Read Ebook: English Literature Considered as an Interpreter of English History Designed as a Manual of Instruction by Copp E Henry

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1034 lines and 156224 words, and 21 pages

THE HISTORICAL TRIAD IN THE SCEPTICAL AGE.

The Sceptical Age--David Hume--History of England--Metaphysics--Essay on Miracles--Robertson--Histories--Gibbon--The Decline and Fall 309

SAMUEL JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES.

THE LITERARY FORGERS IN THE ANTIQUARIAN AGE.

The Eighteenth Century--James Macpherson--Ossian--Thomas Chatterton--His Poems--The Verdict--Suicide--The Cause 334

POETRY OF THE TRANSITION SCHOOL.

The Transition Period--James Thomson--The Seasons--The Castle of Indolence--Mark Akenside--Pleasures of the Imagination--Thomas Gray--The Elegy. The Bard--William Cowper--The Task--Translation of Homer--Other Writers 347

THE LATER DRAMA.

The Progress of the Drama--Garrick--Foote--Cumberland--Sheridan--George Colman--George Colman, the Younger--Other Dramatists and Humorists--Other Writers on Various Subjects 360

THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: SCOTT.

Walter Scott--Translations and Minstrelsy--The Lay of the Last Minstrel--Other Poems--The Waverley Novels--Particular Mention--Pecuniary Troubles--His Manly Purpose--Powers Overtasked--Fruitless Journey--Return and Death--His Fame 371

THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: BYRON AND MOORE.

Early Life of Byron--Childe Harold and Eastern Tales--Unhappy Marriage--Philhellenism and Death--Estimate of his Poetry--Thomas Moore--Anacreon--Later Fortunes--Lalla Rookh--His Diary--His Rank as Poet 384

THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY .

Robert Burns--His Poems--His Career--George Crabbe--Thomas Campbell--Samuel Rogers--P. B. Shelley--John Keats--Other Writers 397

WORDSWORTH, AND THE LAKE SCHOOL.

The New School--William Wordsworth--Poetical Canons--The Excursion and Sonnets--An Estimate--Robert Southey--His Writings--Historical Value--S. T. Coleridge--Early Life--His Helplessness--Hartley and H. N. Coleridge 414

THE REACTION IN POETRY.

Alfred Tennyson--Early Works--The Princess--Idyls of the King--Elizabeth B. Browning--Aurora Leigh--Her Faults--Robert Browning--Other Poets 428

THE LATER HISTORIANS.

THE LATER NOVELISTS AS SOCIAL REFORMERS.

Bulwer--Changes in Writers--Dickens's Novels--American Notes--His Varied Powers--Second Visit to America--Thackeray--Vanity Fair--Henry Esmond--The Newcomes--The Georges--Estimate of his Powers 450

THE LATER WRITERS.

Charles Lamb--Thomas Hood--Thomas de Quincey--Other Novelists--Writers on Science and Philosophy 466

ENGLISH JOURNALISM.

Roman News Letters--The Gazette--The Civil War--Later Divisions--The Reviews--The Monthlies--The Dailies--The London Times--Other Newspapers 475

Alphabetical Index of Authors

THE HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT.

Literature and Science. English Literature. General Principle. Celts and Cymry. Roman Conquest. Coming of the Saxons. Danish Invasions. The Norman Conquest. Changes in Language.

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.

But language is impatient of retaining two words which convey the same meaning; and although science had at first to do with the fact of knowing and the conditions of knowledge in the abstract, while literature meant the written record of such knowledge, a far more distinct sphere has been given to each in later times, and special functions assigned them.

In general terms, Science now means any branch of knowledge in which men search for principles reaching back to the ultimate, or for facts which establish these principles, or are classified by them in a logical order. Thus we speak of the mathematical, physical, metaphysical, and moral sciences.

Such, at least, will be a sufficiently exact division for our purpose, although the student will find them overlapping each other's domain occasionally, interchanging functions, and reciprocally serving for each other's advantage. Thus it is no confusion of terms to speak of the poetry of science and of the science of poetry; and thus the great functions of the human mind, although scientifically distinct, co-operate in harmonious and reciprocal relations in their diverse and manifold productions.

ENGLISH LITERATURE.--English Literature may then be considered as comprising the progressive productions of the English mind in the paths of imagination and taste, and is to be studied in the works of the poets, historians, dramatists, essayists, and romancers--a long line of brilliant names from the origin of the language to the present day.

To the general reader all that is profitable in this study dates from the appearance of Chaucer, who has been justly styled the Father of English Poetry; and Chaucer even requires a glossary, as a considerable portion of his vocabulary has become obsolete and much of it has been modified; but for the student of English literature, who wishes to understand its philosophy and its historic relations, it becomes necessary to ascend to a more remote period, in order to find the origin of the language in which Chaucer wrote, and the effect produced upon him by any antecedent literary works, in the root-languages from which the English has sprung.

GENERAL PRINCIPLE.--It may be stated, as a general principle, that to understand a nation's literature, we must study the history of the people and of their language; the geography of the countries from which they came, as well as that in which they live; the concurrent historic causes which have conspired to form and influence the literature. We shall find, as we advance in this study, that the life and literature of a people are reciprocally reflective.

Such are the first people and dialects to be considered as the antecedent occupants of the country in which English literature was to have its birth.

These Saxons, who had already tested the goodliness of the land, came when the Romans departed, under the specious guise of protectors of the Britons against the inroads of the Picts and Scots; but in reality to possess themselves of the country. This was a true conquest of race--Teutons overrunning Celts. They came first in reconnoitring bands; then in large numbers, not simply to garrison, as the Romans had done, but to occupy permanently. From the less attractive seats of Friesland and the basin of the Weser, they came to establish themselves in a charming country, already reclaimed from barbarism, to enslave or destroy the inhabitants, and to introduce their language, religion, and social institutions. They came as a confederated people of German race--Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and Frisians; but, as far as the results of their conquest are concerned, there was entire unity among them.

The Celts, for a brief period protected by them from their fierce northern neighbors, were soon enslaved and oppressed: those who resisted were driven slowly to the Welsh mountains, or into Cornwall, or across the Channel into French Brittany. Great numbers were destroyed. They left few traces of their institutions and their language. Thus the Saxon was established in its strength, and has since remained the strongest element of English ethnography.

As the Saxons, Danes, and Normans were of the same great Teutonic family, however modified by the different circumstances of movement and residence, there was no new ethnic element introduced; and, paradoxical as it may seem, the fusion of these peoples was of great benefit, in the end, to England. Though the Saxons at first suffered from Norman oppression, the kingdom was brought into large inter-European relations, and a far better literary culture was introduced, more varied in subject, more developed in point of language, and more artistic.

Thus much, in a brief historical summary, is necessary as an introduction to our subject. From all these contests and conquests there were wrought in the language of the country important changes, which are to be studied in the standard works of its literature.

CHANGES IN LANGUAGE.--The changes and transformations of language may be thus briefly stated:--In the Celtic period, before the arrival of the Romans, the people spoke different dialects of the Celtic and Gadhelic languages, all cognate and radically similar.

These were not much affected by the occupancy of the Romans for about four hundred and fifty years, although, doubtless, Latin words, expressive of things and notions of which the British had no previous knowledge, were adopted by them, and many of the Celtic inhabitants who submitted to these conquerors learned and used the Latin language.

When the Romans departed, and the Saxons came in numbers, in the fifth and sixth centuries, the Saxon language, which is the foundation of English, became the current speech of the realm; adopting few Celtic words, but retaining a considerable number of the Celtic names of places, as it also did of Latin terminations in names.

Since the Norman conquest, numerous other elements have entered, most of them quietly, without the concomitant of political revolution or foreign invasion.

Thus the Latin, being used by the Church, and being the language of literary and scientific comity throughout the world, was constantly adding words and modes of expression to the English. The introduction of Greek into Western Europe, at the fall of Constantinople, supplied Greek words, and induced a habit of coining English words from the Greek. The establishment of the Hanoverian succession, after the fall of the Stuarts, brought in the practice and study of German, and somewhat of its phraseology; and English conquests in the East have not failed to introduce Indian words, and, what is far better, to open the way for a fuller study of comparative philology and linguistics.

In a later chapter we shall reconsider the periods referred to, in an examination of the literary works which they contain, works produced by historical causes, and illustrative of historical events.

LITERATURE A TEACHER OF HISTORY. CELTIC REMAINS.

The Uses of Literature. Italy, France, England. Purpose of the Work. Celtic Literary Remains. Druids and Druidism. Roman Writers. Psalter of Cashel. Welsh Triads and Mabinogion. Gildas and St. Colm.

THE USES OF LITERATURE.

Before examining these periods in order to find the literature produced in them, it will be well to consider briefly what are the practical uses of literature, and to set forth, as a theme, that particular utility which it is the object of these pages to inculcate and apply.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet