A History of English Literature

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IX. The Victorian Period, about 1830-1901. Victoria Queen, 1837-1901. ESSAYISTS. POETS. NOVELISTS. Macaulay, 1800-1859. Mrs. Browning, 1806- Charlotte Bronte, Carlyle, 1795-1881. 1861. 1816-1855. Ruskin, 1819-1900. Tennyson, 1809-1892. Dickens, 1812-1870. Browning, 1812-1889. Thackeray, 1811-1863. Matthew Arnold, Kingsley, 1819-1875. poems, 1848-58. George Eliot, 1819- Rossetti, 1828-82. 1880. Matthew Arnold, Morris, 1834-96. Reade, 1814-1884. essays, 1861-82. Swinburne, 1837-1909. Trollope, 1815-1882. Blackmore, 'Lorna Doone,' 1869. Shorthouse,' John Inglesant,' 1881. Meredith, 1828-1910. Thomas Hardy, 1840- Stevenson, 1850-1894. Kipling, 1865- Kipling, 1865- REFERENCE BOOKS It is not a part of the plan of this book to present any extended bibliography, but there are certain reference books to which the student's attention should be called. 'Chambers' Cyclopedia of English Literature,' edition of 1910, published in the United States by the J. B. Lippincott Co. in three large volumes at $15.00 (generally sold at about half that price) is in most parts very satisfactory. Garnett and Gosse's 'Illustrated History of English Literature, four volumes, published by the Macmillan Co. at $20.00 and in somewhat simpler form by Grosset and Dunlap at $12.00 (sold for less) is especially valuable for its illustrations. Jusserand's 'Literary History of the English People' (to 1642, G. P. Putnam's Sons, three volumes, $3.50 a volume) should be mentioned. Courthope's 'History of English Poetry' (Macmillan, six volumes, $3.25 a volume), is full and after the first volume good. 'The Cambridge History of English Literature,' now nearing completion in fourteen volumes (G. P. Putnam's Sons, $2.50 a volume) is the largest and in most parts the most scholarly general work in the field, but is generally too technical except for special students. The short biographies of many of the chief English authors in the English Men of Letters Series (Macmillan, 30 and 75 cents a volume) are generally admirable. For appreciative criticism of some of the great poets the essays of Lowell and of Matthew Arnold are among the best. Frederick Byland's 'Chronological Outlines of English Literature' (Macmillan, $1.00) is very useful for reference though now much in need of revision. It is much to be desired that students should have at hand for consultation some good short history of England, such as that of S. E. Gardiner (Longmans, Green, and Co.) or that of J. R. Green.
CHAPTER I PERIOD I. THE BRITONS AND THE ANGLO-SAXONS. TO A. D. 1066. FOREWORD. The two earliest of the nine main divisions of English Literature are by far the longest--taken together are longer than all the others combined--but we shall pass rather rapidly over them. This is partly because the amount of thoroughly great literature which they produced is small, and partly because for present-day readers it is in effect a foreign literature, written in early forms of English or in foreign languages, so that to-day it is intelligible only through special study or in translation. THE BRITONS. The present English race has gradually shaped itself out of several distinct peoples which successively occupied or conquered the island of Great Britain. The earliest one of these peoples which need here be mentioned belonged to the Celtic family and was itself divided into two branches. The Goidels or Gaels were settled in the northern part of the island, which is now Scotland, and were the ancestors of the present Highland Scots. On English literature they exerted little or no influence until a late period. The Britons, from whom the present Welsh are descended, inhabited what is now England and Wales; and they were still further subdivided, like most barbarous peoples, into many tribes which were often at war with one another. Though the Britons were conquered and chiefly supplanted later on by the Anglo-Saxons, enough of them, as we shall see, were spared and intermarried with the victors to transmit something of their racial qualities to the English nation and literature. The characteristics of the Britons, which are those of the Celtic family as a whole, appear in their history and in the scanty late remains of their literature. Two main traits include or suggest all the others: first, a vigorous but fitful emotionalism which rendered them vivacious, lovers of novelty, and brave, but ineffective in practical affairs; second, a somewhat fantastic but sincere and delicate sensitiveness to beauty. Into impetuous action they were easily hurried; but their momentary ardor easily cooled into fatalistic despondency. To the mysterious charm of Nature--of hills and forests and pleasant breezes; to the loveliness and grace of meadow-flowers or of a young man or a girl; to the varied sheen of rich colors--to all attractive objects of sight and sound and motion their fancy responded keenly and joyfully; but they preferred chiefly to weave these things into stories and verse of supernatural romance or vague suggestiveness; for substantial work of solider structure either in life or in literature they possessed comparatively little faculty. Here is a description (exceptionally beautiful, to be sure) from the story 'Kilhwch and Olwen': 'The maid was clothed in a robe of flame-colored silk, and about her neck was a collar of ruddy gold, on which were precious emeralds and rubies. More yellow was her head than the flowers of the broom, and her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the spray of the meadow fountain. The eye of the trained hawk, the glance of the three-mewed falcon, was not brighter than hers. Her bosom was more snowy than the breast of the white swan, her cheeks were redder than the reddest roses. Who beheld her was filled with her love. Pour white trefoils sprang up wherever she trod. And therefore was she called Olwen.' This charming fancifulness and delicacy of feeling is apparently the great
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Page 5 and 6: Sympathy of the author for his char
Page 7 and 8: story; (3) a Rising Action; (4) a M
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Page 33 and 34: 'MANDEVILLE'S VOYAGE.' One of the e
Page 35 and 36: of prose tales, 'The Decameron' (Te
Page 37 and 38: sometimes even with the minuteness
Page 39 and 40: cherished by the Protestants for it
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Page 49 and 50: man. It shows how he yields to temp
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inharmonious element in the otherwi
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authors so marked; almost every wri
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verse as ruggedly condensed (often
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to be reabsorbed into tragedy, of w
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zest for the beautiful. It is rich
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just to the north of the 'city,' on
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playwright and a good, though not a
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sure, with an unconventionality, ma
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BEN JONSON. The second place among
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3. Jonson's self-satisfaction and h
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alone or to Fletcher and other coll
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his personal ambition was often str
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market-place, due to mistaken relia
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of somewhat artificial courtliness
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The life of Henry Vaughan [Footnote
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the English Church might not have b
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through the medium of the secular e
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higher ... but I dare not. God did
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the demonstrable. Hence the charact
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of the times. Aside from the fact t
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or at least the couplets, generally
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consists throughout partly in the c
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definiteness and significant meanin
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collection of moralizings, is today
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'lived a double life' between the t
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their interests; the superior skill
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The few remaining years of Addison'
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Rosicrucian sylphs. In its adaptati
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than Christian [Footnote: The name
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vain man's boast.' 'Wind the shrill
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in 1762, when the ministers, decidi
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lack of sympathy for the romantic r
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anywhere, before Gibbon, since clas
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which statesmen and orators deal ar
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warmth of sympathetic imagination w
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triumph of Pseudo-classicism, as a
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interpretation which characterizes
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published two years later. Meanwhil
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of Macpherson's native Highlands--v
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his life had combined 'the cheerles
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and some recognition of its educati
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would render impossible at the pres
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Allworthy, intended as an example o
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followed Miss Burney, writing of th
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Charles Lamb, where Coleridge appea
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from eighteenth century tradition b
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Nature, especially inanimate Nature
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and prose who from his friendship w
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and so nearly attained his object t
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and Tennyson were to be among his s
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no comment. Whatever allowances cha
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poetry, was of the highest value to
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over action makes of it also only a
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The music, yearning like a God in p
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Political and social progress, thou
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man, though he was aggressive and s
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oratorical balance of clauses and s
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for which, in 1833-4, he finally se
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Macaulay, he was exasperatingly bli
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a state of intellectual, social, an
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disproved the whole dogmatic and do
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Arnold's doctrine, of course, was n
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even only doubtfully poetic. The in
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their support until their poetry be
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the full all its possibilities. Evi
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and a delicate genius in sound-modu
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lived in London with her mother in
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the first two, 'A Christmas Carol'
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WILLIAM M. THACKERAY. Dickens' chie
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Maggie in 'The Mill on the Floss.'
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very influential expressions of his
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STEVENSON. Robert Louis Stevenson (
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Froude too this results in exaggera
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THOMSON'S SEASONS. Astor ed., Crowe
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6. CHAUCER'S POEMS. Two or three da
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_For the third day,_ finish the pla
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the men of the royal family; but Pr
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17. The Rest of the Dramatists to 1
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qualities. How far has the book a p
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that make Gray's 'Elegy' a great po
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written discussions, or may be assi
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http://promo.net/pg These Web sites
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http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.h
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