Unit 3. Literature. What do the UK people write?

PART 1.

Text-based tasks.

1) Produce 5 sentences of your own, using the vocabulary. Read your sentences out in Russian and ask any of your friends to translate them back into English. Check if your sentences sound the same.

2) Text-based questions.

1. When did the first works in English appear?

2. How do we call the language of the 7^th century English literature?

3. What literature was popular in the Old English period?

4. What is the date of the first written English literature?

5. What is the new form of English since the 12^th century?

6. How long did this period last?

7. What helped to establish English as a literary language?

8. What are the main categories of Middle English Literature?

9. Who is named "the Father of English Literature" and why?

10. How do we call the period in English literature under Queen Elizabeth I and King James I?

11. To what period is Shakespeare related? What literature was popular in his times?

12. Name as many Shakespeare’s works as you can remember.

13. When was the sonnet introduced into English literature?

14. Name one of the most massive translation projects in the history of English.

15. What metaphysical poets can you remember and in what epoche did they work?

16. Who were the Cavalier poets?

17. Who and when made the first complete translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into English?

18. In what period was satire especially popular and why was it dangerous to write it?

19. What time is considered to be the beginning of fiction and journalism?

20. When did the form of essay appear?

21. When did the English novel develop into a major art form?

3) Put 5 more questions to the text and write them down on a separate sheet of paper. Exchange your papers with your partner and answer each other’s questions in writing.

4) Explain these words and expressions in English.

o most literary works were written to be performed

o to be handed down orally from one generation to another

o alliterative verse or consonant rhyme

o Liturgy

o a literary language

o Courtly love

o magnum opus

o multilingual audience

o to flourish

o The Reformation

o high incidence of political assassinations

o to stand out

o "university wits"

o to be intended to be set to music

o the leading literary figure

o the theory of humours

o aesthetically prefer

o to mimic the original Hebrew verse

o separation makes love grow fonder

o anonymously

o the Age of Enlightenment

5) Underline all the irregular verbs in the text and give the three forms of them.

Part 2

The 19^th century literature

Romanticism (1798-1837)

Various dates are given for the Romantic period in British literature. Here the publishing of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 is taken as the beginning and the start of Queen Victoria's reign in 1837 as its end, even though, for example, William Wordsworth lived until 1850 and William Blake published before 1798. Robert Burns (1759-1796) was another pioneer of the Romantic movement. As well as making original compositions, Burns also collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them. His Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect 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 Sherramuir"; "Tam o' Shanter" and "Ae Fond Kiss".

The poet, painter, and printmaker William Blake (1757-1827) was one of the first of the Romantic poets. Although Blake was largely unrecognised during his lifetime, he is now considered a great figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. Considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. Among his most important works are Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794), Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), The First Book of Urizen (1794), Milton (1804–?11]), and "Jerusalem: the Emanation of the Giant Albion" (1804–?20).

Among the earliest Romantics were the Lake Poets, a small group of friends, including William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834),Robert Southey (1774-1843) and journalist Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859). Coleridge and Wordsworth understood romanticism in two entirely different ways: while Coleridge sought to make the supernatural "real", Wordsworth sought to stir the imagination of readers through his down-to-earth characters taken from real life, or the beauty of nature, especially the Lake District. Among Wordsworth's most important poems, are "Michael", "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey", "Resolution and Independence", and the long, autobiographical, epic The Prelude.

The second generation of Romantic poets includes Lord Byron (1788-1824), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) and John Keats (1795-1821). Byron, however, was still influenced by 18th-century satirists and was, perhaps the least 'romantic' of the three. His first trip to Europe resulted in the first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812), a mock-heroic epic of a young man's adventures in Europe but also a sharp satire against London society. 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 and The Masque of Anarchy and Adonaïs, an elegy written on the death of Keats.

The plot for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) is said to have come from a nightmare she had during stormy nights on Lake Geneva in the company of Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Polidori. Her idea of making a body with human parts stolen from different corpses and then animating it with electricity was perhaps influenced by Alessandro Volta's invention and Luigi Galvani's experiments with dead frogs. Frankenstein's chilling tale also suggests modern organ transplants, reminding us of the moral issues raised by today's medicine. But the creature of Frankenstein is incredibly romantic as well. Although "the monster" is intelligent, good and loving, he is shunned by everyone because of his ugliness and deformity, and the desperation and envy that result from social exclusion turn him against the very man who created him.

John Keats did not share Byron's and Shelley's extremely revolutionary ideals. Keats was in love with the ancient stones of the Parthenon that Lord Elgin had brought to England from Greece. Keats's great attention to art, especially in his "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1818) is quite new in romanticism.

One of the most popular novelists of the era was Sir Walter Scott, whose grand historical romances inspired a generation of painters, composers, and writers throughout Europe. Scott's novel-writing career was launched in 1814 with Waverley, often called the first historical novel, and was followed by Ivanhoe. His popularity in England and further abroad did much to form the modern stereotype of Scottish culture.

Jane Austen's works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th century realism. 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 characters, good or bad, receive exactly what they deserve. Her work brought her little personal fame and only a few positive reviews during her lifetime, but the publication in 1869 of her nephew's A Memoir of Jane Austen introduced her to a wider public, and by the 1940s she had become accepted as a major writer. Austen's works include Pride and Prejudice (1813) Sense and Sensibility (1811), Mansfield Park, Persuasion and Emma.

Genre fiction

Bram Stoker's horror story Dracula (1897), belongs to a number of literary genres, including vampire literature, horror fiction and gothic novel.

Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant London-based "consulting detective". Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories featuring Holmes, from 1880 up to 1907, with a final case in 1914. All but four Conan Doyle stories are narrated by Holmes' friend, assistant, and biographer, Dr. Watson.

Literature for children developed as a separate genre. Some works became internationally known, such as those of Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass. Adventure novels, such as those of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94), are generally classified as for children. Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), depicts the dual personality of a kind and intelligent physician. His Treasure Island 1883, is the classic pirate adventure. At the end of the Victorian era and leading into the Edwardian era, Beatrix Potter was an author and illustrator, best known for her children’s books, which featured animal characters. In her thirties, Potter published the highly successful children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1902. Potter went on to publish 23 children's books and become a wealthly woman.

Victorian poetry

The leading poets during the Victorian period were Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), Robert Browning (1812–89), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61), and Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The poetry of this period was heavily influenced by the Romantics, but also went off in its own directions. Particularly notable was the development of the dramatic monologue, a form used by many poets in this period, but perfected by Browning. Literary criticism in the 20th century gradually drew attention to the links between Victorian poetry and modernism. Tennyson was described as "the greatest master of metrics as well as melancholia", and as having "the finest ear of any English poet since Milton".

Oscar Wilde became the leading poet and dramatist of the late Victorian period. Wilde's plays, in particular, stand apart from the many now forgotten plays of Victorian times and have a much closer relationship to those of theEdwardian dramatists such as Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), whose career began in the last decade of the nineteenth century, Wilde's 1895 comic masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest, holds an ironic mirror to the aristocracy and displays a mastery of wit and paradoxical wisdom.

Vocabulary

unrecognised – непризнанный

contemporaries – современники

is held in high regard – высоко оценивается

undercurrents – подводные течения

to stir – возбуждать

canto – песнь

nightmare – ночной кошмар

corps – труп

shunned – избегаемый

career was launched – карьера началась

further – в дальнейшем

hardships – трудности

inherit – наследовать

fame – слава

monthly serialization – ежемесячное издание рассказа по частям

demand – спрос

rapid – скорый

sympathy – сочувствие

to rank second – стоять на втором месте

accessible – доступный

is generally considered – повсеместно считается

sequel – продолжение

Text-based tasks (continued)

1) Produce 5 sentences of your own, using the vocabulary. Read your sentences out in Russian and ask any of your friends to translate them back into English. Check if your sentences sound the same.

2) Explain these words and expressions in English.

o idiosyncratic views

o entirely different

o supernatural

o down-to-earth characters

o a mock-heroic epic

o moral issues

o a masculine pseudonym

o a plot twist

o dual personality

3) Text-based questions.

1. Which of the Romantic poets collected Scottish folk songs?

2. Name as many Lake poets as you can remember.

3. How was Byron different from other poets of his time?

4. Who wrote “the first historical novel”?

5. When did Jane Austen become recognized by critics and audience?

6. When did the novel become the leading literary genre?

7. What author revived monthly serialization?

8. What period was marked by the rise of social novel?

9. What is Beatrix Potter famous for?

4) Put 5 more questions to the text and write them down on a separate sheet of paper. Exchange your papers with your partner and answer each other’s questions in writing.

5) Make a crosswords based on the words from the text.

6) Word-building. Create new words based on the one given in the table.

Noun	verb	adjective / present (past) participle
expressiveness
		sharp
	to imagine
character
	to critique
		animating
deformity
	to experiment
		chilling
	to inspire
romanticism
		leading
ending
	to use
publication
	to demand
dramatist

7) Choose one of the following extracts for retelling:

1. Old and Middle English literature, Renaissance literature and Elizabethan era

2. Jacobean literature, the Caroline, Interregnum and Restoration periods, Augustan literature

3. Romanticism

4. Victorian literature, Genre fiction and Victorian poetry

8) Humour. Read, understand and enjoy the humour.

v Dick is introduced to an author at a party. ‘My last book was terribly difficult,’ the author says. ‘It took me over six years to complete.’ ‘I can sympathise,’ replies Dick. ‘I’m a slow reader myself.’

v A writer sends his manuscript to a publisher with a note saying, ‘None of the characters in this story bear any resemblance to any person living or dead.’ The publisher sends back the book with a note saying, ‘That’s what’s wrong with it.’

v A critic is a legless man who teaches running.

v A man walks into a book shop and says, ‘Can I have a book by Shakespeare?’ ‘Of course, sir,’ says the salesman. ‘Which one?’ The man replies, ‘William.’

v A young man professed a desire to become a great writer. When asked to define ‘great’ he said, ‘I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!’ He now works for Microsoft writing error messages.

PART 2.

Discussion.

1) The “why”-questions. Provocative thinking.

1. Why do we include some works by writers of different nationalities into the notion “English literature”?

2. Why are some most talented writers misunderstood by their contemporaries?

3. Why do people now tend to read less than before?

2) Research questions. Choose the issue that interests you most and search for more information. Prepare a report and deliver it to your classmates.

1. “The Hymn of Cædmon” – the oldest surviving English text

2. The introduction of a printing press into England

3. The history of the sonnet

4. Humour in the English literature

5. Children literature by English authors

6. Fantazy genre in the English literature

7. The most interesting contemporary English writer

3) Search for more information about the Old English epic poem named Beowulf

4) The theory of humours is mentioned in the text. Find out more information about it and share it with your group-mates.

5) Choose one of your favourite books (or poems) by an English writer and make a short presentation according to the following plan:

- The book title, the year when it was written and a short description of its plot

- The reason why it is special for you (why would you recommend it to your friends?)

- Some interesting facts about its author

- Are there any movies based on this book? Are they successful?

- An axtract from the book (in original) for artistic reading

- A literary translation of the chosen passage (do not forget to mention the name of the translator)

6) Look through the text again and make a list of English authors for each century, add their most important works apart from those mentioned in the text. Arrange the information chronologically in a form of the table:

Author	Life dates	Works of literature

7) Split into pairs or small groups, act out these extracts from English literature and try to recognize the author and the book title:

"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?"

Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.

"But it is," returned she; "for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it."

Mr. Bennet made no answer.

"Do not you want to know who has taken it?" cried his wife impatiently.

"You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it."

This was invitation enough.

"Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week."

"What is his name?"

"Bingley."

"Is he married or single?"

"Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!"

"How so? how can it affect them?"

"My dear Mr. Bennet," replied his wife, "how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them."

"Is that his design in settling here?"

"Design! nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes."

"I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better; for, as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party."

MRS. PEARCEThis is the young woman, sir.

The flower girl enters. She has a hat with three ostrich feathers, orange, sky-blue, and red. She has a nearly clean apron, and the shoddy coat has been tidied a little.

HIGGINS Why, this is the girl I jotted down last night. She's no use: I've got all the records I want of the Lisson Grove lingo; and I'm not going to waste another cylinder on it. [To the girl] Be off with you: I don't want you.

THE FLOWER GIRL. Don't you be so saucy. You ain't heard what I come for yet. [To Mrs. Pearce, who is waiting at the door for further instruction] Did you tell him I come in a taxi?

MRS. PEARCE. Nonsense, girl! What do you think a gentleman like Mr. Higgins cares what you came in?

THE FLOWER GIRL. Oh, we are proud! He ain't above giving lessons, not him: I heard him say so. Well, I ain't come here to ask for any compliment; and if my money's not good enough I can go elsewhere.

HIGGINS. Good enough for what?

THE FLOWER GIRL. Good enough for ye--oo. Now you know, don't you? I'm come to have lessons, I am. And to pay for em too: make no mistake.

HIGGINSWELL!!! [Recovering his breath with a gasp] What do you expect me to say to you?

THE FLOWER GIRL. Well, if you was a gentleman, you might ask me to sit down, I think. Don't I tell you I'm bringing you business?

HIGGINS. Pickering: shall we ask this baggage to sit down or shall we throw her out of the window?

THE FLOWER GIRL [running away in terror to the piano, where she turns] Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--ow--oo! I won't be called a baggage when I've offered to pay like any lady.

They started with breaking a cup. That was the first thing they did. They did that just to show you what they could do, and to get you interested. Then Harris packed the strawberry jam on top of a tomato and squashed it, and they had to pick out the tomato with a teaspoon.

And then it was George's turn, and he trod on the butter. I didn't say anything, but I came over and sat on the edge of the table and watched them. It irritated them more than anything I could have said. I felt that. It made them nervous and excited, and they stepped on things, and put things behind them, and then couldn't find them when they wanted them; and they packed the pies at the bottom, and put heavy things on top, and smashed the pies in.

They upset salt over everything, and as for the butter! I never saw two men do more with one-and-twopence worth of butter in my whole life than they did. After George had got it off his slipper, they tried to put it in the kettle. It wouldn't go in, and what was in wouldn't come out. They did scrape it out at last, and put it down on a chair, and Harris sat on it, and it stuck to him, and they went looking for it all over the room.

"I'll take my oath I put it down on that chair," said George, staring at the empty seat.

"I saw you do it myself, not a minute ago," said Harris.

Then they started round the room again looking for it; and then they met again in the centre, and stared at one another.

"Most extraordinary thing I ever heard of," said George.

"So mysterious!" said Harris.

Then George got round at the back of Harris and saw it.

"Why, here it is all the time," he exclaimed, indignantly.

"Where?" cried Harris, spinning round.

"Stand still, can't you!" roared George, flying after him.

And they got it off, and packed it in the teapot.

Jack. Charming day it has been, Miss Fairfax.

Gwendolen. Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me so nervous.

Jack. I do mean something else.

Gwendolen. I thought so. In fact, I am never wrong.

Jack. And I would like to be allowed to take advantage of Lady Bracknell’s temporary absence…

Gwendolen. I would certainly advise you to do so. Mamma has a way of coming back suddenly into a room that I have often had to speak to her about.

Jack. [Nervously.] Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl… I have ever met since… I met you.

Gwendolen. Yes, I am quite well aware of the fact. And I often wish that in public, at any rate, you had been more demonstrative. For me you have always had an irresistible fascination. Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to you. [Jack looks at her in amazement.] We live, as I hope you know, Mr Worthing, in an age of ideals. The fact is constantly mentioned in the more expensive monthly magazines, and has reached the provincial pulpits, I am told; and my ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence. The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love you.

Jack. You really love me, Gwendolen?

Gwendolen. Passionately!

Jack. Darling! You don’t know how happy you’ve made me.

Gwendolen. My own Ernest!

8) Make a creative literary translation of the following piece into beautiful Russian

Follow-ups.

Suppliamentary reading.

The 20^th century English literature

1901-1939 Modernism

A major British lyric poet of the first decades of the 20th century was Thomas Hardy (1840-1928). Though not a modernist Hardy is an important transitional figure between the Victorian era and the 20th-century. A major novelist of the late 19th-century, Hardy lived well into the third decade of the 20th-century. Another major modernist, a poet, Irishman W. B. Yeats's (1865-1939), career began late in the Victorian era. Yeats was one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. In his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize.

There were also many fine writers who, like Thomas Hardy, were not modernists. Irish playwrights George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) and J.M. Synge (1871-1909) were influential in British drama. Shaw's career began in the last decade of the nineteenth-century, while Synge's plays belong to the first decade of the twentieth-century.

Novelists, who are not considered modernists, include: Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) who was also a successful poet; H. G. Wells (1866-1946); John Galsworthy (1867-1933), (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1932) whose works include a sequence of novels, collectively called The Forsyte Saga (1906-21); Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) author of The Old Wives' Tale (1908); G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936); and E.M. Forster (1879-1970). H. G. Wells is now best known for his science fiction novels. His most notable science fiction works include The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The Island of Doctor Moreau all written in the 1890s

The most popular British writer of the early years of the 20th century was Rudyard Kipling, a highly versatile writer of novels, short stories and poems, and to date the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1907). Kipling's works include The Jungle Books (1894-5), The Man Who Would Be King and Kim (1901), while his inspirational poem "If—" (1895) is a national favourite. Strongly influenced by his Christian faith, G. K. Chesterton was a very influential writer. His best-known character is the priest-detective Father Brown, who appeared only in short stories, while The Man Who Was Thursday published in 1908 is his best-known novel. Of his nonfiction, Charles Dickens: A Critical Study (1906) has received the great praise.

Important British writers between the World Wars, include the Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid (1892-1978), who began publishing in the 1920s, and novelists Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), E. M. Forster (1879-1970) (A Passage to India, 1924), Evelyn Waugh (1903–66), P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) (who was not a modernist) and D. H. Lawrence. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover was published privately in Florence in 1928. Woolf was an influential feminist, and a major stylistic innovator in novels like Mrs Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927).

An important development, beginning really in the 1930s and 1940s was a tradition of working class novels that were actually written by writers who had a working class background. Among these were coal miner Jack Jones, James Hanley, whose father was a stoker and who also went to sea as a young man, and other coal miner authors' Lewis Jones from South Wales and Harold Heslop from County Durham.

Samuel Beckett (1906–89) published his first major work, the novel Murphy in 1938. This same year Graham Greene's (1904–91) first major novel Brighton Rock was published. Then in 1939 James Joyce's published Finnegans Wake. In this work Joyce creates a special language to express the consciousness of a character who is dreaming.

1940 to the 21st Century

Among British writers in the 1940s and 1950s were novelist Graham Greene and poet Dylan Thomas. George Orwell's satire of totalitarianism, 1984, was published in 1949. Nobel Prize laureate William Golding's allegorical novel Lord of the Flies 1954, explores how culture created by man fails, using as an example a group of British schoolboys marooned on a deserted island who try to govern themselves, but with disastrous results.

An important cultural movement in the British theatre which developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s was Kitchen sink realism (or "kitchen sink drama"), a term describing art (the term itself derives from an expressionist painting by John Bratby), novels, film and television plays. The term angry young men was often applied to members of this artistic movement. It used a style of social realism which depicts the domestic lives of the working class.

20th century genre literature

Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was a crime writer of novels, short stories and plays, who is best remembered for her 80 detective novels as well as her successful plays for the West End theatre. Christie's works, particularly those featuring the detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple, have given her the title the 'Queen of Crime' and she was one of the most important and innovative writers in this genre. Christie's novels include, Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and And Then There Were None. Another popular writer during the Golden Age of detective fiction was Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957).

Erskine Childers The Riddle of the Sands 1903, is an early example of the spy novel. A noted writer in the spy novel genre was John le Carré, while in thriller writing, Ian Fleming created the character James Bond 007 in January 1952, while on holiday at his Jamaican estate. Fleming chronicled Bond's adventures in twelve novels, including Casino Royale (1953), Live and Let Die (1954), Dr. No (1958), Goldfinger (1959), Thunderball (1961), and nine short story works.

The Kailyard school of Scottish writers, notably J. M. Barrie (1869-1937), creator of Peter Pan (1904), presented an idealised version of society and brought of fantasy and folklore back into fashion. In 1908, Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932) wrote the children's classic The Wind in the Willows.

An informal literary discussion group associated with the English faculty at the University of Oxford, were the "Inklings". Its leading members were the major fantasy novelists; C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Lewis is especially known for The Chronicles of Narnia, while Tolkien is best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Another significant writer is Alan Garner author of Elidor (1965), while Terry Pratchett is a more recent fantasy writer. Roald Dahl rose to prominence with his children's fantasy novels, such as James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, often inspired by experiences from his childhood, which are notable for their often unexpected endings, and unsentimental, dark humour. J. K. Rowling author of the highly successful Harry Potter series and Philip Pullman famous for his His Dark Materials trilogy are other significant authors of fantasy novels for younger readers.

Essential vocabulary

decades – десятилетия

transitional – переходный

foremost – выдающийся

influential – влиятельный

sequence – последовательность, серия

recipient – получатель, номинант

inspirational – вдохновенный

coal miner – шахтер

stoker – кочегар

marooned – высаженные

derives from – происходит от

applied to – применяется к

depicts – изображает

noted – известный

the "Inklings" - «Инклинги» - неофициальная литературная дискуссионная группа в Оксфордском университете, существовавшая в период с 1930-х по 1950-е годы.

Prepare an artistic reading of the following poems:

William Blake The Sick Rose

O Rose thou art sick.

The invisible worm,

That flies in the night

In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

*****

Love is not all: it is not meat or drink

Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;

Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink

And rise and sink and rise and sink again.

Love can not fill the thickening lung with breath,

Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;

Yet many a man is making friends with death

Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.

It well may be that in a difficult hour,

Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,

Or nagged by want past resolution's power,

I might be driven to sell your love for peace,

Or trade the memory of this night for food.

It well may be. I do not think I would.

Перевод М.Алигер

Любовь ещё не всё: не хлеб и не вода,

Не крыша в ливень, не нагим - одежды;

Не ствол, плывущий к тонущим, когда

Уже иссякли силы и надежды.

Не заменяет воздуха любовь,

Когда дыханья в лёгких не хватает,

Не сращивает кость, не очищает кровь,

И без любви никто не умирает.

Я допускаю, грянет час такой,

Когда, устав от нестерпимой боли,