HISTORY OF
ENGLISH LITERATURE

BY

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY
HENRY VAN LAUN

WITH A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY
J. SCOTT CLARK, A. M.

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

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II.-Alexander Pope.-His Education and Mode of Life................. 5

III.-Eloisa to Abelard.-The Rape of the Lock.-The Dunciad.. ΙΟ

IV.-Pope's Descriptive Talent.-His Didactic Poems....

V.-The Poets Prior, Gay, and Thomson...

VI.-The Beginnings of the Modern Age...

BOOK IV.-MODERN LIFE

CHAPTER FIRST

19

28

34

III. Conservative rule in England.-Cowper's Poetry.

IV. The Romantic School....

43

48

65

72

V.-Philosophy Enters into Literature.-Wordsworth.-Shelley. 87

CHAPTER SECOND

Lord Byron

I. His Life and Character..

II. The Style of Byron's Poetry.

III.-Byron's Short Poems..

IV.-Manfred

V. What Byron's Contemporaries Thought of Him.-His

Morals

VI.-The Malady of the Age..

iii

I. The Saxon Invasion.-The Norman Conquest.

II.-Formative Periods

III.-The Broadening of Ideas..

Part II.-The Present

PAGE

151

153

157

I.-Effects of the Saxon Invasion and the Norman Conquest... 159

II.-English Commerce and Industry...

165

III.-Agriculture

170

IV. English Society.-Philosophy.-Religion

175

V.-What Forces Have Produced the Present Civilization..................

180

I.-Importance of the Imaginative Faculty...

II. Boldness of Dickens's Imagination..

III. His Trivialities.-His Minuteness.

IV. His Emotions.-His Pathos.-His Humor..

Part II.-The Public

I.-The Morality of English Novels.....

Part III.-The Characters

I.-Dickens's Love for Natural Characters.

II. The Hypocrite.-The Positive Man.-The Proud Man..... 213

III.-Children

IV. The Ideal Man.

218

221