A Short History of English Literature |
Contents
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Common terms and phrases
alliteration alliterative Anglo-Saxon appears ballad Beowulf better blank verse Boethius born Cædmon Cambridge Canterbury Tales certainly chapter character Chaucer chief chiefly classical comedy contemporary couplet curious Cynewulf death decasyllable died doggerel doubt drama dramatist Dryden earlier early edition Elizabethan England English literature English poetry English prose Euphuism extremely fact famous fifteenth century French Gawain genius Gorboduc Hampole important interesting Interlude John Jonson kind King known language later Latin Layamon least less lines literary London Lyly lyric matter mediæval merely merit metre metrical middle Middle English Milton moral never original Ormulum Oxford passages perhaps period person phrase piece Piers Plowman plays poems poet poetical poetry pretty printed probably prosody Queen reprinted rhyme romance satire Scottish seems Shakespeare sometimes sonnets Spenser stanza story style syllables things Thomas tion tragedy translation vols whole Widsith writer written
Popular passages
Page 297 - With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate Of life at once untie; poor venomous fool, Be angry, and dispatch.
Page 597 - For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main. And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light; In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright.
Page 466 - Resolution, to reject all the amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style: to return back to the primitive purity, and shortness, when men deliver'd so many things, almost in an equal number of words. They have exacted from all their members, a close, naked, natural way of speaking; positive expressions, clear senses; a native easiness: bringing all things as near the Mathematical plainness, as they can: and preferring the language of Artizans, Countrymen, and Merchants, before that, of Wits,...
Page 411 - ... tis all one to lie in St. Innocent's churchyard, as in the sands of Egypt: ready to be anything, in the ecstasy of being ever, and as content with six foot as the moles of Adrianus.
Page 493 - Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.
Page 404 - ... stamp it once bore, and not for those vanishing lineaments and disappearing draughts that remain upon it at present. And certainly that must needs have been very glorious, the decays of which are so admirable. He that is comely, when old and decrepit, surely was very beautiful when he was young. An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.
Page 370 - The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made: Stronger by weakness, wiser men become As they draw near to their eternal home. Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view That stand upon the threshold of the new.
Page 295 - TO THE ONLIE BEGETTER OF THESE INSUING SONNETS MR. WH ALL HAPPINESSE AND THAT ETERNITIE PROMISED BY OUR EVER-LIVING POET WISHETH THE WELL-WISHING ADVENTURER IN SETTING FORTH TT...
Page 352 - ... as the sun at noon, to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries; all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.
Page 385 - Tis now, since I sat down before That foolish fort, a heart, (Time strangely spent !) a year, and more ; And still I did my part: Made my approaches, from her hand Unto her lip did rise ; And did already understand The language of her eyes. Proceeded on with no less art, My tongue was engineer ; I thought to undermine the heart By whispering in the ear. When...