English Literature
Middleton, Heywood, Dekker; and the rapid decline of the drama. Ben Jonson
is the greatest of this group. His chief comedies are "Every Man in His
Humour," "The Silent Woman," and "The Alchemist"; his two extant tragedies
are "Sejanus" and "Catiline."
(6) The Prose Writers, of whom Bacon is the most notable. His chief
philosophical work is the _Instauratio Magna_ (incomplete), which includes
"The Advancement of Learning" and the "Novum Organum"; but he is known to
literary readers by his famous _Essays_. Minor prose writers are Richard
Hooker, John Foxe, the historians Camden and Knox, the editors Hakluyt and
Purchas, who gave us the stirring records of exploration, and Thomas North,
the translator of Plutarch's _Lives_.
SELECTIONS FOR READING. _Spenser_. Faery Queen, selections in Standard
English Classics; Bk. I, in Riverside Literature Series, etc.; Shepherd's
Calendar, in Cassell's National Library; Selected Poems, in Canterbury
Poets Series; Minor Poems, in Temple Classics; Selections in Manly's
English Poetry, or Ward's English Poets.
_Minor Poets_. Drayton, Sackville, Sidney, Chapman, Selections in Manly or
Ward; Elizabethan songs, in Schelling's Elizabethan Lyrics, and in
Palgrave's Golden Treasury; Chapman's Homer, in Temple Classics.
_The Early Drama_. Play of Noah's Flood, in Manly's Specimens of the
Pre-Shaksperean Drama, or in Pollard's English Miracle Plays, Moralities
and Interludes, or in Belles Lettres Series, sec. 2; L.T. Smith's The York
Miracle Plays.
_Lyly_. Endymion, in Holt's English Readings.
_Marlowe_. Faustus, in Temple Dramatists, or Mermaid Series, or Morley's
Universal Library, or Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets;
Selections in Manly's English Poetry, or Ward's English Poets; Edward II,
in Temple Dramatists, and in Holt's English Readings.
_Shakespeare_. Merchant of Venice, Julius Cæsar, Macbeth, etc., in Standard
English Classics (edited, with notes, with special reference to college-
entrance requirements). Good editions of single plays are numerous and
cheap. Hudson's and Rolfe's and the Arden Shakespeare are suggested as
satisfactory. The Sonnets, edited by Beeching, in Athenæum Press Series.
_Ben Jonson_. The Alchemist, in Canterbury Poets Series, or Morley's
Universal Library; Selections in Manly's English Poetry, or Ward's English
Poets, or Canterbury Poets Series; Selections from Jonson's Masques, in
Evans's English Masques; Timber, edited by Schelling, in Athenæum Press
Series.
_Bacon_. Essays, school edition (Ginn and Company); Northup's edition, in
Riverside Literature Series (various other inexpensive editions, in the
Pitt Press, Golden Treasury Series, etc.); Advancement of Learning, Bk. I,
edited by Cook (Ginn and Company). Compare selections from Bacon, Hooker,
Lyly, and Sidney, in Manly's English Prose.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.[159] _HISTORY. Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 208-238; Cheyney,
pp. 330-410; Green, ch. 7; Traill, Macaulay, Froude.
_Special works_. Creighton's The Age of Elizabeth; Hall's Society in the
Elizabethan Age; Winter's Shakespeare's England; Goadby's The England of
Shakespeare; Lee's Stratford on Avon; Harrison's Elizabethan England.
_LITERATURE_. Saintsbury's History of Elizabethan Literature; Whipple's
Literature of the Age of Elizabeth; S. Lee's Great Englishmen of the
Sixteenth Century; Schilling's Elizabethan Lyrics, in Athenæum Press
Series; Vernon Lee's Euphorion.
_Spenser_. Texts, Cambridge, Globe, and Aldine editions; Noel's Selected
Poems of Spenser, in Canterbury Poets; Minor Poems, in Temple Classics;
Arber's Spenser Anthology; Church's Life of Spenser, in English Men of
Letters Series; Lowell's Essay, in Among My Books, or in Literary Essays,
vol. 4; Hazlitt's Chaucer and Spenser, in Lectures on the English Poets;
Dowden's Essay, in Transcripts and Studies.
_The Drama_. Texts, Manly's Specimens of the Pre-Shakesperean Drama, 2
vols., in Athenæum Press Series; Pollard's English Miracle Plays,
Moralities and Interludes; the Temple Dramatists; Morley's Universal
Library; Arber's English Reprints; Mermaid Series, etc.; Thayer's The Best
Elizabethan Plays.
Gayley's Plays of Our Forefathers (Miracles, Moralities, etc.); Bates's The
English Religious Drama; Schelling's The English Chronicle Play; Lowell's
Old English Dramatists; Boas's Shakespeare and his Predecessors; Symonds's
Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama; Schelling's Elizabethan
Drama; Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets; Introduction to Hudson's
Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters; Ward's History of English
Dramatic Literature; Dekker's The Gull's Hornbook, in King's Classics.
_Marlowe_. Works, edited by Bullen; chief plays in Temple Dramatists,
Mermaid Series of English Dramatists, Morley's Universal Library, etc.;
Lowell's Old English Dramatists; Symonds's introduction, in Mermaid Series;
Dowden's Essay, in Transcripts and Studies.
_Shakespeare_. Good texts are numerous. Furness's Variorum edition is at
present most useful for advanced work. Hudson's revised edition, each play
in a single volume, with notes and introductions, will, when complete, be
one of the very best for students' use.
Raleigh's Shakespeare, in English Men of Letters Series; Lee's Life of
Shakespeare; Hudson's Shakespeare: his Life, Art, and Characters;
Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare; Fleay's
Chronicle History of the Life and Work of Shakespeare; Dowden's
Shakespeare, a Critical Study of his Mind and Art; Shakespeare Primer (same
author); Baker's The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist; Lounsbury's
Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist; The Text of Shakespeare (same author);
Wendell's William Shakespeare; Bradley's Shakesperian Tragedy; Hazlitt's
Shakespeare and Milton, in Lectures on the English Poets; Emerson's Essay,
Shakespeare or the Poet; Lowell's Essay, in Among My Books; Lamb's Tales
from Shakespeare; Mrs. Jameson's Shakespeare's Female Characters (called
also Characteristics of Women); Rolfe's Shakespeare the Boy; Brandes's
William Shakespeare; Moulton's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist; Mabie's
William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, and Man; The Shakespeare Apocrypha,
edited by C. F. T. Brooke; Shakespeare's Holinshed, edited by Stone;
Shakespeare Lexicon, by Schmidt; Concordance, by Bartlett; Grammar, by
Abbott, or by Franz.
_Ben Jonson_. Texts in Mermaid Series, Temple Dramatists, Morley's
Universal Library, etc.; Masques and Entertainments of Ben Jonson, edited
by Morley, in Carisbrooke Library; Timber, edited by Schelling, in Athenæum
Press Series.
_Beaumont, Fletcher, etc_. Plays in Mermaid Series, Temple Dramatists,
etc.; Schelling's Elizabethan Drama; Lowell's Old English Dramatists;
Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets; Fleay's Biographical Chronicle
of the English Drama; Swinburne's Essays, in Essays in Prose and Poetry,
and in Essays and Studies.
_Bacon_. Texts, Essays in Everyman's Library, etc.; Advancement of Learning
in Clarendon Press Series, Library of English Classics, etc.; Church's Life
of Bacon, in English Men of Letters Series; Nichol's Bacon's Life and
Philosophy; Francis Bacon, translated from the German of K. Fischer
(excellent, but rare); Macaulay's Essay on Bacon.
_Minor Prose Writers_. Sidney's Arcadia, edited by Somers; Defense of
Poesy, edited by Cook, in Athenæum Press Series; Arber's Reprints, etc.;
Selections from Sidney's prose and poetry in the Elizabethan Library;
Symonds's Life of Sidney, in English Men of Letters; Bourne's Life of
Sidney, in Heroes of the Nations; Lamb's Essay on Sidney's Sonnets, in
Essays of Elia.
Raleigh's works, published by the Oxford Press; Selections by Grosart, in
Elizabethan Library; Raleigh's Last Fight of the _Revenge_, in Arber's
Reprints; Life of Raleigh, by Edwards and by Gosse. Richard Hooker's works,
edited by Keble, Oxford Press; Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, in Everyman's
Library, and in Morley's Universal Library; Life, in Walton's Lives, in
Morley's Universal Library; Dowden's Essay, in Puritan and Anglican.
Lyly's Euphues, in Arber's Reprints; Endymion, edited by Baker; Campaspe,
in Manly's Pre-Shaksperean Drama.
North's Plutarch's Lives, edited by Wyndham, in Tudor Library; school
edition, by Ginn and Company. Hakluyt's Voyages, in Everyman's Library;
Jones's introduction to Hakluyt's Diverse Voyages; Payne's Voyages of
Elizabethan Seamen; Froude's Essay, in Short Studies on Great Subjects.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. What historical conditions help to account for the
great literature of the Elizabethan age? What are the general
characteristics of Elizabethan literature? What type of literature
prevailed, and why? What work seems to you to express most perfectly the
Elizabethan spirit?
2. Tell briefly the story of Spenser's life. What is the story or argument
of the _Faery Queen_? What is meant by the Spenserian stanza? Read and
comment upon Spenser's "Epithalamion." Why does the "Shepherd's Calendar"
mark a literary epoch? What are the main qualities of Spenser's poetry? Can
you quote or refer to any passages which illustrate these qualities? Why is
he called the poets' poet?
3. For what is Sackville noted? What is the most significant thing about
his "Gorboduc"? Name other minor poets and tell what they wrote.
4. Give an outline of the origin and rise of the drama in England. What is
meant by Miracle and Mystery plays? What purposes did they serve among the
common people? How did they help the drama? What is meant by cycles of
Miracle plays? How did the Moralities differ from the Miracles? What was
the chief purpose of the Interludes? What type of drama did they develop?
Read a typical play, like "Noah's Flood" or "Everyman," and write a brief
analysis of it.
5. What were our first plays in the modern sense? What influence did the
classics exert on the English drama? What is meant by the dramatic unities?
In what important respect did the English differ from the classic drama?
6. Name some of Shakespeare's predecessors in the drama? What types of
drama did they develop? Name some plays of each type. Are any of these
plays still presented on the stage?
7. What are Marlowe's chief plays? What is the central motive in each? Why
are they called one-man plays? What is meant by Marlowe's "mighty line"?
What is the story of "Faustus"? Compare "Faustus" and Goethe's "Faust,"
having in mind the story, the dramatic interest, and the literary value of
each play.
8. Tell briefly the story of Shakespeare's life. What fact in his life most
impressed you? How does Shakespeare sum up the work of all his
predecessors? What are the four periods of his work, and the chief plays of
each? Where did he find his plots? What are his romantic plays? his
chronicle or historical plays? What is the difference between a tragedy and
a comedy? Name some of Shakespeare's best tragedies, comedies, and
historical plays. Which play of Shakespeare's seems to you to give the best
picture of human life? Why is he called the myriad-minded Shakespeare? For
what reasons is he considered the greatest of writers? Can you explain why
Shakespeare's plays are still acted, while other plays of his age are
rarely seen? If you have seen any of Shakespeare's plays on the stage, how
do they compare in interest with a modern play?
9. What are Ben Jonson's chief plays? In what important respects did they
differ from those of Shakespeare? Tell the story of "The Alchemist" or "The
Silent Woman." Name other contemporaries and successors of Shakespeare.
Give some reasons for the preëminence of the Elizabethan drama. What causes
led to its decline?
10. Tell briefly the story of Bacon's life. What is his chief literary
work? his chief educational work? Why is he called a pioneer of modern