About the Book English poetry begins with Anglo-Saxon poetry such as the hymn on the creation, which Bede attributes to Cædmon (658–680AD). William Shakespeare was the stand out poet of the Elizabethan period, while Milton was considered the greatest poet of Jacobean and Caroline pe5riod (1603-1670). The Romantic movement was very big, proiducing such greats as William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Keats. The major Victorian poets were John Clare, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Matthew Arnold and Gerard Manley Hopkins. James Macpherson was the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation, while Robert Burns is regarded as the national poet of Scotland. The most important figure of Scottish Romanticism, Walter Scott, began as a poet. In Wales the works of the great hymn writers of the 18th and 19th centuries were the poets William Williams Pantycelyn and Ann Griffiths. In the early 20th century there was a Welsh renaissance, with poets like T. H. Parry-Williams and D. Gwenallt Jones and T. Gwynn Jones.
Also in this Book Theatre has been an important part of British and Irish culture, dating back to the Roman occupation. Medieval mystery plays and morality plays were performed at religious festivals. The reign of Elizabeth I the flowering of drama was personified by William Shakespeare. Puritans banned drama during the Interregnum of 1642—1660, but London theatres opened again with the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, and flourished thereafter. In the 18th century, highbrow and provocative Restoration comedy was replaced by sentimental comedy, and domestic tragedy (George Lillo's The London Merchant, 1731), and a fascination with Italian opera. The Romanticism period (1798–1836) saw melodramas, light comedies, operas, pantomimes, translations of French farces, and Victorian burlesque. Drama was revived again in the late 19th century with plays on the London stage by the Irishmen George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde and the Norwegian Henrik Ibsen. JM Synge and Noel Coward contributed in the 20th century.
And in this Book Most of Great Britain, made up by England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, was conquered by Rome, which ruled the island for almost 500 years. Subjected to raids by Continental Angles, Jutes and Saxons, in 1066 England was conquered by the Normans, who were eventually assimilated. While Wales came under Anglo-Norman control in 1282, it wasn't officially annexed by England until the 16th century. After the Wars of Scottish Independence, the House of Stuart ruled Scotland uncontested for three centuries. In 1707 England, Scotland and Wales formed the United Kingdom, which fueled by such developments as the England-led Industrial Revolution, the Scottish Enlightenment, and the building of the expansive British Empire. The Empire came under extreme pressure during World War 1, and was further weakened by World War 2, resulting in its dissolution, and the establishment of the British Commonwealth of Nations in its place.
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