works. Finally, each chapter concludes with a concise summary of the period under consideration, a list of selections for reading and a bibliography of works that will be found most useful in acquiring a larger knowledge of the subject. In its general plan this little volume is modeled on the author's more advanced English Literature; but the material, the point of view, the presentation of individual writers, - all the details of the work are entirely new. Such a book is like a second journey through ample and beautiful regions filled with historic associations, a journey that one undertakes with new companions, with renewed pleasure and, it is to be hoped, with increased wisdom. It is hardly necessary to add that our subject has still its unvoiced charms, that it cannot be exhausted or even adequately presented in any number of histories. For literature deals with life; and life, with its endlessly surprising variety in unity, has happily some suggestion of infinity. Since the prime purpose of any text of literature is to introduce men and women who have a message worth hearing, the greater part of this new edition is given to selections from the work of representative British authors, including those of the present day. These selections have been gathered together with a double motive, to let each author speak for himself, however briefly, and to encourage the student to form his own judgment, independent of historians or critics. The result should be not only to inspire us to seek a better acquaintance with our elder writers but also to enable us to choose from among the many of our own day the few who by appealing to our particular taste or humor can best minister to our pleasure in reading. STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT WILLIAM J. LONG RE CONTENTS CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: AN ESSAY OF LITERATURE What is Literature? The Tree and the Book. Books of Knowledge and Books of Power. The Art of Literature. A Definition and Some CHAPTER II. BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE Tributaries of Early Literature. The Anglo-Saxon or Old-English Period. Specimens of the Language. The Epic of Beowulf. Anglo- Saxon Songs. Types of Earliest Poetry. Christian Literature of the Anglo-Saxon Period. The Northumbrian School. Bede. Cædmon. Cynewulf. The West-Saxon School. Alfred the Great. The Anglo- The Anglo-Norman or Early Middle-English Period. Specimens of the Language. The Norman Conquest. Typical Norman Literature. Specimens of the Language. History of the Period. Geoffrey Chaucer. CHAPTER IV. THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. Historical Background. Literary Characteristics of the Period. Foreign Influence. Outburst of Lyric Poetry. Lyrics of Love. Music and Poetry. PAGE Masques. Popular Comedies. Classical and English Drama. Prede- CHAPTER V. THE PURITAN AGE AND THE RESTORA- Historical Outline. Three Typical Writers. Milton. Bunyan. Dry- History of the Period. Eighteenth-Century Classicism. The Meaning of Classicism in Literature. Alexander Pope. Swift. Addison. Steele. Johnson. Boswell. Burke. Historical Writing in the Eighteenth Century. The Revival of Romantic Poetry. Collins and Gray. Goldsmith. Burns. Minor Poets of Romanticism. Cowper. Macpherson and the Ossian Poems. Chatterton. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. The Early English Novel. The Old Romance and the New Novel. Defoe. Richardson. Fielding. Influence of the Early Novelists. Sum- Historical Outline. The French Revolution and English Literature. Wordsworth. Coleridge. Southey. The Revolutionary Poets. Byron Historical Outline. The Victorian Poets. Tennyson. Browning. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Matthew Arnold. The Pre-Raphaelites. Rossetti. Morris. Swinburne. Minor Poets and Songs in Many Keys. The Greater Victorian Novelists. Dickens. Thackeray. George Victorian Essayists and Historians. Typical Writers. Macaulay. Carlyle. Ruskin. Variety of Victorian Literature. Summary of the CHAPTER IX. AN ESSAY OF RECENT LITERATURE. Rudyard Kipling. Some Modern Novelists. The Realists. The Modern Romance. The Poets. Poetry of Everyday Life. The Sym- bolists. The Celtic Revival. Books of Many Kinds. Books of the War. RE |