A short history of England's and America's literature, by Eva March Tappan

Front matter

GivensBy ee.

Boston Public Library

Do not write in this book or mark it with pen or pencil. Penalties for so doing are imposed by the Revised Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Preface

Tus book is based upon the following convictions : —

1. That the prime object of studying literature is to develop the ability to enjoy it.

2. That in every work of literary merit there is something to enjoy.

3. That it is less important to know the list of an author’s works than to feel the impulse to read one of them.

4. That it is better to know a few authors well than to Jearn the names of many.

To select those few authors with due regard to what. is good in itself and what is listorically of value, to choose from the hundreds whose writings have made for literary excellence, is under no circumstances an easy task. It is especially difficult — and especially delightful — for one who can echo most honestly the words of the French critic, “ En littérature j’aime tout.”

EVA MARCH TAPPAN.

WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS.

January, 1905.

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CONTENTS ENGLAND’S LITERATURE

CHAPTER I Centuries V-XI THE EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD

PAGE

Our English ancestors — The scop— Growth of the epic —BSeowulf, effect of Christianity on the poem — Form of early English poetry — Widsith— Deor’s Lament — Exeter Book — Vercelli Book — Cedmon — Cynewulf; runes; Dream of the kood— Early English poetry as a whole— Bede; Lcclestastical H7story; his English writings — Alcuin — Danish invasions — Alfred the Great; his translations; his language ; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle — The kingdom at Alfred’s death — Literature during the tenth and eleventh centuries — Cause of degeneracy — Homilies of A:lfric — Re-writing of old poems — Other writings — ‘Influence of the Celts — Difference between Celts and Teutons Bememera Ournelish literature ss)... 8 ws ew ete 2

CHAPTER II Centuries XII and XIII THE NORMAN-ENGLISH PERIOD

Advantages of the Conquest — The Normans — Struggle between the two languages — The new English — New influences; Norman intellectual tastes ; opening of the universities ; crusades — Chronicles — Ormulum — Ancren Riwle — Four cycles of romance — History of the Arthur cycle— The Chronicle ends — French romances ; King Horn — Lyrics — Robin Hood ballads — Value of the Norman-English writings. . . . . . . 25 vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER III Century XIV CHAUCER’S CENTURY

Beginning of English thought — Feudal system — Changed condition of the peasants — Discontent with the church — Peasants’ Revolt — “Sir John Mandeville ”— Langland; Pzers Plowman — Wyclif; his translation of the Bible; persecution — Chaucer; plan of Boccaccio and of Chaucer; pilgrimages; Cazterbury Tales ; Chaucer’s style; his characters; his love of nature; his death; his influence on the language . . . . .. 35

CHAPTER IV Century XV THE PEOPLE’S CENTURY

The imitators of Chaucer; James 1; Zhe King’s Quair—Sir Thomas Malory; Morte d’Arthur — Lack of good literature — Gain of the “ common folk ” — Ballads; marks ofa ballad; composition of the ballads — Mystery plays; cycles; seeming irreverence; comical scenes; tenderness; Moralities; Everyman — Introduction of printing; effect on price of books; effect on England — Foreign discoveries — Progress of the people 52

CHAPTER V Century XVI SHAKESPEARE’S CENTURY

Literary position of Italy — The Renaissance — Increased knowledge of the Western Continent — Teachings of Copernicus — Henry VIII and the Renaissance — John Skelton; Phyllyp Sparrow ; influence of Skelton — Sir Thomas More; Utopia — religious questioning — Tyndale; translation of the Mew Testament — Separation of Church of England from Church of Rome — Death of More — Sir Thomas Wyatt — The Earl of Surrey; the sonnet; blank verse; The A/neid— Tottel’s Mis«

CONTENTS | vii cellany — Masques — Interludes; Zhe Foure P’s; John Heywood — The first English comedy — The first English tragedy ; difference between them in form — Increasing strength of England — Literary boldness — Early Elizabethan drama — Need of form — John Lyly; Auphues,; advantages of euphuism — Pastorals — Edmund Spenser ; Shepherd’s Calendar » Spenser goes to Ireland — The pastoral fashion — Sir Philip Sidney ; Arcadia — The miscellanies — Later Elizabethan drama; songs in the dramas ; need of a standard verse — Christopher Marlowe; Zamburlaine; triumph of blank verse — Events from 1580 to 1590 — The Faerie Queene — Decade of the sonnet; Astrophel and Stella * — Richard Hooker; L£cclestastical Polity — William Shakespeare ; in Stratford; in London; his plays and poems before ees Se a

CHAPTER VI Century XVII PURITANS AND ROYALISTS

Shakespeare’s later plays ; sonnets; his genius; Shakespeare as a man — Sir Walter Raleigh; his W7zstory of the World — Francis Bacon; £ssays, public life; philosophy— King James version of the Bzb/e— Ben Jonson; Every Man in His Humour; the unities; Shakespeare and Ben Jonson; Jonson’s excellence ; his masques; Oberon; The Sad Shepherd; the Tribe of Ben— Beaumont and Fletcher — The Fzrst Folio — Closing of the theatres— Decadence of the drama; causes thereof — Literature of the conflict— John Donne; conceits—John Milton; shorter poems; pamphlets; marriage; Milton as Latin secretary; De- Jence of the English People ; sonnets— George Herbert; Zhe Temple— Richard Crashaw; Steps to the Altar — Henry Vaughan; Sz/ex Scintillans ; love of nature — Thomas Fuller ; Holy and Profane State; The Worthies of England — Jeremy Taylor; Holy Living and Holy Dying —Richard Baxter; The Saints’ Everlasting Rest —“ Cavalier Poets” — Thomas Carew —Sir John Suckling — Richard Lovelace — Robert Herrick ; Hesperides; Noble Numbers — Izaak Walton; Zhe Compleat Angler — The Restoration— Samuel Butler; Hudibras — Milton’s later work; Paradise Lost; Paradise Regained; Samson viii CONTENTS

Agonistes — John Bunyan ; persecution; 7he Pilgrim’s Progress — John Dryden; the drama of the Restoration ; Dryden’s plays; his satire; theological writings; translations; odes — Prose literature of the seventeenth century . . . « « « « + 103

CHAPTER VII Century XVIII THE CENTURY OF PROSE

Coffee drinking — Alexander Pope; Essay on Criticism; The Rape of the Lock; translations; life; 7he Dunciad; Essay on Man — Joseph Addison and Richard Steele; Zhe Tatler; The Speetator; Sir Roger de Coverley; Cato; Addison’s hymns — Jonathan Swift; 7e Zale ofa Tub; The Battle of the Books; A Modest Proposal; Gulliver's Travels; Swift’s character — Daniel Defoe; Zhe Shortest Way with Dissenters; result; Essay on Projects; Robinson Crusoe; Journal of the Plague Year — The Age of Queen Anne — The novel — Samuel Richardson; Pamela — Henry Fielding; /oseph Andrews — Clarissa Harlowe— Tom Jones— Tobias Smollett; Roderick Random—Laurence Sterne; Tristram Shandy; The Sentimental Journey — Samuel Johnson; the Dictionary; patronage; The Rambler; Rasselas; Johnson’s pension; James Boswell; Johnson’s conversation ; his Shakespeare; Journey to the Hebrides; Lives of the Poets— Oliver Goldsmith; earlier works; Zhe Vicar of Wakefield; The Traveller; The Good-Natured Man; The Deserted Village; She Stoops to Conquer — Edmund Burke ; On the Sublime and Beautiful; On Conciliation with America; On the French Revolution — William Robertson; his work — David Hume; fiéstory of England — Edward Gibbon; Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — New qualities in literature — Thomas Gray; “ Gray’s Elegy” — Percy’s Religues — William Cowper ; his hymns; Johz Gilpin ; The Task— Robert Burns; early work and models; first volume ; visit to Edinburgh; disappointment; songs; Zam O'Shanter; The Cotter’s Saturday Night. . . .. . «153

CONTENTS ig

CHAPTER VIII Century XIX THE CENTURY OF THE NOVEL

The “Lake Poets” — William Wordsworth —S. T. Coleridge; Lyrical Ballads; Rime of the Ancient Mariner — Robert Southey; his works — Coleridge’s poetry; its incompleteness — Wordsworth’s life; slow appreciation of his poems— Walter Scott ; boyhood ; early literary work; M/czustrelsy of the Scottish Border ; Abbotsford ; failure of publishers ; the historical novel — Lord Byron; Hours of Idleness; English Bards and Scotch Reviewers; Childe Harold; Byron’s later life and poems; two subjects that interested him; attempts to aid the Greeks — Percy Bysshe Shelley; best poems; poetic qualities; death — John Keats; Zxdymion and its reviews; later poems; Ode to a Grecian Urn — Charles Lamb; his friends; poems; play; Zades

from Shakespeare ; Specimens of Dramatic Poets, etc.; Essays of Elia; freedom — Thomas De Quincey; first literary work; Confessions of an English Opium-Eater ; dependence; two of his best known essays; his style ; Edinburgh Review — Quarterly Review — Blackwood’s Magazine —Jane Austen; her novels; their excellence — 1832 a natural boundary — Charles Dickens ;: early struggles; The Pickwick Papers ; later work ; qualities of his characters; method of caricature; hard work — W. M. Thackeray; slowness of general appreciation; Vanity Fair; Thackeray and Fielding ; lectures; burlesques; best novels — “George Eliot ;” character of her first work; first fiction; Zhe Mill on the Floss; Silas Marner; character of her later books; her work contrasted with Scott’s; her seriousness of purpose — T. B. Macaulay; precocity ; memory ; first great essay; in politics; Lays of Ancient Rome ; History of England— Thomas Carlyle; his indecision; failures ; marriage; Sartor Resartus ; History of the French Revolution ; Heroes and Hero-Worship ; Frederick the Great; final honors—John Ruskin; Modern Painters ; interest in workingmen ; industrial ideas ; poetical titles ; style —Matthew Arnold ; The Forsaken Merman ; Greek restraint; prose criticism — Robert Browning; Miss Barrett and her poems; Browning’s marriage; his dramas; Pippa Passes:

x CONTENTS

Mrs. Browning’s Aurora Leigh and Sonnets from the Portuguesé ; Browning’s later volumes; growth of his fame; how to enjoy Browning — Alfred Tennyson; early poems and their reception; recognition of his genius; Zhe Princess; In Memoriam; as Laureate; Zhe [dylls of the King; Enoch Arden; dramas — The Age of the Pen— Progress of literature — The novel of to-day ~. . 20s. 2) 0 6 0

CHAPTER I The Colonial Period 1607-1765

English Literature in the 17th Century — Early American histories — William Bradford — John Winthrop — 7he Bay Psalm Book — Michael Wigglesworth; 7he Day of Doom— Anne Bradstreet; Several Poems — The New England Primer — Cotton Mather; Magnalia Christi — Samuel Sewall— Jonathan Edwards; Zhe Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will— Minor Writers: Roger Williams, John Eliot, Nathaniel Ward, William Bird, John: Woolman — Zhe Boston News Letter . . «© « « « « « 259

Chapter II

Benjamin Franklin; his versatility; his literary aims; Poor Richara’s Almanac, Autobiography — The Revolutionary Orators: James Otis; Richard Henry Lee; Patrick Henry — Political Writers: Thomas Paine; Thomas Jefferson; the Declaration of Independence ; George Washington — The Federalist : Alexander Hamilton; John Jay; James Madison — ‘‘ The Hartford ‘Wits:” Timothy Dwight; Columbia; The Conguest of Canaan; John Trumbull; 17’ Fingal; Joel Barlow ; The Columbiad; Hasty Pudding — Philip Freneau; Poems of 1786 — Charles Brockden Brown; Wieland; Arthur Mervyn .. . 2 cas

CONTENTS 4 xi

Chapter III

National progress—The Knickerbocker School— Washington Irving; Salmagundi,;, Kunickerbocker’s History of New York; The Sketch Book; Bracebridge Hall; Tales of a Traveller, Life of Columbus; The Conquest of Granada; The Companions of Columbus; The Alhambra; Life of Goldsmith; Life of Washington — James Fenimore Cooper; Precaution, The Spy, The Pilot; History of the United States Navy; Cooper and the courts; Cooper’s carelessness in writing; Mark Twain’s criticism — William Cullen Bryant; 7he Embargo; Thanatopsis; To a Waterfowl, The Ages— Fitz-Greene Halleck — Joseph Rodman Drake; Zhe Croaker Papers; The Culprit Fay; The American Flag; Marco Bozzaris — Nathaniel Parker Willis ; pemcursmonmeihe Way, Sacred Poems. . .-. « « « 286

Chapter IV

Transcendentalism; its influence upon literature — Ralph Waldo Emerson; enters the ministry; friendship with Carlyle; Ze American Scholar, literary style; how to enjoy Emerson; Emerson’s Poems—Henry David Thoreau; home at Walden Pond; A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers; Walden — Nathaniel Hawthorne; Brook Farm; Hawthorne’s early life: Twice-Told Tales; Mosses from an Old Manse, The Scarles Letter; The House of Seven Gables; The Wonder Book; Blithedale Romance; Life of Franklin Pierce; Tanglewood Tales ; The Marble Faun; Hawthorne compared with other writers of eeriawiniorme’s power. . 5. 2 se 6 ee + 302 xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER:V

THE ANTI-SLAVERY WRITERS |

The anti-slavery movement — John Greenleaf Whittier ; his first printed poem ; editorial work; Szow-RBound, his ballads ; love of children — Harriet Beecher Stowe; Uncle Tom’s Cabin, cause of its large sale; Zhe Minister's Wooing; The Pearl of Orr's Island; Oldtown Folks — Orators: William Lloyd Garrison; Edward Everett; Wendell Puasa Charles Sumner; Rufus ae Daniel Webster’. ots t Ae oo pase Slane Rea - 317

CHAPTERMVs

Similarity in the lives of the Cambridge Poets — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Ayperton, Votces of the Night; The Skeleton in Armor, translations ; literary style; Longfellow’s sympathy — James Russell Lowell; Zhe Vziston of Sir Launfal,; A Fable for Critics; The Biglow Papers, scope of his work — Oliver Wendell Holmes; O/d Jronsides ; Poems, first contributor to the Atlantic, T, js Autocrat of the Breakfast Ti ea Elsie Venner ; occasional verse; Holmes’s charm . . . aa

CHAPTER VII The National Period — Earlier Years 1815-1865 THE HISTORIANS Historical Writing — Jared Sparks — George Bancroft; History of the United States; founding of the Naval Academy — William Hickling Prescott; 7he History of the Reign of Ferdinand and

CONTENTS xili

Isabella; The Conquest of Mexico; The Conquest of Peru; The History of the Reign of Philip the Second — John Lothrop Motley; The Rise of the Dutch Republic; The United Netherlands ; The Life and Death of John of Barneveld — ¥rancis Parkman; The Oregon Trail, literary style; his plan completed — Higginson’s summary of these historians — Minor writers: John Gorham Palfrey; Jeremy Belknap; Richard Hildreth; Edwin Percy Whipple; Richard Henry Dana; Donald Grant Mitchell; George William Curtis —Webster’s Dictionary and Spelling Book — conscientious tone of New England literature « 340

CHAPTER VIII

Why there was little writing in the South — Henry Clay — Patrick Henry — Robert Young Hayne — John Caldwell Calhoun — William Wirt — William Gilmore Simms; Zhe VYemassee — Paul Hamilton Hayne — Henry Timrod — Edgar Allan Poe; his critical powers; the Zales; The Fall of the House of Usher; Poe’s poetry — Sidney Lanier; prose; poetry . : ree LH

CHAPTER. LX The National Period — Later Years

Present literary activity — Fiction: William Dean Howells ; Henry James ; Marion Crawford ; Edward Everett Hale; Frank Stockton; George W. Cable ; Richard Johnston; John Esten Cooke; Thomas Nelson Page ; Joel Chandler Harris ; Mary N. Murfree;

James Lane Allen ; Edward Eggleston ; J. T. Trowbridge; Mary Wilkins Freeman; Sarah Orne Jewett; Alice Brown; Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward ; Rose Terry Cooke; Kate Douglas Wiggin Riggs ; Helen Hunt Jackson; Mary Hallock Foote; Frances Hodgson Burnett — The Short Story — Poetry: Bayard Taylor; Views Afoot ; Poems of the Orient; Bedouin Song; Home Pasworals ; Faust — Richard Henry Stoddard — Edmund Clarence xiv CONTENTS

Stedman — Thomas Bailey Aldrich; Baby Bell, Marjorie Daw — Francis Bret Harte ; Condensed Novels ; The Luck of Roaring Camp — Walt Whitman; O Captain! My Captain! ; Leaves of Grass — Minor poets: Celia Thaxter; Lucy Larcom; John Hay; Jones Very; Edward Rowland Sill; Richard Watson Gilder — Humorous writings: Charles Dudley Warner; Charles Farrar Browne; Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber; David Ross Locke; Henry Wheeler Shaw; Samuel Langhorne Clemens ; /zmocents Abroad ; The Personal Memotrs of Joan of Arc; The Prince and the Pauper — History and Biography: John Fiske; Henry Adams; James Schouler; Thomas Wentworth Higginson ; Justin Winsor ; John Bach McMaster; Hubert H. Bancroft ; James Parton; Horace E. Scudder —.John Burroughs — The magazine article: Agnes Repplier; Samuel M. Crothers — American scholars: Charles Eliot Norton; Francis James Child; Francis Andrew March; Felix Emanuel Schelling; Cornelius Felton; Howard Horace Furness — Juvenile literature: Jacob Abbott; Louisa M. Alcott; Frances Hodgson Burnett — Young people’s magazines — Literary progress of America in 300 years . 364

England’s Literature . 2. « « « 's (so) « )j00=sn America’s Literature 7). 00. 6. ee) ewe

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

GEOFFRwY CHAUCER. From the National Portrait Gallery. Painter unknown ... . ie ilesse. a, F YODtspiece PORTION OF THE FIRST PAGE ¢ OF BEOWULF. Folio 129r of MS. Cott. Vitellius A. XV in the British Museum . , THE RUINS OF WHITBY ABBEY. Froma photograph . Monk AT WORK ON THE BOOK OF KILDARE. From a MS. in the British Museum ... . ri MEDIZVAL AUTHOR AT WORK. eon a . MS. in Mba hers at Soissons in Cutts’s Scenes and Characters wh the Middle yo) Se Ay KING ALFRED. From an engraving by Werte in ae rerum gestarum Alfredi Magni by Asserius Menevensis DEDICATION OF A SAXON CHURCH. From a MS. in the library at Rouen used in Knight’s Popular History of England S1tR LAUNCELOT AND A HERMIT. From an illuminated MS.

of 1316 copied in Cutts’s Middle Ages... « . A BAND OF MINSTRELS. From a fourteenth enn MS. in Cutts’s IZiddle Ages .. . Aes ca ie

SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE ON HIS VOYAGE TO rvateaita From a MS. in the British Museum copied in Cutts’s JZzd- Ee ener ee ee ee er

JOHN WycuiF. From the South Kensington National Por-

To’ ob ig a” bie ne Je eee fee oe, fe THE PrRIORESS. Fromthe Ellesmere MS. ...... THE WIFE OF BATH. From the Harleian MS. .... THE SQUIRE. From the Ellesmere MS.......

THE PARSON. “ 66 - ig! es DU ee Ae

CHAUCER. 7 - * 2 EN CF: hears

A Mystery Piay AT COVENTRY. From an old print

A SCENE FROM “EVERYMAN.” From a photograph of the reproduction given by the Ben Greet Company. .. .

CAXTON PRESENTED TO EDWARD IV. From Strutt’s jas clesiastical and Regal Antiquities . 1... ..

PAGE

Xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

EARLIEST KNOWN REPRESENTATION OF A PRINTING-PRESS.

From Blade’s Wzlliam Caxton 65 Str THomas More. From Holbein’s oye re, Pete VIIL 72 A MASQUER. From John Nichol’s Progress of James Tl . 76 EDMUND SPENSER. From South Kensington National Por-

traits. é 85 SIR PHILIP Stoney cee eg Me a ie THE RED Cross KNIGHT. From the third edition of the

faerie Queene, 1598 93 SHAKESPEARE’S BIRTHPLACE AT STRATFORD. Fron Buon

tograph 97 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. yom the Chandos ‘Porteaie 99 BEN JONSON. From a painting by Gerard Honthorst . ILI JoHN MILTON. From a crayon drawing at Bayfordbury . . 119 PRINTING OFFICE OF 1619. From the title-page of a book

printed by William Jones in 1619 123 GEORGE HERBERT : “igs JoHN BuNYAN. After a arwite soe life in the British

Museum 143 JOHN DRYDEN ote fey har aees ee aoe ene » 147 ALEXANDER POPE. From a portrait by Richardson 154 JOSEPH ADDISON . ; . 159 JONATHAN SWIFT 00 00a ee Rn ie) ot DANIEL .DEFOB! "1 055. 56) 2R el betes ae Sen 9 on SAMUEL RICHARDSON : «iva SAMUEL JOHNSON. After Sir Tonics Revabide “f X95 OLIVER GOLDSMITH - 181 ROBERT BuRNS. From the Beene by iteandes N asmyth

in the National Portrait Gallery . IQI WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. From an ehotevne bi F. Tv.

Stuart . 197 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE Ne ede SIR WALTER SCOTT IN 1820. From the Chantry Bust . . 204 JOHN KEATS wae CHARLES LAMB eh \ THOMAS DE QUINCEY . <'219 CHARLES DICKENS. After a eee drawing bys Sol Eytinge,

ROBERT: BROWNING ofa et ee fa at fete le NM, al ae

LIST: OF ILLUSTRATIONS XVli

DAMIEN 8 ee kt le ww ww e243 RIERA TATOAA so. ee kk ee wo 249 Ports’ CORNER, WESTMINSTER ABBEY. From a photograph 251 rPeerrreE RICAN TORTS 5). 05.6 8 ek we 257 THE TITLE-PAGE OF ANNE BRADSTREET’S BOOK OF POEMS 263 THE ALPHABET IN THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER... . 265 pS re n+?

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ..... . tent LN cera ere re PATRICK HENRY MAKING HIS PAR OUIN A AND ) CRSAR SPEECH 277 THE AUTHORS OF THE FEDERALIST. . .... +: . 279 IEDR EM PETA MVAN GN ios). 6 ‘ee 8 8 eo 6 287 te NR Me GG ss kk ew ew! we 201 PameeersIMOn)COOPER)).. . . . - . + + s+ « 202 MEMEO EMANECENDENTALISTS . 9. 2 2. 6s 6 6 ¢ 6) © 303 Pe PIANSISSROREAU . 2 4. 25 so 0 te we 's « 307 ammeter ligush AT WALDEN . 9. . « « -« « © 0 « 310 DOeeOTIAWTHORNE s 6. wk ew et wt SII Serre rT ONQWEOUND. 3 »« « « » « ee « 320 DPOIPeOMeUAMERICAN-ORATORS.. . - .i-. % 6 « + 323 TEES re Ay Me ee i Se ye we le ee cee 8 se 330 Ea eee ey ne ee , & THE AUTOCRAT LEAVING HIS BOSTON HOME FOR A Morn-

ING WALK. . eater hee oars”. Melt ven 32330 JOHN LOTHROP MoTLEv ease ce bie al Gia (el ubeehia SS aia SAA, EEOC ys we tee ls nee 0 0 340 CITC rl la 6, oe we we ee eo Z5E WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS .. . PONS IO Ls Ce} A GROUP OF AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS OPE aK Tey

The Portrait of Helen Hunt fackson is reproduced by the courtesy of Little, Brown and Company.

IIIS > 8s a ee woe ee a ew BOI

MAP

PLACES MENTIONED IN ENGLISH LITERARY HIsToRyY (indexed double-page colored map) Facing I

SIGNIFICANT DATES IN ENGLISH LITERlisa

1205-25. 1346. 1362.

1579. 1587-93.

1 590.

1632-38.

1642. 1660. 1662.

ATURE

Death of Cadmon.

Death of Bede.

Death of Alfred.

Norman Conquest.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ends ; Monmouth.

Layamon’s Brut, the Ormulum, the Ancren Riwile.

Battle of Crécy.

Piers Plowman. English becomes the official language of the courts.

Wyclif’s translation of the Bible.

Death of Chaucer.

Capture of Constantinople by the Turks,

Malory’s Morte d’Arthur.

Printing introduced into England.

Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament.

Blank verse introduced by Surrey, the Sonnet and Italian attention to form introduced by Surrey and Wyatt.

Ralph Roister Doister, the first English comedy.

Birth of Shakespeare.

Euphues, The Shepherd's Calendar.

Marlowe shows the power of blank verse.

Arcadia; Books I-11 of the Faerie sah

Decade of the Sonnet.

Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, Books 1-tv.

“King James version” of the Bzd/e.

Teathi of Shakespeare.

first Folio.

Milton’s L’ Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas.

Closing of the theatres.

The Restoration.

fludibras.

death of Geoffrey of

1640. 1650.

1704. 1754.

1798. 1817. 1819.

1821. 1837.

X1X

SIGNIFICANT DATES

Paradise Lost.

The Pilgrim’s Progress.

Death of Dryden.

The Tatler.

The Spectator.

Pamela, the first English novel.

Gtay’s Elegy.

Percy’s Religues.

Lyrical Ballads, by Wordsworth and Coleridge. Reviews established.

Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. First part of Byron’s Childe Harold. Scott’s Waverley.

Best work of Keats and Shelley.

Tennyson’s Poems, Chiefly Lyrical.

Dickens’s Pickwick Papers.

First volume of Ruskin’s Modern Painters. First volume of Macaulay’s History of England. “ George Eliot’s” first fiction.

Browning’s The Ring and the Book.

SIGNIFICANT DATES IN AMERICAN LITER-

ATURE

The Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in America.

Anne Bradstreet’s poems, the best American verse of the seventeenth century.

The Boston News Letter, the first American Mat wepaned

Edwards’s /uquiry into the Freedom of the Will, the first great American metaphysical book.

Freneau’s poems, the best American poetry of the eighteenth century.

Brown’s Wzeland, the first American romance.

Bryant’s 7hanatopsis, the first great American poem.

Irving’s Sketch Book, the first American book to win European fame.

Cooper’s Sy, the first important American novel.

Emerson’s American Scholar, “our intellectual Declaration of Independence.”

Bey Key

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Map showing places connected with ENGLISH LITERARY HISTORY

Warkworth Castle

Scale of Miles 40

10 20 60 80

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A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND’S LITERATURE