The mariner is the only one who survives and his penalty is to travel from land to land with suffering soul.
Lord George Gordon Byron: represent revolutionary romanticism – unhappy and usually lonely heroes fight for freedom and their fight ends in vain. Byron was a son of nobleman. He was physically disabled from hid birth. His main work is Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. The Hero travels all over Europe and make comments of the hypocritical society and unfairness in life.
Pervy Bysshe Shelly: represents also as a Byron revolutionary romanticism. His greatest work is Prometheus Unbound, based on an old Greek legend about Prometheus who steals fire from Olympus to give it to People.
6) Victorian Age (Critical Realism) – 19th century:
Victorian Age produced great novels criticising various evils of prosperous but imperialistic society. Among the best authors of this period belong:
Emily Bronte: Wuthering Hights
Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre
both of them dealt with moral and psychological problems.
Charles Dickens: described truly the life of poor people in England. He himself suffered in his childhood and his bitter experience can be found in his works. Among his major novels belong Little Dorrit, David Copperfild, The Pickwick Papers, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Christmas Carol – see enclosed paper.
The First Half of The 20th Century
William Makepeace Thackeray: he wrote novels against snobbery and hypocrisy. His main novel is Vanity Fair.
Thomas Hardy: together with D. H. Lewrence represents the naturalistic trend in literature. He understands hard life of common people, hates hypocrisy and brutal egoism of the rich, his work is ironical and pessimistic.
Oscar Wilde: He was born in Dublin, Ireland. His father was a well – known surgeon and his mother was a successful writer. After a comfortable childhood, he decided to study classical literature in a College in Dublin. In 1874 he moved to a College in Oxford. After college he continued writing poems and he moved to London. He publishes here his first book simply called Poems (Many literature professors criticised him, they said he was not original, because he had used many words from other poets and writers). But in spite of this criticism he became more popular (he got a great reputation for the way he dressed, for his intelligence and conversation skills). In 1884 he married Constance Lloyd and they had two boys. Wilde wrote many stories for his children including The Happy Prince and The Canterville Ghost. The plays Oscar Wilde wrote after 1890 made him a legend. He wrote 4 comedies: Lady Windermere˘s Fan, A Woman of no Importance, An Ideal Husband and his masterpiece The Importance of Being Ernest.