Brief History of English and American Literature | Page 2

Thomas Chalmers, Alfred Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle, or William
Makepeace Thackeray.
A similar list for American literature would place as leaders in letters:
Thomas Hooker or Thomas Shepard, Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards,
Benjamin Franklin, Philip Freneau, Noah Webster or James Kent,
James Fenimore Cooper or Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson
or Edward Everett, Joseph Addison Alexander or William Ellery
Channing, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, or
Nathaniel Hawthorne.
2. The prosecution of the study might be carried on in one or more of
several ways, according either to the purpose in view or the tastes of
the student. Attention might profitably be concentrated on the literature
of a given period and worked out in detail by taking up individual
authors, or by classifying all the writers of the period {6} on the basis
of the character of their writings, such as poetry, history, belles-lettres,
theology, essays, and the like.
3. Again, the literature of a period might be studied with reference to its
influence on the religious, commercial, political, or social life of the

people among whom it has circulated; or as the result of certain forces
which have preceded its production. It is well worth the time and effort
to trace the influence of one author upon another or many others, who,
while maintaining their individuality, have been either in style or
method of production unconsciously molded by their confréres of the
pen. The divisions of writers may, again, be made with reference to
their opinions and associations in the different departments of life
where they have wrought their active labors, such as in politics,
religion, moral reform, or educational questions.
The influence of the great writers in the languages of the Continent
upon the literature of England and America affords another theme of
absorbing interest, and has its peculiarly good results in bringing the
student into close brotherhood with the fruitful and cultured minds of
every land. In fact, the possible applications of the study of literature
are so many and varied that the ingenuity of any earnest student may
devise such as the exigencies of his own work may require.
JOHN F. HURST,
Washington.

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PREFACE.
In so brief a history of so rich a literature, the problem is how to get
room enough to give, not an adequate impression--that is
impossible--but any impression at all of the subject. To do this I have
crowded out everything but belles-lettres. Books in philosophy, history,
science, etc., however important in the history of English thought,
receive the merest incidental mention, or even no mention at all. Again,
I have omitted the literature of the Anglo-Saxon period, which is
written in a language nearly as hard for a modern Englishman to read as
German is, or Dutch. Caedmon and Cynewulf are no more a part of
English literature than Vergil and Horace are of Italian. I have also left

out {8} the vernacular literature of the Scotch before the time of Burns.
Up to the date of the union Scotland was a separate kingdom, and its
literature had a development independent of the English, though
parallel with it.
In dividing the history into periods, I have followed, with some
modifications, the divisions made by Mr. Stopford Brooke in his
excellent little Primer of English Literature. A short reading course is
appended to each chapter.
HENRY A. BEERS.

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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I.
FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER, 1066-1400 . . . . . 11 II.
FROM CHAUCER TO SPENSER, 1400-1599 . . . . . . . 42 III. THE
AGE OF SHAKSPERE, 1564-1616 . . . . . . . . . 76 IV. THE AGE OF
MILTON, 1608-1674 . . . . . . . . . . 125 V. FROM THE
RESTORATION TO THE DEATH OF POPE,
1660-1744 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 VI. FROM THE DEATH OF
POPE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 1744-1789 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
193 VII. FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO THE DEATH OF
SCOTT, 1789-1832 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 VIII. FROM THE DEATH
OF SCOTT TO THE PRESENT TIME,
1832-1886 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 IX. THEOLOGICAL AND
RELIGIOUS LITERATURE IN GREAT
BRITAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

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OUTLINE SKETCH
OF
ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER I.
FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER.
1066-1400.
The Norman conquest of England, in the 11th century, made a break in
the natural growth of the English language and literature. The old
English or Anglo-Saxon had been