CONTENTS CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION--THE MEANING OF LITERATURE The Shell and the Book. Qualities of Literature. Tests of Literature. The Object in studying Literature. Importance of Literature. Summary of the Subject. Bibliography. CHAPTER II. THE ANGLO-SAXON OR OLD-ENGLISH PERIOD Our First Poetry. "Beowulf." "Widsith." "Deor's Lament." "The Seafarer." "The Fight at Finnsburgh." "Waldere." Anglo-Saxon Life. Our First Speech. Christian Writers. Northumbrian Literature. Bede. Cædmon. Cynewulf. Decline of Northumbrian Literature. Alfred. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER III. THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD The Normans. The Conquest. Literary Ideals of the Normans. Geoffrey of Monmouth. Work of the French Writers. Layamon's "Brut." Metrical Romances. The Pearl. Miscellaneous Literature of the Norman Period. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER IV. THE AGE OF CHAUCER History of the Period. Five Writers of the Age. Chaucer. Langland. "Piers Plowman." John Wyclif. John Mandeville. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER V. THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING Political Changes. Literature of the Revival. Wyatt and Surrey. Malory's "Morte d'Arthur." Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER VI. THE AGE OF ELIZABETH Political Summary. Characteristics of the Elizabethan Age. The Non-Dramatic Poets. Edmund Spenser. Minor Poets. Thomas Sackville. Philip Sidney. George Chapman. Michael Drayton. The Origin of the Drama. The Religious Period of the Drama. Miracle and Mystery Plays. The Moral Period of the Drama. The Interludes. The Artistic Period of the Drama. Classical Influence upon the Drama. Shakespeare's Predecessors in the Drama. Christopher Marlowe. Shakespeare. Decline of the Drama. Shakespeare's Contemporaries and Successors. Ben Jonson. Beaumont and Fletcher. John Webster. Thomas Middleton. Thomas Heywood. Thomas Dekker. Massinger, Ford, Shirley. Prose Writers. Francis Bacon. Richard Hooker. Sidney and Raleigh. John Foxe. Camden and Knox. Hakluyt and Purchas. Thomas North. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER VII. THE PURITAN AGE The Puritan Movement. Changing Ideals. Literary Characteristics. The Transition Poets. Samuel Daniel. The Song Writers. The Spenserian Poets. The Metaphysical Poets. John Donne. George Herbert. The Cavalier Poets. Thomas Carew. Robert Herrick. Suckling and Lovelace. John Milton. The Prose Writers. John Bunyan. Robert Burton. Thomas Browne. Thomas Fuller. Jeremy Taylor. Richard Baxter. Izaak Walton. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER VIII. PERIOD OF THE RESTORATION History of the Period. Literary Characteristics. John Dryden. Samuel Butler. Hobbes and Locke. Evelyn and Pepys. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER IX. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE History of the Period. Literary Characteristics. The Classic Age. Alexander Pope. Jonathan Swift. Joseph Addison. "The Tatler" and "The Spectator." Samuel Johnson. Boswell's "Life of Johnson." Later Augustan Writers. Edmund Burke. Edward Gibbon. The Revival of Romantic Poetry. Thomas Gray. Oliver Goldsmith. William Cowper. Robert Burns. William Blake. The Minor Poets of the Romantic Revival. James Thomson. William Collins. George Crabbe. James Macpherson. Thomas Chatterton. Thomas Percy. The First English Novelists. Meaning of the Novel. Precursors of the Novel. Discovery of the Modern Novel. Daniel Defoe. Samuel Richardson. Henry Fielding. Smollett and Sterne. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER X. THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM Historical Summary. Literary Characteristics of the Age. The Poets of Romanticism. William Wordsworth. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Robert Southey. Walter Scott. Byron. Percy Bysshe Shelley. John Keats. Thomas De Quincey. Jane Austen. Walter Savage Landor. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER XI. THE VICTORIAN AGE Historical Summary. Literary Characteristics. Poets of the Victorian Age. Alfred Tennyson. Robert Browning. Minor Poets of the Victorian Age. Elizabeth Barrett. Rossetti. Morris. Swinburne. Novelists of the Victorian Age. Charles Dickens. William Makepeace Thackeray. George Eliot. Minor Novelists of the Victorian Age. Charles Reade. Anthony Trollope. Charlotte Brontë. Bulwer Lytton. Charles Kingsley. Mrs. Gaskell. Blackmore. Meredith. Hardy. Stevenson. Essayists of the Victorian Age. Macaulay. Carlyle. Ruskin. Matthew Arnold. Newman. The Spirit of Modern Literature. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS CANTERBURY PILGRIMS From Royal MS., 18 D.ii, in the British Museum LITERARY MAP OF ENGLAND THE MANUSCRIPT BOOK After the painting in the Congressional Library, by John W. Alexander GEOFFREY CHAUCER After the Rawlinson Pastel Portrait in the Bodleian Library, Oxford PORTIA After the portrait by John Everett Millais. Property of the Metropolitan Museum of Art AMERICAN MEMORIAL WINDOW, STRATFORD EDMUND BURKE From an old print ALFRED TENNYSON After the portrait by George Frederic Watts SIR GALAHAD After the painting by George Frederic Watts CHARLES DICKENS After the portrait by Daniel Maclise THOMAS CARLYLE After the portrait by James McNeill Whistler