Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Manual of English Literature: Era of Expansion, 1750 1850; Its Characteristics and Influences, and the Poetry of Its Period of Preparation, 1750 1800; With Biographical Appendix
The addition of anglo-saxon and Early English to the work in English for the Pass Degree by the Senate of the University of New Zealand at its 1893 session has necessitated the writing of this manual. Each of the periods of literature set for 1894 and 1895, viz. From 17 50 to 1800 and from 1800 to 1850, is so full of authors and books and so worthy of detailed study, and yet has so little upon it in any of the available textbooks, that it needs two hours' lecture a week during the session. One of these hours has now, I found, to be devoted to the teaching of Old English. And I have had to spend my long vacation in attempting a manual that would supply the deficiency. After I had written the general chapters on the characteristics and in?uences of the two periods, I saw that the vacation would be too short for the detailed study of the literature of both. I have now found it to be too short for the completion of even the first period; and the approach of the beginning of the session has compelled me to print only the general chapters and the, chapter on its poetry. The other chapters will be delivered as lectures during the session.
Yet what is printed forms a natural unity. It sketches in the first three chapters the features of the great era of the rise of modern literature, and then, taking poetry, the form that has hitherto been the most essentially literary and the most sensitive to coming change, describes its development, and illustrates in detail the application of the general conclusions of the earlier chapters. Nor would a correct view of the evolution of the poetry of the period of preparation (1750 to 1800) have been gained, unless by throwing it into perspective, by seeing its relation to the period of fulfilment (1800 to for which it was a preparation. Hence not merely is the era of expansion (1750 to 1850) described as a whole, but each of the two stages or periods is described separately.
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