Sunflower

Olga Vovk

William Shakespeare: Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white; why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go -
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Olga Vovk

Jane Eyre

Olga Vovk

Great Expectations

Olga Vovk

Romeo and Juliet

Olga Vovk

Tudor period

The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII (1457 – 1509). The term can be used more broadly to include Elizabeth I's reign (1558 – 1603), although this is often treated separately as the Elizabethan era.
In terms of the entire century, Guy (1988) argues that "England was economically healthier, more expansive, and more optimistic under the Tudors" than at any time in a thousand years.
The House of Tudor produced six monarchs who ruled during this period.
 Henry VII (1485 to 1509)
 Henry VIII (1509 to 1547)
 Edward VI (1547 to 1553)
 Lady Jane Grey (1553) – Nominal queen for nine days in failed bid to prevent accession of Mary I. Not a member of the House of Tudor.

 Mary I (1553 to 1558)
 Elizabeth I (1558 to 1603)

Olga Vovk

In French it means 'rebirth'. The period following the Middle ages in European History. A vital flowering of the arts and sciences, accompained by thrilling changes in religious and philosophical thought, the Renaissance started in Italy in the late fourteenth century and spread throughout the Europe, reaching England during the reigns of Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and James I (1603-1625).

Olga Vovk

A crucial time in the history of the English language and literature. Middle English was the language in a variety of different dialect forms which resulted from the modification of Anglo Saxons after the norman conquest in 1066, and which was spoken and used as a vehical for literature until about 1500 when the London dialect(used by Chaucer) became the standard literary language, and therefore recognisably the basis for 'modren English'. An Anglo Norman period, in which French dialect dominated non Latin literature, lasted until about 1350. After that date, especially during the reign of Richard II (1377-1399), Middle English literature burgeoned.

Chaucer was the leading poet. His Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde rank amongst the greatest works in English literature.

His contemporaries include John Gower, who wrote the Confessio Amantis, Willain Langland, author of the religious dream satire Piers Plowman, and the anonymous poet who wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl.

In the fifteenth century several Middle Scots poets, sometimes called the SCOTTISH CHAUSERIANS, including King James I of Scotland, Robert Henryson, Gavin Douglas and William Dunbar, represented a flowering of poetic talent in Scotland.

The fifteeth century was also the age of medieval drama, the MIRACLE and MORALITY PLAYS, of popular lyrics and BALLADS, and of Sir Thomas Malory's great Authurian prose ROMANCE Le Morte d' Arthur.

Olga Vovk

Old English(O.E) or Anglo Saxon was the language spoken in England in widely differing dialects c.450, when Britain was invaded by various Germanic tribes including the Angles and Saxons, till the invasion of the Normans from France under William the Conqueror in 1066. After conversion to Christainity became general in the seventh century, some of the Anglo Saxon poems, till then part of an Oral culture, were written down, no doubt being modified by monks in the process. Only a handful survive, but they include vigorous ALLITERATIVE LAMENTS like "The Wanderer" and "The Seafarer" and also the great Epic Beowulf. Some Anglo Saxon poems are explicitly Christian like "The Dream of the Rood". the prose of the period is also lively and various: Alred the Great, King of the West Saxons(817-899), was himself a writer and a patron of the arts. The great scholar of the age was Bede(8th century), who wrote in Latin.