JORGE IVAN OQUENDO LIZARAZO

ENGLISH LITERATURE

Professor Gomez

December 1ST, 2012

PARTS OF LITERATURE

Literature is defined by its meaning in Latin as “things made from letters”;

thus, one can say that any thing someone writes can be considered as a literary
piece. However, many people do not share that meaning and affirm that it only
refers to serious publications. This discussion has taken place for many times,
therefore, what many authors accept referring to the word, as many other
complex terms, is that literature is what society considers literature; that means,
the contribution to humanity that a work has based on the value of it. On the
other hand, another great portion of people can see literature only as a boring
aspect of life and a nonsense academic study of letters. This may happen
because those individuals do not actually know the pleasure and history of
literature, ignoring not only beautiful pieces of arts but also the reasons they
actually exist. A clear example of that history can be reflected in two important
periods of literature: The Churchyard School of Poets and The XVIII Century
Prose.

First of all, those periods of the literature show two different topics in
which they mostly focused in. On one hand, the also called graveyard school of
poets had as their main subject Death. Their poems were based on topics like
life, death, vision and also what happens beyond death; commonly showing
ghost, souls and all those characters that are supposed to exist after passing
away. On the other hand, the eighteen century prose had as its main subject
reason. That means, the pieces of writing almost always expressed reasonable
things, real events, actual situations and stories of adventure.

Secondly, these important days of literature in English possessed two

different styles of writing. On the part of the “death poets”, the graveyards
wrote most of their works as their name says as Poems. In this epoch authors
such as Edward Young and Robert Blair preferred to write not only poems but
specifically in Blank Verses, and others like William Cowper began a new style of
poems away from the classical. In contrast, the prose of the XVIII century was
represented by stories of authors such as Richard Steele and Joseph Addison,
Jonathan Swift and even the named “literary ruler” Dr. Samuel Johnson. Besides,
in this prose English letters played a fundamental role; although it was not
possible to know exactly when they arrived, they were very common for
important events. Authors like Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Earl of Chesterfield
are perfect proofs of it, adding the great prose of Horace Walpole. Lastly, the
English novels were icing on the cake; examples such as “Clarissa Harlowe” by
Samuel Richardson or “Joseph Andrews” by Henry fielding speak for themselves.

Finally, although the mentioned periods seemed to be quite different,

they both contributed relevantly to the world literature of all times. From the
parts of the graveyard poets, one can find the master piece “Ellegy Written in a
Country Churchyard”; Thomas Gray wrote it in 1750 and nowadays it is
considered the most beautiful poem in English. And even many experts assure
that “The quality of its poetry and insights reach Shakespearean and Miltonian
heights.” The XVIII century prose was not different in providing important
aspects during its period. A great example of it is “Journal of Plague Year” by
Daniel Defoe one of the first works in English during that time, and the well-
known “Robinson Crusoe” in 1719 by the same author. Moreover, Edward
Gibbon contributed a lot with “Decline and Fall of Roman Empire” in 1778
because of its important to history. To end with, one can mention “Pamela” by
Samuel Richardson (1740), claimed as the first novel in English and the famous
“Gulliver’s Travels” and its many adaptations.

To conclude, the history of literature in English has had many important

periods, however The Churchyard School of Poets and The XVIII Century of
Prose have played a relevant role by comparing their main subjects, style of
writing and overall, their contribution to the world in terms of letters, because
during those times many important authors and works appeared, helping
people to build their way of conceive the world and life.