BY Pragyansharma Polavarapu
BY Pragyansharma
Polavarapu
(1)INTRODUCTION
People all over the world in this
modern age are getting educated. Everybody is eager to know ancient history of
their country .History sites offer some good
old history and people feel thrilled. But
the modern man’s mind is deeply worried.
There is a desire and dream never
fulfilled. On planet Earth there should
be only affection and love between religions, languages, races and countries. There should be no horrible
wars with nuclear bombs , no mountainous hatreds in hearts and no ICBMs destroying G+10 , G+20 ,G+30 or even taller buildings
in seconds.
Now coming to the main story of my interest. I greatly like old English classics and wish to create such
interest in others . Book reading was the route how Indians in old times gathered knowledge about old
history and old literature of England.(There was no TV, no radio and no Internet) . There were only
printed books .
People wish for books of high intellectual
content. Some great old classical English books can be good for readers of even future centuries. Old English literature casts a spell on the
readers . There are novels on a wide variety of subjects. For example there are books
of Sir Walter Scott about heroic old world of knights on flying steeds speeding through thick forests --a picture ever loved
by children . The books of Charles Dickens tell about simple lives of factory slum dwellers and about their
innocent little joys in spite of the difficult lives. The books of Thomas Hardy
tell tragic stores of rural poor
of pre-Industrial Revolution period and the tragic tales remind us of ancient Greek Tragedy dramas. The wonderful novels
of Sir Arthur Connan Doyle are about scientific detectives
with
razor sharp minds. Jules Verne in 19th century, having knowledge about universal gravity and radio communication
, wrote about space rockets and earth orbiting
communications satellites . And masterly novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817) wove in
her novels gripping family stories of domestic romances, prejudices, jealousies etc
similar to those we enjoy in modern TV
serials.
Then there are great poets who have
painted pen pictures of extreme beauty.There are most beautiful poems of Wordsworth,
Shelley , S.T.Coleridge, Keats, Byron etc. Above all shines the genius of
William Shakespeare with his inimitable dramas written in old classical English in a style reminding of the slow
stately movement of royal elephants. All
these English classics are a big treasure
of the whole world.
*****
Now a little of the geography and
history of England—just for fun and enjoyment. These my descriptions
are not like camera pictures taken from
a speeding car but are like drone views from
a high altitude. To say in a more
abstract way of a physics student ,it is like a journey on the Time Axis(negative
direction) on the Space-Time
graphs of Dr Einstein. He is a scientist who played with other
moons, other earths and other suns of the endless universe --as if those
celestial spheres are laboratory toys. I
write with my very limited knowledge of English history. A rough
picture just sufficient in accuracy for school children and
general readers .
However,while recounting history of
our planet ,we can not ignore the horrible wars and other tragedies . During last 500 years there were large religious wars, sea battles between powerful European
countries, later wars for getting raw materials from distant lands and for establishing
colonies at those far off places, wars in
course of slave trade for two centuries
etc. There were prolonged wars of independence. There were revolutions -- the French revolution , the
Russian revolution , the Chinese revolution,the Vietnamese revoltion etc. There were the great World Wars One and Two in which millions of people died or were injured
or displaced . Even later, in spite of sincere peace efforts there occur horrible wars even in the present times. Let
us pray for birth of a new world of Love, Peace and Morality.
(2)A LITTLE OF HISTORY OF ENGLAND
Since 3000 years or more , there lived in British
Isles various peoples of European origin. One of such most ancient people are Celts who once lived in central Europe and
later spread to many parts of western Europe including British Isles, France
etc . The earlier Celtic people were of
Bronze Age when people used soft
metals like bronze for weapons and implements
. The later Celts belonged to Iron Age when tough iron weapons and implements were
started to be used. The Celts rode chariots and created most beautiful artistic
helmets, shields etc with bronze and gold with most intricate designs. This clearly
proves that the Celts were a highly
cultured intelligent people .They appear to have practiced a religion of nature - worship and worshipped nature
gods. They had a tough caste of priests
called Druids who guided all people in religion and education . The Celts were expert warriors using horse- drawn
chariots. 3000 years ago they spread all over British Isles.
Then much later ,another European people known as Anglo-Saxons who spoke old Germanic languages started to settle in England around 5th century AD. They were the people who
brought an ancient un-understandable English language which was not much
different from a German dialect. Both Celts and Anglo- Saxons were European
people but became strangers living separately for 3000 or 4000 years or more. Modern English is
a language that developed after a long period of 1300 long years from time of
arrival of Anglo-Saxons in England ---with
slow changes in hundreds of years absorbing many French, Greco-Roman words.
During and after the “Norman Invasion” Norman noble families came from ancient Romanized France . It
is said that much landed property changed from Anglo-Saxons to Norman families.
After the Norman invasion England was
ruled by kings of Norman origin for about 90 years but Norman culture invaded Anglo-Saxon England and pervaded
for 200 years and merged into English culture and became indistinguishable.
Old Celtic culture was submerged in dominating
Anglo-Saxon culture and later in the continental culture of Romanized France
called Norman culture. In modern England many people with Celtic links preserve some of their much loved Celtic dialects
in their families . But in modern times
all people including the Celtic origin people switched over to English language . This is because modern English
language acquired extremely great importance in this high technology age. English
is all pervasive in commerce ,banking and economics and administration in many
parts of the world. It is given wide importance in many areas of
knowledge—science ,literature, arts, philosophy, banking, diplomacy,
international relations , computer science and other modern technologies. In many countries of the world efforts are made to get their people familiar with English language so that they can travel to and
work in any part of the world and succeed in this high technology jet age .
Celtic languages are spoken and
fondly preserved in Scotland and Wales and other areas in England and in Republic of Ireland. But It is
mostly for enjoyment at home as a
precious treasure. Modern English is the language of whole country.The people realized that
English is a most powerful international language
widely spoken all over the world
.
(3) RECOUNTING OLD HISTORY
Let us again recount history so that
we can properly understand how modern English developed. Since about 1500 years
the British Isles had people of two
slightly different cultures –the Celtic people and the
Anglo-Saxons people. Around 500 AD the Anglo-Saxon people
who originally lived in their German homelands migrated to British
Isles. In the begining they perhaps came in small groups. In Northern Europe
near their ancient homelands melting polar ice caused frequent flooding.
The people decided to migrate to nearby Britain which was very
near and across a little section of the sea.The ancient people called Angles,
Saxons and Jutes united and were collectively called as Anglo-Saxons.
They felt that the land-- the rainy lush green landscape , low hills and vast undulating
meadows in southern England—was suitable for settling down . The sea being very
near to the islands, there are many periods
of rainy days and slate- colored skies.
The period of earliest Anglo-Saxon
raids on eastern shores of England and
the earlier centuries was a period when the mighty Roman Empire ruled most of
western Europe. Roman emperors with their highly disciplined armies conquered
all of Mediterranean lands in course of
centuries and made Mediterranean sea their private sea! The powerful Roman imperial armies had firmly ruled over Celtic southern England
for nearly four long centuries,historians say, in
the period 43AD to 410AD! But they could not control the
rebellious people of Scotland .The Celtic
people within Roman- conquered south
England also were rebellious and often created troubles.
*****
The anglosaxons started to settle in
England around 500 AD after the powerful Roman imperial armies
were leaving England permanently. The Anglo-Saxons
settled near to rivers and seaside wetlands . At some places they
had to drain away water and at some places
build seawalls to keep the sea out. Many people were
engaged in fisheries .In
upland areas small-scale farms were built. After centuries
of wars with Celts of Scotland and Wales and perhaps also of Ireland ,the Anglo-Saxons established powerful
kingdoms in southern England and became dominant
in southern England.
*****
Christian religion entered England in ----and brought the
greatest transformation and unification and also a kind of modernization in all
society. Christianity first entered England through the preachings of great Irish
saints. There were already many small Irish churches and monasteries before
monks from the continent came. But the powerful Roman Catholic church(which
controlled all church activity from Rome,
capitol of the empire) took over the
English church. There was uniform cultural transformation all over British Isles.
Money poured in for church administration and many magnificent churches were built .
Great universities which spread education
were opened in Europe and also England.
Education and knowledge was being spread in society. Scotland and Ireland remained areas of the great
Celtic culture . England was becaming a prosperous and quite powerful unified
kingdom under great Anglo-Saxon kings. King Alfred the Great was a mighty military conqueror
.He not only drove out many Scandinavian and other pirates but also established a strong government. In addition
he took special interest in developing and standardizing Old English language.
After the Norman Invasion (about 200 years
after the reign of Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great) the British Isles were brought into continental Roman cultural influence and Roman Catholic religion. In course of a
few centuries England became far more
powerful and one of the dominant powers of Europe. The English throne controlled entire British Isles except some
strongly independent Irish Celtic chiefdoms. We can say modern history of British
Isles (Great Britain) began.
*****
The kingdoms of Scotland and England merged and the country came to be called Great Britain. The country became prosperous and became a powerful
naval power and had much influence and
prestige in Roman Catholic Europe. The Protestant Revolution was not yet born
and all Europe including England followed the Roman Catholic Christian religion
controlled from Rome. But there were endless power struggles in royal families
,there were many royal factions backed by powerful army lords and noble
families. The powerful “Wars of the Roses” is famous . The royal flags of
different royal factions had icons of roses of different colors. So the wars
became famous as Wars of the Roses.
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