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A History of English Literature
A History of English Literature
Robert Huntington Fletcher
A History of English Literature
Table of Contents
A History of English Literature. ........................................................................................................................1
Robert Huntington Fletcher. ....................................................................................................................1
PREFACE. ...............................................................................................................................................1
PRELIMINARY. HOW TO STUDY AND JUDGE LITERATURE. ....................................................2
A TABULAR VIEW OF ENGLISH LITERATURE .............................................................................6
REFERENCE BOOKS. .........................................................................................................................10
1500. .....................................................................................................................................................25
CHAPTER IV. THE MEDIEVAL DRAMA. ........................................................................................36
REIGN OF ELIZABETH. ....................................................................................................................40
CHAPTER VI. THE DRAMA FROM ABOUT 1550 TO 1642. ..........................................................54
POETRY. ..............................................................................................................................................68
CHAPTER VIII. PERIOD VI. THE RESTORATION, 1660−1700.. ...................................................79
THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN ROMANTICISM .......................................................................85
ASSIGNMENTS FOR STUDY. .........................................................................................................169
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A History of English Literature
Robert Huntington Fletcher
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TO MY MOTHER TO WHOM I OWE A LIFETIME OF A MOTHER'S MOST SELF−SACRIFICING
DEVOTION
PREFACE
This book aims to provide a general manual of English Literature for students in colleges and universities and
others beyond the high−school age. The first purposes of every such book must be to outline the development
of the literature with due regard to national life, and to give appreciative interpretation of the work of the most
important authors. I have written the present volume because I have found no other that, to my mind,
combines satisfactory accomplishment of these ends with a selection of authors sufficiently limited for
clearness and with adequate accuracy and fulness of details, biographical and other. A manual, it seems to me,
should supply a systematic statement of the important facts, so that the greater part of the student's time, in
class and without, may be left free for the study of the literature itself.
A History of English Literature
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A History of English Literature
I hope that the book may prove adaptable to various methods and conditions of work. Experience has
suggested the brief introductory statement of main literary principles, too often taken for granted by teachers,
with much resulting haziness in the student's mind. The list of assignments and questions at the end is
intended, of course, to be freely treated. I hope that the list of available inexpensive editions of the chief
authors may suggest a practical method of providing the material, especially for colleges which can provide
enough copies for class use. Poets, of course, may be satisfactorily read in volumes of, selections; but to me,
at least, a book of brief extracts from twenty or a hundred prose authors is an absurdity. Perhaps I may venture
to add that personally I find it advisable to pass hastily over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and so
gain as much time as possible for the nineteenth.
R. H. F.
August, 1916.
PRELIMINARY. HOW TO STUDY AND JUDGE LITERATURE
TWO ASPECTS OF LITERARY STUDY. Such a study of Literature as that for which the present book is
designed includes two purposes, contributing to a common end. In the first place (I), the student must gain
some general knowledge of the conditions out of which English literature has come into being, as a whole and
during its successive periods, that is of the external facts of one sort or another without which it cannot be
understood. This means chiefly (1) tracing in a general way, from period to period, the social life of the
nation, and (2) getting some acquaintance with the lives of the more important authors. The principal thing,
however (II), is the direct study of the literature itself. This study in turn should aim first at an understanding
of the literature as an expression of the authors' views of life and of their personalities and especially as a
portrayal and interpretation of the life of their periods and of all life as they have seen it; it should aim further
at an appreciation of each literary work as a product of Fine Art, appealing with peculiar power both to our
minds and to our emotions, not least to the sense of Beauty and the whole higher nature. In the present book,
it should perhaps be added, the word Literature is generally interpreted in the strict sense, as including only
writing of permanent significance and beauty.
The outline discussion of literary qualities which follows is intended to help in the formation of intelligent and
appreciative judgments.
SUBSTANCE AND FORM. The most thoroughgoing of all distinctions in literature, as in the other Fine Arts,
is that between (1) Substance, the essential content and meaning of the work, and (2) Form, the manner in
which it is expressed (including narrative structure, external style, in poetry verse−form, and many related
matters). This distinction should be kept in mind, but in what follows it will not be to our purpose to
emphasize it.
GENERAL MATTERS. 1. First and always in considering any piece of literature a student should ask himself
the question already implied: Does it present a true portrayal of life—of the permanent elements in all life and
in human nature, of the life or thought of its own particular period, and (in most sorts of books) of the persons,
real or imaginary, with whom it deals? If it properly accomplishes this main purpose, when the reader finishes
it he should feel that his understanding of life and of people has been increased and broadened. But it should
always be remembered that truth is quite as much a matter of general spirit and impression as of literal
accuracy in details of fact. The essential question is not, Is the presentation of life and character perfect in a
photographic fashion? but Does it convey the underlying realities? 2. Other things being equal, the value of a
book, and especially of an author's whole work, is proportional to its range, that is to the breadth and variety
of the life and characters which it presents. 3. A student should not form his judgments merely from what is
technically called the dogmatic point of view, but should try rather to adopt that of historical criticism. This
means that he should take into account the limitations imposed on every author by the age in which he lived.
PRELIMINARY. HOW TO STUDY AND JUDGE LITERATURE
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A History of English Literature
If you find that the poets of the Anglo−Saxon 'Beowulf' have given a clear and interesting picture of the life of
our barbarous ancestors of the sixth or seventh century A. D., you should not blame them for a lack of the
finer elements of feeling and expression which after a thousand years of civilization distinguish such delicate
spirits as Keats and Tennyson. 4. It is often important to consider also whether the author's personal method is
objective , which means that he presents life and character without bias; or subjective , coloring his work with
his personal tastes, feelings and impressions. Subjectivity may be a falsifying influence, but it may also be an
important virtue, adding intimacy, charm, or force. 5. Further, one may ask whether the author has a
deliberately formed theory of life; and if so how it shows itself, and, of course, how sound it is.
INTELLECT, EMOTION, IMAGINATION, AND RELATED QUALITIES. Another main question in
judging any book concerns the union which it shows: (1) of the Intellectual faculty, that which enables the
author to understand and control his material and present it with directness and clearness; and (2) of the
Emotion, which gives warmth, enthusiasm, and appealing human power. The relative proportions of these two
faculties vary greatly in books of different sorts. Exposition (as in most essays) cannot as a rule be permeated
with so much emotion as narration or, certainly, as lyric poetry. In a great book the relation of the two
faculties will of course properly correspond to form and spirit. Largely a matter of Emotion is the Personal
Sympathy of the author for his characters, while Intellect has a large share in Dramatic Sympathy, whereby
the author enters truly into the situations and feelings of any character, whether he personally likes him or not.
Largely made up of Emotion are: (1) true Sentiment, which is fine feeling of any sort, and which should not
degenerate into Sentimentalism (exaggerated tender feeling); (2) Humor, the instinctive sense for that which is
amusing; and (3) the sense for Pathos. Pathos differs from Tragedy in that Tragedy (whether in a drama or
elsewhere) is the suffering of persons who are able to struggle against it, Pathos the suffering of those persons
(children, for instance) who are merely helpless victims. Wit, the brilliant perception of incongruities, is a
matter of Intellect and the complement of Humor.
IMAGINATION AND FANCY. Related to Emotion also and one of the most necessary elements in the
higher forms of literature is Imagination, the faculty of making what is absent or unreal seem present and real,
and revealing the hidden or more subtile forces of life. Its main operations may be classified under three
heads: (1) Pictorial and Presentative. It presents to the author's mind, and through him to the minds of his
readers, all the elements of human experience and life (drawing from his actual experience or his reading). 2.
Selective, Associative, and Constructive. From the unorganized material thus brought clearly to the author's
consciousness Imagination next selects the details which can be turned to present use, and proceeds to
combine them, uniting scattered traits and incidents, perhaps from widely different sources, into new
characters, stories, scenes, and ideas. The characters of 'Silas Marner,' for example, never had an actual
existence, and the precise incidents of the story never took place in just that order and fashion, but they were
all constructed by the author's imagination out of what she had observed of many real persons and events, and
so make, in the most significant sense, a true picture of life. 3. Penetrative and Interpretative. In its subtlest
operations, further, Imagination penetrates below the surface and comprehends and brings to light the deeper
forces and facts—the real controlling instincts of characters, the real motives for actions, and the relations of
material things to those of the spiritual world and of Man to Nature and God.
Fancy may for convenience be considered as a distinct faculty, though it is really the lighter, partly superficial,
aspect of Imagination. It deals with things not essentially or significantly true, amusing us with striking or
pleasing suggestions, such as seeing faces in the clouds, which vanish almost as soon as they are discerned.
Both Imagination and Fancy naturally express themselves, often and effectively, through the use of
metaphors, similes, and suggestive condensed language. In painful contrast to them stands commonplaceness,
always a fatal fault.
IDEALISM, ROMANCE, AND REALISM. Among the most important literary qualities also are Idealism,
Romance, and Realism. Realism, in the broad sense, means simply the presentation of the actual, depicting
life as one sees it, objectively, without such selection as aims deliberately to emphasize some particular
PRELIMINARY. HOW TO STUDY AND JUDGE LITERATURE
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