A Short History of English Literature

A CML Guide to Literatuere, 2020

Observing human behavioral tendencies across a development of time is ever enigmatic, despite being a quotidian phenomenon. The enigma comes in through the wand of possibilities and the erratic realities that course through humanity. Things and time happen to creations across the world and the obsolete happenings never get obsolete along the narratives that make the world a bulb of connected currents – the things that warrant life, existence, quest for power, death, lust and love, and the consistent search for God at the center of life at large. Here, religion, rituals, spirituality – all towards the comb of human exploration become a spectacle to observe with open minds; since your limit becomes the start for another in this world of plausibilities – Literature; a Review of Literature From the Beginning to Renaissance. Keywords: Human Behavioral Tendencies, Quotidian, Enigma, Narratives, Plausibilities

I show how the English authors of the 16th and 17th centuries consistently adapted and transformed Classical conceptions of the nature and purpose of poetry and literature. A collection of the most important source texts follows the presentation body.

2020

The early modern era has brought about various changes in the fields of Literature and Culture of England. This period coincides with the Renaissance and the Elizabethan period. This essay aims at examining the impact of innovation in the field of English Literature during the 16 th century. This century includes the Renaissance and a major chunk of the Elizabethan age.

2009

Revue d'études augustiniennes et patristiques, 1993

The idea of a "renaissance" in English literature has long been recognized as problematic. While we may grant that the creative brilliance of Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney, William Shakespeare and their contemporaries marks an important new departure in the cultural life of the English nation, it is more difficult to say how this insular achievement was related to the Italian and Continental discovery of classical antiquity, or to the larger literary and educational phenomenon known since the nineteenth century as Renaissance humanism. «The more we look into the question», wrote C. S. Lewis at the start of his magisterial survey of English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, «the harder we shall find it to believe that humanism had any power of encouraging, or any wish to encourage, the literature that actually arose» in Englandi. As a caution against exaggerated estimates of literary classicism in the age of Shakespeare, this statement retains its value. It should not, however, be allowed more than corrective force. Lewis had a particular interest in native traditions of English literature ; continuities of that kind would more readily discerned if the concept of "renaissance" were downplayed. Relevant, too, is the fact that his brief extended only to 1600. Hard as it may be for us to take a positive view of the influence of humanism on English literature when confronted with Golding's Ovid, the Elizabethan version of Seneca's tragedies, and other «drab translations from the classics» (Lewis), the use made of classical models by such later writers as Ben Jonson and John Milton, both of whom actively promoted humanist educational ideals, requires more An earlier version of this article was read at a conference on Augustine's De doctrina Christiana held at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, in April 1991, under the direction of Charles Kannengiesser. I am greatly indebted to Professor Kannengiesser for his support and encouragement of this research. In revising the original paper for publication I have also benefitted from the advice of my colleague, Paul G. Stanwood. To both my thanks. 1. English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama (Oxford, 1954), p. 2.

Journal of the History of Ideas, 2000

1983

The entry for each writer consists of a biography, a complete list of his published books, a selected list of published bibliographies and critical studies on the writer, and a signed critical essay on his work. In the biographies, details of education, military service, and marriage(s) are generally given before the usual chronological summary of the life of the writer; awards and honours are given last. The Publications section is meant to include all book publications, though as a rule broadsheets, single sermons and lectures, minor pamphlets, exhibition catalogues, etc. are omitted. Under the heading Collections, we have listed the most recent collections of the complete works and those of individual genres (verse, plays, novels, stories, and letters); only those collections which have some editorial authority and were issued after the writer's death are listed; ongoing editions are indicated by a dash after the date of publication; often a general selection from the writer's works or a selection from the works in the individual genres listed above is included. Titles are given in modern spelling, though the essayists were allowed to use original spelling for titles and quotations; often the titles are "short." The date given is that of the first book publication, which often followed the first periodical or anthology publication by some time; we have listed the actual year of publication, often different from that given on the titlepage. No attempt has been made to indicate which works were published anonymously or pseudonymously, or which works of fiction were published in more than one volume. We have listed plays which were produced but not published, but only since 1700; librettos and musical plays are listed along with the other plays; no attempt has been made to list lost or unverified plays. Reprints of books (including facsimile editions) and revivals of plays are not listed unless a revision or change of title is involved. The most recent edited version of individual works is included if it supersedes the collected edition cited. In the essays, short references to critical remarks refer to items cited in the Publications section or in the Reading List. Introductions, memoirs, editorial matter, etc. in works cited in the Publications section are not repeated in the Reading List. Frye concludes by showing a special use of metaphor is central to what he calls the age of sensibility, and by emphasising the "oracular" quality it displays. One of the most interesting features of the discussion is the way Frye is able to effect a disjunction not just with the Augustans but also with the Romantics: indeed, for the purposes of his argument he aligns both schools as concerned with "literature as product." The essay has a sharp, bright texture which gives it unusual intellectual force and clarity. Naturally it is possible to pick holes in the case. No such brief survey (it runs only to about 4000 words) can deal comprehensively with such a complex period of literature. Many important writers of the period figure intermittently in the discussion, or not at all. There is scarcely any mention of Johnson, the greatest English author active throughout the key period: although Boswell, significantly, appears as a practitioner of the new mode. Drama is totally absent, and so the potential difficulties occasioned by Goldsmith and Sheridan elude observation. The novel appears in the shape of Richardson and Sterne, but the forms of fiction most popular in the heyday of "sensibility" poetry-barring a cursory reference to the Gothic novel-play no part in the argument. However, the chief value of the essay has lain in the purchase it offers a critic with regard to poetry: it is in relation to Collins, Smart, Chatterton, Cowper, and Blake that Frye's concept has proved most fruitful. Essentially, then, the notion of an "age of sensibility" stands or falls by its ability to explain or illuminate the poetic history of our final phase, c. 1740 to 1790. As such, the model works well in practice. I should prefer to say that Augustan poetic ministers to something a little different from "continually fulfilled expectation." We might suggest that the poem will tend sometimes to fulfil, and sometimes to contradict, the reader's expectations-very much as is the case with a listener to the music of Haydn or Mozart.