Main Currents of English Literature: A Brief Literary History of the English PeopleF.S. Crofts & Company, 1926 - 520 pages |
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Page 13
... interest , and in artistic design . It belongs to a ruder age and to a less gifted people . A peculiarity of its own is the curious Anglo - Saxon understatement employed for ironic effect , as , " Not at all happy were the kinsmen ...
... interest , and in artistic design . It belongs to a ruder age and to a less gifted people . A peculiarity of its own is the curious Anglo - Saxon understatement employed for ironic effect , as , " Not at all happy were the kinsmen ...
Page 20
... interest to us is historical as revealing the aspirations toward a fuller life on the part of the few men who preserved learning for the next generations . In this civilizing work the Church proved herself a chief influence . T CHAPTER ...
... interest to us is historical as revealing the aspirations toward a fuller life on the part of the few men who preserved learning for the next generations . In this civilizing work the Church proved herself a chief influence . T CHAPTER ...
Page 22
... interests all lay there . The faint spirit of learning which did last through this trying period was preserved from the ignorance and the violence of the times by the pious monks in the monasteries , who spent their lives copying and ...
... interests all lay there . The faint spirit of learning which did last through this trying period was preserved from the ignorance and the violence of the times by the pious monks in the monasteries , who spent their lives copying and ...
Page 35
... interest the earlier satire gave to the poem . It now becomes a didactic allegory , gathering into itself French romantic ideas , the dream , the May morning , and all the conven- tionalities of a dominant literary form . The rose , for ...
... interest the earlier satire gave to the poem . It now becomes a didactic allegory , gathering into itself French romantic ideas , the dream , the May morning , and all the conven- tionalities of a dominant literary form . The rose , for ...
Page 36
... interest . Such is The Owl and the Nightingale , a dialogue between these two birds on their respective ways of living , -between , that is to say , the philosopher and the poet , -a comic dialogue of considerable zest ; and the serious ...
... interest . Such is The Owl and the Nightingale , a dialogue between these two birds on their respective ways of living , -between , that is to say , the philosopher and the poet , -a comic dialogue of considerable zest ; and the serious ...
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Common terms and phrases
allegory Arnold ballads beauty became Beowulf blank verse Byron Carlyle character charming Chaucer chief Christian Church classical comedy conventional criticism death Dickens drama Dryden early eighteenth century England English Literature English poetry epic Essays Euphuistic expression exquisite faith France French French Revolution friends genius George Eliot hero heroic couplet human ideal imitation influence intellectual interest Italy Jane Austen Johnson King King Arthur knight Lady learning letters literary living Lord lyric manner medieval ment Milton mind modern Molière moral nature neo-classic neo-classicism noble novel passion period philosophy plays poems poet poet's poetic poetry political Pope prose Puritan religion religious Renaissance represent reveal Revolution romantic romanticism Ruskin satire sense sentiment Shakespeare Sir Bedivere social society songs soul Spenser spirit story Tennyson Thackeray things thou thought tion to-day tradition tragedy verse Victorian writing written wrote
Popular passages
Page 212 - Peace to all such ! but were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease; Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne...
Page 142 - Going to the Wars TELL me not, Sweet, I am unkind, That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast, and quiet mind, To war and arms I fly. True; a new mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field; And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield. Yet this inconstancy is such, As you too shall adore; I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more.
Page 158 - Is this the region, this the soil, the clime," Said then the lost Archangel, " this the seat That we must change for Heaven? — this mournful gloom For that celestial light ? Be...
Page 212 - Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike...
Page 290 - All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, ' And mountains ; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye and ear, both what they half create *, And what perceive...
Page 219 - How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man! How passing wonder He who made him such, Who centred in our make such strange extremes! From different natures marvellously mixed, Connection exquisite of distant worlds! Distinguished link in being's endless chain! Midway from nothing to the Deity!
Page 320 - Oh lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
Page 214 - Cease then, nor order imperfection name : Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. Know thy own point : This kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness, heaven bestows on thee. Submit. — In this, or any other sphere, Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear : Safe in the hand of one disposing pow'r, Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
Page 208 - First follow Nature, and your judgment frame By her just standard, which is still the same: Unerring Nature, still divinely bright, One clear, unchang'd, and universal light, Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart, At once the source, and end, and test of Art. Art from that fund each just supply provides, Works without show, and without pomp presides: In some fair body thus th...
Page 154 - So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky...