Old British Literature

Foundation of Literature

Summary about:

Old British Literature

British literature is literature from the United Kingdom. The earliest form of English literature developed after the settlement of the Saxons and other Germanic tribes in England after the withdrawal of the Romans and is known as Old English or Anglo-Saxon. The most famous work in Old English is the epic poem Beowulf. The only surviving manuscript is the Cotton manuscript. A popular poem of the time was "The Dream of the Rood". It was inscribed upon the Ruthwell Cross. Another poem was "Judith". It was a retelling of the story found in the Latin Bible's Book of Judith of the beheader of the Assyrian general Holofernes. Chronicles contained a range of historical and literary accounts; one example is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Since at least the 14th century, poetry in English has been written in Ireland and by Irish writers abroad.

There are many the great British poets, some of them are:

• Christina Rossetti
  

• William Shakespeare

Here are little about their biographies

Christina Rossetti

Christina Georgina Rossetti is one of the most important women poets writing in nineteenth-century England. She was born in London on December 5th, 1830. Her parents name are Gabriele and Frances (Polidori) Rossetti.
When she was a teenager, she seems to have been quite attractive although she is not beautiful. After her father passed away in 1853, christina and her mother attempted to support the family by starting a day school, but had to give it up after a year or so. Thereafter she led a very retiring life.
In 1866 she continued to write and in the 1870s to work for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. She was troubled physically by neuralgia and emotionally by Dante's breakdown in 1872. The last 12 years of her life, after his death in 1882, were quiet ones. She died of cancer December 29th, 1894.

Here it is one of Christina Rosetti’s poetry:

Song

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain;
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

Whilliam Shakespeare

Whilliam Shakespeare is one of the great British poets. He was born in Stratford on about April 23rd 1564. Her father William was a succesful local businessman and his mother Mary was the daughter of a landowner. Relatively prosperous it is likely the family paid for Williams education, although there is no evidence he attended university.
When he was 18 years old, he married with an older women named Anne Hathaway. After his marriage information about the life of Shakespeare is sketchy but it seems he spent most of his time in London writing and performing in his plays. William Shakespeare wrote 154 Sonnets mostly in the 1590s. Fairly short poems they deal with issues such as lost love.
The plays of Shakespeare have been studied more than any other writing in the English language and have been translated into numerous languages. He was rare as a playwrite for excelling in tragedies, comedies and histories. He deftly combined popular entertainment with a rare poetic capacity for expression which is almost mantric in quality.
During his lifetime Shakespeare was not without controversy, but he also received lavish praise for his plays which were very popular and commercially successful. Shakespear died in 1664. It is not clear how he died although his vicar suggested it was from heavy drinking.

Here it is one of William Shakespeare’s poetry:

That God Forbid

That god forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!
O! let me suffer, being at your beck,
The imprison'd absence of your liberty;
And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.