Opening the text

Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They LivedLong, William J. (William Joseph)

History

Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived

Name: Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived
Author: Long, William J. (William Joseph)

Long, William J. (William Joseph)

American literature -- History and criticism; English literature -- History and criticism

"He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature,
    because, as it has been truly observed of him, he has taken into
    the compass of his _Canterbury Tales_ the various manners and
    humours (as we now call them) of the whole English nation in his
    age. Not a single character has escaped him.... We have our fathers
    and great-grand-dames all before us as they were in Chaucer's days:
    their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even
    in England, though they are called by other names than those of
    monks and friars and canons and lady abbesses and nuns; for mankind
    is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature though everything
    is altered."

       *       *       *       *       *

SECONDARY WRITERS

PURITAN AND CAVALIER VERSE. The numerous minor poets of this period are
often arranged in groups, but any true classification is impossible since
there was no unity among them. Each was a law unto himself, and the result
was to emphasize personal oddity or eccentricity. It would seem that in
writing of love, the common theme of poets, Puritan and Cavalier must alike
speak the common language of the heart; but that is precisely what they did
not do. With them love was no longer a passion, or even a fashion, but any
fantastic conceit that might decorate a rime. Thus, Suckling habitually
made love a joke:

  Why so pale and wan, fond lover,
    Prithee why so pale?
  Will, when looking well wont move her,
    Looking ill prevail?
    Prithee why so pale?

Crashaw turned from his religious poems to sing of love in a way to appeal
to the Transcendentalists, of a later age:

  Whoe'er she be,
  That not impossible she
  That shall command my heart and me.

And Donne must search out some odd notion from natural (or unnatural)
history, making love a spider that turns the wine of life into poison; or
from mechanics, comparing lovers to a pair of dividers:

  If they be two, they are two so
    As stiff twin compasses are two:
  Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
    To move, but doth if the other do.


[Illustration: GEORGE HERBERT
From a rare print by White, prefixed to his poems]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

History

Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived

Long, William J. (William Joseph)

American literature -- History and criticism; English literature -- History and criticism

"He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature,
    because, as it has been truly observed of him, he has taken into
    the compass of his _Canterbury Tales_ the various manners and
    humours (as we now call them) of the whole English nation in his
    age. Not a single character has escaped him.... We have our fathers
    and great-grand-dames all before us as they were in Chaucer's days:
    their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even
    in England, though they are called by other names than those of
    monks and friars and canons and lady abbesses and nuns; for mankind
    is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature though everything
    is altered."

       *       *       *       *       *

SECONDARY WRITERS

PURITAN AND CAVALIER VERSE. The numerous minor poets of this period are
often arranged in groups, but any true classification is impossible since
there was no unity among them. Each was a law unto himself, and the result
was to emphasize personal oddity or eccentricity. It would seem that in
writing of love, the common theme of poets, Puritan and Cavalier must alike
speak the common language of the heart; but that is precisely what they did
not do. With them love was no longer a passion, or even a fashion, but any
fantastic conceit that might decorate a rime. Thus, Suckling habitually
made love a joke:

  Why so pale and wan, fond lover,
    Prithee why so pale?
  Will, when looking well wont move her,
    Looking ill prevail?
    Prithee why so pale?

Crashaw turned from his religious poems to sing of love in a way to appeal
to the Transcendentalists, of a later age:

  Whoe'er she be,
  That not impossible she
  That shall command my heart and me.

And Donne must search out some odd notion from natural (or unnatural)
history, making love a spider that turns the wine of life into poison; or
from mechanics, comparing lovers to a pair of dividers:

  If they be two, they are two so
    As stiff twin compasses are two:
  Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
    To move, but doth if the other do.


[Illustration: GEORGE HERBERT
From a rare print by White, prefixed to his poems]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived

Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived

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