English belongs to the Germanic arm of the Indo-European family of languages that can roughly be defined as Slavic / Slavonic (central and East European, reaching down into the northern parts of the Balkans -eg Serbia, Monetnegro), Romantic (Mediterranean including some Balkan - eg Albanian) and Germanic. There are a couple of European anomalies that don’t fit the pattern; namely Finnish and Hungarian.

As is the case in many languages, English literature has a proliferation of what have become classics. However English literature is relatively unique in that it formed a number of hard forks as it evolved and this was increased with the emergence of most prominently American literature among other Anglophone writings. As such a canon of English has been well established and this literature provides a rich source of language and meaning to the cultural phenotype of each of the Anglophone nations. The Oxford Dictionary defines literature as ‘written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit,’ and thus it is not just restricted to the novel, but also includes plays and poetry.

Classic literature also encompasses a whole sub-genre of children’s literature and broadly it has evolved hand-in-hand with the English language and the very earliest English Classics didn’t even sound English and were somewhat closer to German with Saxon roots. Even so each one I am going cite represents a key milestone in the development of the English we know and use today.

It is impossible in a short piece like this to provide a wholesale summary or an in depth thesis of any of these writers and their respective authors. The point of this piece is to pick out some exemplars from each period.

On the whole English evolved through an additive process of absorbing new vocabulary from other languages. Most if not all –tion words are derived from French and the English word robot is not an acronym but comes from the Czech word for worker and indeed you will find similar sounding words in other Slavic languages – for example the Polish word robotnik.  Broadly speaking English can be described in terms of Old English, Middle English and Modern English.

Old English – Beowulf

When it comes to Old English, because there isn’t such a breadth of literature to draw upon, the go to text has to be Beowulf. Written sometime in the second half of the first millennium, its exact authorship is unknown. In the form of an epic poem it tells the story of Beowulf who defeats the monster Grendel in aid of Hrothgar the King of the Danes before going on to fight against other monsters and finally being mortally wounded in his victory against a dragon. Much of the detail on the emergence of Beowulf is shrouded in mystery as there is only one original manuscript known as the Nowell Codex. To the modern reader it would not be recognisable as English to read or be heard. In fact in a relatively recent film subtitles had to be helpfully added even for the native speaker of English.

Middle English – Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer, writing during the second half of the 14th century, is not only remarkable because of the large body of work he produced, but also because of his lasting significance on the evolution of English. This was driven in a large part by his choice to write in a vernacular form of Middle English, which was very much tied to the London accent of the time. This conscious decision to use English rather than Latin or French helped shape the nature of Middle English.

Unsurprisingly many call him the father of English literature

He is best known for The Canterbury Tales, which are a mixture of short stories, written in a poetic style. In some ways his stories are seen as a social commentary on English society at the time. Unlike Beowulf it is recognisably English.

Early Modern English – from Shakespeare to Modernity

The great hero of English literature to many has always been William Shakespeare a prolific writer of plays, which were written to be performed and less so to be read, which is why countless generations of English literature students have contended with what to all intents and purposes is almost a foreign language (stuffed with words like thee, thy and thou and other archaic forms) in stuffy classrooms. His plays broadly divide into histories, tragedies and comedies and his style was even slightly out of date at the time of writing. He gave us a whole plethora of new words and expressions that have been added to the English language - and a few that haven't eg he tried to use couth as the antonym of uncouth, but it wasn't adopted.

One of the problems with reading Shakespeare is that it can at times be misinterpreted. Consider the following line from Romeo and Juliet:

Romeo, Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo?

It is from the famous balcony scene and as Juliet looks over Verona she is not asking Romeo where he is as some might understand it, she is actually asking why he is Romeo and more to the point why is he a Montague and in the opening scenes of the play a feud between his family and Juliet’s family the Capulets was explained as a backdrop to the whole tragedy. In the modern vernacular it could be translated as:

‘Romeo, Romeo why the hell did you need to belong to that family of all the families you could belong to?’

He was a contemporary of Christopher Marlowe and indeed there is a large body of research that indicates that it was Marlowe who influenced Shakespeare rather than the other way round. It is therefore strange that Shakespeare is better remembered and this may simply come down to the fact that Marlowe died young at 29 and thus wrote a lot less. It is almost certain that his early death was a coincidence when his most famous play was Dr Faust, which tells the age old story of selling your sell to the Devil for a mortal life of ‘fame, wealth and maidens faire’. It is a cautionary tale with a final reckoning, one that came far too early in Marlowe’s case.  

By the time the two of them were writing the forms they were using were already using an archaic form that didn't represent everyman's language and the next heroes of English had to be the Bronte sisters and Charles Dickens, the latter of whom was as much a social commentator as he was an author who brought things more in line with a kind of English we could read directly with little or no linguistic challenge. These were the books that became the springboard for what we have now, with a lineage stretching through J R R Tolkien and CS Lewis, Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie and JK Rowling as well as my own rather meek publications under the name A K Pasek :) (although I would never dare to compare myself to such masters). Of course we cannot disregard the contribution of American authors even up to George R R Martin and his Song of Ice and Fire nor the heritage which they inherited from the works of George Eliot (a female writer using a male pen name) and Harper Lee.

Thank you for taking this short trip with me. As always stay safe and well my friends.