The Linguistic Culture-4 (folklore and literature) (1157931), страница 2
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When the London theatres wereopened again with the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, they flourished underthe personal interest and support of Charles II. Wide and socially mixed audienceswere attracted by topical writing and by the introduction of the first professionalactresses (in Shakespeare's time, all female roles had been played by boys). Newgenres of the Restoration were heroic drama, pathetic drama, and Restorationcomedy.
The Restoration plays that have best retained the interest of producers andaudiences were the comedies, such as William Wycherley's The Country Wife(1676), The Rover (1677) by the first professional woman playwright, AphraBehn, John Vanbrugh's The Relapse (1696), and William Congreve's The Way ofthe World (1700).In the 18th century, the highbrow and provocative Restoration comedy wasreplaced by sentimental comedy, domestic tragedy such as George Lillo's TheLondon Merchant (1731), and by an overwhelming interest in Italian opera.Popular entertainment became more important in this period than ever before.These forms flourished at the expense of English drama, which went into a longperiod of decline. A change came in the late 19th century with the plays on theLondon stage by the Irishmen George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde andNorwegian Henrik Ibsen, all of whom influenced domestic English drama andvitalised it again.Today there are over 200 theaters in Britain: 40 of which are situated in London’sWest End.
The most famous British theaters are The Royal Opera and RoyalBallet, both based at Covent Garden, the National Theatre and the BarbicanTheatre. The National is a part of the South Bank Arts Centre, located near theRiver Thames. The Centre contains three theatres, cinemas, an art gallery, lectureand concert halls. The diamond of the National is the 1.160-seat Oliver Theatre,named after famous actor and director Laurence Olivier. The Royal ShakespeareCompany performs at the Barbican in London and in Shakespeare's birthplaceStratford-upon-Avon. The most popular British theatres receive support from theArts Council of Great Britain.Important modern playwrights include Alan Ayckbourn, John Osborne, HaroldPinter, Tom Stoppard, and Arnold Wesker.A prolific composer of the 20th century Andrew Lloyd Webber has dominatedthe West End for a number of years and his musicals have travelled to Broadway inNew York and around the world, as well as being turned into films.Pop music in Britain influenced by music from all over the world is also animportant part of British culture, not just an expression of Englishness, but anindicator of the multi-cultural nature of Britain today.
It is mainly a mixture ofstyles. “Ragga” brings together “rap” and “reggae», for example. Pop music isinfluencing traditional music. It is difficult to find people who don’t listen to musicat least for pleasure so it is not surprising, that music can be an instrument of socialinfluence and change. The need and appreciation for music is evident in theeveryday lives of people as well as it is heard at concerts, in movies, on televisionand throughout all forms of audio media.In the early 20th century American influences became most dominant in popularmusic, with young performers producing their own versions of American music,including rock n' roll from the late 1950s and developing a parallel music scene.This led to the explosion of the 'British Invasion' of America of the early 1960s,headed by The Beatles, from which point rock music and popular music in generalbecame something of an Anglo-American collaboration, with movements on oneside of the ocean being exported to the other.
As a result of these factors the UnitedKingdom remained a major source of musical innovation and participation in themodern era.LiteratureBritish literature is so rich that it is absolutely impossible to describe its history andits main writers, poets and dramatists in any detail.Like many other world literatures English literature grew up from the rich anddiverse folklore heritage of the nations constituting this country. Rich narrativetraditions of ballads, songs and tales come to us through literature, writings ofEnglish authors ranging from Chaucer, Shakespeare and BenJohnson, to William Yeats, Burns and Bernard Shaw and JohnMilton. The collector of Scottish folklore Walter Scott used manyfolklore elements in his wonderful historical novels.
Scottish poetRobert Burns whom we know via wonderful translations by Marshakgrew up on the folklore traditions of his land.Everyone in the childhood read Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe(1660-1731), Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Oliver Twistand David Copperfield by one of the greatest English writers of the 19th centuryCharles Dickens (1812-1870).The Bronte sisters were exceptional writers of poetry as well as fiction.Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte areread and enjoyed even now. Thomas Hardy’s and Jane Austen’s novels reflecteddifferent sides of English life of the 19th century.
It was not easy for 19 centurywomen writers to sell their books under their real names. Many of them used malepseudonyms: George Eliot (1819-1880) never used her real name which was MaryAnn Evans. Her books show a detailed picture of provincial Victorian society withhumour and feeling. A Scottish writer Robert Stevenson (180-94) wrote famousadventure novels, and an English novelist William Thackeray (1811-63) in hisbrilliant satire Vanity Fair became the master of great individuality.
Jerome, K.Jerome (1859-1927) wrote two humorous books, one of which Three Men in aBoat is favourite with the Russian students. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) wrotea lot of poems, stories and tales, which children of all the countries still enjoytoday. His stories about Mowglii and finest animal stories inspired Walt Disney tocreate a wonderful cartoon film. He was the first English writer to be awarded theNobel Prize in 1907.
An Irish-born author Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) creatednovels, stories and plays, still staged in Russian theatres. The War of the World byH. Wells (1866-1946) became the first great works of sciencefiction.There were many wonderful poets in Britain. Romantic poetsBaron and Shelly influenced the poetry of Alezander.Pushkin.Many great writers and poets are commemorated by statues at theirbirth-places or in big cities like London. Robert Burns (17591796) is regarded by the Scottish people as their national poet.Burns’s poems and songs, known to us through translations ofSamuel Marshak, were written in a very expressive Northern dialect.
R.Burns grewup in a farm and managed to combine in his simple poems all tenderness, richhumour, lyric and love for freedom of the Scottish folklore heroes. His birthday iscelebrated in Scotland in cities, towns and villages as the national holiday and hisstatue and tiny house in Dumfries are the places, visited by his numerous admirers.The 20th century gave a great number of talented British writers, poets anddramatists: poet Thomas Eliot (1888-1965), novelist and dramatist JohnGalsworthy (1867-1933), David Lawrence, satirist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963),Sean O’Keisi, Richard Oldington, novelist, dramatist and essayist John Priestly(1894-1984), Evelyn Waugh (1903-66), Graham Green (1904-91), Irish novelistJames Joyce (1882-1941) and many others.
Joyce’s novel Ulysses started thedevelopment of modernist literature in Britain. In this novel and later inEinnegan’s Wake Joyce revolutionized the techniques of fiction – writing,introducing the “stream of consciousness,” inventing words, and experimentingwith syntax.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) in her novels also experimented with thestream-of-consciosness narrative technique.An Irish playwright Sean O’Casey wrote a number of tragicomedies, blendingrealism with symbolism and poetry with vernacular speech. The writings of Irishpoet William Yeats (1865-1939), marked with the Nobel Prize in 1923, had agreat influence on the development of the British poetry of the 20 th century.
All hisbooks of verses were full of the Celtic spirit, brilliant vigorous technique, thecombination of western viewpoint with national philosophy and traditions. TheIrish people are also proud of their countryman – playwright Bernard Show,(1856-190) whose satirical, witty and psychological plays became well known notonly in Britain, but also all over the world, including Russia.
Among Shaw’ bestknown plays are Heartbreak House, Saint Joan and Pygmalion, based on a Greekmyth about a sculptor who carved a statue of a woman and fell in love with her.The adaptation of Pygmalion is a very popular musical “My fair lady”,successfully staged in Broadway and many Europeans theaters.William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) is considered to be the best short-storywriters in English. Many of his stories, together with novels and playshave been dramatized and became very fashionable and successful.Agatha Christie, the world’s most successful and best-knowndetective writer, occupies a special place in British literature.
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