Interest in the Present.--One result of the growing scientific
spirit has been an increasing interest in contemporary problems and
literature. At the beginning of the Victorian age, the chief part of
the literature studied in college was nearly two thousand years old.
When English courses were finally added, they frequently ended with
Milton. To-day, however, many colleges have courses in strictly
contemporary literature. The scientific attitude toward life has
caused a recognition of the fact that he who disregards current
literature remains ignorant of a part of the life and thought of
to-day and that he resembles the mathematician who neglects one factor
in the solution of a problem.
It is true that the future may take a different view of all
contemporary things, including literature; but this possibility does
not justify neglect of the present. We should also remember that
different stages in the growth of nations and individuals constantly
necessitate changes in estimating the relative importance of the
thought of former centuries.
The Trend of Contemporary Literature.--The diversity of taste in the
wide circle of twentieth-century readers has encouraged authors of
both the realistic and the romantic schools. The main tendency of
scientific influence and of the new interest in racial welfare is
toward realism. In his stories of the "Five Towns," Arnold Bennett
shows how the dull industrial life affects the character of the
individual. Much of the fiction of H.G. Wells presents matter of
scientific or sociological interest. Poets like John Masefield and
Wilfrid Gibson sing with an almost prosaic sincerity of the life of
workmen and of the squalid city streets. The drama is frequently a
study of the conditions affecting contemporary life.
Twentieth-century writers are not, however, neglecting the other great
function of literature,--to charm life with romantic visions and to
bring to it deliverance from care. The poetry of Noyes takes us back
to the days of Drake and to the Mermaid Inn, where we listen to
Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Jonson. The Irish poets and dramatists
disclose a world of the "Ever-Young," where there is:--
"A laughter in the diamond air, a music in the trembling grass."
The influence of the great German skeptic, Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844-1900), appears in some of Shaw's dramas, as well as in the
novels of Wells; but the poets of this age seem to have more faith
than Swinburne or Matthew Arnold or some of the minor versifiers of
the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
Two prominent essayists, Arthur Christopher Benson (1862- ) and
Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874- ) are sincere optimists. Such volumes
of Benson's essays as _From a College Window_ (1906), _Beside Still
Waters_ (1907), and _Thy Rod and Thy Staff_ (1912) have strengthened
faith and proved a tonic to many. Chesterton is a suggestive and
stimulating essayist in spite of the fact that he often bombards his
readers with too much paradox. Early in life he was an agnostic and a
follower of Herbert Spencer, but he later became a champion of
Christian faith. Sometimes Chesterton seems to be merely clever, but
he is usually too thought-provoking to be read passively. His _Robert
Browning_ (1903), _Varied Types_ (1903), _Heretics_ (1905), _George
Bernard Shaw_ (1909), and _The Victorian Age in Literature_ (1913)
keep most readers actively thinking.
THE NOVEL
Joseph Conrad.--This son of distinguished Polish exiles from Russia,
Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski, as he was originally named, was born in
the Ukraine, in 1857. Until his nineteenth year he was unfamiliar with
the English language. Instead of following the literary or military
traditions of his family, he joined the English merchant marine.
Sailing the seas of the world, touching at strange tropical ports and
uncharted islands, elbowing all the races of the globe, hearing all
the languages spoken by man,--such were Conrad's activities between
his twentieth and thirty-seventh years.
[Illustration: JOSEPH CONRAD.]
At thirty-seven, needing a little rest, he settled in England and
began to write. Short stories, novels, and an interesting
autobiographical volume, _A Personal Record_ (1912), represent
Conrad's production. Among his ablest books are _Tales of Unrest_
(1898), a volume of sea stories, and _Lord Jim_ (1900), a novel full
of the fascination of strange seas and shores, but still more
remarkable for its searching analysis of a man's recovery of
self-respect after a long period of remorse for failure to meet a
momentary crisis. _Youth, A Narrative, and Two Other Tales_ (1902),
contains one of Conrad's strongest stories, _The End of the Tether_.
This is a tender story of an old sea captain, who for the sake of a
cherished daughter holds his post against terrific odds, including
blindness and disgrace. _Typhoon_ (1903) is an almost unrivaled
account of a ship's fight against mad hurricanes and raging seas.
One of Conrad's prime distinctions is his power to visualize scenes.
The terror, beauty, caprice, and mercilessness of the sea; the silence
and strangeness of the impenetrable tropical forest; atmospheres tense
with storm or brilliant with sunshine,--these he records with strong
effect. But though he has gained his fame largely as a chronicler of
remote seas and shores, his handling of the human element is but
little less impressive.
Conrad's method is unusual. Though his sentences are sufficiently
direct and terse, his general order of narration is not
straightforward. He often seems to progress slowly at the start, but
after the characters have been made familiar, the story proceeds to
its powerful and logical conclusion.
Arnold Bennett.--Bennett was born in Hanley, North Staffordshire, in
1867. He studied law, but abandoned it to become for seven years an
editor of _Woman_, a London periodical. In 1900 he resigned this
position to devote himself entirely to literature. He went to France
to live, and began to write novels under the influence of the French
and Russian realistic novelists.
[Illustration: ARNOLD BENNETT.]
Bennett is the author of many works of uneven merit. Some of these
were written merely to strike the popular taste and to sell. His
serious, careful work is seen at its best in his stories of the _Five
Towns_, so called from the small towns of his native Staffordshire.
One of the best of these novels, _The Old Wives' Tale_ (1908), is a
painstaking record of the different temperaments and experiences of
two sisters, from their happy childhood to a pathetic, disillusioned
old age. The intimate, homely revelations and the literal fidelity to
life in _The Old Wives' Tale_ give it a high rank among
twentieth-century English novels.
_Clayhanger_ (1910) is another strong story of life in the "Five
Towns" pottery district of Staffordshire. Although the hero, Edwin
Clayhanger, is not a strong personality, Bennett's art makes us keenly
interested in Edwin's simple, impressionable nature, in his eagerness
for life, and in his experiences as a young dreamer, lover, son, and
brother. _Hilda Lessways_ (1911), a companion volume to _Clayhanger_,
but a story of less power, continues the history of the same
characters. Bennett reveals in these novels one of his prime
gifts,--the skill to paint domestic pictures vividly and to invest
them with a distinct local atmosphere. His art has won a signal
triumph in arousing interest in simple scenes and average characters.
He can present the romance of the commonplace,--of gray, dull
monotonous, almost negative existence.
He has enlivened the contemporary stage with a few brisk comedies.
_Milestones_ was written in collaboration with Edward Knoblauch, an
American author. Its characters, representing three generations,
illustrate humorously the truth that what is to-day's innovation
becomes to-morrow's August convention. _The Honeymoon_ (1911) is a
farce of misunderstandings adroitly handled.
Although Bennett has shown great versatility, yet his individual,
strong, and vital work is found in the one field where he brings us
face to face with the circumscribed, but appealing life of the "Five
Towns" district of his youth.
John Galsworthy.--John Galsworthy was born in Coombe, Surrey, in
1867. He was graduated from Oxford with an honor degree in law in 1889
and was called to the bar in 1890. He traveled for a large part of two
years, visiting, among other places, Russia, Canada, Australia, South
Africa, and the Fiji Islands. On one of these trips he met Joseph
Conrad, then a sailor, and they became warm friends. Galsworthy was
twenty-eight when he began to write.
[Illustration: JOHN GALSWORTHY.]
Four of his novels deal with the upper classes of English society.
_The Man of Property_ (1906) treats of the wealthy class, _The Country
House_ (1907) presents the conservative country squire, _Fraternity_
(1909) portrays the intellectual class, and _The Patrician_ (1911)
pictures the aristocrat. Galsworthy is the relentless analyist of
well-to-do, conventional English society. As Frederic Taber Cooper
well says, "British stolidity, British conservatism, the unvarying
fixity of the social system, the sacrifice of individual needs and
cravings to caste and precedent and public opinion,--these are the
themes which Mr. Galsworthy never wearies of satirizing with a mordant
irony."
Since his object is to present problems of life, many of his
characters are but types. On the other hand, Soames Forsyte in _The
Man of Property_, Lord Miltoun, Mrs. Noel, and Lady Casterley in _The
Patrician_, are among the most brilliant and real characters in modern
fiction. Galsworthy's style is clear, his plot construction is
excellent, and his humor in caricaturing social types has many of the
qualities of Dickens's.
Herbert George Wells.--Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, in 1866. He
expected to be a shopkeeper and was apprenticed in his fourteenth year
to a chemist; but this did not satisfy his ambition. Later, however,
he won scholarships that enabled him to take a degree in science.
While preparing himself to graduate from the University of London, he
worked in Huxley's laboratory. The experiments there inspired him to
write stories based on scientific facts and hypotheses, such as _The
Time Machine_ (1895) and _In the Days of the Comet_ (1906). Wells is
also vitally interested in problems of sociology. The _Discovery of
the Future_ (1902) and _The Future in America_ (1906) present
possibilities of scientifically planning man's further development.
_Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul_ (1905) and _Marriage_ (1912) are
his best works, considered as actual novels of character. _Kipps_ is a
bitter but strong portrayal of the pretense and hypocrisy of society
and of its inertia in responding to human needs, and _Marriage_ is a
subtle, psychological analysis of a conjugal misunderstanding and an
attempted readjustment. Wells's study of man as a biological
development and his preference of actual facts to sentimental
conclusions are in accord with the trend of modern social science.
[Illustration: HERBERT GEORGE WELLS.]
The work of Wells covers a wide range of subjects. He has written
scientific romances, blood-curdling tales, strange phantasies,
prophetic Utopias, and sociological novels. He shows an increasing
tendency to depict the human struggle with environment, heredity, and
the manifold forces that affect the earning of a livelihood. His
characters are more often remembered as specimens exhibiting some
phase of life than as attractive or repellent personalities.
Increasing power of portraying character, however, is evident in his
later work. He has a daring imagination, a sense of humor, satiric
power, and a capacity for expressing himself in vivid and picturesque
English.
Eden Phillpotts was born in India in 1862. His novels, however, are
as definitely associated with Devonshire as Hardy's are with Wessex,
and Bennett's with North Staffordshire. Phillpotts is noted for his
power to paint "landscapes with figures." The "figures" are the
farmers, villagers, and shepherds of that part of Devon, known as
Dartmoor; and the landscapes are the granite crags, the moors; and
farmlands of "good red earth." _Widecombe Fair_ (1913) is the
twentieth volume that he has published as a result of twenty years'
work among these children of Devon. Sometimes the roughness and
untutored emotions of the Dartmoor characters repel the readers; but
these characters form strong, picturesque groups of human beings, and
their dialect adds a pleasant flavor to the novels. Phillpotts's
frequent use of coincidences weakens the effect and mars the
naturalness of the plot, since their recurrence comes to be
anticipated. _Children of the Mist_ (1898) and _Demeter's Daughter_
(1911) are among his ablest novels.
Maurice Hewlett was born in Kent in 1861, of an old Somerset family.
He began writing in his boyhood, giving proof even then of his skill
in catching the manner of other writers. His style to-day reëchoes his
reading of many authors in Latin, French, Italian, and English.
_The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay_ (1900) shows Hewlett's
romantic fancy and love for historical characters and pageants. While
this novel is full of life, color, and movement, it displays his
proneness to allow the romantic vein to run to the fantastic in both
episode and style. _The Stooping Lady_ (1907) deals with the love of a
lady of high degree for a humble youth whom her devotion ennobles.
Hewlett's style is finished and richly poetical, but often too ornate
and too encrusted with archaic terms and other artificial forms.
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, born in Cornwall in 1863, is a fiction
writer, critic, poet, and anthologist. Having much of Stevenson's love
for romantic adventure, he was chosen to finish _St. Ives_, left
incomplete by Stevenson. _The Splendid Spur_ (1889), a spirited tale
of romance and war in the perturbed time of Charles I., is one of his
best stories of adventure.
Among his books on simple Cornish life may be mentioned _The
Delectable Duchy_ (1893). It is a collection of short stories and
sketches. Quiller-Couch sees life without a touch of morbid somberness
and he commands a vivacious, highly-trained style.
William Frend De Morgan was born in London, in 1839. He published
his first novel, _Joseph Vance_ (1906), at the age of sixty-seven.
This plain, straightforward story of a little boy befriended by a
generous-hearted London doctor won for De Morgan wide and hearty
applause. While some contemporary writers fashion their style and
select their material on the models of French or Russian realists, De
Morgan goes to the great English masters, Thackeray and Dickens. Like
them, De Morgan writes copiously and leisurely.
_Alice-for-Short_ (1907) and _Somehow Good_ (1908) are strong novels,
but _Joseph Vance_, with its carelessly constructed plot and power to
awaken tears and smiles, remains De Morgan's best piece of fiction.
William John Locke was born in the Barbados in 1863. He gained much
of his reputation from his tenth book, _The Beloved Vagabond_ (1906).
The book takes its charm from the whimsical and quixotic temperament
of the hero. He is typical of Locke's other leading characters, who,
like Hamlet's friend, Horatio, take "fortune's buffets and rewards
with equal thanks." Like other novels by the same author, this story
is pervaded by a distinctly Bohemian atmosphere, wherein the ordinary
conventions of society are disregarded.
Locke's humor, his deft characterization, his toleration of human
failings, largely compensate for his lack of significant plots. He is
sometimes whimsical to the point of eccentricity, and his high spirits
often verge on extravagance; but at his best he has the power of
refreshing the reader with gentle irony, genial laughter, and love for
human kind.
Israel Zangwill, the Jewish writer, was born in London in 1864. He
first won fame by interpreting the Jewish temperament as he saw it
manifested in London's dingy, pitiful Ghetto quarter. "This Ghetto
London of ours," he says, "is a region where, amid uncleanness and
squalor, the rose of romance blows yet a little longer in the raw air
of English reality, a world of dreams as fantastic and poetic as the
mirage of the Orient where they were woven."
In his volume, _The Children of the Ghetto_ (1892), Zangwill admirably
chronicles the lives of these people and the sharp contrasts between
their quaint traditions and a great modern commercial city's customs.
POETRY
The Celtic Renaissance.--Some of the best recent English verse has
been written by poets of Irish birth or sympathies. Because of the
distinctive quality of both the poetry and prose of these Celtic
writers, the term "Celtic Renaissance" has been applied to their work,
which glows with spiritual emotion and discloses a world of dreams,
fairies, and romantic aspiration. As Richard Wagner received from the
Scandinavian folk-lore the inspiration for his great music, as
Tennyson found the incentive for _The Idylls of the Kings_ in Malory's
_Morte d'Arthur_, so the modern Celtic poets turned back to the
primitive legends of their country for tales of Cuchulain who fought
the sea, Caolte who besieged the castle of the gods, Oisin, who
wandered three hundred years in the land of the immortals, and Deirdre
who stands in the same relation to Celtic literature as Helen to Greek
and Brunnhilde to German literature. Some of the fascination that the
past and its fairy kingdom exerted over these poets may be found in
this stanza from Russell's _The Gates of Dreamland_:--
"Oh, the gates of the mountain have opened once again
And the sound of song and dancing falls upon the ears of men,
And the Land of Youth lies gleaming, flushed with rainbow light and
mirth.
And the old enchantment lingers in the honey-heart of earth."[1]
William Butler Yeats.--One of the most talented and active workers
in this Celtic Renaissance is William Butler Yeats, born in 1865 in
Dublin, Ireland. He came from an artistic family, his father, brother,
and sisters being either artists or identified with the arts and
crafts movement. Yeats himself studied art in Dublin, but poetry was
more attractive to him than painting.
He was greatly influenced by spending his youthful days with his
grandparents in County Sligo, where he heard the old Irish legends
told by the peasants, who still believed them. He translated these
stories from Irish into English and wrote poems and essays relating to
them. After reaching the age of thirty-four, he became engaged in
writing dramas and in assisting to establish the Irish National
Theater in Dublin. In thus reviving Ireland's heroic history, Yeats
has served his country and his art.
[Illustration: WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS.]
_The Wanderings of Oisin_ (1889) is his best narrative poem. Oisin,
one of the ancient Celtic heroes, returns, after three hundred years
of adventure, to find Ireland Christianized. St. Patrick hears him
relate that he had been carried by his immortal wife, Niamh, to the
land of the Ever-Young,--
"Where broken faith has never been known,
And the blushes of first love never have flown,"[2]
that he had battled for a hundred years with an undying foe, and that
his strength had not waned during his stay on those immortal shores,
although he had felt the effect of age when his foot again touched his
native land. The days of "gods and fighting" men are brought back in
this romantic poem. The battles, however, are not such gory conflicts
as Scott and Kipling can paint. Yeats's contemplative genius presents
bloodless battles, symbolic of life's continued fight, and accentuates
the eternal hope and peace in the land of immortal youth.
Among his shorter narrative poems, which show some of the power of
_The Wanderings of Oisin_, are _The Death of Cuchulain_, _The Old Age
of Queen Maeve_, and _Baile and Aillinn_. Baille and Aillinn are the
Irish Romeo and Juliet, each of whom hears from the baleful Aengus the
false report that the other is dead. Each lover unhesitatingly seeks
death in order to meet the other at once beyond these mortal shores.
Yeats has also told simple stories in simple verse, as may be seen in
_The Ballad of Father Gilligan_ or _The Fiddler of Dooney_.
The most striking characteristic of Yeats's work is the pensive
yearning for a spiritual love, for an unchecked joy, and an unchanging
peace beyond what mortal life can give. These qualities are strikingly
illustrated by such poems as _Into the Twilight_, _The Everlasting
Voices_, _The Hosting of the Sidhe_ (Fairies), _The Stolen Child_. The
very spirit of Celtic poetry is seen in these lines from _The Lake
Isle of Innisfree_:--
"And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings."[3]
Yeats's verse has been called "dream-drenched poems." The term is
admirably descriptive of his romantic, lyrical verse.
George W. Russell.--Among the most prominent of these Celtic
imaginative writers is George W. Russell (1867- ), "the Irish
Emerson," popularly known as "A.E." He is a poet, a painter, a mystic,
and a dramatist. With Lady Gregory and Yeats, he has been one of the
most active workers for the Irish National Theater. He is an efficient
member of those coöperative societies which are trying to improve
Ireland's industrial and agricultural conditions.
Russell's poetry is highly spiritual. Sometimes it is so mystical that
like Prospero's messenger, Ariel, it vanishes into thin air. His
shadowy pictures of nature and his lyrical beauty and tenderness are
evident in two little volumes of his verse, _Homeward Songs by the
Way_ (1894) and _The Divine Vision_ (1904). This Stanza from _Beauty_,
in _The Divine Vision_, shows his spiritual longing for quiet, peace,
and beauty, in which to worship his Creator:--
"Oh, twilight, fill in pearl dew, each healing drop may bring
Some image of the song the Quiet seems to sing.
My spirit would have beauty to offer at the shrine,
And turn dull earth to gold and water into wine,
And burn in fiery dreams each thought till thence refined
It may have power to mirror the mighty Master's mind."[4]
Fiona Macleod.--All the work of William Sharp that he published
under the pseudonym of "Fiona Macleod" belongs to this Celtic
Renaissance. Born in 1856 at Paisley, Scotland, he settled in London
in 1878, and became widely known as William Sharp, the critic. When he
turned to his boyhood's home, the West Highlands of Scotland, for
inspiration, he wrote, under the pen-name of Fiona Macleod, poetic
prose stories and many poems about these Scotch Celts. He kept the
secret of his identity so well that not until his death in 1905 was it
known that Fiona Macleod, the mystic, was William Sharp, the critic.
_Mountain Lovers_ (1895), a romantic novel of primitive people who
live with nature in her loneliness, mystery, and terror, and who
possess an instinctive, speechless, and poetic knowledge of her moods,
is one of the earliest and most interesting of his long novels. He
excels in the short story. Some of his finest work in this field is in
_The Sin Eater_ (1895), which contains uncanny tales of quaint,
strongly-marked highland characters with their weird traditions.
_From the Hills of Dream_ (1901) and _The Hour of Beauty_ (1907) are
two small volumes of short poems full of the witchery of dreams, of
death, of youth, and of lonely scenes. These poems come from a land
far off from our common world. Delicacy of fancy, a freedom from any
touch of impurity, a beauty as of "dew-sweet moon-flowers glimmering
white through the mirk of a dust laden with sea-mist," are the
qualities of Fiona Macleod's best verse.
John Masefield.--Instead of looking to the land of dreams and the
misty past, like the Celtic writers, Masefield and Gibson, two younger
English poets, have found in the everyday life of the present time the
themes for their verse. Masefield was born in 1875 in Shropshire. He
was a seafarer in his youth, and later, a traveler by land and sea.
These varied experiences contributed color and vividness to his
narrative verse.
[Illustration: JOHN MASEFIELD.]
He has written several long narrative poems on unromantic subjects.
_Dauber_ (1912) contains some of his best lines and its story is the
most poetic. This poem follows the fortunes of a poor youth who,
wishing to be a painter of ships, went to sea to study his mode at
first hand. Masefield describes, with much power, the young artist's
ambition, his rough handling by the uncouth sailors, and his perilous
experiences while rounding Cape Horn. _Dauber_ exhibits the poet's
power of vividly picturing human figures and landscapes. This poem,
like most of Masefield's long narrative poems, is a story of human
failure,--a dull prosaic failure, such as prose fiction presents in
its pessimistic moods.
A strong and cheerful note is struck in some of Masefield's short
lyrics, notably in _Laugh and be Merry_, _Roadways_, _The Seekers_,
and _Being Her Friend_. In _Laugh and be Merry_, the song is almost
triumphant:--
"Laugh and be proud to belong to the old proud pageant of man.
* * * * *
Laugh and battle, and work, and drink of the wine outpoured
In the dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord."[5]
Masefield's fancy does not busy itself with dreams and impossible
visions. He paints life in its grayness and sordidness and dull
mediocrity. Sometimes his verse is merely plain rimed prose, but again
it becomes vigorous, picturesque, and vivid in description, as in the
following lines from _Dauber_:--
"...then the snow
Whirled all about, dense, multitudinous cold,
Mixed with the wind's one devilish thrust and shriek
Which whiffled out men's tears, deafened, took hold,
Flattening the flying drift against the cheek."[6]
Wilfred W. Gibson.--Gibson, who was born in Hexham in 1878, sings of
the struggling oppressed work-a-day people:--
"Crouched in the dripping dark
With steaming shoulders stark
The man who hews the coal to feed the fires."[7]
His poem, _The Machine_, awakens sympathy for the printer of Christmas
story books and reveals Gibson as the twentieth-century Thomas Hood of
_The Song of the Shirt_. One of the most richly human of his poems is
_The Crane_, the story of the seamstress mother and her lame boy. His
realistic volume of verse bearing the significant title, _Daily Bread_
(1910), contains a number of narrative poems, which endeavor to set to
music the "one measure" to which all life moves,--the earning of daily
bread.
Gibson owes much of his popularity to his spirit of democracy and to
the story form of his verse. Like Masefield, he sacrifices beauty to
dull realism. Gibson manifests less range, less dramatic feeling, than
Masefield, but avoids Masefield's uncouthness and repellent dramatic
episodes.
These two poets illustrate a tendency to introduce a new realistic
poetry. Wordsworth wrote of Michael and the Westmoreland peasantry,
but Masefield and Gibson have taken as subjects of verse the toilers
of factory, foundry, and forecastle. Closeness to life and simplicity
of narration characterize these authors. They approximate the subject
matter and technique of realistic fiction.
Alfred Noyes.--Alfred Noyes was born in 1880 in Wolverhampton
Staffordshire. He wrote verse while an Oxford undergraduate and he has
since become one of the leading poets of the twentieth century. He has
traveled in England and in America, reading his poems and lecturing on
literary subjects.
[Illustration: ALFRED NOYES.]
_The Flower of Old Japan_ (1903) is a fairy tale of children who dream
of the pictures on blue china plates and Japanese fans. The poem is
symbolic. The children are ourselves; and Japan is but the "kingdom of
those dreams which ...are the sole reality worth living and dying
for."
The poet says of this kingdom:--
"Deep in every heart it lies
With its untranscended skies;
For what heaven should bend above
Hearts that own the heaven of love?"[8]
_The Forest of Wild Thyme_ (1905) affords another
"Hour to hunt the fairy gleam
That flutters through this childish dream."[9]
There is also a deeper meaning to be read into this poem. The mystery
of life, small as well as great, is found simply told in these
lines:--
"What does it take to make a rose,
Mother-mine?
The God that died to make it knows
It takes the world's eternal wars,
It takes the moon and all the stars,
It takes the might of heaven and hell
And the everlasting Love as well,
Little child."[10]
Noyes has published several volumes of lyrical verse. Some of it
possesses the lightness of these elfish tales. _The Barrel Organ_,
_The Song of Re-Birth_, and _Forty Singing Seamen_ are among his
finest lyrics. They display much rhythmic beauty and variety. He
strikes a deeply sorrowful and passionate note in _The Haunted Palace_
and _De Profundis_. A line like this in _The Haunted Palace_--
"...I saw the tears
Bleed through her eyes with the slow pain of years,"[11]
indicates the strong emotional metaphor that occasionally deepens the
passion of his verse.
England's sea power, immortalized in song from Beowulf to Swinburne,
often inspires Noyes. His finest long poem is _Drake: An English Epic_
(1908), which relates the adventures of this Elizabethan sea-captain
and his victory over the Armada. The spirit of a daring romantic age
of discovery is shown in these lines that tell how Drake and his men--
"...went out
To danger as to a sweetheart far away,
Who even now was drawing the western clouds
Like a cymar of silk and snow-white furs
Close to her, till her body's beauty seemed
Clad in a mist of kisses."[12]
Another volume of poems, _Tales of the Mermaid Tavern_ (1913), brings
us into the company of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spencer, Jonson, Raleigh,
and others of the great Elizabethan group that made the Mermaid Tavern
their chosen resort. Greene's farewell to Shakespeare,--
"You took my clay and made it live,"[13]
shows that Noyes has caught something of the spirit that animated
Elizabethan England.
Noyes is one of the most spontaneous and fluent writers of modern
English poetry. Whether he is mystical, dramatic, playful, or marching
along the course of a long narrative poem, he handles his verse with
ease and facility. His language, his rhythm, and his thought are most
happily blended in his graceful singing lyrics. The work of Noyes is
inspired by the desire to show that all things and all souls are--
"One with the dream that triumphs beyond the light of the spheres,
We come from the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of
Years."[14]
THE MODERN DRAMA
The revival of the drama is a characteristic feature of the latter
part of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. The
plays of the Norwegian, Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), affected England
profoundly in the last decade of the nineteenth century and proved an
impetus to a new dramatic movement, seen in the work of men like Shaw.
The great literary school of dramatists passed away soon after the
death of Shakespeare. While it is true that the writing of plays has
been practically continuous since the time of the Restoration, yet for
more than two hundred years after that event, the history of the drama
has had little memorable work to record. There were two brief
interesting comic periods: (1) the period of Congreve at the close of
the seventeenth century, and (2) of Goldsmith and Sheridan nearly a
hundred years later. The literary plays of the Victorians,--Browning,
Tennyson, and Swinburne,--were lacking in dramatic essentials.
The modern drama has accomplished certain definite results. Pinero's
work is typical of vast improvement in technique. Shaw is noted for
his power of "investing modern conversation with vivacity and point."
J.M. Synge has won distinction for presenting the great elemental
forces that underlie the actions of primitive human beings. The
playwrights are making the drama perform some of the functions that
have been filled by the novel. The modern drama is also wrestling with
the problem of combining literary form, poetic spirit, and good
dramatic action. Some of the modern plays deal with unpleasant
subjects, and some of the least worthy are immoral in their
tendencies. Such plays will be forgotten, for the Anglo-Saxon race has
never yet immortalized an unwholesome drama. Fortunately, however, the
influence of a large proportion of the plays is pure and wholesome. In
this class may be included the dramas of the Irish school and of
Barrie, the majority by Galsworthy, and a number by Phillips and Shaw.
Jones and Pinero.--The work of Henry Arthur Jones and Sir Arthur
Wing Pinero marks the advance of the English drama from artificiality
and narrowness of scope toward a wider, closer relation to life. Henry
Arthur Jones, both a playwright and a critic, was born in
Grandborough, Buckinghamshire, in 1851. Contemporary English life is
the subject of his numerous plays. _The Manoeuvers of Jane_ (1898) and
_Mrs. Dane's Defence (1900), are among his best works.
[Illustration: HENRY ARTHUR JONES.]
Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, born in 1855 in London, began his career as an
actor.
[Illustration: ARTHUR WING PINERO.]
His real ambition, however, was to write for the stage. More than
forty works, including farces, comedies of sentiment, and serious
dramas of English life, attest his zeal as a dramatist. Among his most
successful farces are _The Magistrate_ (1885), _The School Mistress_
(1886), and _The Amazons_ (1893). Clever invention of absurd
situations and success in starting infectious laughter are the prime
qualities of these plays.
_The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_ (1893) is by most critics considered
Pinero's masterpiece. The failure of a character to regain
respectability once forfeited supplies the nucleus for the dramatic
situations. Excellent in craftsmanship as it is disagreeable in theme,
this play contains no superfluous word to retard the action or mar the
technical economy. Adolphus William Ward says: "With _The Second Mrs.
Tanqueray_ the English acted drama ceased to be a merely insular
product, and took rank in the literature of Europe. Here was a play
which, whatever its faults, was ...an epoch-marking play."
One great service of Pinero and Jones to the twentieth-century drama
has been excellent craftsmanship. Their technical skill may be
specifically noted in the naturalness of the dialogues, in the
movement of the characters about the stage, in the performance of some
acts apparently trivial but really significant, and in the
substitution of devices to take the place of the old soliloquies and
"asides." Of the two, Pinero is the better craftsman, since Jones, in
his endeavor to paint a moral, sometimes weakens his dramatic effect.
George Bernard Shaw.--Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1856. He
was willful and took "refuge in idleness" at school. His education
consisted mainly in studying music with his talented mother, in
haunting picture galleries, and in wide reading. At the age of twenty,
he went to London and began his literary career. He was at various
times a journalist, a critic of art, music, and the drama, a lecturer,
a novelist, and a playwright. Shaw describes himself as a man "up to
the chin in the life of his times." He is a vegetarian, an
anti-vivisectionist, an advocate for woman's suffrage, and a
socialist.
[Illustration: GEORGE BERNARD SHAW.]
_Arms and the Man, Candida, You Never Can Tell_, and _The Man of
Destiny_, published (1898) in the second volume of _Plays, Pleasant
and Unpleasant_; and _The Devil's Disciple_, published (1900) in
_Three Plays for Puritans_, are among his best dramas. With their
stage directions and descriptions, they are as delightful to read as
novels. Of these plays, _Candida_ is first in character drawing and
human interest. The dramatic action is wholly within the mental states
of the three chief actors, but the situations are made intense through
a succession of unique, absorbing, entertaining, and well-developed
conversations.
Shaw is more destructive than constructive in his philosophy as
expressed in his plays; and he criticizes so many of the institutions
held sacred by society that people have refused to accept him
seriously, even when he has written expository prefaces to his dramas.
In _Arms and the Man_, he satirizes the romantic admiration for the
soldier's calling; in _The Doctor's Dilemma_ (1906), he attacks the
professional man; in _Widowers' Houses_ (1898), he assails the rich
property holder with his high rents on poor people's houses: and in
_Man and Superman_ (1903), he dissects love and home until the
sentiment is entirely taken out of them.
Shaw's chief object is to place before his audience facts, reasons,
and logical conclusions. He will not tolerate romantic emotions or
sentimentalism, which he ridicules with a reckless audacity, a literal
incisiveness, and a satiric wit that none of his contemporaries can
excel. His chief claim to his present important position among
playwrights is based on his originality and fearlessness of thought,
the unfailing sprightliness of his conversation, the infectious spirit
of raillery in his comedies, and his mastery of the requirements of
the modern stage.
J.M. Barrie.--With the successful stage production of _The Little
Minister_ (1897), Barrie passed from novelist to playwright. The
qualities of humor, fancy, and quaint characterization, which were
such a charm in his novels, reappear in his plays.
[Illustration: JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE.]
_The Admirable Crichton_, produced in 1903, is one of Barrie's most
successful comedies. He displays skill and humor in handling the
absurd situation of a peer's family wrecked on a desert island, where
the butler, as the most resourceful member of the party, takes
command. In _Peter Pan_ (1904), the dramatization of the novel, _The
Little White Bird_, care-free, prankish Peter Pan visits three
children in their sleep and teaches them to fly away with him. He
carries them to the little people of the fairy world, to the pirate
ship, to other scenes dear to children's hearts, and finally to his
home in the tree tops. The play is a mixture of fancy, symbolism, and
realism. These are woven into a bright phantasy by an imagination that
is near to childhood and has not lost its morning's brightness.
_What Every Woman Knows_ (produced in 1908) shows Barrie's dramatic
art at its height. He knows how to introduce variety and to give his
characters an opportunity to reveal themselves. Every word, every
movement of the heroine, Maggie Shand, adds to the unfolding of a
fascinating personality. A period of intensely dramatic action may be
followed by a comparative pause, such as occurs when the audience sees
Maggie's husband slowly realize her cleverness and helpfulness,
--qualities that had been long apparent to every one else.
Barrie shows the ability to present dramatically situations that are
emotionally appealing or delightfully humorous. His plays exhibit
admirably the deep feelings, the momentary moods, the resourcefulness,
or the peculiar whimsicalities of men and women.
John Galsworthy.--As a means of presenting social problems,
Galsworthy utilizes the drama even more than the novel. Faulty prison
systems, discords between labor and capital, discrepancies between law
and justice, are some of the themes he chooses to dramatize. _The
Silver Box_ (1906) ironically interprets Justice as blind rather than
impartial. The poor man is often punished while the more fortunate man
goes free. _Strife_ (1909), in some respects the most powerful of his
plays, illustrates the clash between capital and labor. In _The Eldest
Son_ (1912), the conflict is between two social orders. _Justice_
(1910), which secured reforms in the English prison system, shows how
a young man is affected by an inflexible but legal punishment; and how
such a method fails to assist him humanely to a better manhood, but
drives him to lower and lower depths.
In _Joy_ (1907), a delightful play, Galsworthy momentarily
relinquishes social problems for a drama of more personal emotion. In
the mystical, poetical composition, _The Little Dream_ (1911), he
presents an allegory of the maiden in the Alps, dreaming first of the
simple mountain life and then of the life in cities. With its
spiritual note and delicate fancy, _The Little Dream_ turns a golden
key on the ideal world beyond the strife and gloom dramatized in the
sociological plays.
Galsworthy has good stagecraft. His characterization is distinct and
consistent. His plays are simple in construction and direct in
movement. He strictly avoids rhetorical and theatrical effects, but
his dramatic economies often sacrifice all charm and aesthetic appeal.
His gray world leaves no hope save the desperate one that conditions
so grim may shame and spur society to reform.
Stephen Phillips.--This dramatist and poet was born at Somerton,
near Oxford, in 1864. The boy was sent to Shakespeare's birthplace,
Stratford-on-Avon, to attend school. He entered Cambridge, but at the
end of his first term he left the university to join a company of
Shakespearean players. His six years with them initiated him into the
technique of stagecraft, which he later applied in the writing of his
poetic dramas.
[Illustration: STEPHEN PHILLIPS.]
Before producing the plays for which he is known, he wrote some
narrative and lyric verse. _Marpessa_ (1890), a blank verse poem, is a
beautiful treatment of the old Greek myth, in which Apollo, the god,
and Idas, the mortal, woo Marpessa. Marlowe might have written the
lines in which Apollo promises to take her to a home above the world,
where movement is ecstasy and repose is thrilling. In some of his
non-dramatic poems, _Christ in Hades_ (1896), _Cities of Hell_ (1907),
and _The New Inferno_ (1896), Phillips shows how the subject of life
and punishment after death attracts him.
With the appearance of his _Paolo and Francesca_ in 1899, the poetic
drama seemed phoenix-like to arise from its ashes. Tennyson and
Browning had failed to write successful plays. In fact, since the
death of Dryden, poetry and drama had seemed to be afraid to approach
each other. Phillips effected at least a temporary union. His several
plays have distinctly dramatic qualities and many passages of poetic
beauty. From both a dramatic and a poetic point of view, _Paolo and
Francesca_ is Phillips's best play. Its dramatic values lie chiefly in
its power to create and sustain a sense of something definitely
progressing toward a certain point. The poetic elements of the play
consist in the beauty of atmosphere and the charm of the lines.
Giovanni Malatesta, the ugly tyrant of Rimini, being at war when his
marriage draws near, sends his young brother Paolo to escort Francesca
to Rimini. On the journey Paolo and Francesca fall in love with each
other. When Giovanni discovers this, his jealous hand slays them. To
such a tragic climax, Phillips drives steadily onward from the first
scene, thus focusing the interest on a concrete dramatic situation.
_Herod_ (1900) is a drama of ambition versus love. Herod, the great
historic king of the Jews, though passionately in love with his wife
Mariamne, sacrifices her brother Aristobulus to his suspicions,
fearing that this young prince, the last of the Maccabees, may
supplant him on the throne. This sacrifice, prompted by evil
counselors, results in a train of tragic episodes, including
Mariamne's death and Herod's madness. The lines in which Herod speaks
of thinking in gold and dreaming in silver call to mind the hyperbole
and music of Marlowe's mighty line.
_Ulysses_ (1902), more of a panorama than a play, is founded on the
Homeric story. Its scenes are laid in Olympus, in Hades, on Calypso's
isle, and finally in Ithaca. Calypso tries to retain Ulysses upon her
isle, beautiful--
"With sward of parsley and of violet
And poplars shimmering in a silvery dream."[15]
He struggles against her enchantment, returns home, finds his wife
surrounded by her suitors, joins in their bow-drawing contest, and, in
a most exciting and dramatic scene, surpasses all rivals and claims
his faithful, beautiful Penelope.
The plays of Phillips not infrequently lack that clinching power that
stretches the interest taut. Many scenes are admirably spectacular,
suggestive of richly decorated tapestries, which hang separately in
spacious rooms; but the plays need more forceful dramatic action,
moving through changes to a climax. Phillips's diction, though
sometimes rhetorical, is also often ornately beautiful and highly
poetical. We feel that even in his plays, he is greater as a poet than
as a dramatist.
CELTIC DRAMATISTS
Strong national feeling, interest in the folklore and peasant life of
Ireland, and ambition to establish a national theater, have led to a
distinct and original Irish drama. In 1899, with a fund of two hundred
and fifty dollars, Lady Gregory, William Butler Yeats, G.W. Russell,
and other playwrights and patrons succeeded in establishing in Dublin
the Irish Literary Theater now known as the Irish National Theater.
The object of this theater is twofold. In the first place, it aims to
produce "literary" plays, not the vapid, panoramic kind that merely
pass away the time. In the second place, the Irish plays present
fabled and historical Irish heroes and the humble Irish peasant.
Patriotism inspired many writers to assist in this national movement.
Some gathered stories from the lips of living Irish-speaking peasants;
others collected and translated into English the old legends of
heroes. Dr. Douglas Hyde's translations of _The Five Songs of
Connacht_ (1894) and _The Religious Songs of Connacht_ (1906) are
valuable works and have greatly influenced the Irish writers.
Lady Augusta Gregory.--Lady Gregory, born in 1852, in Roxborough,
County Galway, has made some of the best of these translations in her
works, _Cuchulain of Muirthemma_, and _Gods and Fighting Men_. "These
two books have come to many as a first revelation of the treasures
buried in Gaelic literature, and they are destined to do much for the
floating of old Irish story upon the world. They aim to do for the
great cycles of Irish romance what Malory did for the Arthurian
stories."[16]
[Illustration: LADY GREGORY.]
Lady Gregory wrote also for the Irish Theater plays that have been
acted successfully not only in Ireland but in England and in America.
Among her best serious plays are _The Gaol Gate_ (1906), a present-day
play, the hero of which dies to save a neighbor, _The Rising of the
Moon_ (1907), and _Grania_ (1912). _McDonough's Wife_ (1913) is an
excellent brief piece with an almost heroic note at the close. The
great vagabond piper, McDonough, master of wonderful music, returns
from wandering, to find his wife dead, and, because of his
thriftlessness, about to be denied honorable burial. McDonough steps
to the door, pipes his marvelous tunes, and immediately the village
flocks to do homage to his wife.
Lady Gregory's farces have primarily made her fame. _Spreading the
News_ (1904), _Hyacinth Halvey_ (1906), _The Image_ (1910), and _The
Bogie Men_ (1913) are representative of her vigorous and
well-constructed farces. They are varied in subject, the incidents are
well developed, the characters are genuine Irish peasants and
villagers, and the humor is infectious. It is interesting to note that
Lady Gregory has continued to write farces because of the demand for
them in the Irish National Theater, in order to offset the large
number of tragedies by other authors.
William Butler Yeats.--In addition to delightful poetic fancy, Yeats
possesses considerable dramatic ability and stagecraft. In _The
Countess Cathleen_ (rewritten in 1912), the poor peasants are driven
by a famine to the verge of starvation. Many die; but some are fed by
the Countess Cathleen, while others sell their souls for the price of
food to demons disguised as merchants. When these demons steal
Countess Cathleen's stores in order to stop her charities, with
instant Irish quickness and generosity, she sells her soul for a great
price to the demons, in order to save her people here and hereafter.
Such a tremendous sacrifice, however, is not permitted. Because of the
purity of her motive, armed angels save her soul in the last
impressive act. Supernatural powers, both pagan and Christian,
participate in the play. Spirits haunt the woods, enter the peasants'
cottages, and cast spells on the inhabitants. The play is Irish in
story, in symbolism, and in the fancifulness of the conception.
_The Land of Heart's Desire_ is another drama that has sprung from the
soil and folklore of Ireland. This play was one of the first Celtic
dramas to be produced, and in its present revised form (1912) it is
one of the most engaging of the Irish plays. Partly in prose and
partly in verse, it is the story of a young bride who tires of her
monotonous life and calls upon the fairies to release her. The old
parents tell her that duty comes before love of the fairies.
The good priest begs her not to forsake her faithful young husband;
but the fairy wins, and, leaving a dead bride in the cottage, bears
away the living bride to a land where--
"The fairies dance in a place apart,
Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,
Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;
For they have heard the wind laugh and murmur and sing
Of a land where even the old are fair,
And even the wise are merry of tongue."[17]
Patriotic love for Ireland is the very breath of _Cathleen ni
Hoolihan_ (1902), a one-act prose play in which Cathleen symbolizes
Ireland. _The Shadowy Waters_ (1900) and _Deirdre_ (1907) are more
poetic than dramatic. The first of these with the mysterious harper,
the far-sailing into unknown seas, the parting with everything but the
loved one, shows Yeats in his deeply mystical mood. In _Deirdre_ is
dramatized part of a popular legend of the great queen by that name,
who was too beautiful for happiness. She has seven long years of joy
and then accepts her fate in the calm, triumphant way of the old
heroic times.
Yeats's plays reflect the childlike superstitions and lively
imagination of his country. He loves the fairies, the dreams of
eternal youth, the symbolizing of things of the spirit by lovely
things of earth. His plays are poetical, fanciful, and romantic.
John Millington Synge.--One of the most notable of the Irish
writers, J.M. Synge, was born near Dublin in 1871 and died in that
city in 1909. His brief span of life has yielded only scanty
biographical data. He came of an old Wicklow family; he was graduated
from Trinity College, Dublin; afterwards he wandered through much of
Europe, finally settling in France.
[Illustration: JOHN SYNGE.]
In 1899, William Butler Yeats discovered him in Paris, a "man all
folded up in brooding intellect," writing essays on French
authors,--on Molière, for example, from whom he learned the trick of
characterization; on Racine, who taught him concentration; on
Rabelais, who infected him with love of deep laughter. Yeats,
suspecting that Synge could be an original writer as well as an
interpreter of others, persuaded him to go back to Ireland, to the
Aran Islands, off Galway. Synge discovered there a lost kingdom of the
imagination, a place where spontaneous feeling and primitive
imagination had not been repressed by the outside world's customs and
discipline, and where the constant voice of the ocean, the touch of
the mysterious, all-embracing mist, and the gleam of the star through
a rift in the clouds banished all sense of difference between the
natural and the supernatural.
When Synge died in his thirty-eighth year, he had written only six
short plays, all between 1903 and 1909. Two of these, _In the Shadow
of the Glen_ and _Riders to the Sea_, contain only one act. _The
Tinker's Wedding_ has two acts, and the rest are three-act plays.
_In the Shadow of the Glen, Riders to the Sea_, and _The Well of the
Saints_, produced respectively in 1903, 1904, and 1905, show that
Synge came at once into full possession of his dramatic power. Even in
his earliest written play, _The Well of The Saints_, we find a style
stripped of superfluous verbiage and vibrant with emotion. _In the
Shadow of the Glen_, his first staged play, consumes only a half hour.
The scene is laid in a cabin far off in a lonely glen, and the four
actors,--a woman oppressed by loneliness, an unfeeling husband who
feigns death, and two visitors,--make a singularly well-knit
impressive drama.
_Riders to the Sea_ has been pronounced the greatest drama of the
modern Celtic school. Some critics consider this the most significant
tragedy produced in English since Shakespeare. Simple and impressive
as a Greek tragedy, it has for its central figure an old mother whose
husband and five sons have been lost at sea. The simple but poignant
feeling of the drama focuses on the death of Maurya's sixth and last
son, Bartley. This tragic episode, simply presented, touches the
depths of human sympathy. In old Maurya, Synge created an impressive
figure of what Macbeth calls "rooted sorrow."
_The Playboy of the Western World_, produced first in 1907, is a
three-act play. It is as fantastically humorous as the _Riders to the
Sea_ is tragical. Dread of his father ties this peasant to his stupid
toil. A fearful deed frees the youth and throws him into the company
of the lovely maiden, Pegeen, and admiring friends. The latent poetry
and wild joy of living awake in him, and, under the spur of praise, he
performs great feats. He who had never before dared to face girls,
makes such love to Pegeen that poesy itself seems to be talking. The
Playboy is one of the wildest conceptions of character in modern
drama. His very extravagance compels interest. Pegeen is a fitting
sweetheart for him. Her father is a stalwart figure, possessing a
shrewd philosophy and rare strength of speech, as "fully flavored as
nut or apple." Some critics object to such a boisterous play, but they
should remember that it is intended to be an extravagant peasant
fantasia.
_Deirdre of the Sorrows_, another three-act play, produced first in
1910, tells the story of the beautiful princess Deirdre, of her
isolated young life, and her seven years of perfect union with her
lover Naisi. When her lover is slain, this true and tender queen of
the North loosens the knot of life to accompany him.
Synge belongs in the first rank of modern dramatists. The forty Irish
characters that he has created reveal the basal elements of universal
human nature. His purpose is like Shakespeare's,--to reveal throbbing
life, not to talk in his own person, nor to discuss problems. Synge
has dramatized the primal hope, fear, sorrow, and loneliness of life.
Although his plays are written in prose and have the distinctive
flavor of his lowly characters, yet a recent critic justly says that
Synge "for the first time sets English dramatic prose to a rhythm as
noble as the rhythms of blank verse."
SUMMARY
The twentieth century shows two main lines of development,--the
realistic and the romantic. The two leading essayists of the period,
A.C. Benson and G.K. Chesterton, are both idealists and champions of
religious faith.
Among the novelists, Conrad tells impressive stories of distant seas
and shores; Bennett's strongest fiction gives realistic pictures of
life in English industrial towns; Galsworthy's novels present the
problems that affect the upper class of Englishmen; Wells writes
scientific romances and sociological novels.
Some of the best poetry, full of the fascination of a dreamy far-off
world, has been written by the Celtic poets, Yeats, Russell, and Fiona
Macleod. Masefield and Gibson have produced much realistic verse about
the life of the common toiler. Noyes has written _Drake_, a romantic
epic, and a large amount of graceful lyrical verse, in some of which
there is much poetic beauty.
The most distinctive work of recent times has been in the field of the
drama. Pinero has improved its technique; Shaw has given it remarkable
conversational brilliancy; Barrie has brought to it fancy and humor
and sweetness; Galsworthy has used it to present social problems;
Phillips has tried to restore to it the Elizabethan poetic spirit. The
Celtic dramatists form a separate school. Lady Gregory, Yeats, and
Synge have all written plays based on Irish life, folklore, or
mythology. The plays of Synge, the greatest member of the group,
reveal the universal primitive emotions of human beings.
CONCLUSION
Three distinctive moral influences in English literature specially
impress us,--the call to strenuous manhood:--
"...this thing is God,
To be man with thy might,"
the increasing sympathy with all earth's children:--
"Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call,
Ye to each other make,"
and the persistent expression of Anglo-Saxon faith. As we pause in our
study, we may hear in the twentieth-century song of Alfred Noyes, the
echo of the music from the loom of the Infinite Weaver:--
"Under the breath of laughter, deep in the tide of tears,
I hear the loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years."[18]
REFERENCE FOR FURTHER STUDY
Kennedy's _English Literature_, 1880-1895 (Shaw, Wells, Fiona Macleod,
Yeats).
Kelman's _Mr. Chesterton's Point of View_ (in _Among Famous Books_).
Cooper's _Some English Story Tellers_.
Conrad's _A Personal Record_.
Phelps's _Essays on Modern Novelists_ (De Morgan).
Yeats's _Celtic Twilight_.
Figgis's _Studies and Appreciations_ (_Mr. W.B. Yeats's Poetry_. _The
Art of J.M. Synge_.)
More's _Drift of Romanticism_ (Fiona Macleod).
Borsa's _The English Stage of To-day_.
Jones's (Henry Arthur) _The Foundation of a National Drama: A
Collection of Essays, Lectures, and Speeches, Delivered and Written in
the Years 1896-1912_.
Hamilton's _The Theory of the Theater_.
Hunt's _The Play of To-day_.
Hale's _Dramatists of To-day_.
Henderson's _George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Works_, 2 vols.
Chesterton's _George Bernard Shaw_.
Weygandt's _Irish Plays and Playwrights_ (excellent).
Krans's _William Butler Yeats and the Irish Literary Revival_.
Howe's _J.M. Synge: A Critical Study_.
Yeats's _J.M. Synge and the Ireland of His Time_ (in _The Cutting of
an Agate_, 1912).
Bickley's _J.M. Synge and the Irish Dramatic Movement_.
Elton's _Living Irish Literature_ (in _Modern Studies_).
SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Essays.--From A.C. Benson, read one of these collections of essays:
_The Altar Fire, Beside Still Waters, Thy Rod and Thy Staff_, and one
or more of these biographies: _Tennyson, John Ruskin, Rossetti_
(E.M.L.), _Walter Pater_ (E.M.L.); from Chesterton, one of these
collections of essays: _Varied Types, Heretics, Orthodoxy_, and one or
more of these biographies: _George Bernard Shaw, Charles Dickens,
Robert Browning_ (E.M.L.). For other twentieth-century essays, see the
preceding bibliography and the paragraph following this.
The Novel.--From Conrad, read _Youth, Typhoon, Lord Jim_; from
Bennett, _The Old Wives' Tale, Clayhanger_; from Galsworthy, _The Man
of Property, The Patrician_; from Wells, _The Time Machine,
Kipps, The Future in America_ (essay); from Phillpotts, _Children of
the Mist, Demeter's Daughter_; from Hewlett, _Life and Death of
Richard Yea and Nay, The Stooping Lady_; from Quiller-Couch, _The
Splendid Spur, The Delectable Duchy_; from De Morgan, _Joseph Vance,
Somehow Good_; from Locke, _The Beloved Vagabond, The Adventures of
Aristide Pujol_; from Zangwill, _The Children of the Ghetto, The
Melting Pot_ (play).
Poetry.--From _The Poetical Works of William B. Yeats_ (Macmillan),
read _The Wanderings of Oisin, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, The Hosting
of the Sidhe, The Voice of the Waters_; from Fiona Macleod's _Poems
and Dramas_ (Duffield), _The Vision, The Lonely Hunter, The Rose of
Flame_; from Masefield, the part of _Dauber_ describing the rounding
of Cape Horn, beginning p. 119, in _The Story of a Round-House_
(Macmillan); from Gibson's _Fires_ (Macmillan), _The Crane, The
Machine_; from Noyes's _Poems_ (Macmillan, 1906), _The Song of
Re-Birth, The Barrel Organ, Forty Singing Seamen, The Highwayman_;
Book II from his _Drake: An English Epic_ (Stokes).
The Drama.--From Jones, read _The Manoeuvers of Jane, Mrs. Dane's
Defence_ (Samuel French); from Pinero, _The Amazons, The School
Mistress_, or _Sweet Lavender_ (W.H. Baker); from Shaw's _Plays
Pleasant and Unpleasant_ (Brentano), _Candida, You Never Can Tell,
Arms and the Man_ from Barrie, _Peter Pan, What Every Woman Knows_;
from Galsworthy, _Strife, Joy, The Little Dream_; from Phillips,
_Marpessa_ (poem), _Ulysses_ (Macmillan), _Herod_; from Lady
Gregory's, _Seven Short Plays_ (Putnam), _The Gaol Gate, Spreading the
News_; from her _New Comedies_ (Putnam, 1913), _McDonough's Wife, The
Bogie Men_; from Yeats's _Poetical Works_, Vol. II. (Macmillan), _The
Land of Heart's Desire, Countess Cathleen_; from Synge, _Riders to the
Sea, The Playboy of the Western World, Deirdre of the Sorrows_ (John
W. Luce).
Questions and Suggestions.--Stevenson's _The Home Book of Verse_ and
_The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse_ contain selections from a number
of the poets. McCarthy's _Irish Literature_, 10 vols., gives
selections from work written prior to 1904. The majority of the
indicated readings can be found only in the original works of the
authors.
Give an outline of the most important thoughts from one essay and one
biography, by both Benson and Chesterton.
What distinctive subject matter do you find in each of the novelists?
How do same reflect the spirit of the age?
What are the chief characteristics of each of the poets? What does the
phrase "Celtic Renaissance" signify?
In brief, what had the drama accomplished from the time of the closing
of the theaters in 1642 to 1890? What distinctive contributions to the
modern drama have Pinero, Shaw, and Barrie made? Describe the work of
Lady Gregory, Yeats, and Synge. In what does Synge's special power
consist?
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER X:
[Footnotes 1-11: Printed by permission of The Macmillan Company.]
[Footnotes 12-13: Printed by permission of Frederick A. Stokes
Company.]
[Footnotes 14-15: Printed by permission of the Macmillan Company.]
[Footnote 16: Krans's _William Butler Yeats and the Irish Literary
Revival_.]
[Footnotes 17-18: Printed by permission of The Macmillan Company.]
SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS AND THEIR CHIEF WORKS:
1400-1558:
John Lydgate (1370?-1451?): _Falls of Princes_. Thomas Occleve
(1370?-1450?): _Mother of God_; _Governail of Princes_. Sir John
Fortescue (1394?-1476?): _Difference between an Absolute and Limited
Monarchy_. _The Paston Letters_ (1422-1509). Stephen Hawes (d. 1523?):
_Pastime of Pleasure_. John Skelton (1460?-1529): _Bowge of Court_;
_Philip Sparrow_. Alex. Barclay (1475?-1552): _Ship of Fools_. Sir
Thomas More (1478-1535): _Utopia_; _History of Edward V. and Richard
III_. Hugh Latimer (1485?-1555): _Sermon on the Ploughers_. Sir David
Lindsay (1490-1555): _Satire of the Three Estates_.
1558-1603:
John Knox(1505-1572): _Admonition_; _History of the Reformation of
Religion within the Realm of Scotland_; _Sermons_. George Puttenham
(d. 1590?): _Art of English Poesie_. Edward Dyer (1550?-1607): _My
Mind to Me a Kingdom Is_. Samuel Daniel (1562-1619): _The Complaint of
Rosamund_; _A Defence of Rhyme_ (prose). Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke,
1554-1628): _Caelica_. Stephen Gosson (1555-1624): _The School of
Abuse_. George Gascoigne (1525?-1577):_The Steele Glas_. William
Warner (1558?-1609): _Albion's England_.
1603-1660:
Prose Writers.--Robert Burton (1577-1640): _The Anatomy of
Melancholy_. John Selden (1584-1654): _Table Talk_. Richard Baxter
(1615-1691): _The Saints' Everlasting Rest_.
Poets and Dramatists.--Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650?): _The Purple
Island_. William Drummond (1585-1649): _Sonnets_; _The Cypresse Grove_
(prose). Giles Fletcher (1588?-1623): _Christ's Victory and Triumph_.
George Wither (1588-1667): _Juvenilia_. William Browne (1591-1643?)
_Britannia's Pastorals_. Sir William D'Avenant (1606-1668):
_Gondibert_. Edmund Waller (1606-1687): _Poems; Song_--"Go, lovely
Rose." Richard Crashaw (1613?--1649): _Steps to the Temple; The
Delights of the Muses_. Sir John Denham (1615-1669): _Cooper's Hill_.
Abraham Cowley (1618-1667): _Anacreontiques_. Andrew Marvell
(1621-1678): _The Garden_.
1660-1740:
Dramatists of the Restoration.--Sir William D'Avenant (1606-1668):
_Love and Honor_. George Etherege (1635?-1691?): _The Man of Mode_.
William Wycherley (1640-1715): _The Plain Dealer_. Thomas Shadwell
(1642?-1692): _Epson Wells_. Thomas Otway (1652-1685): _Venice
Preserved_. John Vanbrugh (1666?-1726): _The Confederacy_. Colley
Cibber (1671-1757): _The Careless Husband_. George Farquhar
(1678-1707): _The Beaux' Stratagem_.
Prose Writers.--Sir William Temple (1628-1699): _Essays_. Isaac
Barrow (1630-1677): _Sermons_. Robert South (1634-1716): _Sermons_.
Richard Bentley (1662-1742): _Epistles of Phalaris_. Gilbert Burnet
(1643-1715): _Sermons_. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735): _The History of
John Bull_. Lord Bolingbroke (1678-1751): _Letter to Sir William
Windham_. Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753): _Alciphron or the Minute
Philosopher_. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762): _Letters_. Bishop
Butler (1692-1752): _Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion_.
William Warburton (1698-1779): _The Divine Legation of Moses_.
Poets.--Matthew Prior (1664-1721): _Shorter Poems_. Isaac Watts
(1673-1748): _Psalms and Hymns_. Thomas Parnell (1679-1718): _A
Night-Piece on Death; The Hermit_. John Gay (1685-1732): _Fables; The
Beggar's Opera_. Allan Ramsay (1686-1758): _The Gentle Shepherd_. John
Dyer (1700?-1758): _Grongar Hill_.
1740-1780:
Prose Writers.--Gilbert White (1720-1793): _Natural History of
Selborne._ William Robertson (1721-1793): _History of the Reign of
Charles V._ Adam Smith (1723-1790): _Wealth of Nations._ Sir Joshua
Reynolds (1723-1792): _Discourses on Painting._ Thomas Warton
(1728-1790): _History of English Poetry._ Sir Philip Francis
(1740-1818): _Letters of Junius._ Fanny Burney (1752-1840): _Evelina._
Poets.--Edward Young (1681-1765): _Night Thoughts._ Charles Wesley
(1708-1788): _Hymns._ Mark Akenside (1721-1803): _The Minstrel._
Robert Fergusson (1750-1774): _Braid Claith; Ode to the Gowdspink._
1780-1837:
Philosophers.--William Paley (1743-1805): _Natural Theology._ Jeremy
Bentham (1748-1832): _Principles of Morals and Legislation._ William
Godwin (1756-1836): _Inquiry concerning Political Justice._ Thomas
Robert Malthus (1766-1834): _Essay on the Principle of Population._
David Ricardo (1772-1823): _Principles of Political Economy._ James
Mill (1773-1836): _Analysis of the Human Mind._
Historians.--John Lingard (1771-1851): _History of England._ Henry
Hallam (1777-1859): _Constitutional History of England._ Sir William
Napier (1785-1860): _History of the Peninsular War._
Essayists.--William Cobbett (1762-1835): _Rural Rides in England._
Sydney Smith (1771-1845): _Letters of Peter Plymley._ Francis Jeffrey
(1773-1850): _Essays._ John Wilson (1785-1854): _Noctes Ambrosianae._
John Gibson Lockhard (1794-1854): _Life of Sir Walter Scott._
Novelists and Dramatists.--William Beckford (1759-1844): _Vathek._
Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849): _Castle Rackrent._ Jane Porter
(1776-1850): _Scottish Chiefs._ John Galt (1779-1839): _The Annals of
the Parish._ James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862): _The Hunchback; The
Love Chase._ Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866): _Nightmare Abbey_. Mary
Russell Mitford (1787-1855): _Our Village_.
Poets.--George Crabbe (1754-1832): _The Borough_. Joanna Baillie
(1762-1851): _Poems_. James Hogg (1770-1835): _Queen's Wake_. Thomas
Campbell (1777-1844): _The Pleasures of Hope_. Thomas Moore
(1779-1852): _Irish Melodies; Lalla Rookh_. Ebenezer Elliott
(1781-1849): _Corn Law Rhymes_. Bryan W. Procter (1787-1874): _English
Songs_. John Keble (1792-1866) _The Christian Year_. Felicia Hemans
(1793-1835): _Songs of the Affections_. Thomas Hood (1799-1845): _The
Song of the Shirt; The Bridge of Sighs_. Winthrop Praed (1802-1839):
_The Season; The Letter of Advice_. Thomas Beddoes (1803-1849):
_Lyrics from Death's Jest Book and from The Bride's Tragedy_.
1837-1900:
Philosophers and Scientists.--Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856)
_Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic_. Michael Faraday (1791-1867):
_Experimental Researches_. Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875): _Principles
of Geology; Antiquity of Man_. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873): _System
of Logic; Utilitarianism_. George Henry Lewes (1817-1878): _A
Biographical History of Philosophy; Problems of Life and Mind_. Sir
Henry Maine (1822-1888): _Ancient Law; Village Communities_.
Historians.--Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868): _History of Latin
Christianity down to the Death of Pope Nicholas V_. George Grote
(1794-1871): _History of Greece. James Anthony Froude (1818-1894):
_History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the
Spanish Armada_. Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-1862): _History of
Civilization_. Edward Augustus Freeman (1823-1892): _The History of
the Norman Conquest_. William Stubbs (1825-1901): _The Constitutional
History of England in its Origin and Development_. Samuel Rawson
Gardiner (1829-1902): _History of England from the Accession of James
I. to the Outbreak of Civil War, 1603-1642; History of the Great Civil
War, 1642-1649; History of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate,
1649-1660. Justin M'Carthy (1830-1912): _A History of Our Own Times_.
John Richard Green (1837-1883): _A Short History of the English
People_. William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1838-1903): _History of
England in the Eighteenth Century_. James Bryce (1838- ): _The Holy
Roman Empire; The American Commonwealth_. Rt. Rev. Abbot Gasquet,
D.D., O.S.B. (1846- ): _Henry VIII and the English Monasteries; The
Greater Abbeys of England_. Wilfrid Ward (1856- ): _Aubrey de Vere;
Life and Times of Cardinal Newman_.
Essayists and Critics.--George Barrow (1803-1881): _The Bible in
Spain; Lavengro_. Walter Bagehot (1826-1877): _Literary Studies; The
English Constitution_. Leslie Stephen (1832-1904): _Hours in a
Library; History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century_. John
Morley (1838- ): _Studies in Literature; Edmund Burke; Life of
Gladstone_. John Addington Symonds (1840-1893): _The History of the
Renaissance in Italy_. Austin Dobson (1840- ): _Eighteenth Century
Vignettes; Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Oliver Goldsmith;_ also
_Collected Poems_. Edward Dowden (1843-1913): _Shakespeare, His Mind
and Art; Life of Shelley; Studies in Literature, 1789-1877_. Andrew
Lang (1844-1912): _Letters to Dead Authors; Essays in Little; The
Iliad in English Prose_ (assisted by Leaf and Myers); also _Ballads
and Lyrics of old France_. Augustine Birrell (1850- ): _Obiter Dicta;
Men, Women, and Books; In the Name of the Bodleian_ A. C. Bradley
(1851- ): _Shakespearean Tragedy; Oxford Lectures on Poetry_ Alice
Meynell (1855- ): _The Rhythm of Life; The Spirit of Place;_ also
_Collected Poems_. William Archer (1856- ): _Poets of the Younger
Generation; Masks or Faces: A Study in the Psychology of Acting_. John
W. Mackail (1859- ): _The Springs of Helicon; Life of William Norris_.
Novelists.--Wilkie Collins (1824-1899): _The Moonstone_. Dinah Maria
Craik (1826-1877): _John Halifax, Gentleman_. Charles L. Dodgson
(Lewis Carroll 1832-1898): _Alice in Wonderland; Through the Looking
Glass_. Joseph H. Shorthouse (1834-1903): _John Inglesant_. Walter
Besant (1836-1901): _All Sorts and Conditions of Men_. William Black
(1841-1898): _A Daughter of Heth_. Canon W. Barry, D.D. (1849- ): _The
Two Standards_. Mrs. Humphry Ward (1851- ): _Marcella_. Canon P.A.
Sheehan, D.D. (1852- ): _My New Curate; The Queen's Fillet_. Hall
Caine (1853- ): _The Manxman_. Rider Haggard (1856- ): _King Solomon's
Mines_. George Gissing (1857-1903): _New Grub Street; The Private
Papers of Henry Ryecroft_. John Ascough (Rt. Rev. Mgr.
Bicherstaffe-Drew, 1858- ): _Marotz_. Kenneth Grahame (1859- ): _The
Golden Age; Dream Days_. A. Conan Doyle (1859- ): _The White Company;
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_. R.H. Benson (1871- ): _By What
Authority; The Queen's Tragedy_. Mrs. Wilfrid Ward: _Great
Possessions_.
Poets.--Richard H. Barham (1788-1845): _Ingoldsby Legends_. James C.
Mangan (1803-1849): _Selected Poems_. Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883):
_Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_ (translation). Aubrey de Vere (1814-1902):
_Irish Odes_. Coventry Patmore (1823-1896): _The Angel in the House;
Amelia_. Sidney Dobell (1824-1874): _The Roman; Balder_. Adelaide Anne
Procter (1825-1864): _Legends and Lyrics_. Jean Ingelow (1830-1897):
_Poems_. Edwin Arnold (1832-1904): _The Light of Asia_. Lewis Morris
(1833-1907): _Epic of Hades_. James Thompson (1834-1882): _The City of
Dreadful Night_. J.B.L. Warren (Lord de Tabley, 1835-1895): _Poems:
Dramatic and Lyrical_. Alfred Austin (1835-1913, appointed
poet-laureate in 1896): _English Lyrics_, edited by William Watson.
Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832- ): _The Coming of Love_. Philip Bourke
Marston (1850-1887): _Song-Tide and Other Poems; Wind Voices_. Oscar
Wilde (1854-1900): _Ave Imperatrix; The Ballad of Reading Gaol; De
Profundis_ (prose).
1900-
Essayists.--Vernon Lee (Violet Paget, 1857- ): _The Enchanted Woods
and Other Essays; The Sentimental Traveler_. Lawrence Pearsall Jacks
(1860- ): _Mad Shepherds, and Other Human Studies_. Arthur Symons
(1865- ): _William Blake; The Romantic Movement in English Poetry_.
Edward Verrall Lucas (1868- ): _Life of Charles Lamb; Old Lamps for
New_; also the stories _Over Bemerton's_ and _Mr. Ingleside_. Hilaire
Belloc (1870- ): _On Everything_.
Novelists.--Justin Huntley M'Carthy (1860- ): _The Proud Prince; If
I Were King_. W.W. Jacobs (1863- ): _Many Cargoes; Ship's Company_.
Anthony Hope Hawkins (Anthony Hope, 1863- ): _The Prisoner of Zenda;
Rupert of Hentzau_. Marie Corelli (1864- ): _Thelma; Ardath_. Robert
S. Hichens (1864- ): _The Garden of Allah_. G.W. Birmingham (rev. J.O.
Hannay, 1865- ): _Spanish Gold_. Seumas Macmanus (1870- ): _The
Chimney Corner; Donegal Fairy Stories_. J.C. Snaith (1876- ):
_Araminta; Broke of Covenden_. May Sinclair: _The Divine Fire_.
Poets.--A.E. Housman (1859- ): _A Shropshire Lad_. Katherine Tynan
Hinkson (1861- ): _Collected Poems; New Poems_ (1911). Arthur
Christopher Benson (1862- ): _Collected Poems; Paul The Minstrel_.
Henry Newbolt (1862- ): _Admirals All_. Herbert Trench (1865- ):
_Deirdre Wedded and Nineteen Other Poems; Collected Poems_. Ethna
Carberry (1866-1902): _The Passing of the Gael_. Richard Le Gallienne
(1866- ): _Robert Louis Stevenson and Other Poems; Attitudes and
Avowals_ (essays); _The End of the Rainbow_ (stories). Lionel Johnson
(1867-1902): _Poems_. Lawrence Binyon (1869- ): _London Visions;
Atilla_ (poetic drama). Nora Hopper Chesson (1871-1906): _Under
Quicken Boughs_. Dora Sigerson Shorter (1873- ): _Collected Poems_.
John Drinkwater (1882- ): _Poems of Love and Death; King Cophetua_.
Richard Middleton. (1882-1911): _Poems and Songs_. Lascelles
Abercrombie: _Interludes_. James Stephens: _Hill of Vision; Crock of
Gold_ (prose fiction). T. Sturge Moore: _Aphrodite against Artemis;
Poems_.
Celtic Dramatists.--George Moore (1853- ): _The Bending of the
Bough_. Edward Martyn (1859- ): _The Heather Field_. William Boyle:
_The Building Fund_. Padric Colum: _Thomas Muskerry; the Fiddler's
House_. Lennox Robinson: _Patriots_. Rutherford Mayne: _The Turn of
the Road_. H. Granville Barker (English dramatist, 1877- ): _The
Voysey Inheritance_.
INDEX
Abercrombie, Lascelles
_Absalom and Achitophel_
_Abt Vogler_
Actors, in early plays
in Elizabethan theater
_Adam Bede_
Addison, Joseph, collaborates with Steele
incidental reference to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_Admirable Crichton, The_
_Adonais_
_Advancement of Learning_
_Adventures of Harry Richmond_
AElfric
_Aids to Reflection_
Akenside, Mark
_Alastor_
_Alchemist, The_
_Alexander's Feast_
Alfred, King
_Alice-for-Short_
_All for Love_
_Alysoun_
_Amazing Marriage, The_
_Amazone, The_
_Amelia_
_American Taxation, Speech on_
Amorists
_Ancient Mariner_
_Ancren Riwle_
_Andrea del Sarto_
_Andreas_
Anglo-Norman period and Chaucer's Age
characteristics of Normans
history
language
metrical romances
poets
prose writers
references on
suggested readings and question
summary
_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_
Anglo-Saxon language
Anglo-Saxon period
history
home, migrations and religion of Anglo-Saxons
language
mission of English literature
poetry
prose
references on
subject matter and aim
suggested readings and questions
summary
Anglo-Saxons, earliest literature of
_Annus Mirabilis_
_Antiquary, The_
_Apologia, Newman's_
_Apologie for Poetrie_
Arbuthnot, John
_Arcadia_
Archer, William
_Areopagitica_
Arnold, Edwin
Arnold, Matthew
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
poetical works
prose works
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
Arnold, Thomas
Arthur, King
Ascham, Roger
_Astraea Redux_
_As You Like It_
_Atalanta in Calydon_
Atterbury, Francis
_Aurengzebe_
Austen, Jane, incidental references to
life and works of
references on
suggested readings in
Austin, Alfred
_Autobiography_, Franklin's
Ayseough, John
Bacon, Francis, incidental references to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
Bacon, Roger
Bagehot, Walter
Baillie, Joanna
_Balder Dead_
Bale, John
_Ballad of Agincourt_
Ballads, English
in fifteenth century
_Barchester Towers_
Barclay, Alexander
Barham, Richard H.
Barker, H. Granville
_Barnaby Rudge_
_Barrack Room Ballads_
Barrie, incidental references to
suggested readings in
Barrow, Isaac
_Battle of Brunänburh_
_Battle of the Books_
Baxter, Richard
Beattie, James
Beaumont, Frances
_Becket_
Becket, Thomas à
Beckford, William
Beddoes, Thomas
Bede, _Ecclesiastical History_
references on
suggested readings in
works of
Behn, Mrs. Aphra
Belloc, Hilaire
Bennett, Arnold
suggested readings in
Benson, Arthur Christopher
suggested readings in
Benson, R.H.
Bentham, Jeremy
Bentley, Richard
_Beowulf_
suggested readings in
Berkeley, George
Besant, Walter
_Bible_, King James version
Tyndale's translation of
Wycliffe's translation of
Bickerstaff, Isaac
Bickerstaffe-Drew, Rt. Rev. Mgr.
Binyon, Lawrence
_Biographia Literaria_
Birmingham, G.W. (Hanney, Rev. J.O.)
Birrell, Augustine
Black, William
Blackmore, Richard D.
suggested readings in
_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_
Blake, William
references on
suggested readings in
Blank verse
in eighteenth century
introduction into England
Shakespeare's and Marlowe's use of
_Bleak House_
_Blessed Damozel, The_
_Blot in the 'Scutcheon_
Bolingbroke, Lord
_Bonduca_
_Book of Martyrs_
Borrow, George
Boswell, James
Boy actors
Boyle, William
Bradley, Andrew
Brandes, Georg, quoted
Bret Harte
_Bride of Lammermoor_
Bridges, Robert
suggested readings in
Brontë, Charlotte
references for
suggested readings in
Brontë, Emily
Brooke, Stopford, quoted
Brown, Charles Brockden
Browne, Sir Thomas
Browne, William
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, life of
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
Browning, Robert
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
optimistic philosophy of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_Brut_
Layamon's
Wace's
Bryce, James
Buckle, Henry Thomas
Bulwer Lytton
suggested readings in
Bunyan
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
references for
suggested readings in
works of
Burke, Edmund
references for
suggested readings in
Burnet, Gilbert
Burney, Fanny
Burns, Robert
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
love songs of
poetic creed of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
Burton, Robert
Butler, Bishop
Butler, Samuel
Byron, Lord
compared with Shakespeare
dramas of
general characteristics
incidental references to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
Caedmon
compared with Milton
Caedmonian Cycle
_Cain_
Caine, hall
_Caliban upon Setebos_
Camden, William
Campbell, Thomas
_Canterbury Tales_
Carberry, Ethna
Carew, Thomas
suggested readings in
Carlyle, Thomas
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
quoted
references on
Sartor Resartus
suggested readings in
works of
Carols of fifteenth century
Carroll, Lewis
_Castle of Indolence_
_Castle of Otranto_
Cathedrals, Gothic
_Cato_
Cavalier poets
Caxton, William
Celtic dramatists
Celtic imagery
Celtic Renaissance
_Cenci_, _The_
Cèrvantes
Chapel Royal
Chapman, George
_Charge of the Light Brigade_
Chatterton, Thomas
suggested readings in
Chaucer, Geoffrey
_Canterbury Tales_
compared with Spenser
earlier poems of
incidental references to
influence on English language
life of
qualitites of
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
Chaucer's age. _See_ Anglo-Norman period
Chesson, Nora Hopper
Chester plays
Chesterton, Gilbert K.
references on
suggested readings in
_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_
_Child's Garden of Verse, A_
_Christ_, Cynewulf's
_Christabel_
_Christmas Carol, A_
_Chronicle, The_, Stow's
_Chronicles of England, Ireland and Scotland_
Cibber, Colley
_Citizen of the World_
Clarendon, Lord
_Clarissa Harlowe_
Classical couplet
Classic school
Clive, Robert
_Cloister and the Hearth_
_Cloud, The_
Clough, Arthur Hugh
suggested readings in
Cobbett, William
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
association with Wordsworth
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
poetry of
prose of
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
Collier, Jeremy
Collins, Wilkie
suggested readings in
Collins, William
_Colloquium_
_Colombe's Birthday_
Colum, Padric
Comedies, early
_Comedy of Errors, The_
_Complete Angler_
_Comus_
_Conciliation with America_, Burke's speech on
_Conduct of the Understanding_
_Confessio Amantis_
_Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_
Congreve, William
Conrad, Joseph
references on
suggested readings in
Cooper, Frederic Taber, quoted
Corelli, Marie
Cornish, William
_Cotter's Saturday Night_
Couplet, classical
"riming"
Court plays
Coventry plays
Cowley, Abraham
Cowper, William
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
Crabbe, George
Craik, Dinah Maria
_Cranford_
Cranmer's Bible
Crashaw, Richard
Critical writings
Addison's
Age of Romanticism
Arnold's
Carlyle's
Coleridge's
De Quincey's
Dryden's
Johnson's
Pope's
Swinburne's
Criticism, first essay on
Cromwell's Bible
Cross, John W.
_Crossing the Bar_
_Cry of the Children_
_Curse of Kehama_
_Cymbeline_
Cynewulf
Cynewulf Cycle
suggested readings in
_Daniel Deronda_
Daniel, Samuel
Darwin, Charles
D'Avenant, Sir William
David and Bathsabe
_David Balfour_
_David Copperfield_
Davidson, John
suggested readings in
_Deathe of Blanche the Duchesse_
_Decameron_, framework of similar to _Canterbury Tales_
De-foe, Daniel
a journalist
incidental references to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
Dekker, Thomas
Deloney, Thomas
suggested readings in
De Morgan, William Frend
references on
suggested readings in
Denham, Sir John
_Departmental Ditties_
De Quincey, Thomas
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_Deserted Village, The_
De Vere, Aubrey
_Diana of the Crossways_
Diary, Evelyn's
Pepys's
Dickens, Charles
contrasted with Thackeray
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_Dictionary of the English Language_, Johnson's
Didactic verse
_Discovery of Guiana, The_
_Disdain Returned_
_Diurnall_
_Divine Vision, The_
Dobell, Sidney
Dobson, Austin
quoted
suggested readings in
Dodgson, Charles L. (Lewis Carroll)
_Dombey and Son_
_Don Juan_
Donne, John
opposes sonnet
suggested readings in
_Don Quixote_
_Double Dealer, The_
Douglas, Gawain
_Dover Beach_
Dowden, Edward
quoted
Doyle, A. Conan
Dr. Faustus
_Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_
_Drake: An English Epic_
Drama, English
and the unities
actors in early
Beaumont and Fletcher in
comedies, early
court plays
decline of
during Restoration
early religious
end of Elizabethan
interlude
Irish
Marlowe, founder of English
miracle and mystery plays
modern
morality plays
suggested readings in
_See also_ Elizabethan Age, Jonson, Marlowe, Shakespeare, etc.
_Dramatic Lyrics_, Browning's
_Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_, Browning's
Dramatic unities
_Dramatis Personae_
_Drapier's Letters_
Drayton, Michael
suggested readings in
_Dream Children_
_Dream of Fair Women, A_
_Dream of Gerontius_
Drinkwater, John
Drummond, William
Dryden, John
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
prose of
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
Spenser's influence on
works of
_Duchess of Malfi, The_
Dunbar, William
_Dunciad_
Dyer, Edward
Dyer, John
_Earthly Paradise_
Edgeworth, Maria
_Edinburgh Review_
_Edward II_
_Egoist, The_
Eighteenth century, early literature. _See_ Restoration period, etc.
Eighteenth century, later literature
history
literary characteristics
novelists
poets
prose writers
references on
romanticism
suggested readings and questions
summary
_Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard_
_Elene_
Eliot, George
general characteristics
incidental references to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
Elizabeth, Queen
Elizabethan age
history
Jonson
life of
Marlowe
minor dramatists
miracle and mystery plays
morality plays
poetry (non-dramatic)
presentation of Elizabethan plays
prose writers
references on
Shakespeare
suggested readings in
summary
Elliott, Ebenezer
_Emma_
_Endymion_
England, origin of name of
_English humorists of the Eighteenth Century_
English language, Chaucer's influence on
emergence of modern
English literature
mission of
subject matter and aim of
_Epigrams_, Watson's
_Epipsychidion_
_Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_
_Epithalamion_
_Essay of Dramatic Poesy_
_Essay on Criticism_
_Essay on Man_
Essays
Addison's
Arnold's
Bacon's
Benson's
Carlyle's
Chesterton's
De Quincey's
Goldsmith's
Johnson's
Lamb's
Macaulay's
Newman's
Pater's
Pope's
Stevenson's
Swinburne's
Thackeray's
_Essays in Criticism_
_Essays of Elia_
Etherege, George
Ethical purposes, in literature. _See_ Moral ideals
_Euphues_
Euphuism
_Evan Harrington_
_Eve of St. Agnes_
Evelyn, John
_Every Man in His Humor_
_Excursion_
_Exeter Book_
_Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_
_Fables, Ancient and modern_
_Faerie Queene_
_Faithful Shepherdess_
_Familiar Studies of Men and Books_
_Far From the Madding Crowd_
_Far Traveler, The_
Faraday, Michael
Farquhar, George
_Faustus, Dr._
Fergusson, Robert
Field, Eugene
Fielding, Henry
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_Fight at Finnsburg_
Fiona Macleod. _See_ Sharp, William
Fitzgerald, Edward
_Fleet Street Eclogues_
Fletcher, Giles
Fletcher, John
Fletcher, Phineas
_Flower of Old Japan_
Ford
_Forest of Wild Thyme_
_Fors Clavigera_
Fortescue, Sir John
_Fortunes of Men_
_Four Georges_
_Four P's_
Fox, Charles James
Foxe, John
_Fragments of Science_
Francis, Sir Philip
_Frankenstein_
Franklin, Benjamin
Freeman, Edward Augustus
quoted
French element in English
French Revolution, influence on literature
_French Revolution_ (Carlyle's)
Fronde, James Anthony
Fuller, Thomas
_Funeral Elegy_
Galsworthy, John
suggested readings in
Galt, John
_Gammer Gurton's Needle_
_Gaol Gate_
Gardiner, Samuel Rawson
_Gardiner's Daughter, The_
Garrick, David
Gascoigne, George
Gaskell, Elizabeth C.
suggested readings in
Gasquet, Rt. Rev. Abbot
_Gates of Dreamland_
_Gawayne and the Green Knight_
Gay, John
General reference list for English literature
_Gentle Craft_
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Gibbon, Edward
quoted
suggested readings in
Gibson, Wilfrid
suggested readings in
Gissing, George
Gladstone, William E.
Gleeman
songs of
Globe Theater
Godwin, William
Goldsmith, Oliver
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_Good-Natured Man, The_
_Gorboduc_
Gosse. Edmund, quoted
Gosson, Stephen
Gower, John
suggested readings in
Grahame, Kenneth
Gray, Thomas
references for
suggested readings in
Green, John Richard
Greene, Robert
Gregory, Lady Augusta
suggested readings in
Gregory, Pope
Greville, Fulke (Lord Brooke)
Grote, George
_Gulliver's Travels_
_Guy Mannering_
Haggard, Rider
Hakluyt, Richard
Hallam, Arthur Henry
Hamilton, Sir William
_Hamlet_
_Handlyng Synne_
_Hard Times_
Hardy, Thomas
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
Harleian, M.S.
Hawes, Stephen
Hawkins, Anthony Hope (Anthony Hope)
Hazlitt, William
suggested readings in
_Heart of Midlothian_
Heine, Heinrich
Hemans, Felicia
Henley, W.E.
suggested readings in
_Henry Esmond_
_Henry IV_
_Henry V_
_Henry VIII_
Henryson, Robert
Herbert, George
_Hero and Leander_
_Herod_
_Heroes and hero Worship_
Herrick, Robert
suggested readings in
_Hesperides_
Hewlett, Maurice
suggested readings in
Heywood, John
Heywood, Thomas
Hichens, Robert S.
_Hilda Lessways_
_Hind and the Panther_
Hinkson, Catherine Tynan
Historical prose
_Historical Sketches_, Newman's
History, English, Age of Romanticism
Anglo-Norman period
Anglo-Saxon period
Eighteenth century
Elizabethan age
Puritan age
Renaissance
Restoration period
Victorian age
_History of England_, Hume's
Macaulay's
_History of Friedrich II_
_History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The_
_History of the Great Rebellion_
_History of the Kings of Britain_
_History of the Reign of Henry VII_
_History of the World_
_History of the Worthies of England_ (Fuller's)
Hobbes, Thomas
Hogg, James
Holinshed, Raphael
Holman-Hunt, William
_Holy Dying_
_Holy Living_
_Holy War_
Homer, Chapman's
Homer, Pope's translation of
_Homeward Songs by the Way_
_Homilies_
Hood, Thomas
Hooker, Richard
references on
suggested readings in
Hope, Anthony (Hawkins)
Horace, influence of
_Hous of Fame_
Housman, A.E.
Howells, William D., quoted
_Hudibras_
Hugo, Victor, quoted
Hume, David
references on
suggested readings in
Humor
Addison's
Arnold's
Barrie's
Burns's
Carlyle's
Chaucer's
Cowper's
De Quincey's
Dickens's
Fielding's
Fuller's
Goldsmith's
Locke's
Meredith's
Pope's
Sterne's
Swift's
Thackeray's
Hundred Years' War
Hunt, Leigh
suggested readings in
Huxley, Thomas
quoted
Hyde, Dr. Douglas
_Hydriotaphia_
_Hymns_, Addison's
_Hyperion_
Ibsen, Henrik, influence of
_Idea of a University_
Ideals. _See_ Moral ideals.
_Idler_
_Idylls of the King_
_Il Penseroso_
Iliad, Pope's translation of
_Imaginary Conversations_
_In a Balcony_
_In Memoriam_
_In the South Seas_
_Induction_ (Sackville's)
Ingelow, Jean
_Inland Voyage_
Interlude
Invention, age of
Irish drama
Irish National Theater
_Isabella_
_Ivanhoe_
_Jack of Newberry_
Jacks, Lawrence Pearsall
Jacobs, W.W.
James I of Scotland
_Jane Eyre_
Jeffrey, Francis
_Jew of Malta_
_John Gilpin_
Johnson, Lionel
Johnson Samuel
Boswell's life of
converser and literary lawgiver
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_Jonathan Wild the Great_
Jones, Henry Arthur
suggested readings in
Jonson, Ben
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
opposes sonnet
plays of
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
_Joseph Andrews_
_Joseph Vance_
_Journal of the Plague Year_
_Journal to Stella_
_Jude the Obscure_
_Judith_
_Juliana_
_Julius Caesar_
_Jungle Books_
Jury system, development of
_Just So Stories_
Kant
Keats, John
general characteristics
incidental references to
life of
poems of
references on
suggested readings in
Keble, John
Kenilworth
_Kidnapped_
_Kim_
_King Lear_
_King of the Golden River, The_
_King's Quair, The_
Kingsley, Charles
suggested readings in
Kipling, Rudyard
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
Nobel prize awarded to
prose of
references on
suggested readings in
verse of
_Knighte's Tale, Chaucer's_
Knoblauch, Edward
Knowles, James Sheridan
Knox, John
_Kubla Khan_
Kyd, Thomas
_Lady of the Lake_
Lake Poets
_L'Allegro_
Lamb, Charles
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
_Lamia_
Landor, Walter Savage
suggested readings in
Lang, Andrew
Längland, William
references on
suggested readings in
Language, new English
Languages, after Norman Conquest
_Last Days of Pompeii_
Latimer, Hugh
Layamon
suggested readings in
_Lay of the Last Minstrel_
_Lay Sermons_, Huxley's
_Lays of Ancient Rome_
Lecky, William Edward Hartpole
_Lectures on Art_
_Lectures on Shakespeare_
Lee, Vernon (Violet Paget)
Le Gallienne, Richard
_Legende of Good Women_
_Leviathan_
Lewes, George Henry
_Life and Death of Mr. Badman_
_Life of Johnson_
Boswell's
Macaulay's
_Life of Nelson_
_Light that Failed, The_
Lindsay, Sir David
Lingard, John
Literary Club
Literary England
literary itinerary
references on
Literature
change in subject-matter after Restoration
childhood introduced into
definitions of
influence of spirit of reform on
Pre-Raphaelite movement
Reformation influences
_Little Minister_
_Little White Bird_
_Lives of the English Poets_
_Lives of the Saints_
Locke, John
references on
Locke, William John
suggested readings in
Lockhart, John Gibson
_Locksley Hall_
_Locksley Hall Sixty Years After_
Lodge, Thomas
suggested readings in
_London_
_Lord Ormont and His Aminta_
_Lorna Doone_
Lounsbury, T.R., quoted
Love lyrics
Lovelace, Richard
_Love's Labor's Lost_
Lowell, James Russell, quoted
Lucas, Edward Verrall
_Lucrece_
Luther, Martin
_Lycidas_
Lydgate, john
Lyell, Sir Charles
Lyly, John
references on
suggested readings in
_Lyrical Ballads_, Coleridge's
Wordsworth's
Lyrical verse in Elizabethan age
Lytton, Edward Bulwer
Macaulay, Thomas Babington
general characteristics of
_History of England_
incidental references to
life of
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_Macbeth_
M'Carthy, Justin Huntley
_Mac Flecknoe_
Mackail, John w.
Macleod, Fiona. _See_ Sharp, William
Macmanus, Seumas
Macpherson, James
Magna Charta
_Maid's Tragedy_
Maine, Sir Henry
Malory, Sir Thomas
Malthus, Thomas Robert
Malthusian theorem
Mandeville, Sir John
_Manfred_
Mangan, James C.
_Mansfield Park_
Marlowe, Christopher
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_Marmion_
Marston, John
Marston, Philip Bourke
_Martin Chuzzlewit_
Martyn, Edward
Marvell, Andrew
Masefield, John
suggested readings in
Masque
Massinger, Philip
Masson, David, quoted
_Master of Ballantrae_
_Maud_
_Mayor of Casterbridge_
Melancholy, literature of
_Memoirs of a Cavalier_
_Memories and Portraits_
_Men and Women_
_Merchant of Venice_
Meredith, George
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
works of
Metrical romances
Meynell, Alice
_Michael_
_Michaelmas Term_
Middle Ages
_Middlemarch_
Middleton, Richard
Middleton, Thomas
_Midsummer Night's Dream_
Mill, James
Mill, John Stuart
_Mill on the Floss_
Millais, John Everett
Milman, Henry Hart
Milton, John
characteristics of poetry
compared with Shakespeare
incidental references to
influence of _Paradise Lost_
life of
Macaulay's essay on
_Paradise Lost_
quoted
references on
Spenser's influence on
suggested readings in
works of
_Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_
Miracle plays
suggested readings in
Mitford, Mary Russell
_Modern Painters_
_Modest Proposal_
Molière
_Moll Flanders_
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley
Moore, George
Moore, Thomas
Moore, T. Sturge
Moral ideals, Addison's
Browning's
Carlyle's
Dickens's
George Eliot's
in Beowulf
Meredith's
Milton's
of Alfred the Great
of Puritan age
Richardson's
Ruskin's
Shakespeare's
Swinburne's
under minor dramatists
Moralitites, suggested readings for
Morality play
More, Sir Thomas
suggested readings in
Morley, Henry, quoted
Morley, John
Morris, Lewis
Morris, William
references on
suggested readings in
_Morte d'Arthur_
_Mourning Bride_
_Much Ado About Nothing_
_Mysteries of Udolpho_
Mystery plays
Napier, Sir William
Nashe, Thomas
suggested readings in
Nature
as depicted in Scottish poetry
Burns's, treatment of
Byron's, poetry of
Chaucer's love of
Coleridge's treatment of
Cowper's poems of
Dunbar a student of
Gray's poetry of
growth of appreciation of
Keats's treatment of
poetry of
Ruskin's love of
Scott's treatment of
Shakespeare's treatment of
Shelley's treatment of
Tennyson's poetry of
Thomason's poetry of
Walton's love of
Wordsworth's poetry of
_Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation_
_Necessity of Atheism_
_New Atlantis_
_New Year's Eve_
Newbolt, Henry
_Newcomes, The_
Newman, Cardinal John Henry
general characteristics of
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
"News books"
"News letters"
Newspapers
_Nicholas Nickleby_
Nietzsche, Friedrich
_Nightingale, To a_
_Noble Numbers_
Norman conquest
North, Sir Thomas
_Northanger Abbey_
Novel, development of
development of modern
in eighteenth century
in sixteenth century
in twentieth century
in Victorian age
(_See_ also Scott, Dickens, Eliot, Thackeray, etc.)
picaresque
suggested readings for
_Novum Organum_
Noyes, Alfred
suggested readings in
_Nut-Brown maid, The_
Oberämmergau _Passion Play_
Occleve, Thomas
_Ode on a Grecian Urn_
_Ode on the Passions_
_Ode to Evening_
_Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew_
_Ode to the West Wind_
_Odyssey_, Pope's translation of
_Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_
_Old Bachelor, The_
_Old China_
_Old Curiosity Shop, The_
_Old Mortality_
_Oliver Twist_
_Olney Hymns_
_On the Morning of Christ's Nativity_
_On Translating Homer_
_Ordeal of Richard Feverel_
_Origin of Species_
Orm's _Ormulum_
_Oroonoke_
_Orosius_ (Alfred's)
_Ossian_
_Othello_
Otway, Thomas
_Our Mutual Friend_
_Palace of Art_
Paley, William
_Pamela_
_Pandosto_
_Paracelsus_
_Paradise Lost_
_Paradise Regained_
_Paraphrase_, Caedmon's
Parnell, Thomas
Passion Play at Oberämmergau
_Past and Present_
Pastoral lyrics
Pater, Walter
references on
suggested readings in
Patmore, Coventry
Peacock, Thomas Love
Peele, George
_Pendennis_
Pepys, Samuel
Percy, Thomas
_Peregrine Pickle_
_Pericles and Aspasia_
_Perkin Warbeck_
_Persuasion_
_Peter Pan_
_Philaster_
Phillips, Stephen
suggested readings in
Phillpotts, Eden
suggested readings in
Philosophical prose
Coleridge's
of age of Romantiscism
of eighteenth century
Philosophical prose, of Puritan age
Phoenix
Picaresque novel
_Pickwick Papers_
_Piers Plowman_
references on
suggested readings for
_Pilgrim's Progress_
Pinero, Sir Arthur Wing
suggested readings in
_Pippä Passes_
_Play of Noah's Flood_
_Play of the Shepherds_
_Playboy of the Western World_
_Plays, Pleasant and Unpleasant_
Plutarch's _Lives_
Poe, Edgar Allan, quoted
_Poet, The_
Pope, Alexander
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
translation of Homer
works of
Pope Gregory
Porter, Jane
Praed, Winthrop
_Praeterita_
_Prelude, The_
Pre-Raphaelite movement
suggested readings in
_Pre-Raphaelitism_
_Pride and Prejudice_
_Princess, The_
Printing, invention of
Prior, Matthew
Procter, Adelaide Anne
Procter, Bryan W.
_Prometheus Unbound_
Puritan age
history
poets
prose writers
references on
suggested readings and questions
summary
_Puttenham, George_
_Quarterly Review_
Quiller-Couch (Cooch), Sir Arthur
suggested readings in
_Rabbi Ben Ezra_
Radcliffe, Mrs. Anne
Raleigh, Sir Walter
_Ralph Royster Doyster_
_Rambler, The_
Ramsay, Allan
_Rape of the Lock_
_Rasselas_
Reade, Charles
suggested readings in
Readings, suggestions for
_Recessional_
References, historical and literary
References for literary England
_Reflections on the Revolution in France_
Reformation
_Religio Laici_
_Religio Medici_
Religion, effect of on literature
Religious drama
_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_
_Reminiscences_, Carlyle's
Renaissance
causes and effects of the Renaissance
culmination of
history
in Elizabeth's reign
influence on Chaucer
invention of printing
poets
prose writers
references on
suggested readings and questions
summary
_Renaissance; Studies in Art and Poetry_
Restoration period and early eighteenth-century literature
dramatists
history
poets
prose writers
references on
suggested readings and questions
summary
_Return of the Native_
_Review_
_Revolt of Islam_
Reynolds, G.F., quoted
Reynolds, Sir Joshua
_Rhoda Fleming_
Ricardo, David
_Richard II_
_Richard III_
Richardson, Samuel
references on
suggested readings in
_Ring and the Book_
_Rivals_
Robert of Brunne
Robertson, William
_Robin Hood_
_Robinson Crusoe_
Robinson, Lennox
_Roderick Random_
Romance, distinguished from modern novel
_Romance of the Forest_
Romantiscism
age of
appreciation of nature
history
literary characteristics
poets
prose writers
Romanticism, references on
suggested readings and questions
summary
_Romaunt of the Rose_
_Romeo and Juliet_
_Romola_
_Rosalynde_
Rossetti, Christina
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel
references on
_Round Table_
Rowley, Thomas
Rowley, William
Ruskin, John
art works of
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
Russell, George W.
suggested readings in
Sackville, Thomas
Saintsbury, George, quoted
_Samson Agonistes_
_Sartor Resartus_
Satire, Addison's
Carlyle's
Dryden's
Fielding's
Meredith's
Pope's
Swift's
Thackeray's
_Saul_
Saxon. _See_ Anglo-Saxon.
Scenery, in early theater
_Scenes of Clerical Life_
_Scholar-Gypsy_
_Scholemaster, The_
_School for Scandal_
_School Mistress, The_
Schoolmen
Science, age of
influence on literature
Scop
songs of
Scott, Sir Walter
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_Seafarer, The_
_Seasons, The_
_Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The_
Selden, John
_Sense and Sensibility_
_Sentimental Journey through France and Italy_
_Sentimental Tommy_
_Sesame and Lilies_
_Seven Lamps of Architecture_
Shadwell, Thomas
Shakespeare, William
amount and classification of work
connection with London stage
development as dramatist
general characteristics of
incidental references to
influence of Bible on
life of
publication of plays
quoted
references on
sonnets
sources of plots
suggested readings in
table of plays
variety of style
Sharp, William (Fiona Macleod)
references on
suggested readings in
Shaw, George Bernard
references on
suggested readings in
_She Stoops to Conquer_
Sheehan, Canon, P.A.
Shelley, Mrs.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
lyrical genius
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_Shepherd's Calendar_
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley
Shirley, James
_Shoemaker's Holiday_
_Short View of the Immorality of the Stage_
Shorter, Dora Sigerson
Shorthouse, Joseph H.
Sidney, Sir Philip
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_Sigurd, the Volsung_
_Silas Marner_
_Silent Woman, The_
Sinclair, May
_Sir Charles Grandison_
_Sir Roger de Coverley Papers_
Skeltin, John
_Skylark, To a_
Smith, Adam
Smith, Sydney
Smollett, Tobias
references on
Smollett, suggested readings in
Snaith, J.C.
Social movement of nineteenth century
_Sohrab and Rustum_
_Somehow Good_
_Song of Roland_
_Songs before Sunrise_
_Songs of Experience_
_Songs of Innocence_
Sonnets
in Elizabethan Age
introduction of
Jonson and Donne oppose
Keats's
Milton's
Shakespeare's
Sidney's
Spenser's
Wordsworth's
_Sonnets from the Portuguese_
_Sordello_
Southey, Robert
_Spanish Gypsy, The_
_Spanish Tragedy, The_
_Specimens of English Dramatic Poets_
_Spectator, The_
Spodding, James, quoted
_Speech on American Taxation_ (Burke's)
_Speech on Conciliation with America_ (Burke's)
Spencer, Herbert
Spenser, Edmund, chief characteristics of poetry of
_Faerie Queene_
incidental references to
life of
references on
sonnets of
subjective poet
suggested readings in
St. Francis
Stage, in early English theater
_Stalky and Co._
Steele, Richard
suggested readings in
Stephen, Leslie
quoted
Stephens, James
Sterne, Laurence
references on
suggested reading in
Stevenson, Robert Louis
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
Stevenson, William
_Stones of Venice, The_
Story, short
Stow, John
_Strafford_
_Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_
Stubbs, William
_Study of Celtic Literature_
Suckling, Sir John
suggested readings in
Suggested readings
Summaries
_Summer's Last Will and Testament_
Surrey, Earl of
sonnets of
suggested readings in
_Survey of London_
Sweet, Professor, quoted
Swift, Jonathon
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
references on
suggested readings in
works of
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_Switzerland_
Symonds, John Addington
quoted
Symons, Arthur
suggested readings in
Synge, John Millington
references on
_Synthetic Philosophy_
_Table Talk_
Taine, H.A., quoted
_Tale of a Tub_
_Tale of Two Cities_
_Tales from Shakespeare_
_Tales of a Grandfather_
_Tales of a Mermaid Tavern_
_Talisman_
_Tam o'Shanter_
_Tamburlaine_
_Task, The_
_Tatler_
Taylor, Jeremy
_Tempest, The_
Ten Brink, quoted
Tennyson, Alfred
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_Tess of the D'Urberville's_
Thackeray, William Makepeace
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
works of
Theater, Elizabethan
Thompson, Frances
suggested readings in
Thompson, James
Thomson, James
suggested readings in
Thoreau, quoted
_Thyrnie_
_Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne_
_Tom Jones_
Tottel's _Miscellany_
Tourneur, Cyril
_Traitor, The_
_Traveller, The_
_Travels_, Mandeville's
_Travels with a Donkey_
_Treasure Island_
_Treatise of Human Nature_
Trelawny, Edward
Trench, Herbert
_Trick to Catch the Old One_
_Tristram and Iseule_
_Tristram of Lioness_
_Tristram Shandy_
_Troilus and Criseyde_
Trollope, Anthony
suggested readings in.
_Twelfth Night_
Twentieth-century literature
dramatists
essayists
novelists
poets
references on
suggested readings and questions
summary
trend of contemporary literature
_Two Voices, The_
Tyndale, William
suggested readings in
Tyndall, John
quoted
Udall, Nicholas
_Ulysses_
_Underwoods_
_Unfortunate Traveler_
Unities, dramatic
"University wits"
_Unto this Last_
_Urn Burial_
_Utopia_
Vanbrugh, John
_Vanity Fair_
_Vanity of Human Wishes_
Vaughan, Henry
_Venus and Adonis_
_Vercelli Book_
_Vicar of Wakefield_
Vice, in old plays
Victorian age
essayists
history of
novelists
poets
references on
scientific writers
short stories
suggested readings and questions
summary
_Vignettes in Rhyme_
_Virginians_
_Vision of Judgement_
_Volpone_
Voltaire
_Vox Clamantis_
_Vulgar Errors_
Wace
Wagner, Richard
Wallace, Professor C.W.
quoted
Waller, Edmund
Walpole, Horace
suggested readings in
Walpole, Herbert
Walton, Izaak
_Wanderer, The_
Warburton, William
Ward, Mrs. Humphry
Ward, Mrs. Wilfrid
Ward, Wilfrid
Warner, William
Warren, J.B.L. (Lord de Tabley)
War of the Roses
Warton, Thomas
Watson, William
suggested readings in
Watts, Isaac
Waits-Dunton, Theodore
_Waverly_
_Way of the World_
Webster, John
_War of Hermiston_
Wells, Herbert George
references on
suggested readings in
Wesley, Charles
Wesley, John
_Westward Ho_
_What Every Woman Knows_
_White Devil, The_
White, Gilbert
Whitefield, George
_Widecombe Fair_
_Widsið_
Wilde, Oscar
Wilson, John
_Winter's Tale_
_Witch of Atlas_
Wither, George
_Woman Killed with Kindness, A_
_Woodlanders, The_
_Woodstock_
Wordsworth, William
general characteristics of
incidental references to
life of
poet of child life
poet of man
poet of nature
quoted
references on
suggested readings in
works of
_World, The_
Wotton, Sir Henry, quoted
_Wounds of Civil War_
Wright
_Wuthering Heights_
Wyatt, Sir Thomas
suggested readings in
Wycherley, William
Wycliffe, John
Yeats, William Butler
references on
suggested reading in
York plays
Young, Edward
_Youth of the Year_
Zangwill, Israel
suggested readings in