COPYRIGHT, 1928

BY PAUL ROBERT LIEDER, ROBERT MORSS LOVETT, AND ROBERT KILBURN ROOT

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The selections reprinted in this collection are used
by permission of and special arrangement with
the proprietors of their respective copyrights

The Riverside Press

CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

PREFACE

IN compiling this book the editors have recognized, first, that literature is a fine art; second, that literature has had an historical development both in its forms and in its material, corresponding to changing social conditions and intellectual interests and attitudes; and, third, that it is an expression of the personalities in whom its creative force was incarnate. Accordingly, literature may be approached from three points of view, not, of course, to be sharply separated - the æsthetic, the historical and social, and the personal. From the first point of view the effort has been made to select the most excellent examples of literary genius from Beowulf to the close of the nineteenth century. Arranged in chronological order, these will, it is believed, enable the student to gain for himself a consecutive view of the development of literature in accordance with the tastes, interests, and needs of changing generations. As a matter of convenience the conventional division into periods has been adopted, with the warning that these are not to be emphasized as hard-and-fast distinctions. The introductory notes to the several periods are intended to point out general characteristics of their literary production as affected by political and social movements. The introductions to individual authors have been prepared with the aim of identifying the writer, of giving a succinct account of his experience in life as a key to his work, and of suggesting the qualities of his mind and art. As it is hoped that the student will draw in his mind an outline of the historical development of English literature, so it is hoped that he will see and enjoy for himself the qualities which make its exponents memorable. The editors have tried to refrain from forcing opinions and conclusions, and in general to avoid doing for the student what he can reasonably be expected to do for himself.

With these principles in mind they have undertaken to select the most characteristic work of each writer, whether it is generally familiar, or comparatively unknown. They have sought to give due representation to the various types and forms of literature, and to illustrate their progress from period to period. For those who wish to approach the field from this point of view rather than the historical, a special introduction to the study of literature according to types has been provided. The editors have not hesitated to include in the volume selections which may be regarded as important primarily as expressive of the intellectual or social characteristics of a period or school. And they have been especially hospitable to work having the interest of autobiography and personal revelation.

In particular the editors have tried to limit the inclusion of fragmentary extracts, however striking or elegant or famous as purple patches, in the belief that for appreciation of a writer's point of view, form, and style, the unit in which he wrote should be considered. Particularly is this study of literature as units necessary in the case of works significant as historical documents. Thus, for example,

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both Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Milton's Areopagitica have been presented in their entirety. Where space forbade such presentation, complete books, cantos or chapters, or other integral portions of the work have been chosen - e.g., the first book of the Faërie Queene, the first two books of Paradise Lost, the first voyage of Gulliver's Travels, the three chapters of Sartor Resartus which give the most vital portion of Carlyle's spiritual biography and creed. Omissions have been made only where the substance became clearly unnecessary, or unsuitable, such as the last third of Ruskin's chapter on the Nature of Gothic, which is too technical for reading without diagrams. Occasionally the editors have reduced to its fundamental elements a work too important to be omitted and too long to be reproduced in its entirety, such as Mill's tractate On Liberty, and Macaulay's Essay on Bacon.

This effort to present units has forced the editors to omit frankly and entirely the two forms of novel and drama. They believe that the study of a novelist's work in selections is of limited value, and that while several fine plays might be presented in completeness to give acquaintance with the dramatic form, the number would be inadequate to give a conception of the history and development of the form. And for both novel and drama there are editions easily accessible to be used as supplementary reading. For the editors are far from claiming anything like completeness or finality for their list of selections. They hope rather that their work may be a basis for widely intelligent choice and reading in accordance with the student's own interests and tastes and in addition to any formal academic re quirement. In the description of types, references are given to the drama of the Elizabethan period and the novel of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which the reader cannot fail to follow with greater understanding and interest through his general acquaintance with the characteristics of their periods as revealed in this book.

The editors have kept in mind the fact that the purpose of literature is to be read, not studied. They have therefore endeavored to reduce the apparatus for study to a minimum. They have sought to include in the introductions to periods, writers, and works such preliminary information as may be necessary to general understanding; and for details they have limited explanatory footnotes to a minimum. Absolute consistency in procedure in this matter is both impossible and undesirable. On the whole, the editors have attempted to give such explanations as are indispensable to an immediate understanding of the passage while leaving to the reader the pursuit of allusions which can be traced in generally accessible reference books, histories, encyclopædias, or classical and biographical dictionaries. Quotations and references to literature have not, in general, been referred to their sources, except when they were obviously intended to be read in connection with the work itself, as, for example, Macaulay's references in his Essay on Milton. In such cases usually the author's own notes are sufficient, and these have, wherever practicable, been retained.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publishers and individuals for permission to reprint copyright material: