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