Outlines of English and American Literature Part 23

If it be asked, What novels of the early type ought one to read? the answer is simple. Unless you want to curdle your blood by a tale of mystery and horror (in which case Mrs. Radcliffe's _Mysteries of Udolpho_ will serve the purpose) there are only two that young readers will find satisfactory: the realistic _Robinson Crusoe_ by Defoe, and the romantic _Vicar of Wakefield_ by Goldsmith.

SUMMARY. What we call eighteenth-century literature appeared between two great political upheavals, the English Revolution of 1688 and the French Revolution of 1789. Some of the chief characteristics of that literature--such as the emphasis on form, the union of poetry with politics, the prevalence of satire, the interest in historical subjects--have been accounted for, in part at least, in our summary of the history of the period.

The writings of the century are here arranged in three main divisions: the reign of formalism (miscalled cla.s.sicism), the revival of romantic poetry, and the development of the modern novel. Our study of the so-called cla.s.sic period includes: (1) The meaning of cla.s.sicism in literature. (2) The life and works of Pope, the leading poet of the age; of Swift, a master of satire; of Addison and Steele, the graceful essayists who originated the modern literary magazine. (3) The work of Dr. Johnson and his school; in which we have included, for convenience, Edmund Burke, most eloquent of English orators, and Gibbon the historian, famous for his _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_.

Our review of the romantic writers of the age covers: (1) The work of Collins and Gray, whose imaginative poems are in refres.h.i.+ng contrast to the formalism of Pope and his school. (2) The life and works of Goldsmith, poet, playwright, novelist; and of Burns, the greatest of Scottish song writers. (3) A glance at other poets, such as Cowper and Blake, who aided in the romantic revival. (4) The renewed interest in ballads and legends, which showed itself in Percy's _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_, and in two famous forgeries, the _Ossian_ poems of Macpherson and _The Rowley Papers_ of the boy Chatterton.

Our study of the novel includes: (1) The meaning of the modern novel, as distinct from the ancient romance. (2) A study of Defoe, author of _Robinson Crusoe_, who was a forerunner of the modern realistic novelist. (3) The works of Richardson and of Fielding, contrasting types of eighteenth-century story-tellers.

(4) The influence of Richardson's sentimentality, of Fielding's realism, and of Goldsmith's moral purity on subsequent English fiction.

SELECTIONS FOR READING. Typical selections are given in Manly, English Poetry and English Prose, Century Readings, and other miscellaneous collections. Important works of major writers are published in inexpensive editions for school use, a few of which are named below.

Pope's poems, selected, in Standard English Cla.s.sics, Pocket Cla.s.sics, Riverside Literature, and other series. (See Texts, in General Bibliography.)

Selections from Swift's works, in Athenaeum Press, Holt's English Readings, Clarendon Press. Gulliver's Travels, in Standard English Cla.s.sics, in Ginn and Company's Cla.s.sics for Children, in Carisbrooke Library, in Temple Cla.s.sics.

Selections from Addison and Steele, in Athenaeum Press, Golden Treasury, Maynard's English Cla.s.sics. Sir Roger de Coverley Papers, in Standard English Cla.s.sics, Riverside Literature, Academy Cla.s.sics.

Chesterfield's Letters to his son, selected, in Ginn and Company's Cla.s.sics for Children, and in Maynard's English Cla.s.sics.

Boswell's Life of Johnson, in Clarendon Press, Temple Cla.s.sics, Everyman's Library.

Burke's Speeches, selected, in Standard English Cla.s.sics, Pocket Cla.s.sics, English Readings.

Selections from Gray, in Athenaeum Press, Canterbury Poets, Riverside Literature.

Goldsmith's Deserted Village and Vicar of Wakefield, in Standard English Cla.s.sics, King's Cla.s.sics; She Stoops to Conquer, in Pocket Cla.s.sics, Belles Lettres Series, Ca.s.sell's National Library.

Sheridan's The Rivals, in Athenaeum Press, Camelot Series, Riverside Literature, Everyman's Library.

Poems of Burns, selected, in Standard English Cla.s.sics, Riverside Literature, Silver Cla.s.sics.

Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, school edition by Ginn and Company; the same in Everyman's Library, Pocket Cla.s.sics.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. For extensive manuals and texts see the General Bibliography. The following works deal chiefly with the eighteenth century.

_HISTORY_. Morris, Age of Queen Anne and the Early Hanoverians (Epochs of Modern History Series); Sydney, England and the English in the Eighteenth Century; Susan Hale, Men and Manners in the Eighteenth Century; Ashton, Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne; Thackeray, The Four Georges.

_LITERATURE_. L. Stephen, English Literature in the Eighteenth Century; Perry, English Literature in the Eighteenth Century; Seccombe, The Age of Johnson; Dennis, The Age of Pope; Gosse, History of English Literature in the Eighteenth Century; Whitwell, Some Eighteenth-Century Men of Letters; Phelps, Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement; Beers, English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century; Thackeray, English Humorists.

_Pope_. Life, by Courthope; by L. Stephen (English Men of Letters Series). Essays, by Thackeray, in English Humorists; by L.

Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by Lowell, in My Study Windows.

_Swift_. Life, by Forster; by L. Stephen (E. M. of L.).

Essays, by Thackeray, in English Humorists; by Dobson, in Eighteenth Century Vignettes.

_Addison and Steele_. Life of Addison, by Courthope (E. M. of L.). Life of Steele, by Dobson. Essays by Macaulay, by Thackeray, by Dobson.

_Johnson_. Life, by Boswell (for personal details); by L.

Stephen (E. M. of L.). Hill, Dr. Johnson: his Friends and his Critics. Essays by Macaulay, by Thackeray, by L. Stephen.

_Burke_. Life, by Morley (E. M. of L.), by Prior. Macknight, Life and Times of Burke.

_Gibbon_. Life, by Morrison (E. M. of L.). Essays, by Birrell, in Collected Essays; by L. Stephen, in Studies of a Biographer; by Harrison, in Ruskin and Other Literary Estimates; by Sainte-Beuve, in English Portraits.

_Gray_. Life, by Gosse. Essays by Lowell, M. Arnold, L.

Stephen, Dobson.

_Goldsmith_. Life, by Was.h.i.+ngton Irving, by Dobson (Great Writers Series), by Black (E. M. of L.), by Forster. Essays, by Macaulay; by Thackeray, in English Humorists; by Dobson, in Miscellanies.

_Burns_. Life, by Shairp (E. M. of L.), by Blackie (Great Writers). Carlyle's Essay on Burns, in Standard English Cla.s.sics and other school editions. Essays, by Stevenson, in Familiar Studies of Men and Books; by Hazlitt, in Lectures on the English Poets; by Henley, in Introduction to the Cambridge Edition of Burns.

_The Novel. Raleigh, The English Novel; Cross, Development of the English Novel; Perry, A Study of Prose Fiction; Symonds, Introduction to the Study of English Fiction; Dawson, Makers of English Fiction.

_Defoe_. Life, by Minto (E. M. of L.), by William Lee. Essay by L. Stephen, in Hours in a Library.

_Richardson_. Life, by Thomson, by Dobson. Essays, by L.

Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by Dobson, in Eighteenth Century Vignettes.

_Fielding_. Life, by Dobson (E. M. of L.). Lawrence, Life and Times of Fielding. Essays by Lowell, L. Stephen, Dobson; Thackeray, in English Humorists; G. B. Smith, in Poets and Novelists.

_FICTION_. Thackeray, Henry Esmond, and The Virginians; Scott, Guy Mannering, Rob Roy, Heart of Midlothian, Redgauntlet; Reade, Peg Woffington.

CHAPTER VII

THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

Two voices are there; one is of the sea, One of the mountains; each a mighty voice: In both from age to age thou didst rejoice, They were thy chosen music, Liberty!

Wordsworth, "Sonnet to Switzerland"

The many changes recorded in the political and literary history of nineteenth-century England may be grouped under two heads: the progress of democracy in government, and the triumph of romanticism in literature. By democracy we mean the a.s.sumption by common men of the responsibilities of government, with a consequent enlargement of human liberty. Romanticism, as we use the term here, means simply that literature, like politics, has become liberalized; that it is concerned with the common life of men, and that the delights of literature, like the powers of government, are no longer the possession of the few but of the many.

HISTORICAL OUTLINE. To study either democracy or romanticism, the Whig party or the poetry of Wordsworth, is to discover how greatly England was influenced by matters that appeared beyond her borders.

The famous Reform Bill (1832) which established manhood suffrage, the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves in all British colonies, the hard-won freedom of the press, the plan of popular education,--these and numberless other reforms of the age may be regarded as part of a general movement, as the attempt to fulfill in England a promise made to the world by two events which occurred earlier and on foreign soil. These two events, which profoundly influenced English politics and literature, were the Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution.

[Sidenote: TWO REVOLUTIONS]

In the Declaration we read, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Glorious words!

But they were not new; they were old and familiar when Jefferson wrote them. The American Revolution, which led up to the Declaration, is especially significant in this: that it began as a struggle not for new privileges but for old rights. So the constructive character of that Revolution, which ended with a democracy and a n.o.ble const.i.tution, was due largely to the fact that brave men stood ready to defend the old freedom, the old manhood, the old charters, "the good old cause" for which other brave men had lived or died through a thousand years.

A little later, and influenced by the American triumph, came another uprising of a different kind. In France the unalienable rights of man had been forgotten during ages of tyranny and cla.s.s privilege; so the French Revolution, shouting its watchwords of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, had no conception of that liberty and equality which were as ancient as the hills. Leaders and followers of the Revolution were clamoring for new privileges, new rights, new morals, new creeds. They acclaimed an "Age of Reason"