A History of English Literature | Page 7

Coverly,' 1711-12. Defoe, 1661-1731.
'Robinson Crusoe,' 1718-20. Richardson, 1689-1761. 'Clarissa
Harlowe,' 1747-8. Fielding, 1707-1754. Smollett. Sterne. Goldsmith,
'Vicar of Wakefield,' 1766. Historical and 'Gothic' Novels. Miss Burney,

'Evelina,' 1778. Revolutionary Novels of Purpose. Godwin, 'Caleb
Williams.' Miss Edgeworth. Miss Austen.
THE ROMANTIC REVOLT --Poetry. Thomson, 'The Seasons,'
1726-30. Collins, 'Odes,' 1747. Gray, 1716-71. Percy's 'Reliques,' 1765.
Goldsmith, 'The Deserted Village,' 1770. Cowper. Chatterton.
Macpherson, Ossianic imitations. Burns, 1759-96. Blake.
THE DRAMA. Pseudo-Classical Tragedy, Addison's 'Cato,' 1713.
Sentimental Comedy. Domestic Tragedy. Revival of genuine Comedy
of Manners. Goldsmith, 'She Stoops to Conquer,' 1773. Sheridan.
VIII. The Romantic Triumph, 1798 to about 1830. Coleridge,
1772-1834. Wordsworth, 1770-1850. Southey, 1774-1843. Scott,
1771-1832. Byron, 1788-1824. Shelley, 1792-1822. Keats, 1759-1821.
IX. The Victorian Period, about 1830-1901. Victoria Queen,
1837-1901.
ESSAYISTS. POETS. NOVELISTS.
Macaulay, 1800-1859. Mrs. Browning, 1806- Charlotte Bronté, 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