Select passages that show (a) altruistic philosophy of life, (b) humor, (c) special graces of style. What change did She Stoops to Conquer bring to the stage? What qualities keep the play alive?
Johnson.—Representative selections are given in Craik, IV., 141-185. Those from Lives of the English Poets (Craik, IV., 175-182; Century, 405-419) will best repay study. Let the student who has the time read Johnson's Dryden entire. As much as possible of Boswell's Life of Johnson should be read (Craik, IV., 482-495; Manly, II., 277-292).
Compare the style of Johnson with that of Gibbon and Burke. For what reasons does Johnson hold a high position in literature? What special excellences or defects do you note in his Lives of the English Poets? Why is Boswell's Life of Johnson a great work?
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER VII:
[Footnote 1: The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century.]
[Footnote 2: To be found in Encyclopaedia Britannica, or in
Macaulay's collected Essays.]
[Footnote 3: For full titles, see p. 50.]
[Footnote 4: For full titles, see p. 6.]
CHAPTER VIII: THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM, 1780-1837
History of the Period.—Much of the English history of this period was affected directly or indirectly by the French Revolution (1789). The object of this movement was to free men from oppression by the aristocracy and to restore to them their natural rights. The new watchwords were "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality." The professed principles of the French revolutionists were in many respects similar to those embodied in the American Declaration of Independence.