The Picaresque Novel

The Picaresque Novel is a chronicle, usually written in the first person.
It presents the life story of a rogue of low social class.
He makes his living more through his wits than his industry.
                         
The term 'picaresque' has been derived from the Spanish word 'picaro' or 'rouge'
who wanders from one place to another, from one inn to another.
He may be a servant of several masters.
Through his experience, this 'picaro' satirises the society in which he lives.

The protagonist or the central character mixes with other rouges
and thieves, knocks at the doors of the great, may even languish in prison.
He suffers every ups and downs.

The novelist thus gets an opportunity to introduce a variety of
characters and incidents. Here his aim is essentially to entertain
and amuse rather than to reform or improve.

The earliest picaresque novels were written in the middle of the 16th
century in Spain. the picaresque novel which influenced that kind
of novel in England is the French Gil Blas.

The credit of being the first writer of picaresque novel in
english goes to Thomas Nash. His novel 'The Unfortunate Traveller
belongs to that tradition.

With Daniel Defoe (1659- 1731) in the 18th century, the type gained
importance. His novels are formless and narrate the adventures of some
social outcast or rouge. They move from place to place and country to
country. They have a variety of adventures.

Defoe may have enlarged the scope of picaresque novel by depicting the adventures
of a dissolute heroine, instead of a dissolute hero. His Moll Flanders presents
the life of a female picaro.

Henry Fielding's  (1707-54) Tom Jones also is built on the picaresque model .
It however differs from it in the several important respects.

Smollett's (1721-71) novels also are in the picaresque tradition. His
Roderick Random (1748) is a fine example. Its hero a roving dog, of little honesty.
He traverses many lands, undergoing many tricks of fortunate, both good and
bad.

The Picaresque novels continued to be written in the Victorian age and
later. Charles Dickens is a fine example of following that tradition in
novel writing.

Old English literature: c. 450–1066

Old English literature, or Anglo-Saxon literature, encompasses the surviving literature written in Old English in Anglo-Saxon England, in the period after the settlement of the Saxons and other Germanic tribes in England (Jutes and the Angles) c. 450, after the withdrawal of the Romans, and "ending soon after the Norman Conquest" in 1066.[3] These works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles and riddles.[4] In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period.[4]

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English, from the 9th century, that chronicle the history of the Anglo-Saxons.[5] The poem Battle of Maldon also deals with history. This is a work of uncertain date, celebrating the Battle of Maldon of 991, at which the Anglo-Saxons failed to prevent a Viking invasion.[6]

Oral tradition was very strong in early English culture and most literary works were written to be performed.[7][8] Epic poems were very popular, and some, including Beowulf, have survived to the present day. Beowulf is the most famous work in Old English, and has achieved national epic status in England, despite being set in Scandinavia. The only surviving manuscript is the Nowell Codex, the precise date of which is debated, but most estimates place it close to the year 1000. Beowulf is the conventional title,[9][pages needed] and its composition is dated between the 8th[10][11] and the early 11th century.[12][pages needed]

Nearly all Anglo-Saxon authors are anonymous: twelve are known by name from medieval sources, but only four of those are known by their vernacular works with any certainty: Cædmon, Bede, Alfred the Great, and Cynewulf. Cædmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known,[13][pages needed] and his only known surviving work Cædmon's Hymn probably dates from the late 7th century. The poem is one of the earliest attested examples of Old English and is, with the runic Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry. It is also one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language. The poem, The Dream of the Rood, was inscribed upon the Ruthwell Cross.[13][pages needed]

Two Old English poems from the late 10th century are The Wanderer and The Seafarer. [14] Both have a religious theme, and Richard Marsden describes The Seafarer as "an exhortatory and didactic poem, in which the miseries of winter seafaring are used as a metaphor for the challenge faced by the committed Christian […]".[15]

Classical antiquity was not forgotten in Anglo-Saxon England, and several Old English poems are adaptations of late classical philosophical texts. The longest is King Alfred's (849–99) 9th-century translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy.[16]

The English literature

This article is focused on English-language literature rather than the literature of England, so that it includes writers from Scotland, Wales, and the whole of Ireland, as well as literature in English from countries of the former British Empire, including the United States. However, until the early 19th century, it only deals with the literature of the United Kingdom and Ireland. It does not include literature written in the other languages of Britain.
                 
                  The English language has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the fifth century, are calledOld English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of theprinting press to London and the King James Bible as well as the Great Vowel Shift.Through the influence of the British Empire, the English language has spread around the world since the 17th century.