1. Geographical position and climate of Great Britain

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is situated in the northwest of Europe. The area of the country is over 244,000 square kilometres. Great Britain and Ireland, and 5,000 smaller islands form a group of the British Isles. Great Britain is the largest island in Europe. It consists of England, Scotland and Wales.

Great Britain is washed by the Atlantic Ocean, the Irish Sea, the North Sea and the English Channel.

Northern Ireland is situated in the northeastern part of Ireland. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland make the United Kingdom.

The surface of England and Northern Ireland is flat, but the surface of Scotland and Wales is mountainous. The highest mountain in Great Britain is Ben Nevis in Scotland. The longest river is the Severn. The capital of Great Britain is London that stands on the river Thames. It is very beautiful.

Great Britain is rich in coal, iron, ore and some other mineral resources. It is one of the leading countries in the world. It has highly developed motor-car, ship-building, textile, chemical and electronics industries. It is also famous for its woolen industry.

The British Isles are surrounded by the ocean, which influences the climate of Great Britain in the east. British climate is warm thanks to the heat transported by winds and the warm water of Gulf Stream.

Western districts have a high rainfall. Eastern parts of the country are much drier. Rain falls on about 250 days of the year in the places near the Atlantic coast. As a result there are thick fogs in autumn and winter. The average winter temperature is 4-5 degrees above zero, and 15-17 degrees above zero in summer.

The climate of Great Britain is insular, damp and moderate because it is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the Irish Sea and the English Channel. It is not very cold in winter and never very hot in summer. The lakes and rivers don’t freeze in winter.

The climate of Great Britain is favourable for arable and cattle farming. The chief agricultural products of Britain are wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, sugar-beet, milk, beef, mutton and lamb.

Britain has a long tradition of pig and sheep production. The British poultry production is growing rapidly and is gradually becoming of greater importance.

It’s not sunny enough for summer vacations. Most British people prefer to go to Greece, Spain or some other country with hot and sunny summer.

2. Outstanding writer/poet of the United States of America

American multi-cultural and multi-racial literature first appeared more than 300 years ago and is connected with the history of that country. Like any other national literature it reflects the beliefs, customs and traditions of the people who live in that country. Certainly, it cannot be separated from the European traditions the first settlers had brought with them to the new land, or from native Indian mythology and the folklore: the Black people of America. In addition American literature owes much of its revolutionary tradition to the War of Independence. It gave to American literature its characteristic adventurous features.

It is possible to say that American literature began with Romanticism at the end of the 18^th and the beginning of the 19^th century. James Fennimore Cooper in his novels “The Spy”, “The Pioneers”, “The Pathfinder” described the ancient traditions of the native Indian tribes, the changes that the white man brought while settling in the new territories and the human tragedies that followed that process. Cooper’s main concern was the conflict between Nature and civilization and the destruct that white people had brought into the peaceful life of Indians. Fennimore Cooper’s “Leather-Stood Tales” influenced many romantic souls with the deeds of the main hero Natty Bumppo, who was said to have “the heart of a dove in the body of a lion”.

Another romantic poet and writer was Edgar Allan Poe. To the modern reader he is better known as the author of detective stories like “The Gold Bug” and his “Tales of horror”, but his contemporary also enjoyed Poe’s romantic poems “Annabel Lee”, “The Raven” and many others. In American literature true Poe is considered to be the founder of short stories based on psychological analysis and the father of the detective genre.

Henry Longfellow continued Fennimore Cooper’s tradition of describing the life of the Indian people, their sufferings and their struggle against the white settlers. He also shared the ideas of abolitionists who wanted the Black people to be freed from slavery. Longfellow’s collection of anti-slavery poems appeared at the time when nobody believed that the liberation of Negroes would ever be possible. “The Song of Hiawatha” made the name of Longfellow famous all over the world. It was the first epic poem in American literature in which the manner of life, the beliefs of Indian people and the beauty of American land were described.