An Introduction to English LiteratureBased on the author's Representative English literature. |
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Addison Aldhelm Alfred ballads beauty became Bede Ben Jonson Beowulf Browning's Bunyan Byron Cædmon Carlyle Celt Celtic century character Chaucer Church classic Coleridge comedy criticism death delight drama Dryden early Elizabethan England English literature English poetry English prose essays Europe famous feel force French genius George Eliot greatest Henry human ideal influence Italy John Johnson Keats King land language Latin Layamon learning literary lived London Lord lyrical master mediæval Milton miracle plays modern moral nation nature noble Norman Norman Conquest Northumbria novel Paradise Lost passed passion period Pilgrim's Progress plays poems poet poetic political Pope popular Puritan Queen reform religious Renaissance romance scholars Scott seems Shakespeare Shelley shows songs soul Spenser spirit story style Swift Tennyson things Thomas thought tion tragedy translation trouvère truth verse William words Wordsworth writers wrote youth
Popular passages
Page 229 - I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was (indeed) honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped: Sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus said of Haterius.
Page 277 - Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of Noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days...
Page 277 - Alas ! what boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?
Page 200 - This England never did, (nor never shall,) Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, But when it first did help to wound itself. Now these her princes are come home again, Come the three corners of the world in arms, And we shall shock them : Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true.
Page 609 - Oh yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ; That nothing walks with aimless feet ; That not one life shall be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete...
Page 278 - THREE Poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpassed; The next in majesty •, In both the last. The force of Nature could no further go ; To make a third, she joined the former two.
Page 277 - ... (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days : But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise...
Page 588 - Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time, Why should I strive to set the crooked straight ? Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme Beats with light wing against the ivory gate, Telling a tale not too importunate To those who in the sleepy region stay, Lulled by the singer of an empty day.
Page 278 - Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart: Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
Page 336 - Friend ! may each domestic bliss be thine ! Be no unpleasing melancholy mine : Me, let the tender office long engage, To rock the cradle of reposing age, With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death, Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep awhile one parent from the sky...