Test 2
1. The Renaissance in England falls on the _____ century.
a. 14th; b. 15th; c. 16th; d. 17th
2. The Invincible Armada was defeated by ___
a. Francis Drake; b. Charles I; c. Admiral Nelson
3. The Fairy Queen was written by ___
a. W. Shakespeare; b. Ch. Marlowe; c. E. Spenser
4. W. Shakespeare was ____
a. an actor; b. a playwright; c. a literary critic
5. The Gunpowder plot was in ___
a. 1515; b. 1605; c. 1649
6. The Pilgrim Fathers were___
a. Catholics; b. Protestants; c. Puritans
7. The King who dismissed Parliament several times was___
a. Henry VIII; b. James I; c. Charles I
8. After the establishment of the Commonwealth, O. Cromwell was proclaimed
a. King; b. Lord Protector; c. Lord Chancellor
9. John Milton wrote ____
a. Paradise Lost; b. The Fairy Queen; c. Much Ado About Nothing
10. “The Father of the English Opera” was ____
a. William Byrd; b. Henry Purcell; c. John Bull
11. As a result of the Civil War, England became ____
a. a parliamentary monarchy; b. a republic; c. an absolute monarchy
12. The Great Fire of London was in _______.
a. 1666; b. 1605; c. 1649
II. Get ready to speak on the following topics:
1. Reformation in England. Henry VIII. Mary Tudor (“Bloody Mary”).
2. The Elizabethan age. England’s relations with Spain. The geographical discoveries in 16th century. The development of philosophy, literature and the theatre (Thomas More, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare).
3. The reign of James I: the Gunpowder plot, the Pilgrim Fathers.
4. The Civil War and the Commonwealth, Oliver Cromwell. The Restoration.
5. The Great Fire of London. The development of literature (John Milton), arts (William Dobson, Christopher Wren, Henry Purcell) and science (Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Edmund Halley) in the 17th century.
3. Topics for presentations:
· The history of the English language.
· The Elizabethan age.
· Science in the 17th century England.
| SECTION 3 |
Britain in the New Age.
Modern Britain.
 |
In Europe the 18th century was a turbulent age marked with revolutions, a tremendous upheaval in literature, philosophy and science all over the continent. It was the age when England gained the dominant place in the Channel and in the seas and became the world’s main market. It was the age of the Industrial Revolution which resulted in England’s economic growth. It was also the age of continental and colonial wars. The wars waged on the continent were the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713), the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). The wars for colonial expansion in India and North America went on without interruption. England’s rivals were Holland, France and Spain. The 18th century was a period of transition which saw the transfer of political power in Britain from absolute to parliamentary monarchy.
But before we turn to the 18th century we must speak about the event which laid the basis for England’s further development – the Glorious Revolution. For different reasons (mainly political and economic), many English historians consider the late 1680s as the beginning of the 18th century in the history of England.
In 1688, the bourgeoisie managed to bring the royal power, the armed forces and taxation under the control of Parliament. The arrangement is known as the Revolution of 1688, or the Glorious Revolution. King James II who succeeded to the throne after the death of his brother, Charles II, introduced pro-Catholic reforms and, finally, converted to Catholicism himself. All that which provoked Protestant hostility in the country. James II’s opponents sparked off the Glorious Revolution by inviting a Protestant – William, the Prince of Orange, to take the English crown. William of Orange arrived with an invasion force. In fact, William II, as he came to be known, was one of the legal heirs to the throne: he was the grandson of Charles I, and his wife Mary was James II’s daughter and Charles I’s granddaughter. King James II had to flee to France in 1689. Parliament declared that James II had abdicated and William and Mary accepted the throne. The attempts to restore James II to the throne failed in 1690.
William III proved to be an able diplomat but a reserved and unpopular monarch. In 1689, William and Mary accepted the Bill of Rights curbing royal power and granting the rights of parliament. It also restricted succession to the throne only to Protestants. The Bill of Rights laid the basis for constitutional monarchy. William and Mary ruled jointly until Mary’s death in 1694. Her husband died after a fall from his horse in 1702. The most important result of the Glorious Revolution is the transition from absolute to parliamentary monarchy. In 1707, during the reign of Queen Anne, Act of the Union created a single Parliament for England and Scotland.
The 18th century was a sound-thinking and rational age. Life was ruled by common sense. It was the proper guide to thought and conduct in commerce and industry. This period saw a remarkable rise in the fields of philosophy, natural sciences and political economy. Adam Smith (1723 – 1790), the Scottish economist, wrote his Wealth of Nations in 1776. His ideas dominated the whole of industrial Europe and America until the revival of opposing theories of state control and protection. Adam Smith was one of the founders of political economy which evolved, as a science, in the 18th century. Smith’s ideas were further developed by David Ricardo.
During the reign of George I, government power was increased because the new king spoke only German and relied on the decisions of his ministers. The most influential minister, who remained the greatest political leader of Britain for twenty years, was Robert Walpole. He is considered to have been Britain’s first Prime Minister. Moreover, it was R. Walpole who fathered the idea of using banknotes. As Britain was waging a series of costly wars with France, the government had to borrow money from different sources. In 1694, a group of financiers agreed to establish a bank if the government pledged to borrow from it alone. The new bank, called the Bank of England, had authority to raise money by printing ‘bank-notes’. But the idea was not entirely new. For hundreds of years, ever since the 12th century, money dealers had been giving people so-called ‘promissory notes’ signed by themselves. The cheques that are used today developed from those promissory notes. Walpole also promoted a parliamentary act, which obliged companies to bear responsibility to the public for the money, which they borrowed by the sales of shares.
In politics, Walpole was determined to keep the Crown under a firm parliamentary control. He realized that with the new German monarchy that was more possible than ever before. Walpole stressed the idea that government ministers should work together in a small group called the Cabinet. He insisted that all Cabinet ministers should bear collective responsibility for their decisions. If any minister disagreed with a Cabinet decision, he was expected to resign. The rule is still observed today. Walpole opposed wars, and increased taxes on objects of luxury including tea, coffee and chocolate.
R. Walpole’s most influential enemy was William Pitt who stressed the importance of developing trade and strengthening Britain’s position overseas even by armed force. His policies lead to a number of wars with France. In the war of 1756, Pitt declared that the target was French trade which was to be taken over by Britain. In Canada, the British army took Quebec, which gave Britain control over fish, fur and timber trades. The French army was also defeated in India and a lot of Britons went to India to make their fortunes. Britain became the most powerful country in the world. British pride was expressed in a national song written in 1742, Rule, Britannia.
At the beginning of the 18th century, England was becoming the main commercial centre of Europe. In 1700 England and Wales had a population of about 5.5 million people. By the end of the century it reached 8.8. million. Including Ireland and Scotland, the total population was about 13 million people.
England was still a country of small villages. The big cities of the future were only beginning to emerge. After London, the second largest city was Bristol. Its rapid growth and importance was based on the triangular trade: British-made goods were shipped to West Africa, West African slaves were transported to the New World, and American sugar, cotton and tobacco were brought to Britain.
By the middle of the century Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield and Leeds were already big cities. But administratively and politically, they were still treated as villages and had no representation in Parliament.
All towns, old and new, had no drainage system; dirt was seldom or never removed from the streets. Towns often suffered from epidemics. In London, only one child in four grew up to become an adult. The majority of the poorer population suffered from drinking as the most popular drink was gin. Quakers started developing the beer industry and promoting the spread of beer as a less damaging drink. Soon beer drinking became a national habit.
As England was becoming the main commercial centre of Europe, London was turning into the centre of wealth and civilization. Ships came up the Thames which resembled a forest of masts. There was a great deal of buying, selling and bargaining in the open.
The City, or the Square Mile of Money, became the most important district of London. The Lord Mayor was never seen in public except in his rich robe, a hood of black velvet and a golden chain. He was always escorted by heralds and guards. On great occasions, he appeared on horseback or in his gilded coach. A commonly used phrase said, “He who is tired of London is tired of life”. But the 18th century London was, naturally, different from what it became later. The streets were so narrow that wheeled carriages had difficulty in passing each other. Houses were built of brick or stone, as well as of wood and plaster. The upper part of the houses was built much further out than the lower part, so far out that people living on the upper floors could touch each other’s hands by stretching out over the street. Houses were not numbered as the majority of the population were illiterate. Shops, inns, taverns, theatres and coffee-houses had painted signs illustrating their names. The most typical names and pictures were “The Red Lion”, “The Swan”, “The Golden Lamb”, “The Blue Bear”, “The Rose”.
Londoners preferred to walk in the middle of the streets so as to avoid the rubbish thrown out of the windows and open doors. In rainy weather the gutters that ran along the streets, turned into black torrents, which roared down to the Thames, carrying to it all the rubbish from the City. The streets were not lighted at night. Thieves and pickpockets plied their trade without fear of being punished. It was difficult to get about even during the day, let alone at night.
Wealthier Londoners preferred using the river. The boatmen dressed in blue garments waited for customers at the head of the steps leading down to the waterside. Another way of getting about London 
was in a sedan-chair. It was put on two long horizontal poles which were carried by two men. When ladies went out to pay visits, the lid of the sedan-chair had to be opened to make room for the fashionable hair-dresses and hats.
The introduction of coffee, tea and chocolate as common drinks led to the establishment of coffee-houses. These were a kind of first clubs. Coffee-houses kept copies of newspapers, they became centres of political discussion. Every coffee-house had its own favourite speaker to whom the visitors listened with great admiration. Each rank and profession, each shade of religious or political opinion had its own coffee-house. There were earls and clergymen, university students and translators, printers and index-makers. Men of literature and the wits met at a coffee-house which was frequently visited by the poet John Dryden. Here one could also meet Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Johnson and other celebrities.
The 18th century gave birth to the Industrial Revolution: it brought about the mechanization of industry and the consequent changes in social and economic organization. The change from domestic industry to the factory system began in the textile industry. It was transformed by such inventions as Kay’s flying shuttle (1733), Hargreave’s spinning jenny (1764) and others. Newcomen’s steam engine (1705) perfected by Watt (1765) provided a power supply. Communications were improved by the locomotives invented by Stephenson. The 18th century improvements in agricultural methods freed rural labour for industry and increased the productivity of the land. That was followed by the rapid growth of towns, mostly near coal-fields. Miserable working and housing conditions later inspired the Luddites, or workers who deliberately smashed machinery in the industrial centres in the early 19th century. The followers of Ned Ludd, an 18th century riot leader, believed that the use of machines caused unemployment. They fought against unemployment in a most primitive way which, to them, seemed effective.
At the end of the 18th century the struggle of the 13 American colonies for independence from British rule turned into the War of American Independence (1775 – 1783). The war was caused by the British attempts to tax the colonies for revenue and to make them pay for a standing army. The colonies revolted under George Washington and declared their independence in 177. In 1778 – 1780 France, Spain and the Netherlands, one by one, declared war on Britain. Military operations were held on the American continent. In 1781 Britain lost command of the sea, and her army was finally defeated at Yorktown. In 1783 the war ended with the Treaty of Paris, in which the independence of the USA was officially recognized. George Washington became the country’s first president. The war discredited the government of George III, weakened France financially, and served as an inspiration for the French Revolution and for revolutions in the Spanish colonies in America.
It should be noted that the War of Independence was won by the Americans largely due to the French support. The famous poet and playwright Bomarchet, who was a secret agent of the French government, shipped arms and ammunition over the Atlantic Ocean to the insurgents. In Paris, he met Benjamin Franklin, who was the American ambassador to France. Franklin is one of the prominent figures in American history. To begin with, he helped to draft the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Besides being one of the founding fathers of the American nation, Franklin gained a worldwide reputation for his scientific discoveries, which included a new theory of the nature of electricity, and for his inventions, among which there was the lightning conductor.
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Painting
Britain’s naval supremacy in the 18th century gave rise to marine painting. Victories at sea led to a steady demand for pictures of sea-battles, and marine painters made a good living from naval commissions. Another factor that promoted marine painting was a changing attitude towards the sea and the seashore. Many of the novelists, poets and artists turned to the sea as a source of inspiration.
The 18th century was also the great age of British landscape and portrait painting. Sir Joshua Reynolds, William Hogarth and Thomas Gainsborough were the greatest masters of the century. They debated whether painting should follow poetry.
Sir Joshua Reynolds was more academic in his views and manner of painting. That English portrait painter dominated English artistic life in the middle and late 18th century. Through his art and teaching, he attempted to lead British painting away from the indigenous anecdotal pictures of the early 18th century toward the formal rhetoric of the continental Grand Style. With the founding of the Royal Academy in 1768, Reynolds was elected its first president and knighted by King George III.
Thomas Gainsborough was known for his portraits of fashionable society in the late 18th century and for his landscapes of the English countryside. His art could be described as “natural”. One of Gainsborough’s celebrated works is his portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews featuring a wealthy Suffolk landowner and his wife against the background of their estate.
William Hogarth was a major English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist. He is best known for his moral and satirical engravings and paintings and may well be called a painter and engraver of modern moral subjects.
All three of them unmistakably are recognized as the 18th century greatest English artists whose pictures belong to the treasure-trove of European painting.
· Music
In music, the leading musician of the century was George Frederick Handel (1685 – 1759). He was a musician and composer of German birth and a naturalized Englishman. He composed with extreme facility. For example, “Messiah” was written in 21 days. His immense output includes over 40 operas (the best known of which is “Rinaldo”), about 20 oratorios, organ concertos, vocal and choral music and a great mass of chamber and instrumental music. Even his religious and formal music is dominated by the influence of the theatre. His music expresses the full range of human feelings; it is profoundly psychological and subtle.
As Handel was patronized by the king, he sometimes fell victim to the intrigues of courtiers and politicians who wanted him to support their cause in front of the king. Handel was bitterly criticized by a group of playwrights and composers who promoted a national way in English music. Among them was John Gay (1685 – 1732), a poet and playwright. His most famous work, a lyrical drama “The Beggar’s Opera” was turned into a music piece by John Pepusch, another German composer, mostly known for his vocal music. The new musical comedy, based on the plot suggested by Jonathan Swift, was a bitter political satire on politicians, witty and joyful. Handel was mocked at in the second act, when a group of robbers marched to the music from his opera “Rinaldo”. “The Beggar’s Opera” was a tremendous success. During the winter season of 1728 it was performed 62 times.
The problem of vital importance for the 18th century philosophers and writers was the study of man and the origin of his good and evil qualities. Human nature, they claimed, was virtuous and any deviation from virtue was due to the influence of a vicious society. Formulated in this way, the problem acquired social importance. The survivals of feudalism, on the one hand, and the evils of the new system of production, on the other hand, were to be seen everywhere. Progressive writers explained that vice was caused by ignorance and the way out was to enlighten the people. Thus, the 18th century English writers started a public movement of Enlightenment. They hoped to improve the world by teaching and bringing the light of knowledge to the population. The enlighteners rejected Church dogmas and class distinctions.
The movement of the Enlightenment appeared in England, and then spread to the Continent. Later, France produced eminent writers who fought for enlightening the people: Voltaire, Rousseau and others In every country, supporters of the Enlightenment shared the same views: a deep hatred for feudalism and its survivals, systematic education for all, self-government and liberty. They all spoke up for the ordinary people particularly for peasants whose fate was to be decided in the 18th century.
Notwithstanding these common features, there was a difference between the ideas expressed by the English and those expressed by the French writers of the period: an intellectual calm is felt in English literature because the English were past their revolution, while in France the turbulent spirit of the fight for freedom was only beginning. The French literature of the Enlightenment prepared the French for the Great Revolution which broke out at the end of the 18th century.
· Literature of the Enlightenment
In England, the period saw the transition from the poetic age of Shakespeare to the prosaic age of essayists. The style of prose became clear, graceful and polished. Writers accepted such literary forms as were intelligible to all. Satire gained popularity. The period also saw the rise of the political pamphlet. Most of the authors of the time wrote political pamphlets, but the best came from the pens of Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift. Among the best known essayists were Steele and Addison. Periodical newspapers had been published since the Civil War, and in 1702 the first daily newspaper was established.
Much of the drama was written in prose, and the leading form of literature was the novel. The hero of the novel was no longer a prince, but a representative of the middle class. That had never happened before – ordinary people had usually been represented only as comical characters.
Towards the middle of the century there appeared a new literary trend – sentimentalism. Richardson, Goldsmith, Fielding – those names evoked a lively response in the hearts of readers both in Europe and across the Atlantic. The first writer of the sentimental school in Europe was Samuel Richardson. His novels Pamela, Clarissa and History of Sir Charles Grandison were the works that showed the inner world of the characters. Richardson appealed to the hearts of the readers and made them sympathize with his unfortunate heroes. The novels were a tremendous success in the 18th and 19th centuries all over Europe.
We can say that the English writers of the Enlightenment formed two groups. Those who hoped to better the world merely by teaching were Joseph Addison (who wrote essays), Richard Steele (who wrote essays, comedies), Daniel Defoe (the author of Robinson Crusoe), Alexander Pope (the author of The Rape of the Lock), Samuel Richardson (the author of Pamela). The other group included the writers who openly protested against the vicious social order. Those were Jonathan Swift (the author of Gulliver’s Travels), Henry Fielding (who wrote The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling), Oliver Goldsmith (the author of The Vicar of Wakefield), Richard Sheridan (the author of The School for Scandal), Tobias Smollett (the author of Peregrine Pickle), Robert Burns (who wrote Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect).
The poetry of the 18th century was didactic and satirical. It was the poetry of the town and its fashionable life as well as the poetry of worldly wisdom. The leading poet of the century was Alexander Pope – one of the first English classicists. He had little contact with the average reader because in order to read and enjoy Pope one had to be familiar with the works of Horace, Virgil and the Greek poet Theocritus. In 1715 Pope published his translations of the Iliad and the Oddysey by Homer, which made him famous. Pope had a delicate sense of style, which he polished to the last degree of gleaming finish. His poems, such as The Rape of the Lock, are notable for their elegant style.
Pope organized a society of literary men who called themselves the “Martin Scriblerus’ Club”. Martin Scriblerus was an imaginary personage: anyone who wished to publish a satire in a magazine was allowed to use the name of Martin Scriblerus as a pseudonym. Pope hoped that when put together those stories would make an interesting book. But they remained isolated compositions. Yet, it was Martin Scriblerus that inspired Swift to write the famous novel Gulliver’s Travels.
· 
Robert Burns (1759-1796)
Robert Burns, who is rightly considered to be the national pride o f Scotland, began writing poetry at the age of 15. But it was only 10 years later that his first volume of poems was published – Poems: Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. The book won him immediate success. The source of Burns’ poetry is Scottish folklore. Burns was deeply aware of the dignity and equality of men. He wrote epigrams on idle noblemen and at the same time composed tender lyrical verses.
Oh my luve’s like a red, red rose …, John Barleycorn, The Tree of Liberty, Auld Lang Syne – these famous poems and songs have been popular for two centuries. The Burns festival is held every year with people coming from all over the world.
Most of Burns' poems were written in Scots. They document and celebrate traditional Scottish culture. Burns wrote in a variety of forms: letters to friends, ballads, and songs. He is well known for the over three hundred songs which celebrate love, friendship, work, and drink with often hilarious and tender sympathy. Even today, he is often referred to as the National Bard of Scotland.
· Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Doctor Johnson is little known outside Britain. But in his time he 
was a popular English poet, essayist, biographer, lexicographer and a critic of English Literature.
In the words of a modern scholar, he was a “great literary personality”. He compiled and published the Dictionary of the English Language (1755). Despite common assumptions that Dr. Johnson wrote the first dictionary of the English language, there had been nearly twenty "English" dictionaries in the preceding 150 years. Johnson's dictionary was to rise above all these because of his meticulous research; his depth and breadth of definitions and his careful use of description.
Samuel Johnson was the son of a poor bookseller. He attended Lichfield Grammar School and a few weeks after he turned nineteen, he became a student of Oxford University. After thirteen months, however, poverty forced him to leave Oxford without taking a degree and he returned to Lichfield. Just before the publication of his Dictionary, Oxford University awarded Johnson the degree of Master of Arts. In 1775, Oxford University awarded him an honorary doctorate.
The two outstanding figures in the 18th century literature of England were Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift.
· Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Swift was an Irish-born Englishman who spent a large part of his 
life in Ireland. He got a Bachelor’s degree in 1686 and for a long time had to work as a private secretary and accountant to Sir William Temple, a statesman and a courtier, who resided at Moor Park, not far from London. And although Sir William liked the young man, the ambitious Swift considered that he was treated just a little better than a servant. In 1692 he went to Oxford to take his Master’s degree. After that he became a vicar at a little parish church in Ireland. Later, he returned to Sir William Temple and continued working for him and writing pamphlets and satires in his spare time. Swift was one of the most critical and sarcastic journalists of the time. One of his best-known pamphlets was The Tale of the Tub.
