English literature
The term English literature refers to liter-
ature written in the English language, includ-
ing literature composed in English by writers
not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad
was Polish, 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 aca-
demia, the term often labels departments and
programmes practising English studies
in
secondary and tertiary educational systems.
Despite the variety of authors of English liter-
ature, the works of William Shakespeare re-
main paramount throughout the English-
speaking world.
This article primarily deals with literature
from Britain written in English. For literature
from specific English-speaking regions, con-
sult the see also section at the 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
early British 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 Norwegian or, bet-
ter yet, Icelandic. Much Anglo-Saxon verse in
the extant manuscripts is probably a "milder"
adaptation of the earlier Viking and German
war poems from the continent. When such
poetry was brought to England it was still be-
ing handed down orally from one generation
to another, and the constant presence of allit-
erative verse, or consonant rhyme (today’s
newspaper headlines and marketing abund-
antly use this technique such as in Big is Bet-
ter) helped the Anglo-Saxon peoples remem-
ber it. Such rhyme is a feature of Germanic
languages and is opposed to vocalic or end-
rhyme of Romance languages. But the first
written