The Making of English Literature |
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Page 12
... less closely assimilated to the Christian poetry . Metrical Anglo - Saxon laws are substantially the same for the whole body of Anglo - Saxon verse . The metre is based chiefly upon accent and alliteration . Each line is divided into ...
... less closely assimilated to the Christian poetry . Metrical Anglo - Saxon laws are substantially the same for the whole body of Anglo - Saxon verse . The metre is based chiefly upon accent and alliteration . Each line is divided into ...
Page 19
... less to English poetry . His lost translation of the Gospel of John associates him with Anglo - Saxon prose ; and he even gains a slight connec- tion with poetry by virtue of five lines of verse known as Bede's Death Song . His disciple ...
... less to English poetry . His lost translation of the Gospel of John associates him with Anglo - Saxon prose ; and he even gains a slight connec- tion with poetry by virtue of five lines of verse known as Bede's Death Song . His disciple ...
Page 20
... less portion of it has been lost . Three books and a fragment re- main . These tell of the drunken revelry in the Assyrian camp , the slaying of Holofernes by Judith , her return with the head of the heathen prince , the attack of the ...
... less portion of it has been lost . Three books and a fragment re- main . These tell of the drunken revelry in the Assyrian camp , the slaying of Holofernes by Judith , her return with the head of the heathen prince , the attack of the ...
Page 23
... less tinged with pagan ideas . The Descent into Hell deals with Christ's visit to hell between his death and resurrection , in order to rescue the spirits in prison a theme congenial to the old English mind for centuries . One notable ...
... less tinged with pagan ideas . The Descent into Hell deals with Christ's visit to hell between his death and resurrection , in order to rescue the spirits in prison a theme congenial to the old English mind for centuries . One notable ...
Page 26
... less favorable for literary production than in the older days . Effect on Lit- To set up the Christian ideal and strive to give it the mastery in heathen hearts , to see the new faith winning its way and diffusing the light of a higher ...
... less favorable for literary production than in the older days . Effect on Lit- To set up the Christian ideal and strive to give it the mastery in heathen hearts , to see the new faith winning its way and diffusing the light of a higher ...
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Common terms and phrases
Anglo-Saxon Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Anglo-Saxon literature artist ballads Battle of Brunanburh beauty Ben Jonson Beowulf Browning Cædmon called Canterbury Tales Carlyle century character characteristic charm Chaucer chiefly classical comedy criticism Cynewulf death Dickens drama dramatists Dryden emotion England English literature Essays expression fact Faerie Queene faith feeling genius George Eliot gift greatest heart human humor ideals illustrate imagination impulse individual influence intellectual interest Jane Austen John Johnson King later Layamon less literary living lyric lyric poetry masterpiece ment Milton modern moral movement nature novel novelist passion period plays poems poetic poetry Pope portray portrayal probably produced prose style prose-writers pure Puritan realistic religious Renaissance represented Robert Browning romantic Romanticism Ruskin satire seems sense Shakespeare Shelley social song Sonnets soul Spenser spirit story Tennyson Thackeray Thomas thought tion translation typical verse vivid Wordsworth writers written wrote
Popular passages
Page 311 - The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven, Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given; The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar; Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
Page 316 - Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy ? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven : We know her woof, her texture ; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air and gnomed mine — Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.
Page 150 - O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised: thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hie jacet.
Page 312 - To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite ; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night ; To defy power which seems omnipotent ; To love and bear ; to hope till hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates...
Page 170 - I was confirmed in this opinion ; that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem...
Page 375 - O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence : live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge men's search To vaster issues.
Page 133 - Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on ; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.
Page 132 - She should have died hereafter ; There would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.
Page 130 - No more of that. — I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am ; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice...
Page 387 - How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.