literature
William Shakespeare
English literature is the literature written in the English language,
including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily
from England; Joseph Conrad was born in Poland, Robert Burns was
Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar
Allan Poe was American, V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad, Vladimir
Nabokov was Russian. In other words, English literature is as diverse
as the varieties and dialects of English spoken around the world. In
academia, the term often labels departments and programmes
practising English studies in secondary and tertiary educational
systems. Despite the variety of authors of English literature, the works
of William Shakespeare remain paramount throughout the
English-speaking world.
This article primarily deals with some of the literature from Britain
written in English. For literature from specific English-speaking
regions, consult the see also section, bottom of the page.
Old English
The first works in English, written in Old English, appeared in the early Middle Ages (the oldest surviving text is
Cædmon's Hymn). The oral tradition was very strong in the early English culture and most literary works were
written to be performed. Epic poems were thus very popular and many, including Beowulf, have survived to the
present day in the rich corpus of Anglo-Saxon literature that closely resemble today's Icelandic, Norwegian, North
Frisian and the Northumbrian and Scots English dialects of modern English. Much Old English verse in the extant
manuscripts is probably a "milder" adaptation of the earlier Germanic war poems from the continent. When such
poetry was brought to England it was still being handed down orally from one generation to another, and the
constant presence of alliterative verse, or consonant rhyme (today's newspaper headlines and marketing abundantly
use this technique such as in Big is Better) helped the Anglo-Saxon peoples remember it. Such rhyme is a feature of
Germanic languages and is opposed to vocalic or end-rhyme of Romance languages. But the first written literature
dates to the early Christian monasteries founded by St. Augustine of Canterbury and his disciples and it is reasonable
to believe that it was somehow adapted to suit to needs of Christian