life,
fessional classes of early Victorian England. Henry James and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first col-
suggested that Trollope’s greatest achievement was “great lection was not published until 1898, so that initially he
apprehension of the real”, and that “what made him so gained fame as the author of such novels as, Far from
interesting, came through his desire to satisfy us on this the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge
point”.[203] (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Ob-
George Eliot's (Mary Ann Evans (1819–80) first novel scure (1895). He ceased writing novels following adverse
criticism of this last novel. In novels such as The Mayor of
28 5 19TH-CENTURY LITERATURE

Casterbridge and Tess of the d'Urbervilles Hardy attempts wards, but the work to be recognisable as the first novel
to create modern works in the genre of tragedy, that in Welsh was William Ellis Jones’ 1830 "Y Bardd, neu y
are modelled on the Greek drama, especially Aeschylus Meudwy Cymreig". This was a moralistic work, as were
and Sophocles, though in prose, not poetry, fiction, not many of the productions of the time. The first major
a play, and with characters of low social standing, not novelist in the Welsh language was Daniel Owen (1836–
nobility.[213] Another significant late-19th-century novel- 1895), author of works such as Rhys Lewis (1885) and
ist is George Robert Gissing (1857–1903), who published Enoc Huws (1891).[36]
23 novels between 1880 and 1903. His best-known novel The first novel in Scottish Gaelic was John MacCormick’s
is New Grub Street (1891). Also in the late 1890s, the first
Dùn-Àluinn, no an t-Oighre 'na Dhìobarach, which was
novel of Polish-born immigrant Joseph Conrad, (1857– serialised in the People’s Journal in 1910, before publica-
1924), an important forerunner of modernist literature,
tion in book form in 1912. The publication of a second
was published. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was published Scottish Gaelic novel, An t-Ogha Mòr by Angus Robert-
in 1899, a symbolic story within a story, or frame narra-
son, followed within a year.[215]
tive, about the journey to the Belgian Congo by an En-
glishman called Marlow. This was followed by Lord Jim
in 1900.
The short story There are early European examples
of short stories published separately between 1790 and
1810, but the first true collections of short stories ap-
peared between 1810 and 1830 in several countries
around the same period.[216] The first short stories in the
United Kingdom were gothic tales like Richard Cum-
berland's “remarkable narrative” “The Poisoner of Mon-
tremos” (1791).[217] Major novelists like Sir Walter Scott
and Charles Dickens also wrote some short stories.
Literary magazines first began to appear in the early part
of the 19th century, mirroring an overall rise in the num-
ber of books, magazines and scholarly journals being
published at that time. Critics Francis Jeffrey, Henry
Brougham and Sydney Smith founded the Edinburgh Re-
view in 1802. Other British reviews of this period in-
cluded the Westminster Review (1824), The Spectator
(1828) and Athenaeum (1828).
Welsh writers in English have favoured the short story
form over the novel for two main reasons: in a society
lacking sufficient wealth to support professional writers,
the amateur writer was able to spare time only for short
bursts of creativity; and, like poetry, it concentrated lin-
guistic delight and exuberance. However, the genre did
not develop in these writers much beyond its origin in
rural sketches. Satire was avoided, and, since the main
J. M. Barrie, 1890 market was London publishers, the short stories tended
to focus on the eccentricities (as seen from a metropoli-
[36]
Ulster Scots was used in the narrative by Ulster novelists tan viewpoint) of Welsh life.
such as W. G. Lyttle (1844–1896). By the middle of the Somerville and Ross's Some Experiences of an Irish RM
19th century the Kailyard school of prose had become (1899) and its successors also played on popular provin-
the dominant literary genre, overtaking poetry. This was cial stereotypes.
a tradition shared with Scotland which continued into The short story in Welsh only developed as a serious lit-
the early 20th century.[214] The Scottish authors; Robert erary form in the early years of the 20th century, as writ-
Louis Stevenson, William Alexander, Sir James M. Bar- ers absorbed European and American models and moved
rie, and George MacDonald, also wrote in Lowland Scots on from the moralistic parables that were typical of the
or used it in dialogue. Nonconformist press that had grown up in the 19th cen-
The Welsh novel in English starts with "The Adventures tury. Daniel Owen’s last book Straeon y Pentan (“Tales
and Vagaries of Twm Shon Catti" (1828) by T. J. Ll. of the hearth”, 1895) served as the pattern for the short
Prichard, and novelists following him developed two im- story form that became a codified part of the competi-
portant genres: the industrial novel and the rural romance. tions at the National Eisteddfod at the start of the 20th
Serial fiction in Welsh had been appearing from 1822 on- century.[36]
5.2 Victorian literature: 1837–1901 29

Ulster Scots regularly appeared in Ulster newspaper reer began in the 1890s with science fiction novels like
columns such as those of “Bab M'Keen” from the The Time Machine (1895), and The War of the Worlds
1880s.[218] (1898) which describes an invasion of late Victorian Eng-
Philippe Le Sueur Mourant's Jèrriais tales of Bram Bilo, land by Martians, and Wells is seen, along with French-
an innocent abroad in Paris, were an immediate suc- man Jules Verne (1828–1905), as a major figure in the
cess in Jersey in 1889 and went through a number of development of the science fiction genre. He also wrote
reprintings.[219] realistic fiction about the lower middle class in novels like
Kipps (1905) and The History of Mr Polly (1910).
Penny dreadful publications were an alternative to main-
stream works, and were aimed at working class adoles-
cents, introducing the infamous Sweeney Todd. The pre-
mier ghost story writer of the 19th century was the Irish
writer Sheridan Le Fanu. His works include the macabre
mystery novel Uncle Silas 1865, and his Gothic novella
Carmilla 1872, tells the story of a young woman’s sus-
ceptibility to the attentions of a female vampire. The
vampire genre fiction began with John William Polidori's
"The Vampyre" (1819). This short story was inspired by
the life of Lord Byron and his poem The Giaour. An im-
portant later work is Varney the Vampire (1845), where
many standard vampire conventions originated: Varney
has fangs, leaves two puncture wounds on the neck of
his victims, and has hypnotic powers and superhuman
strength. Varney was also the first example of the “sym-
pathetic vampire”, who loathes his condition but is a slave
to it.[220] Bram Stoker, yet another Irish writer, was the
author of seminal horror work Dracula and featured as its
primary antagonist the vampire Count Dracula, with the
vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing his arch-enemy.
Dracula has been attributed to a number of literary genres
including vampire literature, horror fiction, gothic novel
and invasion literature.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant
London-based “consulting detective”, famous for his in-
tellectual prowess, skilful use of astute observation, de-
ductive reasoning and forensic skills to solve difficult
Bram Stoker cases. Holmes’ archenemy Professor Moriarty, is widely
considered to be the first true example of a supervillain,
Genre fiction Important developments occurred in while Sherlock Holmes has become a by-word for a de-
genre fiction in this era. tective. Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short
Sir John Barrow's descriptive 1831 account of the stories featuring Holmes, from 1880 up to 1907, with a
Mutiny on the Bounty immortalised the Royal Navy final case in 1914. All but four Conan Doyle stories are
ship HMS Bounty and her people. The legend of Dick narrated by Holmes’ friend, assistant, and biographer, Dr
Turpin was popularised when the 18th-century English John H. Watson.
highwayman's exploits appeared in the novel Rookwood The Lost World literary genre was inspired by real sto-
in 1834. ries of archaeological discoveries by imperial adventur-
Although pre-dated by John Ruskin's The King of the ers. H. Rider Haggard wrote one of the earliest examples,
Golden River in 1841, the history of the modern fantasy King Solomon’s Mines in 1885. Contemporary European
genre is generally said to begin with George MacDonald, politics and diplomatic manoeuvrings informed Anthony
the influential author of The Princess and the Goblin and Hope's swashbuckling Ruritanian adventure novels The
Phantastes (1858). William Morris was a popular En- Prisoner of Zenda 1894, and Rupert of Hentzau, 1898.
glish poet who also wrote several fantasy novels during F. Anstey's comic novel Vice Versa 1882, sees a father
the latter part of the nineteenth century. Wilkie Collins' and son magically switch bodies. Satirist Jerome K.
epistolary novel The Moonstone (1868), is generally con- Jerome's Three Men in a Boat 1889, is a humorous ac-
sidered the first detective novel in the English language, count of a boating holiday on the river Thames. Gros-
while The Woman in White is regarded as one of the finest smith brothers George & Weedon's Diary of a Nobody
sensation novels. H. G. Wells's (1866–1946) writing ca-
30 5 19TH-CENTURY LITERATURE

(1886), depicts the dual personality of a kind and intelli-

gent physician who turns into a psychopathic monster af-
ter imbibing a drug intended to separate good from evil in
a personality. His Kidnapped (1886) is a fast-paced his-
torical novel set in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of
1745, and Treasure Island 1883, is the classic pirate ad-
venture. At the end of the Victorian era and leading into
the Edwardian era, Beatrix Potter was an author and il-
lustrator, best known for her children’s books, which fea-
tured animal characters. In her thirties, Potter published
The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1902. Potter eventually went
on to publish 23 children’s books and become a wealthy
woman. Another classic of the period is Anna Sewell's
animal novel Black Beauty.
In the latter years of the 19th century, precursors of the
modern picture book were illustrated books of poems and
short stories produced by English illustrators Randolph
Caldecott, Walter Crane, and Kate Greenaway. These
had a larger proportion of pictures to words than ear-
lier books, and many of their pictures were in colour.
Some British artists made their living illustrating novels
and children’s books, include Arthur Rackham, Cicely
Mary Barker, W. Heath Robinson, Henry J. Ford, John
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Scotland of Irish parents but Leech, and George Cruikshank.
his Sherlock Holmes stories have typified a fog-filled London for
readers worldwide
5.2.2 Victorian poetry

1892, is also considered a classic work of humour.

Lewis Carroll
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Literature for children developed as a separate genre.
Some works become internationally known, such as The leading poets during the Victorian period were
those of Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonder- Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), Robert Browning
land (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass. (1812–89), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61), and
Adventure novels, such as those of Robert Louis Steven- Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The poetry of this period
son (1850–94), are generally classified as for children. was heavily influenced by the Romantics, but also went
Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde off in its own directions. Particularly notable was the
5.2 Victorian literature: 1837–1901 31

development of the dramatic monologue, a form used novative collection of poems Modern Love (1862).[208]
by many poets in this period, but perfected by Brown-
ing. Literary criticism in the 20th century gradually
drew attention to the links between Victorian poetry and
modernism.[221]
Tennyson was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom dur-
ing much of Queen Victoria's reign. He was described
by T. S. Eliot, as “the greatest master of metrics as well
as melancholia”, and as having “the finest ear of any En-
glish poet since Milton".[222] Browning main achievement
was in dramatic monologues such as "My Last Duchess",
"Andrea del Sarto" and “The Bishop Orders his Tomb”,
which were published in his two-volume Men and Women
in 1855. In his introduction to the Oxford University
Press edition of Browning’s Poems 1833–1864, Ian Jack
comments, that Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Ezra
Pound and T S Eliot “all learned from Browning’s explo-
ration of the possibilities of dramatic poetry and of col-
loquial idiom”.[223] Tennyson was also a pioneer in the
use of the dramatic monologue, in "The Lotus-Eaters"
(1833), "Ulysses" (1842), and '"Tithonus" (1860).[224]
While Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the wife of Robert
Browning she had established her reputation as a major
George Métivier (1790–1881), Guernsey’s “national poet”
poet before she met him. Her most famous work is the
sequence of 44 sonnets "Sonnets from the Portuguese"
published in Poems (1850).[225] Matthew Arnold's rep- George Métivier published Rimes Guernesiaises, a collec-
utation as a poet has declined in recent years and he is tion of poems in Guernésiais and French in 1831 and Fan-
best remembered now for his critical works, like Culture taisies Guernesiaises in 1866. Métivier’s poems had first
and Anarchy (1869), and his 1867 poem "Dover Beach". appeared in newspapers from 1813 onward, but he spent
This poem depicts a nightmarish world from which the time in Scotland in his youth where he became familiar
old religious verities have receded. It is sometimes held with the Scots literary tradition although he was also in-
up as an early, if not the first, example of the modern fluenced by Occitan literature. The first printed anthol-
sensibility. The influence of William Wordsworth, both ogy of Jèrriais poetry, Rimes Jersiaises, was published in
in ideas and in diction, is unmistakable in Arnold’s best 1865.
poetry, and Arnold has been seen as a bridge between In the second half of the century, English poets began to
Romanticism and Modernism, because of his use of sym- take an interest in French Symbolism. The moral earnest-
bolic landscapes was typical of the Romantic era, while ness of the 1840s and 1850s expressed in the industrial
his sceptical and pessimistic perspective was typical of novel sparked a reaction against the idea that art should
the Modern era. advance a moral agenda. Aestheticism responded with
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) was a poet, illus- a concern for formal values, virtuoso manipulation of a
trator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre- wide range of poetic forms, both established and revived,
Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman and open disrespect for Christian doctrines and sexual
Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be respectability. Algernon Charles Swinburne's 1866 col-
the main inspiration for a second generation of artists lection Poems and Ballads revived classical metres and
and writers influenced by the movement, most notably evoked extreme sexual passion. A major innovation of
William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones.[226] Rossetti’s Aesthetic writing was the importance of the poem or
art was characterised by its sensuality and its medieval prose poem composed in response to a work of visual
revivalism.[227] Poetry and image are closely entwined in art, blurring the distinction between art criticism and
Rossetti’s work and he frequently wrote sonnets to ac- ekphrasis.[229] Two groups of poets emerged in the 1890s:
company his pictures. He also illustrated poems by his the Yellow Book poets who adhered to the tenets of Aes-
sister Christina Rossetti such as Goblin Market. theticism, including Oscar Wilde and Arthur Symons and
the Rhymers’ Club group, that included Ernest Dowson,
While Arthur Clough (1819–61) was a more minor figure Lionel Johnson and William Butler Yeats. Irishman Yeats
of this era, he has been described as “a fine poet whose went on to become an important modernist in the 20th
experiments in extending the range of literary language century. Also in the 1890s A. E. Housman (1859–1936)
and subject were ahead of his time”.[228] published at his own expense A Shropshire Lad, a cycle
George Meredith (1828–1909) is remembered for his in- of 63 poems, because he could not find a publisher. At
first selling slowly, it rapidly became a lasting success,
32 5 19TH-CENTURY LITERATURE

and its appeal to English musicians had helped to make it lowing outside their native regions, for example William
widely known before World War I, when its themes struck Barnes (1801–86) in Dorset, George Métivier (1790–
a powerful chord with English readers. The poems’ wist- 1881) in Guernsey and Robert Pipon Marett (1820–84)
ful evocation of doomed youth in the English country- in Jersey.[219]
side, in spare language and distinctive imagery, appealed Writers of comic verse included the dramatist, librettist,
strongly to late Victorian and Edwardian taste. Hous- poet and illustrator W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911), who is
man wrote most of them while living in Highgate, Lon- best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in
don, before ever visiting that part of Shropshire (about collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of
thirty miles from his birthplace), which he presented in
which the most famous include H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pi-
an idealised pastoral light, as his 'land of lost content'.[230] rates of Penzance and one of the most frequently per-
Though A. E. Housman was born in the Victorian era
formed works in the history of musical theatre, The
and first published in the 1890s, his poetry only really be- Mikado.[233]
came known in the 20th century. He published a further
highly successful collection, Last Poems, in 1922, while a The so-called "Cranken Rhyme" produced by John Davey
third volume, More Poems, was published posthumously of Boswednack, one of the last people with some tra-
in 1936.[231] A Shropshire Lad has been in print continu- ditional knowledge of the language,[234] may be the last
ously since May 1896. piece of traditional Cornish literature.
The nonsense verse of Edward Lear, along with the novels John Ceiriog Hughes desired to restore simplicity of dic-
and poems of Lewis Carroll, is regarded as a precursor of tion and emotional sincerity and do for Welsh poetry what
surrealism.[232] In 1846 Lear published A Book of Non- Wordsworth and Coleridge did for English poetry.
sense, a volume of limericks that went through three edi- Edward Faragher (1831–1908) has been considered the
tions and helped popularise the form. In 1865 The History last important native writer of Manx. He wrote poetry,
of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-Popple was pub- reminiscences of his life as a fisherman, and translations
lished, and in 1867 his most famous piece of nonsense, of selected Aesop's Fables.
The Owl and the Pussycat, which he wrote for the chil-
dren of his patron Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby.
Many other works followed. Lewis Carroll wrote the po-
ems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky". 5.2.3 Victorian drama
Denys Corbet published collections of Guernésiais poems
Les Feuilles de la Forêt (1871) and Les Chànts du draïn
rimeux (1884), and also brought out an annual poetry an-
thology 1874–1877, similar to Augustus Asplet Le Gros's
annual in Jersey 1868–1875.[219]

Ulster Scots poetry, Robert Huddlestone (1814–1887) in paving,

Writers’ Square, Belfast

Increased literacy in rural and outlying areas and wider

access to publishing through, for example, local news-
papers encouraged regional literary development as the
19th century progressed. Some writers in lesser-used lan-
guages and dialects of the islands gained a literary fol- Oscar Wilde, 1882
6.1 Modernism and cultural revivals: 1901–1945 33

For much of the first half of the 19th century, drama in dom. This separation also leads to questions as to what
London and provincial theatres was restricted by a licens- extent Irish writing prior to 1922 should be treated as
ing system to the Patent theatre companies, and all other a colonial literature. There are also those who ques-
theatres could perform only musical entertainments (al- tion whether the literature of Northern Ireland is Irish or
though magistrates had powers to license occasional dra- British. Nationalist movements in Britain, especially in
matic performances). By the early 19th century, how- Wales and Scotland, also significantly influenced writers
ever, music hall entertainments had become popular, and in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
provided a loophole in the restrictions on non-patent the- The transformation of the British Empire into a
atres in the genre of melodrama which did not contravene
Commonwealth of Nations has given rise to the concept
the Patent Acts, as it was accompanied by music. The of British and Commonwealth literature used for liter-
passing of the Theatres Act 1843 removed the monopoly
ary prizes such as the Booker Prize.[236] Questions of
on drama held by the Patent theatres, enabling local au- identity have been raised, notably in 1994 when James
thorities to license theatres as they saw fit, and also re-
Kelman's How Late It Was, How Late became the first
stricted the Lord Chamberlain’s powers to censor new (and only, as of 2012) Scottish novel to win the Booker
plays. The 1843 Act did not apply to Ireland where the Prize.[237] Simon Jenkins, a columnist for The Times,
power of the Lord Lieutenant to license patent theatres called the award “literary vandalism.” In his acceptance
enabled control of stage performance analogous to that speech, Kelman countered the criticism and decried its
exercised by the Lord Chamberlain in Great Britain.[235] basis as suspect, making the case for the culture and lan-
Drama did not achieve importance as a genre in the 19th guage of “indigenous” people outside of London. "...the
century until the end of the century, and then the main gist of the argument amounts to the following, that ver-
figures were Irish-born. Irish playwright Dion Boucicault naculars, patois, slangs, dialects, gutter-languages etc.
(1820–90), was an extremely popular writer of comedies might well have a place in the realms of comedy (and the
who achieved success on the London stage (London As- frequent references to Billy Connolly or Rab C. Nesbitt
surance, 1841). In the last decade of the century ma- substantiate this) but they are inferior linguistic forms and
jor playwrights emerged, including George Bernard Shaw have no place in literature. And a priori any writer who
(1856–1950) (Arms and the Man, 1894) and Oscar Wilde engages in the use of such so-called language is not really
(1854–1900) (The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895). engaged in literature at all.”[238]
Both these writers lived mainly in England and wrote in Irish poetry and prose has redefined itself against British
English, with the exception of some works in French by literature, and moves to political independence in Scot-
Wilde.
land are leading to a redefinition of the relationship be-
The development of Irish literary culture was encouraged tween English literature and other literatures that have
in the late 19th and early 20th century by the Irish Liter- historically been defined in association with it.[236]
ary Revival (see also The Celtic Revival), which was sup- By the end of the twentieth century further political de-
ported by William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), Augusta, volution had taken place in the UK, and both Scotland
Lady Gregory, and John Millington Synge (The Playboy and Wales now have their own parliaments, together with
of the Western World, 1907). The Revival stimulated a more control over their internal matters, though far from
new appreciation of traditional Irish literature. This was full independence.
a nationalist movement that also encouraged the creation
of works written in the spirit of Irish, as distinct from
British culture. While drama was an important compo- 6.1 Modernism and cultural revivals:
nent of this movement, it also included prose and poetry. 1901–1945
Ernest Rhys was seen as the leading Welsh member of the
Celtic Revival and his poetry and translations were held From around 1910 the Modernist movement began to in-
in high regard at the time, not least by Yeats. However fluence British literature. While their Victorian prede-
posterity remembers him best as the shaper and first edi- cessors had usually been happy to cater to mainstream
tor of the Everyman’s Library, which brought affordable middle-class taste, 20th-century writers often felt alien-
classics to a wide reading public. ated from it, so responded by writing more intellectually
challenging works or by pushing the boundaries of ac-
ceptable content.
Vorticism was a short-lived modernist movement in
6 20th century British art and poetry of the early 20th century,[239] based
in London but international in make-up and ambition.
The year 1922 marked a significant change in the re- The movement was announced in 1914 in the first issue of
lationship between Great Britain and Ireland, with the BLAST, which contained its manifesto. It was co-founded
setting up of the Irish Free State in the predomi- and edited by Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957), the English
nantly Catholic South, while the predominantly Protes- painter and author. His novels include Tarr (1918) and
tant Northern Ireland remained part of the United King- the trilogy The Human Age (1928 and 1955) set in the
34 6 20TH CENTURY

The first section of Wyndham Lewis' Manifesto, Blast 1, 1914

afterworld.
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, Welsh lit-
erature began to reflect the way the Welsh language was
increasingly becoming a political symbol. Two important
literary nationalists were Saunders Lewis (1893–1985)
and Kate Roberts (1891–1985), both of whom began
publishing in the 1920s. Saunders Lewis was above all
a dramatist. His earliest published play was Blodeuwedd
(The woman of flowers) (1923–25, revised 1948). Other
A statue of Hedd Wyn in Trawsfynydd
notable plays include Buchedd Garmon (The life of Ger-
manus) (radio play, 1936) and several others after the
war. Lewis also published two novels, Monica (1930)
and Merch Gwern Hywel (The daughter of Gwern Hywel) 6.1.1 First World War
(1964) and two collections of poems. In addition he was
a historian, literary critic, and a founder of the Welsh Na- The experiences of the First World War were reflected
tional Party in 1925 (later known as Plaid Cymru). Kate in the work of war poets such as Wilfred Owen, Rupert
Roberts’ first volume of short stories, O gors y bryniau Brooke, Isaac Rosenberg, Edmund Blunden and Siegfried
(“From the swamp of the hills”), appeared in 1925 but Sassoon. Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna was a Scottish
perhaps her most successful book of short stories is Te Gaelic poet who served in the First World War, and as
yn y grug (“Tea in the heather”) (1959), a series of stories a war poet described the use of poison gas in his poem
about children. As well as short stories Roberts also wrote Òran a' Phuinnsuin (“Song of the Poison”). His poetry
novels, perhaps her most famous being Traed mewn cyf- is part of oral literature, as he himself never learnt to
fion (“Feet in chains”) (1936) which reflected the hard life read and write in his native language. Welsh poet Hedd
of a slate quarrying family. Kate Roberts’ and Saunders Wyn, who was killed in World War I although produc-
Lewis’s careers continued after World War II and they ing comparatively few war poems as such,[36] was later
both were among the foremost Welsh-language authors the subject of an Oscar-nominated Welsh film. In Paren-
of the twentieth century. thesis, an epic poem by David Jones first published in
6.1 Modernism and cultural revivals: 1901–1945 35

1937, is a notable work of the literature of the First between the Victorian era and the 20th century, but be-
World War, that was influenced by Welsh traditions, de- cause of the adverse criticism of his last novel, Jude the
spite Jones being born in England. In non-fiction prose Obscure, in 1895, from that time Hardy concentrated on
T. E. Lawrence's (Lawrence of Arabia) autobiographical publishing poetry.[240] Gerard Manley Hopkins’s Poems
account in Seven Pillars of Wisdom of the Arab Revolt were posthumously published in 1918 by Robert Bridges
against the Ottoman Empire is important. Poetry reflect- (1844–1930, Poet Laureate from 1913). Hopkins’ poem
ing life on the home-front was also published; Guernésiais "The Wreck of the Deutschland", written in 1875, first in-
writer Thomas Henry Mahy's collection Dires et Pensées troduced what Hopkins called "sprung rhythm.”[241] As
du Courtil Poussin, published in 1922, contained some of well as developing new rhythmic effects, Hopkins “was
his observational poems published in La Gazette de Guer- also very interested in ways of rejuvenating poetic lan-
nesey during the war. guage” and frequently “employed compound and unusual
The end of the First World War saw a decline in the word combinations”.[242] Several twentieth-century po-
ets, including W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, and Ameri-
quantity of poetry published in Jèrriais and Guernésiais
in favour of short-story-like newspaper columns in prose, can Charles Wright, “turned to his work for its inventive-
some being collected in book or booklet form – this being ness and rich aural patterning”.[242]
a common genre in the Norman mainland. Free verse and other stylistic innovations came to the
forefront in this era, with which T. S. Eliot and Ezra
Pound were especially associated. T. S. Eliot (1888–
6.1.2 Poetry: 1901–1945 1965) was born American, migrated to England in 1914,
at the age of 25, and was naturalised as a British subject in
1927 at the age of 39. He was “arguably the most impor-
tant English-language poet of the 20th century.”[243] He
produced some of the best-known poems in the English
language, including "The Waste Land" (1922) and Four
Quartets (1935–1942).[244] He is also known for his seven
plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935). He
was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.[245]
Eliot’s friend Ezra Pound (1885–1972), an American ex-
patriate, made important contributions of British litera-
ture during his residence in London. He was responsible
for the publication in 1915 of Eliot’s "The Love Song of
J. Alfred Prufrock", but more important was the major
editing that he did on the “The Waste Land”.[246]
The Georgian poets like Rupert Brooke, Walter de la
Mare (1873–1956), John Masefield (1878–1967, Poet
Laureate from 1930) maintained a more conservative ap-
proach to poetry by combining romanticism, sentimen-
tality and hedonism, sandwiched as they were between
the Victorian era, with its strict classicism, and Mod-
ernism, with its strident rejection of pure aestheticism.
Edward Thomas (1878–1917) is sometimes treated as an-
other Georgian poet.[247]
A duality of character in the literature of Scotland came
to be characterised as Caledonian Antisyzygy—a self-
imposed critical discourse about how to forge a model
of homogeneous national Scottish culture out of a het-
Thomas Hardy erogeneous patchwork of language communities and na-
tional loyalties.[248] In the early 20th century in Scot-
Two Victorian poets who published little in the 19th cen- land, a renaissance in the use of Lowland Scots oc-
tury, Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) and Gerard Manley curred, its most vocal figure being Hugh MacDiarmid
Hopkins (1844–89), have since come to be regarded as whose A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926), is
major poets. While Hardy first established his reputation widely regarded as one of the most important long poems
the late 19th century with novels, he also wrote poetry in 20th-century Scottish literature.[249] Other contem-
throughout his career. However he did not publish his first poraries were Douglas Young, Sydney Goodsir Smith,
collection until 1898, so that he tends to be treated as a Robert Garioch and Robert McLellan. The revival pro-
20th-century poet. Hardy lived well into the third decade duced verse and other literature, including the plays for
of the twentieth century, an important transitional figure which Robert McLellan is best known.[250]
36 6 20TH CENTURY

James Pittendrigh Macgillivray (1856–1938) and Lewis

Spence (1874–1955) looked back to what they regarded
as a Golden Age of Middle Scots literature, partly as a
political gesture to revive the style that prevailed when
Scotland was a sovereign nation under the Stuarts. Such
experimentation with archaising language for poetic ef-
fect did not found a new direction for literature in Scots,
but their willingness to play with Mediaeval poetic lan-
guage had an influence by stimulating debate and stimu-
lating new ways of experimenting with Scots as a literary
language.[251]
A somewhat diminished tradition of vernacular Ulster
Scots poetry survived into the 20th century in the work
of poets such as Adam Lynn, author of the 1911 collec-
tion Random Rhymes frae Cullybackey, John Stevenson
(died 1932), writing as “Pat M'Carty”, and John Clifford
(1900–1983) from East Antrim.[252]
With the revival of Cornish there have been newer works
written in the language. In the first half of the 20th
century poetry was the focus of literary production in
Cornish. The epic poem Trystan hag Isolt by A. S. D.
Smith (1883–1950) reworked the Tristan and Iseult leg- Rudyard Kipling, 1912
end. Peggy Pollard’s 1941 play Beunans Alysaryn was
modelled on the 16th-century saints’ plays. John Hob-
son Matthews wrote several poems, such as the patriotic novels, short stories and poems, and to date the youngest
“Can Wlascar Agam Mamvro” (“Patriotic Song of our ever recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1907).
Motherland”). Robert Morton Nance (1873–1959) cre- Kipling’s works include The Jungle Books (1894–95), The
ated a body of verse, such as “Nyns yu Marow Myghtern Man Who Would Be King and Kim (1901), while his in-
Arthur” (“King Arthur is not Dead”). spirational poem "If—" (1895) is a national favourite and
In the 1930s the Auden Group, sometimes called simply a memorable evocation of Victorian stoicism, regarded
the Thirties poets, was an important group of politically as a traditional British virtue. Kipling’s reputation de-
left-wing writers, that included W. H. Auden (1907–73), clined during his lifetime but more recently postcolonial
Louis MacNeice (1907–63), Cecil Day-Lewis (1904–72, studies has “rekindled an intense interest in his work,
Poet Laureate from 1968), and Stephen Spender (1909– viewing it as both symptomatic and critical of imperial-
95). Auden was a major poet who had a similar influ- ist attitudes”.[254] H. G. Wells was a highly prolific au-
ence on subsequent poets as W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot thor who is now best known for his work in the science
had had on earlier generations.[253] Others associated with fiction genre.[255] His most notable science fiction works
this group were novelist and playwright Christopher Ish- include The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The
erwood (1904–86), and sometimes, novelist Edward Up- Invisible Man and The Island of Doctor Moreau, all writ-
ward (1903–2009), and poet and novelist Rex Warner ten in the 1890s. Other novels include Kipps (1905) and
(1905–86). Mr Polly (1910). Strongly influenced by his Christian
faith, G. K. Chesterton was a prolific and hugely influ-
ential writer with a diverse output. His best-known char-
6.1.3 The challenge of the modernist novel acter is the priest-detective Father Brown, who appeared
only in short stories, while The Man Who Was Thursday
While modernism was to become an important literary published in 1908 is arguably his best-known novel. Of
movement in the early decades of the new century, there his nonfiction, Charles Dickens: A Critical Study (1906)
were also many fine writers who, like Thomas Hardy, has received some of the broadest-based praise. How-
were not modernists. Novelists include: Rudyard Kipling ever, unlike these other authors, Forster’s work is “fre-
(1865–1936), who was also a successful poet; H. G. quently regarded as containing both modernist and Victo-
Wells (1866–1946); John Galsworthy (1867–1933), (No- rian elements”.[256] Forster’s A Passage to India 1924, re-
bel Prize in Literature, 1932), whose novels include The flected challenges to imperialism, while his earlier works
Forsyte Saga (1906–21); Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) such as A Room with a View (1908) and Howards End
author of The Old Wives’ Tale (1908); G. K. Chesterton (1910), examined the restrictions and hypocrisy of Ed-
(1874–1936); E.M. Forster (1879–1970). The most pop- wardian society in England.
ular British writer of the early years of the 20th century Writing in the 1920s and 1930s Virginia Woolf was an
was arguably Rudyard Kipling, a highly versatile writer of influential feminist, and a major stylistic innovator asso-
6.1 Modernism and cultural revivals: 1901–1945 37

Virginia Woolf in 1927

Aldous Huxley
ciated with the stream-of-consciousness technique. Her
novels include Mrs Dalloway 1925, To the Lighthouse
1927, Orlando 1928, The Waves 1931, and A Room of
One’s Own 1929, which contains her famous dictum; “A
woman must have money and a room of her own if she
is to write fiction”.[257] Woolf and E. M. Forster were
members of the Bloomsbury Group, an enormously influ-
ential group of associated English writers, intellectuals,
philosophers and artists.[258]
Other early modernists were Dorothy Richardson (1873–
1957), whose novel Pointed Roof (1915), is one of the
earliest example of the stream of consciousness technique
and D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930), who wrote with un-
derstanding about the social life of the lower and middle
classes, and the personal life of those who could not adapt
to the social norms of his time. Sons and Lovers 1913, is
widely regarded as his earliest masterpiece. There fol-
lowed The Rainbow 1915, though it was immediately
seized by the police. and its sequel Women in Love pub- D. H. Lawrence, 1906
lished 1920.[259] Lawrence attempted to explore human
emotions more deeply than his contemporaries and chal-
were actually written by writers who had a working-class
lenged the boundaries of the acceptable treatment of sex-
ual issues, most notably in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which
background. Among these were coal miner Jack Jones,
was privately published in Florence in 1928. However, James Hanley, whose father was a stoker and who also
the unexpurgated version of this novel was not publishedwent to sea as a young man, and other coal miner authors’
until 1959.[259] Lewis Jones from South Wales and Harold Heslop from
An important development, beginning really in the 1930s County Durham.
and 1940s, was a tradition of working class novels that An essayist and novelist, George Orwell's works are con-
38 6 20TH CENTURY

sidered important social and political commentaries of The popularity of the novel, which recounted the adven-
the 20th century, dealing with issues such as poverty tures of a member of the English gentry in the French
in The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) and Down and Out Revolutionary period, encouraged her to write a num-
in Paris and London (1933), the exploration of colo- ber of sequels for her “reckless daredevil” over the next
nialism in Burmese Days (1934), and in the 1940s his 35 years. The play was performed to great acclaim in
satires of totalitarianism included Animal Farm (1945). France, Italy, Germany and Spain, while the novel was
Orwell’s works were often semi-autobiographical and in translated into 16 languages. Subsequently, the story has
the case of Homage to Catalonia, wholly. Malcolm been adapted for television, film, a musical and other me-
Lowry published in the 1930s, but is best known for dia. Her stories about Lady Molly of Scotland Yard were
Under the Volcano (1947). Evelyn Waugh satirised an early example of a female detective as main character.
the “bright young things” of the 1920s and 1930s, no- Her character The Old Man in the Corner was among the
tably in A Handful of Dust, and Decline and Fall, while earliest armchair detectives to be created.
Brideshead Revisited 1945, has a theological basis, aim-
John Buchan wrote adventure novels Prester John (1910)
ing to examine the effect of divine grace on its main and four telling the adventures of Richard Hannay, of
characters.[260] Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) published
which the first, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) is the best
his famous dystopia Brave New World in 1932, the same known. Novels featuring a gentleman adventurer were
year as John Cowper Powys's A Glastonbury Romance. popular between the wars, exemplified by the series of
In 1938 Graham Greene's (1904–91) first major novel H. C. McNeile with Bulldog Drummond 1920, and Leslie
Brighton Rock was published. Charteris, whose many books chronicled the adventures
of Simon Templar, alias The Saint.
6.1.4 British drama: 1901–45 The medieval scholar M. R. James wrote highly regarded
ghost stories in contemporary settings.
Irish playwrights George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
and J. M. Synge (1871–1909) were influential in British In 1908, Kenneth Grahame wrote the children’s clas-
drama. Shaw’s career as a playwright began in the last sic The Wind in the Willows and the Scouts founder
decade of the nineteenth century, while Synge’s plays be- Robert Baden-Powell's first book Scouting for Boys was
long to the first decade of the twentieth century. Synge’s published. Classics of children’s literature include A.
most famous play, The Playboy of the Western World, A. Milne's collection of books about a fictional bear
“caused outrage and riots when it was first performed” he named Winnie-the-Pooh, who inhabits Hundred Acre
in Dublin in 1907.[261] George Bernard Shaw turned the Wood. Prolific children’s author Enid Blyton chronicled
Edwardian theatre into an arena for debate about im- the adventures of a group of young children and their dog
portant political and social issues, like marriage, class, in The Famous Five. T. H. White wrote the Arthurian
“the morality of armaments and war” and the rights of fantasy The Once and Future King, the first part being
women.[262] In the 1920s and later Noël Coward (1899– The Sword in the Stone 1938. Mary Norton wrote The
1973) achieved enduring success as a playwright, publish- Borrowers, featuring tiny people who borrow from hu-
ing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of mans. Inspiration for Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel
his works, such as Hay Fever (1925), Private Lives (1930), The Secret Garden, was the Great Maytham Hall Gar-
Design for Living (1932), Present Laughter (1942) and den in Kent. Hugh Lofting created the character Doctor
Blithe Spirit (1941), have remained in the regular theatre Dolittle who appears in a series of twelve books, while
repertoire. In the 1930s W. H. Auden and Christopher Dodie Smith's The Hundred and One Dalmatians fea-
Isherwood co-authored verse dramas, of which The As- tured the villainous Cruella de Vil.
cent of F6 (1936) is the most notable, that owed much This was called the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
to Bertolt Brecht. T. S. Eliot had begun this attempt Agatha Christie, a writer of crime novels, short stories
to revive poetic drama with Sweeney Agonistes in 1932, and plays, is best remembered for her 80 detective nov-
and this was followed by The Rock (1934), Murder in els and her successful West End theatre plays. Christie’s
the Cathedral (1935) and Family Reunion (1939). There works, particularly those featuring the detectives Hercule
were three further plays after the war. Poirot or Miss Marple, made her one of the most im-
portant and innovative writers in the development of the
genre. Her most influential novels include The Murder
6.1.5 Early 20th-century genre literature
of Roger Ackroyd 1926 (one of her most controversial
novels, its innovative twist ending had a significant im-
Erskine Childers' The Riddle of the Sands 1903, defined
pact on the genre), Murder on the Orient Express 1934,
the spy novel.
Death on the Nile 1937 and And Then There Were None
Emma Orczy (Baroness Orczy)'s The Scarlet Pimpernel 1939. Other female writers dubbed “Queens of crime”
was originally a highly successful play in 1905. The novel include Dorothy L. Sayers (gentleman detective, Lord
The Scarlet Pimpernel was published soon after the play Peter Wimsey), Margery Allingham (Albert Campion –
opened and was an immediate success. Orczy gained a supposedly created as a parody of Sayers’ Wimsey,[263] )
following of readers in Britain and throughout the world.
6.1 Modernism and cultural revivals: 1901–1945 39

Agatha Christie

and New Zealander Ngaio Marsh (Roderick Alleyn).

Georgette Heyer created the historical romance genre,
and also wrote detective fiction.
A major work of science fiction, from the early 20th cen-
tury, is A Voyage to Arcturus by Scottish writer David
J. R. R. Tolkien
Lindsay, first published in 1920. It combines fantasy, phi-
losophy, and science fiction in an exploration of the na-
ture of good and evil and their relationship with existence.
It has been described by critic and philosopher Colin Wil- killed in action during the invasion of Normandy. Alun
son as the “greatest novel of the twentieth century”,[264] Lewis (1915–1944), born in South Wales, was one of the
and was a central influence on C. S. Lewis's Space Tril- best-known English-language poets of the war[268] Alun
ogy.[265] Also J. R. R. Tolkien said he read the book “with Llywelyn-Williams wrote in Welsh from the soldier’s
avidity”, and praised it as a work of philosophy, religion, viewpoint, and R. Meirion Roberts from the viewpoint of
and morality.[266] It was made widely available in paper- a chaplain. Caradog Prichard’s 'Rwyf Innau'n Filwr By-
back form when published as one of the precursor vol- chan (1943), a journal in Welsh, provided an account of
umes to the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in 1968. military life from a supporter of the war, although a mi-
nority of Welsh nationalist writers produced works in op-
From the early 1930s to late 1940s, an informal literary position to the war.[36] Sidney Keyes was another impor-
discussion group associated with the English faculty at the tant and prolific Second World War poet.[267] David Gas-
University of Oxford, were the "Inklings". Its leading coyne, a surrealist poet of the 1930s, developed Christian
members were the major fantasy novelists; C. S. Lewis imagery, while Edith Sitwell's Still Falls the Rain evoked
and J. R. R. Tolkien. Lewis is known for The Screwtape the Blitz. Denton Welch (1915–1948) produced minutely
Letters 1942, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space observed portraits of the English countryside during the
Trilogy, while Tolkien is best known as the author of The war.
Hobbit 1937, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.
Fair Stood the Wind for France was a 1944 novel by H.
E. Bates who was commissioned into the RAF solely to
6.1.6 Second World War write short stories as the Air Ministry realised that the
populace was less concerned with facts and figures about
It was anticipated that the outbreak of war in 1939 would the war than it was with reading about those who were
produce a literary response equal to that of the First fighting it.
World War. The Times Literary Supplement went so far Put Out More Flags (1942) by Evelyn Waugh is set during
as to pose the question in 1940: “Where are the war- the "Phoney War", and follows the wartime activities of
poets?"[267] characters introduced in Waugh’s earlier satirical novels .
Keith Douglas (1920–1944) was noted for his war po- The German military occupation of the Channel Islands
etry during World War II and his wry memoir of the 1940–1945 encouraged increased use of the vernacular
Western Desert Campaign, Alamein to Zem Zem. He was languages among those who remained in the islands, but
40 6 20TH CENTURY

the German censorship permitted little original writing to

be published. Within the restrictions, Les Chroniques de
Jersey, the only surviving French language newspaper in
the Islands, republished considerable quantities of older
Jèrriais literature for purposes of morale and the assertion
of identity. The post-Liberation social changes meant,
however, that vernacular literature in the Channel Islands
has never regained the situation it had enjoyed previously.
The Second World War has remained a theme in British
literature. Later works of note include: Atonement, Ian
McEwan's Booker Prize shortlisted 2001 novel; Charlotte
Gray, a 1999 novel by Sebastian Faulks; and Empire of the
Sun, J. G. Ballard's 1984 novel drawing extensively on his
wartime experiences.
Saunders Lewis in 1936, depicted in Plaid Cenedlaethol Cymru’s
Coelcerth Rhyddid.
6.2 Late modernism: 1946–2000

eration, in that they were more sympathetic to Welsh na-

tionalism and to the Welsh language. The change can be
linked to the nationalist fervour generated by Saunders
Lewis and the burning of the Bombing School on the
Lleyn Peninsula in 1936, along with a sense of crisis gen-
erated by World War II. In poetry R. S. Thomas (1913–
2000) was the most important figure throughout the sec-
ond half of the twentieth century, beginning with The
Stones of the Field in 1946 and concluding with No Truce
with the Furies (1995). R. S. Thomas was an Angli-
can priest who was noted for his nationalism, spirituality
and deep dislike of the anglicisation of Wales. In fic-
tion the major figure in the second half of the twenti-
eth century was Emyr Humphreys (1919). Humphreys’
first novel The Little Kingdom was published in 1946;
and during his long writing career he has published over
twenty novels, including a sequence of seven novels, The
Land of the Living, which surveys the political and cul-
tural history of twentieth-century Wales. His most re-
cent work is the collection of short stories, The Woman in
the Window (2009). Another Welsh novelist of the post-
Second-World-War era was Raymond Williams (1921–
88). Born near Abergavenny, Williams continued the ear-
lier tradition of writing from a left-wing perspective on
the Welsh industrial scene in his trilogy: Border Coun-
George Orwell try (1960), Second Generation (1964), and The Fight for
Manod (1979). Contemporary novelists in Welsh include
Though some have seen modernism ending by around Mihangel Morgan (1955– ) and Fflur Dafydd (1978– ).
1939,[269] with regard to English literature, “When (if) A new writer after the war was the popular novelist in
modernism petered out and postmodernism began has Welsh Islwyn Ffowc Elis (1924–2004) (also a winner of
been contested almost as hotly as when the transition from the crown at the 1947 National Eisteddfod). He made his
Victorianism to modernism occurred”.[270] In fact a num- debut as a novelist in 1953 with Cysgod y Cryman (trans-
ber of modernists were still living and publishing in the lated into English as Shadow of the Sickle). He produced
1950s and 1960, including T. S. Eliot, Dorothy Richard- novels in a range of genres, including the first science fic-
son and John Cowper Powys. Furthermore, Northum- tion novel in Welsh.
berland poet Basil Bunting, born in 1901, published little Among British writers in the 1940s and 1950s was Dylan
until Briggflatts in 1965. Thomas; Evelyn Waugh and W.H. Auden continued pub-
The attitude of the post-war generation of Welsh writers lishing significant works. In 1947 Malcolm Lowry pub-
in English towards Wales differs from the previous gen- lished Under the Volcano.
6.2 Late modernism: 1946–2000 41

George Orwell's satire of totalitarianism, Nineteen counts the odyssey of a group of rabbits seeking to estab-
Eighty-Four, was published in 1949. An essayist and lish a new home. John Fowles's The French Lieutenant’s
novelist, Orwell’s works are important social and po- Woman (1969) played with the nature of fiction, with its
litical commentaries of the 20th century. One of the narrator who freely admits the fictive nature of the story
most influential novels of the immediate post-war period he relays, and its alternative endings.
was William Cooper's naturalistic Scenes from Provincial Angela Carter (1940–1992) was a novelist and journalist,
Life, a conscious rejection of the modernist tradition.[271] known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque
Graham Greene's works span the 1930s to the 1980s. works. Writing from the 1960s until the 1980s, her novels
He was a convert to Catholicism and his novels explore include, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern 1972, and Nights at the Circus 1984. Margaret Drabble
world. He combined serious literary acclaim with broad (1939– ) is a novelist, biographer and critic, who pub-
popularity in novels such as Brighton Rock (1938), The lished from the 1960s into the 21st century. Her older
Power and the Glory (1940), The Heart of the Matter sister, A. S. Byatt (1936– ) is best known for Possession
(1948) and A Burnt-Out Case (1961), The Human Fac- 1990.
tor (1978). Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones’s Diary 1996, and its sequel
Other novelists writing in the 1950s and later were: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason 1999, chronicle the
Anthony Powell whose twelve-volume cycle of novels life of Bridget Jones, a thirty-something single woman in
A Dance to the Music of Time, is a comic examina- London.
tion of movements and manners, power and passivity in Since the 1970s a number of books of Jèrriais literature
English political, cultural and military life in the mid- have been published, including two collections of writings
20th century; Kingsley Amis who is best known for his by George F. Le Feuvre: Jèrri Jadis and Histouaithes et
academic satire Lucky Jim 1954; Nobel Prize laureate
Gens d'Jèrri.[272]
William Golding whose allegorical novel Lord of the
Flies 1954, shows how culture created by man fails, us- The Book of Ebenezer Le Page was published in 1981 af-
ing, as an example, a group of British schoolboys ma- ter the death of its author G.B. Edwards (1899–1976).
rooned on a deserted island who try to govern themselves Edwards rejected the Guernsey mainstream literary tra-
with disastrous results; Edward Blishen whose first best- ditions of the sea, heroic adventure, romance and exoti-
selling book Roaring Boys 1955, is an honest account of cism. The author’s use of Guernsey English and explo-
teaching in a London secondary modern school in the ration of a personal journey against a background of rapid
1950s (followed by a sequel This Right Soft Lot 1969), social change in Guernsey were among factors that led to
[209][273]
and whose most famous work is The God Beneath the the novel’s high critical reception.
Sea, a children’s novel based on Greek mythology, writ-
ten in collaboration with Leon Garfield and published in
1970 (illustrated by Charles Keeping with a sequel The
Golden Shadow 1973); philosopher Iris Murdoch who
was a prolific writer of novels dealing with sexual rela-
tionships, morality, and the power of the unconscious,
including Under the Net 1954. Scottish novelist Muriel
Spark pushed the boundaries of realism: her first novel,
The Comforters (1957) concerns a woman who becomes
aware that she is a character in a novel; The Ballad of
Peckham Rye (1960) has a character who, in line with a
tradition of Scottish literature, is literally the devil incar-
nate. The narrator of her most famous novel, The Prime
of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), at times takes the reader
briefly into the main action’s distant future, to see the var-
ious fates that befall its characters.
Anthony Burgess is especially remembered for his Doris Lessing, Cologne, 2006
dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange 1962, set in the not-
too-distant future, which was made into a film (1971] by Salman Rushdie is among a number of post Second
Stanley Kubrick. Mervyn Peake (1911–68) published his World War writers from former British colonies who per-
Gothic fantasy Gormenghast trilogy between 1946 and manently settled in Britain. Rushdie achieved fame with
1959. Midnight’s Children (1981), that was awarded both the
One of Penguin Books' most successful publications in James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Booker Prize later
the late 20th century was Richard Adams's heroic fan- that year, and was named Booker of Bookers in 1993. His
tasy Watership Down (1972). Evoking epic themes, it re- most controversial novel The Satanic Verses (1989) was
inspired in part by the life of Muhammad. Doris Lessing
42 6 20TH CENTURY

from Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), published her Ian McEwan (1948– ) is a highly regarded writer whose
first novel The Grass is Singing in 1950, after immigrat- works include The Cement Garden (1978) and Endur-
ing to England. She initially wrote about her African ex- ing Love (1997), which was made into a film. In 1998
periences. Lessing soon became a dominant presence in McEwan won the Man Booker Prize with Amsterdam.
the English literary scene, publishing frequently, and won Atonement (2001) was made into an Oscar-winning film.
the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007. Other works by This was followed by Saturday (2005), and Solar (2010).
her include a sequence of five novels collectively called McEwan was awarded the Jerusalem Prize in 2011. Alex
Children of Violence (1952–69), The Golden Notebook Garland's works include The Beach 1996, Giles Foden
(1962), The Good Terrorist (1985), and a sequence of wrote The Last King of Scotland 1998, and Joanne Har-
five science fiction novels the Canopus in Argos: Archives ris's most notable work is Chocolat 1999.
(1979–1983). V. S. Naipaul (1932– ) was another im-
A few novels have been published in Cornish since the
migrant, born in Trinidad, who wrote A House for Mr last decades of the 20th century, including Melville Ben-
Biswas (1961) and A Bend in the River (1979). Naipaul
netto’s An Gurun Wosek a Geltya (The Bloody Crown
won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Also from the West In- of the Celtic Countries) in 1984; subsequently Michael
dies is George Lamming (1927– ) who wrote In the Cas- Palmer published Jory (1989) and Dyroans (1998).[279]
tle of My Skin (1953), while from Pakistan came Hanif
Kureshi (1954–), a playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker,
novelist and short story writer. His novel The Buddha of
Suburbia (1990) won the Whitbread Award for the best 6.2.1 Drama after World War Two
first novel, and was also made into a BBC television series.
Kazuo Ishiguro (1954– ) was born in Japan, but his par- An important cultural movement in the British theatre
ents immigrated to Britain when he was six.[274] Ishiguro that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s was
wrote historical novels in the first-person narrative style. Kitchen sink realism (or kitchen sink drama), art (the
His works include, The Remains of the Day 1989, Never term itself derives from an expressionist painting by John
Let Me Go 2005. Scotland has in the late 20th century Bratby), novels, film, and television plays.[280] The term
produced several important novelists, including James angry young men was often applied members of this artis-
Kelman who like Samuel Beckett can create humour out tic movement. It used a style of social realism which
of the most grim situations. How Late it Was, How Late, depicts the domestic lives of the working class, to ex-
1994, won the Booker Prize that year; A. L. Kennedy plore social issues and political issues. The drawing
whose 2007 novel Day was named Book of the Year in room plays of the post war period, typical of drama-
the Costa Book Awards.[275] In 2007 she won the Austrian tists like Terence Rattigan and Noël Coward were chal-
State Prize for European Literature;[276] Alasdair Gray lenged in the 1950s by these Angry Young Men, in plays
whose Lanark: A Life in Four Books (1981) is a dystopian like John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956). Arnold
fantasy set in his home town Glasgow. Wesker and Nell Dunn also brought social concerns to
the stage. Again in the 1950s the Theatre of the Ab-
Highly anglicised Lowland Scots is often used in contem- surd profoundly affected British dramatists, especially
porary Scottish fiction, for example, the Edinburgh di- Irishman Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot, which
alect of Lowland Scots used in Trainspotting by Irvine premiered in London in 1955 (originally En attendant
Welsh to give a brutal depiction of the lives of work- Godot, 1952). Among those influenced were Harold Pin-
ing class Edinburgh drug users.[277] But'n'Ben A-Go-Go ter (1930–2008), (The Birthday Party, 1958), and Tom
is a 2000 cyberpunk novel entirely in Scots by Matthew Stoppard (1937– ) (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are
Fitt, notable for using as many of the different vari- Dead,1966).[281] Pinter’s works are often characterised
eties of Scots as possible, including many neologisms— by menace or claustrophobia, while those of Stoppard
imagining how Scots might develop by 2090. In Northern are notable for their high-spirited wit and the great range
Ireland, James Fenton's poetry, at times lively, contented, of intellectual issues which he tackles. Both Pinter and
wistful, is written in contemporary Ulster Scots.[214] The Stoppard continued to have new plays produced into the
poet Michael Longley (born 1939) has experimented with 1990s.
Ulster Scots for the translation of Classical verse, as in
his 1995 collection The Ghost Orchid.[218] Philip Robin- The Theatres Act 1968 abolished the system of cen-
son’s (born 1946) writing has been described as verging sorship of the stage that had existed in Great Britain
on "post-modern kailyard”.[218] He has produced a tril- since 1737. In Jersey, public entertainment, including
ogy of novels, as well as story books for children, and stage works, continues to be licensed by the Bailiff (ad-
two volumes of poetry.[278] vised by the Bailiff’s Panel for the Control of Public
Entertainment).[282] The new freedoms of the London
Martin Amis (1949) is one of the most prominent British stage were tested by Howard Brenton's The Romans in
novelists of the end of the 20th, beginning of the 21st Britain, first staged at the National Theatre during 1980,
century. His best-known novels are Money (1984) and and subsequently the focus of an unsuccessful private
London Fields (1989). Pat Barker (1943–) has won many prosecution in 1982.
awards for her fiction. English novelist and screenwriter
Other playwrights whose careers began later in the cen-
6.2 Late modernism: 1946–2000 43

tury are: Caryl Churchill (Top Girls, 1982), Alan Ay-

ckbourn (Absurd Person Singular, 1972), Michael Frayn
(1933–) playwright and novelist, David Hare (1947– ),
David Edgar (1948– ). Dennis Potter's most distinctive
dramatic work was produced for television.

Radio drama

During the 1950s and 1960s many major British play-

wrights either effectively began their careers with the
BBC, or had works adapted for radio. Most of play-
wright Caryl Churchill's early experiences with profes-
sional drama production were as a radio playwright and,
starting in 1962 with The Ants, there were nine produc-
tions with BBC radio drama up until 1973 when her stage
work began to be recognised at the Royal Court The-
atre.[283] Joe Orton's dramatic debut in 1963 was the ra-
dio play The Ruffian on the Stair, which was broadcast
on 31 August 1964.[284] Tom Stoppard's “first profes-
sional production was in the fifteen-minute Just Before
Midnight programme on BBC Radio, which showcased
new dramatists”.[284] John Mortimer made his radio de-
but as a dramatist in 1955, with his adaptation of his own Ted Hughes
novel Like Men Betrayed for the BBC Light Programme.
But he made his debut as an original playwright with The
Dock Brief, starring Michael Hordern as a hapless barris- Michael Longley, and Medbh McGuckian. James Fen-
ter, first broadcast in 1957 on BBC Radio's Third Pro- ton's poetry, at times lively, contented, wistful, is written
gramme, later televised with the same cast, and subse- in contemporary Ulster Scots. The poet Michael Long-
quently presented in a double bill with What Shall We ley (born 1939) has experimented with Ulster Scots for
Tell Caroline? at the Lyric Hammersmith in April 1958, the translation of Classical verse, as in his 1995 collection
before transferring to the Garrick Theatre. Mortimer is The Ghost Orchid.
most famous for Rumpole of the Bailey a British television
series which starred Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an As part of the Scottish Gaelic Renaissance, Sorley
ageing London barrister who defends any and all clients. MacLean's (1911–96) work in Scottish Gaelic in the
It has been spun off into a series of short stories, novels, 1930s gave new value to modern literature in that lan-
and radio programmes.[285] Other notable radio drama- guage. However, while “most of his most important po-
tists included novelist Angela Carter. Novelist Susan etry had been written in the 1930s and 1940s, almost
Hill also wrote for BBC radio, from the early 1970s.[286] none of it was widely available” until the publication of
Among the most famous works created for radio, are Reothairt is Contraight/Spring Tide and Neap Tide: Se-
Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood (1954), Harold Pin- lected Poems 1932–72, in 1977 and a Collected Poems
ter's A Slight Ache (1959) and Robert Bolt's A Man for in 1989.[288] Iain Crichton Smith (1928–98) was more
All Seasons (1954).[287] prolific in English but also produced much Gaelic poetry
and prose, and also translated some of the work of Sor-
ley Maclean from Gaelic to English, as well as some of
6.2.2 Poetry after World War Two his own poems originally composed in Gaelic. Much of
his English language work was related to, or translated
While poets T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden and Dylan Thomas from, Gaelic equivalents. Modern Gaelic poetry has been
were still publishing after 1945, new poets started most influenced by Symbolism, transmitted via poetry
their careers in the 1950s and 1960s including Philip in English, and by Scots poetry. Traditional Gaelic po-
Larkin (1922–85) (The Whitsun Weddings,1964) and Ted etry utilised an elaborate system of metres, which mod-
Hughes (1930–98, Poet Laureate from 1984) (The Hawk ern poets have adapted to their own ends. George Camp-
in the Rain, 1957). Northern Ireland has produced a num- bell Hay looks back beyond the popular metres of the
ber of significant poets, the most famous being Nobel 19th and 20th centuries to forms of early Gaelic poetry.
prize winner Seamus Heaney, however, Heaney regarded Donald MacAuley's poetry is concerned with place and
himself as Irish and not British. There are many oth- community.[289] The following generation of Gaelic poets
ers who question whether the Literature of Northern Ire- writing at the end of the 20th century lived in a bilingual
land is Irish or British. Others poets from Northern Ire- world to a greater extent than any other generation, with
land include Derek Mahon, Paul Muldoon, James Fenton, their work most often accompanied in publication by a
44 6 20TH CENTURY

facing text in English. Such confrontation has inspired se- Although frequently described as a “difficult” poet, Hill
mantic experimentation, seeking new contexts for words, has retorted that poetry supposed to be difficult can be
and going as far as the explosive and neologistic verse of “the most democratic because you are doing your au-
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh (1948– ).[290] Scottish Gaelic dience the honour of supposing they are intelligent hu-
poetry has been the subject of translation not only into man beings”.[295] Charles Tomlinson (1927–) is another
English, but also into other Celtic languages: Maoilios important English poet of an older generation, though
Caimbeul and Màiri NicGumaraid have been translated “since his first publication in 1951, has built a career
into Irish, and John Stoddart has produced anthologies of that has seen more notice in the international scene than
Gaelic poetry translated into Welsh.[248] in his native England; this may explain, and be ex-
In the 1960s and 1970s Martian poetry aimed to break plained by, his international vision of poetry”.[296] The
critic Michael Hennessy has described Tomlinson as “the
the grip of 'the familiar', by describing ordinary things
in unfamiliar ways, as though, for example, through the most international and least provincial English poet of his
generation”.[297] His poetry has won international recog-
eyes of a Martian. Poets most closely associated with
it are Craig Raine and Christopher Reid. Martin Amis, nition and has received many prizes in Europe and the
United States, including the 1993 Bennett Award from
an important novelist in the late twentieth and twenti-
eth centuries, carried into fiction this drive to make the the Hudson Review; the New Criterion Poetry Prize,
familiar strange.[291] Another literary movement in this 2002; the Premio Internazionale di Poesia Ennio Flaiano,
period was the British Poetry Revival, a wide-reaching 2001; and the Premio Internazionale di Poesia Attilio
collection of groupings and subgroupings that embraces Bertolucci, 2004.[296]
performance, sound and concrete poetry. Leading po-
ets associated with this movement include J. H. Prynne,
Eric Mottram, Tom Raworth, Denise Riley and Lee Har- 6.2.3 Late 20th-century genre literature
wood. It reacted to the more conservative group called
"The Movement". In thriller writing, Ian Fleming created the character
James Bond 007 in January 1952, while on holiday at his
The Mersey Beat poets were Adrian Henri, Brian Patten
Jamaican estate, Goldeneye. Fleming chronicled Bond’s
and Roger McGough. Their work was a self-conscious
adventures in twelve novels, including Casino Royale
attempt at creating an English equivalent to the Beats.
1953, Live and Let Die 1954, Dr. No 1958, Goldfinger
Many of their poems were written in protest against the
1959, Thunderball 1961, The Spy Who Loved Me 1962,
established social order and, particularly, the threat of
and nine short story works.
nuclear war. Ted Hughes was among poets whose work
found roots in the speech patterns and dialects of North- In contrast to the larger-than-life spy capers of Bond,
ern England: other notable poets from the north of Eng- John le Carré was an author of spy novels who depicted a
land include Tony Harrison (1937 – ), who explores the shadowy world of espionage and counter-espionage, and
medium of language and the tension between native di- his best known novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
alect (in his case, that of working-class Leeds) and ac- 1963, is often regarded as one of the greatest in the genre.
quired language,[248] and Simon Armitage. Frederick Forsyth writes thriller novels, including The
Day of the Jackal 1971, The Odessa File 1972, The Dogs
In Welsh language poetry, Alan Llwyd came to promi-
of War 1974 and The Fourth Protocol 1984. Ken Follett
nence when he achieved the rare feat of winning both the
writes spy thrillers, his first success being Eye of the Nee-
Crown and the Chair at the 1973 National Eisteddfod and
dle 1978, followed by The Key to Rebecca 1980, as well
then repeated the feat in 1976. He also wrote the script
as historical novels, notably The Pillars of the Earth 1989,
for the Oscar-nominated Welsh-language film Hedd Wyn
and its sequel World Without End 2007. Elleston Trevor
(1992) about the life of poet Hedd Wyn, who was killed
is remembered for his 1964 adventure story The Flight of
in World War I.
the Phoenix, while the thriller novelist Philip Nicholson
In contemporary Cornish poetry, Tony Snell's work is is best known for Man on Fire. Peter George's Red Alert
heavily influenced by the early poetry of Wales and Brit- 1958, is a Cold War thriller.
tany, and it was he who adapted the Welsh traethodl to
War novels include Alistair MacLean thriller’s The Guns
Cornish. The bard Pol Hodge is another example of a
of Navarone 1957, Where Eagles Dare 1968, and Jack
poet writing in Cornish.
Higgins' The Eagle Has Landed 1975. Patrick O'Brian's
Amelia Perchard (1921–2012), one of Jersey’s foremost nautical historical novels feature the Aubrey–Maturin se-
contemporary writers, published many poems and pro- ries set in the Royal Navy, the first being Master and Com-
duced one-act plays.[292] mander 1969.
Geoffrey Hill (1932– ) has been considered to be The “father of Wicca" Gerald Gardner began propagat-
among the most distinguished English poets of his ing his own version of witchcraft in the 1950s. Having
generation,[293] and on his 80th birthday was described in claimed to have been initiated into the New Forest coven
the House of Commons by Education Secretary, Michael in 1939, Gardner published his books Witchcraft Today
Gove, as the United Kingdom’s “greatest living poet”.[294] 1954 and The Meaning of Witchcraft 1959, the founda-
6.2 Late modernism: 1946–2000 45

tional texts for the religion of Wicca. Ronald Welch's

Carnegie Medal winning novel Knight Crusader is set in
the 12th century and gives a depiction of the Third Cru-
sade, featuring the Christian leader and King of England
Richard the Lionheart.
In crime fiction, the murder mysteries of Ruth Rendell
and P. D. James are popular.
Nigel Tranter wrote historical novels of celebrated Scot-
tish warriors; Robert the Bruce in The Bruce Trilogy, and
William Wallace in The Wallace 1975, works noted by
academics for their accuracy.

Roald Dahl

Arthur C. Clarke

Science fiction John Wyndham wrote post-apocalyptic

science fiction, his most notable works being The Day
of the Triffids 1951, and The Midwich Cuckoos 1957.
George Langelaan's The Fly 1957, is a science fiction
short story. Science fiction novelist Arthur C. Clarke's
2001: A Space Odyssey, is based on his various short sto-
ries, particularly The Sentinel. His other major novels in-
clude Rendezvous with Rama 1972, and The Fountains of
Paradise 1979. Brian Aldiss is Clarke’s contemporary.
Michael Moorcock, 1962) is a writer, primarily of sci-
ence fiction and fantasy, who has also published a num-
ber of literary novels. He was involved with the 'New
Wave' of science fiction writers “part of whose aim was
to invest the genre with literary merit”[298] Similarly J. G.
Ballard (1930– ) “became known in the 1960s as the most
prominent of the 'New Wave' science fiction writers”.[299] J. K. Rowling, 2010
A later major figure in science fiction was Iain M. Banks
who created a fictional anarchist, socialist, and utopian Literature for children and young adults Roald
society the Culture. The novels that feature in it include Dahl rose to prominence with his children’s fantasy nov-
Excession 1996, and Inversions 1998. He also published els, often inspired from experiences from his childhood,
mainstream novels, including the highly controversial The with often unexpected endings, and unsentimental, dark
Wasp Factory in 1984. Nobel prize winner Doris Lessing humour.[300] Dahl was inspired to write Charlie and the
also published a sequence of five science fiction novels Chocolate Factory 1964, featuring the eccentric candy-
the Canopus in Argos: Archives between 1979 and 1983. maker Willy Wonka, having grown up near two chocolate
46 7 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE

makers in England who often tried to steal trade secrets Fantasy and horror Terry Pratchett is best known for
by sending spies into the other’s factory. His other works
his Discworld series of comic fantasy novels, that begins
include James and the Giant Peach 1961, Fantastic Mr. with The Colour of Magic 1983, and includes Mort 1987,
Fox 1971, The Witches 1983, and Matilda 1988. Hogfather 1996, and Night Watch 2002. Pratchett’s other
Boarding schools in literature are centred on older pre- most notable work is the 1990 novel Good Omens.
adolescent and adolescent school life, and are most Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials com-
commonly set in English boarding schools. Popular prises Northern Lights 1995, The Subtle Knife 1997, and
school stories from this period include Ronald Searle's The Amber Spyglass 2000. It follows the coming-of-age
St Trinian’s and his illustrations for Geoffrey Willans's of two children as they wander through a series of parallel
Molesworth series, Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch, the universes against a backdrop of epic events.
Jennings series by Anthony Buckeridge (1912–2004). Neil Gaiman is a writer of science fiction, fantasy short
Ruth Manning-Sanders collected and retold fairy tales, stories and novels, whose notable works include Stardust
and her first work A Book of Giants contains a number 1998, Coraline 2002, The Graveyard Book 2009, and The
of famous giants, notably Jack and the Beanstalk. Susan Sandman series.
Cooper's The Dark Is Rising is a five-volume fantasy saga Alan Moore's works include Watchmen, V for Vendetta
set in England and Wales. Raymond Briggs' children’s set in a dystopian future UK, The League of Extraordi-
picture book The Snowman 1978 has been adapted as nary Gentlemen, and From Hell, speculating on the iden-
an animation, shown every Christmas on British televi- tity and motives of Jack the Ripper.
sion, and for the stage as a musical. The Reverend. W.
Awdry and son Christopher's The Railway Series features Douglas Adams wrote the five-volume science fiction
Thomas the Tank Engine. Margery Sharp's series The comedy series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and
Rescuers is based on a heroic mouse organisation. The also wrote the humorous fantasy detective novel Dirk
third Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo published Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.
War Horse in 1982. The prolific children’s author Dick Clive Barker horror novels include The Hellbound Heart
King-Smith's novels include The Sheep-Pig 1984, and The 1986, and works in fantasy, Weaveworld 1987, Imajica
Water Horse. Diana Wynne Jones wrote the young adult and Abarat 2002.
fantasy novel Howl’s Moving Castle in 1986. Anthony
Horowitz's Alex Rider series begins with Stormbreaker
2000.
7 21st century literature
J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter fantasy series is a sequence
of seven novels that chronicle the adventures of the ado-
Formerly an appointment for life, the appointment of the
lescent wizard Harry Potter. The series began with Harry
Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom is now made for a
Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1997 and ended
fixed term of 10 years, starting with Andrew Motion in
with the seventh and final book Harry Potter and the
1999 as successor to Ted Hughes.[305] Carol Ann Duffy
Deathly Hallows in 2007; becoming the best selling book-
succeeded Motion in the post in May 2009.[306] A posi-
series in history. The series has been translated into
tion of national laureate, entitled The Scots Makar, was
67 languages,[301][302] placing Rowling among the most
established in 2004 by the Scottish Parliament. The first
translated authors in history.[303] J.K. Rowling took part
appointment was made directly by the Parliament in that
in a sequence of the 2012 Summer Olympics opening cer-
year when Edwin Morgan received the honour[307][308]
emony which celebrated British children’s literature.[304]
The post of National Poet of Wales (Welsh: Bardd
Cenedlaethol Cymru) was established in May 2005.[309]
The post is an annual appointment with the language of
the poet alternating between English and Welsh.
In English literature, Zadie Smith's (1975– ) Whitbread
Book Award winning novel White Teeth 2000, mixes
pathos and humour, focusing on the later lives of two war
time friends in London. Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize–
winning novel Wolf Hall 2009, is set in the Tudor court of
King Henry VIII. In 2012 Mantel became the first woman
and the first British writer to win the Booker Prize twice,
as the second part of her historical trilogy Bring Up the
Bodies was awarded the prize. In 2004, David Mitchell's
science fiction novel Cloud Atlas won the British Book
Awards Literary Fiction Award.
Julian Barnes (1946– ) won the 2011 Man Booker Prize
Terry Pratchett for his book The Sense of an Ending. Three of his ear-
 47

Christopher Whyte (Crisdean MhicIlleBhain) is a Scottish Gaelic

poet, who won in 2002 a Saltire Society Research Book of the
Year award for his edition of Sorley Maclean’s Dàin do Eimhir
Neil Gaiman

lier novels had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize:

Flaubert’s Parrot (1984), England, England (1998), and Kelman criticised, in a speech at the Edinburgh Inter-
Arthur & George (2005). He has also written crime fic- national Book Festival, the attention afforded to “up-
tion under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh. England, Eng- per middle-class young magicians” and “detective fic-
land explores English national identity, invented tradi- tion” by the “Anglocentric” Scottish literary establish-
tions, the creations of myths and the authenticity of his- ment. John Byrne was supportive, saying that there was
tory and memory.[310] In 2011, Fifty Shades of Grey by “a danger of Scotland becoming known as the home of
E. L. James set the record as the fastest selling paperback genre fiction”.[315] This was a reaction to the popularity
of all time.[311] of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and of Ian Rankin and
Contemporary writers in Scottish Gaelic include Aonghas other "Tartan Noir" authors.
MacNeacail, and Angus Peter Campbell who, besides The popularity of “Tartan Noir” has led to renewed in-
two Scottish Gaelic poetry collections, has produced two terest in crime fiction set in Wales, attracting the la-
Gaelic novels: An Oidhche Mus Do Sheol Sinn (2003) and bel “Welsh Noir”,[316] and Northern Ireland, labelled as
Là a' Deanamh Sgeil Do Là (2004). “Emerald Noir”.[317]
A collection of short stories P'tites Lures Guernésiaises (in The theatrical landscape has been reconfigured, mov-
Guernésiais with parallel English translation) by various ing from a single national theatre at the end of the 20th
writers was published in 2006.[312] century to four as a result of the devolution of cultural
[318]
In March 2006 Brian Stowell's Dunveryssyn yn Tooder- policy. National theatre companies were founded in
Folley (The vampire murders) was published—the first Scotland and Wales as complements to the Royal Na-
full-length novel in Manx. [313] tional Theatre in London: Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru
(the Welsh language national theatre of Wales, founded
There is some production of modern literature in Irish 2003), National Theatre of Scotland (founded 2006),
in Northern Ireland. Performance poet Gearóid Mac National Theatre Wales (the English language national
Lochlainn exploits the creative possibilities for poetry of theatre company of Wales, founded 2009). Theatr
“creolised Irish” in Belfast speech.[314] Genedlaethol Cymru attempts to shape a distinctive iden-
The perceived success and promotion of genre authors tity for drama in Welsh while also opening it up to outside
from Scotland provoked controversy in 2009 when James linguistic and dramatic influences.[319]
48 10 SEE ALSO

8 Translations tion agency and society of writers,[325] which adminis-

ters the Wales Book of the Year award. The imported
Translations are an important feature of the literatures of eisteddfod tradition in the Channel Islands encouraged
the regional languages of the islands, for example: Alice recitation and performance, a tradition that continues to-
in Wonderland has been translated into Manx as Con- day.
toyryssyn Ealish ayns Cheer ny Yindyssyn by Brian Stow- Formed in 1949, the Cheltenham Literature Festival is
ell (published in 1990), into Cornish as Alys in Pow an the longest-running festival of its kind in the world. The
Anethow by Nicholas Williams (published in 2009), into Hay Festival in Wales attracts wide interest, and the
Ulster Scots as Alice’s Carrànts in Wunnerlan by Ann Edinburgh International Book Festival is the largest fes-
Morrison-Smyth, and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam tival of its kind in the world.
was translated into Jèrriais, from the English version by
The Poetry Society publishes and promotes poetry, no-
Edward FitzGerald, during the German Occupation by
tably through an annual National Poetry Day. World
Frank Le Maistre,[320] and into Scots by Rab Wilson
Book Day is observed in Britain and the Crown Depen-
(published in 2004). Reasons for translating into a lesser-
dencies on the first Thursday in March annually.
used language range from demand from a public wanting
to experience a familiar work in a more familiar voice to
a desire to raise the status of the language by associating 9.1 Literary prizes
it with a recognised work of world literature. There is
a paradox in the necessary openness of writers to litera- Main article: List of British literary awards
ture in widely used languages that leads them to express
national identity in a lesser-used language.[321]
British recipients of the Nobel Prize in Literature include
Since the 1920s a significant quantity of poetry has been Rudyard Kipling (1907), John Galsworthy (1932), T. S.
translated into Scots, but the amount of prose translated Eliot (1948), Bertrand Russell (1950), Winston Churchill
lagged behind, with the exception of translations of clas- (1953), William Golding (1983), V. S. Naipaul (2001),
sic plays undertaken since the 1940s and of contempo- Harold Pinter (2005) and Doris Lessing (2007).
rary drama since the 1980s.[321] Alexander Hutchison
has translated the poetry of Catullus into Scots, and in Literary prizes for which writers from the United King-
the 1980s Liz Lochhead (1947 – ; Scots Makar since dom are eligible include:
2011[322] ) produced a Scots translation of Tartuffe by
Molière. The volume of translations rivals the produc- • Man Booker Prize
tion of new literature.[321]
• Commonwealth Writers’ Prize
Translations have not been as important to the Scottish
Gaelic literary tradition as to that in Scots, but of those • International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
writers who have undertaken translations, George Camp-
bell Hay and William Neill are two noted exponents.[323] • Carnegie Medal

Translations played an important rôle in mediaeval Welsh • Costa Book Awards (formerly the Whitbread
literature bringing chansons de geste into popular litera- Awards)
ture and translations from Latin provided literary Welsh
• Orange Prize for Fiction
with new religious and philosophical vocabulary and laid
the basis for a new formal register. Literary translations • Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry
through the 19th and 20th centuries brought foreign in-
fluences to the attention of Welsh writers.[36]
Simon Armitage's Sir Gawain and The Green Knight 10 See also
(2007) harmonises the original author’s northern English
dialect with his own.[324] • Bardic poetry

• British Library
9 Literary institutions • British regional literature

Original literature continues to be promoted by institu- • Celtic literature

tions such as the Eisteddfod in Wales or the Mod, in Scot- • Cornish literature
land and by publishing organisations such as Ùr-sgeul,
an independent publisher of new Scottish Gaelic prose, • English literature
and the Welsh Books Council. The Royal Society of Ed-
inburgh includes literature within its sphere of activity. • Middle English literature
Literature Wales is the Welsh national literature promo- • Early Modern English
 49

• English poetry [7] Crawford, Robert (2007). Scotland’s Books. London:

Penguin. ISBN 9780140299403.
• English drama
• English novel [8] Watson, Roderick (2007). The Literature of Scot-
land. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN
• List of English novelists 9780333666647.
• List of English writers
[9] Clancy, Thomas Owen (1998). The Triumph Tree: Scot-
• Jèrriais literature land’s Earliest Poetry AD 550–1350. Edinburgh: Canon-
gate Books. ISBN 0862417872.
• Literature of Northern Ireland
[10] Elliot (2005), p. 583.
• List of writers of Northern Ireland
[11] Jackson (1969)—the work is titled The Gododdin: the
• Manx literature oldest Scottish poem.

• Scottish literature [12] Oxford scholars detect earliest record of Cornish

Archived 25 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine
• Scottish poetry
[13] Sims-Williams, P., 'A New Brittonic Gloss on Boethius:
• Theatre of Scotland ud rocashaas’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 50
• Scottish Renaissance (Winter 2005), 77–86.

• History of the Scots language [14] The History of the Orkney Islands (Orkneyjar, the heritage
• List of Scottish writers of the Orkney Islands)

• Scottish Gaelic literature [15] Clancy, Thomas Owen (1998). The Triumph Tree. Edin-
burgh: Canongate Books. ISBN 0862417872.
• Literature of Shetland
[16] Thee Oxford Companion to English Literature (1996), p.
• Theatre of the United Kingdom 323.
• Welsh-language literature [17] Angus Cameron (1983). “Anglo-Saxon literature” in
Dictionary of the Middle Ages, v.1, pp. 274–288
• List of Welsh language poets
• Welsh literature in English [18] “Anglo-Saxon literature” in Dictionary of the Middle Ages,
v.1, pp. 274–288.
• Welsh poetry
[19] Walter John Sedgefield(ed.), King Alfred’s Old English
• List of Welsh writers
Version of Boethius: De consolatione philosophiae, 1968
• Traditional Welsh poetic metres (1899)
• Theatre of Wales [20] Language and Literature, Ian Short, in A Companion to the
Anglo-Norman World, edited Christopher Harper-Bill and
• Women’s writing in English Elisabeth van Houts, Woodbridge 2003, ISBN 0-85115-
673-8

11 References [21] Wace’s Roman de Brut – A History of the British, Weiss,

Exeter 1999, ISBN 0-85989-734-6

[1] Deane, Seamus (1986). A Short History of Irish Literature. [22] Burgess, ed., at xiii
London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0091613612.
[23] Burgess, ed., at xvi
[2] Raymond Garlick An Introduction to Anglo-Welsh Litera-
ture (University of Wales Press, 1970) [24] Encyclopedia of Literature, Volume 1 By Joseph T. Ship-
ley (page 176) books.google.co.uk
[3] Stroh, Silke (2011). Uneasy Subjects: Postcolonialism
and Scottish Gaelic Poetry. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ISBN [25] T. O. Clancy, “Scotland, the 'Nennian' recension of the
9042033584. Historia Brittonum, and the Lebor Bretnach”, in S. Taylor,
ed., Kings, Clerics and Chronicles in Scotland, 500–1297
[4] Hill, Douglas (1 October 1988). “A report on stories from (Dublin/Portland, 2000), ISBN 1-85182-516-9, pp. 87–
the outposts of Commonwealth literature”. The Globe and 107.
Mail. p. 21.
[26] T. O. Clancy, ed., The Triumph Tree: Scotland’s Earliest
[5] McCrum, Robert (13 October 2003). “English Is a World Poetry, 550–1350 (Edinburgh, 1998). pp. 247–283.
Language – and That’s to Be Prized”. Los Angeles Times.
p. B15. [27] J. T. Koch and A. Minard, The Celts: History, Life,
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• Partridge, A. C. Tudor to Augustan English: a Study
in Syntax and Style, from Caxton to Johnson, in se-
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1969. 242 p. Without SBN or ISBN

13 External links
58 14 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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lic domain Contributors: Harvard Theater Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University Original artist: Unknown
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Helier_Jersey.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
• File:William_Blake_by_Thomas_Phillips.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/William_Blake_by_
Thomas_Phillips.jpg License: Public domain Contributors:
National Portrait Gallery: NPG 212
Original artist: Thomas Phillips
• File:William_Shakespeare_Chandos_Portrait.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/William_
Shakespeare_Chandos_Portrait.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/media/image/f/p/
William-Shakespeare_large.jpg Original artist: Unknown

14.3 Content license

• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0