A Short History of English LiteratureFirst published in 2012. This work of introduction is designed to escort the reader through some six centuries of English literature. It begins in the fourteenth century at the point at which the language written in our country is recognizably our own, and ends in the 1950s. It is a compact survey, summing up the substance and quality of the individual achievements that make up our literature. The aim is to leave the reader informed about each writer’s main output, sensitive to the special character of his gifts, and aware of his place in the story of our literature as a whole. |
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achievement adventures artistic ballads beauty BEN JONSON blank verse career century character Charlotte Brontë Chaucer comedy comic contemporary contrast couplets critical daughter death delight dialogue drama dramatist Dryden Dublin Eliot Elizabethan emotional English Everyman Faerie Queene father George George Eliot heart Henry hero heroic heroic couplets human humour husband idiom Irish irony James Jane Austen John Johnson king Lady later literary literature living London Lord lover man’s marriage married Milton moral murder Muriel Spark night novel novelist Oroonoko Oxford Paradise Lost passion philosophical play plot poem poet poet’s poetic poetry prose published Queen reader religious rich Richard romantic satire scene Scott sensitive Shakespeare social sonnet spirit stanza story style symbolic T.S.Eliot tale Tamburlaine theatre thee theme Thomas Tom Jones tone touch tragedy tragic Troilus and Criseyde turn vein verbal verse voice wife William woman writer wrote young