Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_ is the masterpiece of Puritan prose, written in the simple, direct language of the 1611 version of the _Bible_. The book is a prose epic of the journey of the Puritan Christian from the City of Destruction to the New Jerusalem. The Cavalier poets wrote much lyrical verse, mostly in lighter vein, but the religious poets strike a deeper note. The work of these minor poets is often a reflection of the Elizabethan lyrics of Donne and Jonson. John Milton, who has the creative power of the Elizabethans, is the only great poet of the period. His greatest poems are _L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Lycidas, Comus,_ and _Paradise Lost_. In sublimity of subject matter and cast of mind, in nobility of ideals, in expression of the conflict between good and evil, he is the fittest representative of the Puritan spirit in literature. REFERENCES FOR FUTURE STUDY HISTORICAL Read the chapters on this period in Gardiner,[12] Walker, Cheney, Lingard, or Green. For the social life, see Traill, IV. The monumental history of this time has been written in eighteen volumes by Samuel Rawson Gardiner. His _Oliver Cromwell_, I vol., is excellent, as is also Frederick Harrison's _Oliver Cromwell_. LITERARY The _Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vol. VII. Courthope's _History of English Poetry_, Vol. III. Masterman's _The Age of Milton_. Saintsbury's _A History of Elizabethan Literature_ (comes down to 1660). Dowden's _Puritan and Anglican Studies in Literature. Dictionary of National Biography_ (for lives of minor writers). Froude's _John Bunyan._ Brown's _John Bunyan, his Life, Times, and Works._ Macaulay's Life of Bunyan in _Encylopaedia Britannica_ or in his _Essays._ Macaulay's _Essay on Southey's Edition of the Pilgrim's Progress._ Masson's _The Life of John Milton, Narrated in Connection with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary history of his Time_ (6 vols.). Masson's _Poetical Works of John Milton_, 3 vols., contains excellent introductions and notes, and is the standard edition. Raleigh's _Milton_. Pattison's _Milton_. (E.M.L.) Woodhull's _The Epic of Paradise Lost_. Macaulay's _Essay on Milton_. Lowell's _Milton_ (in _Among My Books_). Addison's criticisms on Milton, beginning in number 267 of _The Spectator_, are suggestive. SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS