An Introduction to English Literature |
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Addison ballad Battle beauty Beowulf Browning's Burke Byron Cædmon Canterbury Tales Carlyle Celt Celtic century character Chaucer classic Coleridge Cynewulf death Defoe delight drama dramatists early English edition Elizabethan Encyclopædia Britannica England English literature English poetry epic Essays Europe Faerie Queene famous feeling French genius Geoffrey Chaucer George Eliot Goldsmith greatest Henry human influence Italian Italy John Julius Cæsar Keats King Knight's Tale language Latin Layamon learning Letters Series lish literary lived London Lord lyric ment Milton modern moral nature Norman Norman Conquest novel Paradise Lost passion period Petrarch plays poem poet poetic political Pope Queen Quincey race reign religious Renaissance romance satire scene Scott seems Shakespeare Shelley song soul Spenser spirit Stanzas story STUDY LIST style Swift sympathy Tennyson things Thomas thought tion translation trouvère verse William Wordsworth writers wrote youth
Popular passages
Page 194 - Of these the false Achitophel was first, A name to all succeeding ages curst: For close designs and crooked counsels fit, Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit; Restless, unfixed in principles and place, In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace ; A fiery soul, which working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay, And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
Page 171 - Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life.
Page 170 - We shall grow old apace, and die Before we know our liberty. Our life is short, and our days run As fast away as does the sun; And, as a vapour or a drop of rain, Once lost, can ne'er be found again, So when or you or I are made A fable, song, or fleeting shade, All love, all liking, all delight Lies drowned with us in endless night. Then while time serves, and we are but decaying, Come, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying.
Page 478 - Oh yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ; That nothing walks with aimless feet ; That not one life shall be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete...
Page 182 - Alas ! alas ! Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took, Found out the remedy: How would you be, If he, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are? O, think on that; And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made.
Page 3 - There is first the literature of knowledge, and secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is — to teach ; the function of the second is — to move : the first is a rudder, the second an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding ; the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy.
Page 171 - Alas ! what boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?
Page 119 - Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried, What hell it is in suing long to bide ; To lose good days that might be better spent ; To waste long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow ; To feed on hope ; to pine with fear and sorrow ; To have thy Prince's grace, yet want her peers...
Page 303 - The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain For promis'd joy! Still, thou art blest, compar'd wi' me! The present only toucheth thee: But, och ! I backward cast my e'e, On prospects drear! An' forward, tho' I canna see, I guess an
Page 131 - Nature that framed us of four elements, Warring within our breasts for regiment, Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds...