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Outlines of English and American Literature
Outlines of English and American Literature
William J. Long
Outlines of English and American Literature
Table of Contents
Outlines of English and American Literature. .................................................................................................1
William J. Long. ......................................................................................................................................1
PREFACE. ...............................................................................................................................................2
OUTLINES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. ........................................................................................................3
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: AN ESSAY OF LITERATURE. ......................................................3
CHAPTER II. BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. ..............................................................6
CHAPTER IV. THE ELIZABETHAN AGE (1550−1620). .................................................................43
CHAPTER VI. EIGHTEENTH−CENTURY LITERATURE. .............................................................97
CHAPTER VII. THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY. ..............................................................129
CHAPTER VIII. THE VICTORIAN AGE (1837−1901). ..................................................................164
OUTLINES OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. ................................................................................................214
CHAPTER I. THE PIONEERS AND NATION−BUILDERS. ..........................................................214
CHAPTER II. LITERATURE OF THE NEW NATION (1800−1840). .............................................227
CHAPTER III. THE PERIOD OF CONFLICT (1840−1876). ...........................................................253
CHAPTER IV. THE ALL−AMERICA PERIOD. ..............................................................................308
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Outlines of English and American Literature
William J. Long
This page copyright © 2003 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
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Outlines of English and American Literature
An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America,
to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived
Produced by Charles Franks, Bill Keir
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
This is the wey to al good aventure.—CHAUCER
TO MY SISTER “MILLIE” IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF A LIFELONG SYMPATHY
[Illustration: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
After the Chandos Portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, London, which is attributed to Richard Burbage or
John Taylor. In the catalogue of the National Portrait Gallery the following description is given:
“The Chandos Shakespeare was the property of John Taylor,
the player, by whom or by Richard Burbage it was painted.
The picture was left by the former in his will to Sir
William Davenant. After his death it was bought by
Betterton, the actor, upon whose decease Mr. Keck of the
Outlines of English and American Literature
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Outlines of English and American Literature
Temple purchased it for 40 guineas, from whom it was
inherited by Mr. Nicoll of Michenden House, Southgate,
Middlesex, whose only daughter married James, Marquess of
Caernarvon, afterwards Duke of Chandos, father to Ann
Eliza, Duchess of Buckingham.”
The above is written on paper attached to the back of the canvas.
Its authenticity, however, has been doubted in some quarters.
Purchased at the Stowe Sale, September 1848, by the Earl of
Ellesmere, and presented by him to the nation, March 1856.
Dimensions: 22 in. by 16−3/4 in.
This reproduction of the portrait was made from a miniature copy on ivory by Caroline King Phillips.]
PREFACE
The last thing we find in making a book is to know what to put first.—Pascal
When an author has finished his history, after months or years of happy work, there comes a dismal hour
when he must explain its purpose and apologize for its shortcomings.
The explanation in this case is very simple and goes back to a personal experience. When the author first
studied the history of our literature there was put into his hands as a textbook a most dreary catalogue of dead
authors, dead masterpieces, dead criticisms, dead ages; and a boy who knew chiefly that he was alive was
supposed to become interested in this literary sepulchre or else have it said that there was something hopeless
about him. Later he learned that the great writers of England and America were concerned with life alone, as
the most familiar, the most mysterious, the most fascinating thing in the world, and that the only valuable or
interesting feature of any work of literature is its vitality.
To introduce these writers not as dead worthies but as companionable men and women, and to present their
living subject as a living thing, winsome as a smile on a human face,—such was the author's purpose in
writing this book.
The apology is harder to frame, as anyone knows who has attempted to gather the writers of a thousand years
into a single volume that shall have the three virtues of brevity, readableness and accuracy. That this record is
brief in view of the immensity of the subject is plainly apparent. That it may prove pleasantly readable is a
hope inspired chiefly by the fact that it was a pleasure to write it, and that pleasure is contagious. As for
accuracy, every historian who fears God or regards man strives hard enough for that virtue; but after all his
striving, remembering the difficulty of criticism and the perversity of names and dates that tend to error as the
sparks fly upward, he must still trust heaven and send forth his work with something of Chaucer's feeling
when he wrote:
O littel booke, thou art so unconning,
How darst thou put thy−self in prees for drede?
Which may mean, to one who appreciates Chaucer's wisdom and humor, that having written a little book in
what seemed to him an unskilled or “unconning” way, he hesitated to give it to the world for dread of the
“prees” or crowd of critics who, even in that early day, were wont to look upon each new book as a camel that
must be put through the needle's eye of their tender mercies.
PREFACE
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Outlines of English and American Literature
In the selection and arrangement of his material the author has aimed to make a usable book that may appeal
to pupils and teachers alike. Because history and literature are closely related (one being the record of man's
deed, the other of his thought and feeling) there is a brief historical introduction to every literary period. There
is also a review of the general literary tendencies of each age, of the fashions, humors and ideals that
influenced writers in forming their style or selecting their subject. Then there is a biography of every
important author, written not to offer another subject for hero−worship but to present the man exactly as he
was; a review of his chief works, which is intended chiefly as a guide to the best reading; and a critical
estimate or appreciation of his writings based partly upon first−hand impressions, partly upon the assumption
that an author must deal honestly with life as he finds it and that the business of criticism is, as Emerson said,
“not to legislate but to raise the dead.” This detailed study of the greater writers of a period is followed by an
examination of some of the minor writers and their memorable works. Finally, each chapter concludes with a
concise summary of the period under consideration, a list of selections for reading and a bibliography of
works that will be found most useful in acquiring a larger knowledge of the subject.
In its general plan this little volume is modeled on the author's more advanced English Literature and
American Literature ; but the material, the viewpoint, the presentation of individual writers,—all the details of
the work are entirely new. Such a book is like a second journey through ample and beautiful regions filled
with historic associations, a journey that one undertakes with new companions, with renewed pleasure and, it
is to be hoped, with increased wisdom. It is hardly necessary to add that our subject has still its unvoiced
charms, that it cannot be exhausted or even adequately presented in any number of histories. For literature
deals with life; and life, with its endlessly surprising variety in unity, has happily some suggestion of infinity.
WILLIAM J. LONG
STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT
OUTLINES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: AN ESSAY OF LITERATURE
( Not a Lesson, but an Invitation )
I sleep, yet I love to be wakened, and love to see
The fresh young faces bending over me;
And the faces of them that are old, I love them too,
For these, as well, in the days of their youth I knew.
“Song of the Well”
WHAT IS LITERATURE? In an old English book, written before Columbus dreamed of a westward journey
to find the East, is the story of a traveler who set out to search the world for wisdom. Through Palestine and
India he passed, traveling by sea or land through many seasons, till he came to a wonderful island where he
saw a man plowing in the fields. And the wonder was, that the man was calling familiar words to his oxen,
“such wordes as men speken to bestes in his owne lond.” Startled by the sound of his mother tongue he turned
back on his course “in gret mervayle, for he knewe not how it myghte be.” But if he had passed on a little,
says the old record, “he would have founden his contree and his owne knouleche.”
Facing a new study of literature our impulse is to search in strange places for a definition; but though we
compass a world of books, we must return at last, like the worthy man of Mandeville's Travels , to our own
knowledge. Since childhood we have been familiar with this noble subject of literature. We have entered into
OUTLINES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
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