This foundational work on English literature opens by defining the shell and the book, establishing the shells of oral tradition that preserve the echoes of a race, and introduces the fundamental qualities and tests of literature: its artistic nature, suggestiveness, permanence, universality, and style. The study then plunges into the Anglo-Saxon or Old-English period, examining heroic verse like Beowulf, Widsith, Deor's Lament, and The Seafarer, alongside the early Christian literature of Bede and the Northumbrian school, Cædmon and Cynewulf, and the prose of King Alfred the Great. The Anglo-Norman period follows, detailing the Conquest, the literary ideals of the Normans, Geoffrey of Monmouth's tales of Britain, the verse chronicles of Layamon, and the rich tradition of metrical romances, highlighted by Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Pearl. The narrative reaches its zenith in the Age of Chaucer, analyzing the history, society, and writers of the fourteenth century, with particular focus on Chaucer's masterworks, Langland's Piers Plowman, Wyclif's Bible, and Mandeville's travels.
The revival of learning bridges the gap toward the Elizabethan Age, detailing the political upheavals, Erasmus, More's Utopia, Tyndale's New Testament, and Malory's Morte d'Arthur. The Elizabethan Age is examined through its religious tolerance, social contentment, exploration, and the dramatic explosion that produced Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, and the myriad playwrights who developed the English stage from religious mystery plays to artistic tragedies and comedies. Finally, the text traces the literature through the Puritan Age, the Restoration, the eighteenth century, the Romantic revival, and the Victorian era, culminating in a broad overview of modern literary development, supplemented by extensive reading lists, bibliographies, and chronological tables.
