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.
INTRODUCTION.
1. ENGLISH LITERATURE AND ITS DIVISIONS.—The original inhabitants of England, belonging to the great race of Celts, were not the true founders of the English nation; and their language, which is still spoken unchanged in various parts of the kingdom, has exerted but an incredibly small influence on the English tongue. During the period of the Roman domination (55 B.C.-447 A.D.), the relations between the conquerors and the natives did not materially alter the nationality of the people, nor did the Latin language permanently displace or modify the native tongue.
The great event of the Dark Ages which succeeded the fall of the Roman empire was the vast series of emigrations which planted tribes of Gothic blood over large tracts of Europe, and which was followed by the formation of all the modern European languages, and by the general profession of Christianity. The Anglo-Saxon invaders of England continued to emigrate from the Continent for more than a hundred years, and before many generations had passed away, their language, customs, and character prevailed throughout the provinces they had seized. During the six hundred years of their independence (448-1066), the nation made wonderful progress in the arts of life and thought. The Pagans accepted the Christian faith; the piratical sea-kings applied themselves to the tillage of the soil and the practice of some of the ruder manufactures; the fierce soldiers constructed, out of the materials of legislation common to the whole Teutonic race, a manly political constitution.
The few extant literary monuments of the Anglo-Saxons possess a singular value as illustrations of the character of the people, and have the additional attraction of being written in what was really our mother tongue.
In the Middle Ages (from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries), the painful convulsions of infant society gave way to the growing vigor of healthy though undisciplined youth. All the relations of life were modified, more or less, by the two influences predominant in the early part of the period, but decaying in the latter,—Feudalism and the Church of Rome,—and by the consolidation of the new languages, which were successively developed in all European countries, and were soon qualified as instruments for communicating the results of intellectual activity. The Middle Ages closed by two events occurring nearly at the same time: the erection of the great monarchies on the ruins of feudalism, and the shattering of the sovereignty of the Romish Church by the Reformation. At the same period, the invention of printing, the most important event in the annals of literature, became available as a means of enlightenment.
The Norman conquest of England (1066) subjected the nation at once to both of the ruling mediaeval impulses: feudalism, which metamorphosed the relative positions of the people and the nobles, and the recognition of papal supremacy, which altered not less thoroughly the standing of the church. While these changes were not unproductive of good at that time, they were distasteful to the nation, and soon became injurious, both to freedom and knowledge, until at length, under the dynasty of the Tudors, the ecclesiastical shackles were cast off, and the feudal bonds began gradually to be loosened.