Literature of the Middle Ages. The Anglo-Saxon period Beowulf

Henry Fielding's works were the summit of the English Enlightenment prose. In The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling the hero, a charming, cheerful, kind-hearted man, has a number of adventures and meets with a lot of people from all walks of life. The novel is set in a poor country house, in an aristocratic mansion, in an inn, in a court-room, in a prison and in the London streets. This composition of the novel enabled the author to give an all embracing picture of the 17^TH-century England, to write "a comic epopee", as Fielding himself called his novel. He also elaborated a theory of the novel. In the introductory chapters to the eighteen parts of The History of Tom Jones he put forward the main requirements of a novel: to imitate life, to show the variety of human nature, to expose the causes of man's vices and to indicate ways of overcoming them.
III. Late Enlightenment (Sentimentalism) (1750—1790).
The writers of this period, like the Enlighteners of the first two, expressed the democratic bourgeois tendencies of their time. They also tried to find a way out of the difficulties of the existing order. However, while their predecessors believed in the force of intellect, they considered feelings (or sentiments) most important. The principal representatives of sentimentalism in the genre of the novel were Oliver Goldsmith (The Vicar of Wakefield) and Lawrence Sterne (Tristram Shandy, The Sentimental Journey) and in drama — Richard Sheridan (School for Scandal and other plays). The poetry of Robert Bums belongs to this period, too.
DANIEL DEFOE (1660—1731)
Daniel Defoe is rightly considered the father of the English and the European novel, for it was due to him that the genre became firmly established in European literature.
Daniel Defoe's life was complicated and adventurous. He was the son of a London butcher whose name was Foe, to which Daniel later added the prefix De. He sometimes used it separately giving his name a French sound. His father, being a Puritan, wanted his son to become a priest. Daniel was educated at a theological school. However, he never became a priest, for he looked for other business to apply his talents to. He became a merchant, first in wine, then in hosiery. He travelled in Spain, Germany, France and Italy on business. Though his travels were few they, nevertheless, gave him, a man of rich imagination, material for his future novels. Defoe's business was not very successful and he went bankrupt more than once. He took an active part in the political life of Britain. In 1685 he participated in the Duke ofmonmouth's Revolt against James II. The rebellion was defeated and resulted in a compromise between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. After this defeat Defoe had to go into hiding for some time. When the Dutchman William of Orange came to the throne of England in 1688 during the so-called "Glorious Revolution", he was among his most active supporters. After years of political ups and downs, including imprisonment for his attacks against the church, he died at the age of 71 having written more than 500 works of different kinds.
Defoe turned to literature in the 1690s. His first literary works were satirical poems dealing with the urgent problems of the time. In 1697 he published An Essay on Projects, a typical enlightener's work in which he suggested all kinds of reforms in different spheres of social life. He paid much attention to public education and stressed the necessity of establishing a number of educational institutions to train specialists for various fields of activity.
In 1702 Defoe published a satirical pamphlet written in support of the Protestants, or dissenters, persecuted by the government and the church. In the pamphlet called The Shortest Way with the Dissenters the author ironically suggested that the best way to fight against the dissenters was to execute them all. At first the Church thought that the pamphlet was written by a churchman. When it discovered the true author of the pamphlet, Defoe was arrested and sentenced to imprisonment. In order to humiliate him the government had him pilloried three times. Before it he wrote a poem called Hymn to the Pillory which at once became known all over London. While he was pilloried, with his head and wrists in the stocks, people
came and threw flowers to him and sang the Hymn.
His first and most popular novel The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe was written in 1719 when Defoe was nearly sixty. It was followed by Captain Singleton, Moll Flanders, Roxana and some other adventure novels.