ENGLISH LITERATURE.
INTRODUCTION.—1. English Literature. Its Divisions.—2. The Language.
PERIOD FIRST.—1. Celtic Literature. Irish, Scotch, and Cymric Celts;
the Chronicles of Ireland; Ossian's Poems; Traditions of Arthur; the
Triads; Tales.—2. Latin Literature, Bede; Alcuin; Erigena.—3. Anglo-
Saxon Literature. Poetry; Prose; Versions of Scripture: the Saxon
Chronicle; Alfred.
PERIOD SECOND.—The Norman Age and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Centuries.—1. Literature in the Latin Tongue.—2. Literature in
Norman-French. Poetry; Romances of Chivalry.—3. Saxon-English.
Metrical Remains.—4. Literature in the Fourteenth Century.—Prose
Writers; Occam, Duns Scotus, Wickliffe, Mandeville, Chaucer. Poetry;
Langland, Gower, Chaucer.—5. Literature in the Fifteenth Century.
Ballads.—6. Poets of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries in
Scotland. Wyntoun, Barbour, and others.
PERIOD THIRD.—1. Age of the Reformation (1509-1558), Classical,
Theological, and Miscellaneous Literature: Sir Thomas More and others.
Poetry: Skelton, Surrey, and Sackville; the Drama.—2. The Age of
Spenser, Shakspeare, Bacon, and Milton (1558-1660). Scholastic and
Ecclesiastical Literature. Translations of the Bible: Hooker, Andrews,
Donne, Hall, Taylor, Baxter: other Prose Writers: Fuller, Cudworth, Bacon,
Hobbes. Raleigh, Milton, Sidney, Selden, Burton, Browne and Cowley.
Dramatic Poetry: Marlowe and Greene, Shakspeare, Beaumont and Fletcher,
Ben Jonson, and others; Massinger, Ford, and Shirley; Decline of the
Drama. Non-dramatic Poetry: Spenser and the Minor Poets. Lyrical Poets;
Donne, Cowley, Denham, Waller, Milton.—3. The Age of the Restoration and
Revolution (1660-1702). Prose: Leighton, Tilotson, Barrow, Bunyan, Locke
and others. The Drama: Dryden, Otway. Comedy; Didactic Poetry: Roscommon,
Marvell, Butler, Pryor, Dryden.—4. The Eighteenth Century. The First
Generation (1702-1727): Pope, Swift, and others; the Periodical Essayists:
Addison, Steele. The Second Generation (1727-1760); Theology; Warburton,
Butler, Watts, Doddridge. Philosophy: Hume. Miscellaneous Prose: Johnson;
the Novelists: Richardson, Fielding, Smollett and Sterne. The Drama; Non-
dramatic Poetry: Young, Blair, Akenside, Thomson, Gray, and Collins. The
Third Generation (1780-1800); the Historians: Hume, Robertson, and
Gibbon. Miscellaneous Prose: Johnson, Goldsmith, "Junius," Pitt, Fox,
Sheridan, and Burke. Criticism: Burke, Reynolds, Campbell, Kames.
Political Economy: Adam Smith. Ethics: Paley, Smith, Tucker, Metaphysics:
Reid. Theological and Religious Writers: Campbell, Paley, Watson, Newton,
Hannah More, and Wilberforce. Poetry: Comedies of Goldsmith and Sheridan;
Minor Poets; Later Poems; Beattie's Minstrel; Cowper and Burns. 5. The
Nineteenth Century. The Poets: Campbell, Southey, Scott, Byron; Coleridge
and Wordsworth; Wilson, Shelley, Keats; Crabbe, Moore, and others;
Tennyson, Browning, Proctor, and others. Fiction: the Waverley and other
Novels; Dickens, Thackeray, and others. History: Arnold, Thirlwall, Grote,
Macaulay, Alison, Carlyle, Freeman, Buckle. Criticism: Hallam, De Quincey,
Macaulay, Carlyle, Wilson, Lamb, and others. Theology: Foster, Hall,
Chalmers. Philosophy: Stewart, Brown, Mackintosh, Bentham, Alison, and
others. Political Economy: Mill, Whewell, Whately, De Morgan, Hamilton.
Periodical Writings: the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and Westminster Reviews,
and Blackwood's Magazine. Physical Science: Brewster, Herschel, Playfair,
Miller, Buckland, Whewell.—Since 1860. 1. Poets: Matthew Arnold, Algernon
Swinburne, Dante Rossetti, Robert Buchanan, Edwin Arnold, "Owen Meredith,"
William Morris, Jean Ingelow, Adelaide Procter, Christina Rossetti,
Augusta Webster, Mary Robinson, and others. 2. Fiction: "George Eliot,"
MacDonald, Collins, Black, Blackmore, Mrs. Oliphant, Yates, McCarthy,
Trollope, and others. 3. Scientific Writers: Herbert Spencer, Charles
Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley, and others. 4. Miscellaneous.