A Short History Of English Literature ( 2 Vols. Set ) (Hardcover)  | Released: 2005

One of the pioneering works in literary historiography, the book A Short History of English Literature combines in a remarkable manner the historical and the critical principles that ought to govern any literary history. On Saintburys own testimony the book is not meant to be birdseye views. It is, in fact, a fine critical survey of the entire history of English literature from its beginning to the end of the Victorian period. Saintsburys copious scholarship, fine clarity of thought and literary sensibility have made the approach to each text both microscopic and telescopic so that while a text is kept under a sharp critical focus, all the relevant contextual aspects are touched upon to further illuminate it. Despite Saintsburys Englishness, the book, as a short but succinct account of the history of literature, is of perennial value. While any student of English literature will find the book immensely useful, anybody interested in English literature will find it eminently readable and interesting. Table of Contents: VOLUME 1 BOOK - I THE PRELIMINARIES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 1. The Earliest Anglo-Saxon Poetry 2. Caedmon, Cynewulf, and those about them 3. Anglo-Saxon Prose 4. The Decadence of Anglo-Saxon Interchapter 1 BOOK - II THE MAKING OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 1. The Transition 2. First Middle English Period 1200-1250 3. Second Middle English Period1300-1360 4. Early RomancesMetrical 5. Early RomancesAlliterative Interchapter 2 BOOK - III CHAUCER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 1. Chaucers Life and Poems 2. Langland and Gower 3. Chaucers ProseWyclif, Trevisa, Mandeville Interchapter 3 BOOK - IV THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 1. The English ChauceriansLydgate to Skelton 2. The Scottish PoetsHistorical, Political, and Minor 3. The Four Great Scottish Poets 4. Later Romances in Prose and Verse 5. Minor Poetry and Ballads 6. Miscellaneous Prose Interchapter 4 BOOK - V ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE TO THE DEATH OF SPENSER 1. PreliminariesDrama 2. PreliminariesProse 3. PreliminariesVerse 4. Spenser and his Contemporaries 5. The University Wits 6. Lyly and HookerThe Translators, Pamphleteers, and Critics Interchapter 5 BOOK - VI LATER ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN LITERATURE 1. Shakespeare 2. Shakespeares Contemporaries in Drama 3. The Schools of Jacobean Poetry 4. Jacobean ProseSecular 5. The Golden Age of the English PulpitI Interchapter 6 VOLUME 2 BOOK - VII CAROLINE LITERATURE 1. Blank Verse and The New Couplet 2. The MetaphysicalsThe Lyric PoetsThe Miscellanists, etc. 3. The Drama till the Closing of the Theatres 4. The Golden Age of the English PulpitII 5. Miscellaneous Prose 6. Scots Poetry and Prose Interchapter 7 BOOK - VIII THE AUGUSTAN AGES 1. The Age of DrydenPoetry 2. The Age of DrydenDrama 3. The Age of DrydenProse 4. Queen Anne Prose 5. Pope and His Elder Contemporaries in Verse Interchapter 8 BOOK - IX MIDDLE AND LATER EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE 1. The Poets from Thomson to Crabbe 2. The Eighteenth-Century Novel 3. Johnson, Goldsmith, and the Later Essayists 4. The Graver Prose 5. Eighteenth-Century Drama 6. Miscellaneous Writers Interchapter 9 BOOK - X THE TRIUMPH OF ROMANCE 1. The Poets from Coleridge to Keats 2. The NovelScott and Miss Austen 3. The New Essay 4. The Last Georgian Prose 5. The Minor Poets of 1800-1830 Interchapter 10 BOOK - XI VICTORIAN LITERATURE 1. Tennyson and Browning 2. The Victorian Novel 3. History and Criticism 4. Poetry Since the Middle of the Century 5. Miscellaneous Conclusion Index