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A History of English Literature
by Robert Huntington Fletcher
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.
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._
CONTENTS
REFERENCE BOOKS ............................................................................................. 14
CHAPTER I .............................................................................................................. 15
CHAPTER II............................................................................................................. 25
CHAPTER III ........................................................................................................... 39
CHAPTER IV ........................................................................................................... 56
CHAPTER V ............................................................................................................ 63
CHAPTER VI ........................................................................................................... 85
CHAPTER VII........................................................................................................ 107
CHAPTER VIII ...................................................................................................... 124
CHAPTER IX ......................................................................................................... 134
CHAPTER X .......................................................................................................... 191
CHAPTER XI ......................................................................................................... 217
A LIST OF AVAILABLE EDITIONS FOR THE STUDY OF IMPORTANT
AUTHORS.............................................................................................................. 266
PRELIMINARY. HOW TO STUDY AND JUDGE LITERATURE
A TABULAR VIEW OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
REFERENCE BOOKS
I. PERIOD I. THE BRITONS AND THE ANGLO-SAXONS.
TO A.D. 1066
II. PERIOD II. THE NORMAN-FRENCH PERIOD.
A.D. 1066 TO ABOUT 1350
III. PERIOD III. THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
ABOUT 1350 TO ABOUT 1500
IV. THE MEDIEVAL DRAMA
V. PERIOD IV. THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. THE
RENAISSANCE AND THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH
VI. THE DRAMA FROM ABOUT 1550 TO 1642
VII. PERIOD V. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY,
1603-1660. PROSE AND POETRY
VIII. PERIOD VI. THE RESTORATION, 1660-1700
IX. PERIOD VII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY,
PSEUDO-CLASSICISM AND THE BEGINNINGS
OF MODERN ROMANTICISM
X. PERIOD VIII. THE ROMANTIC TRIUMPH, 1798
TO ABOUT 1830
XI. PERIOD IX. THE VICTORIAN PERIOD. ABOUT
1830 TO 1901
A LIST OF AVAILABLE EDITIONS FOR THE
STUDY OF IMPORTANT AUTHORS
ASSIGNMENTS FOR STUDY
INDEX
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. 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

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