Modern English Literature

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Modern English Literature contain that the flood of nineteenth-century literature in England is so overwhelmingly great that we cannot do more than briefly summarize the work of the most eminent writers or rather those who by virtue of some special distinction of force or talent appear to us now to be the most eminent of the century. Three is some danger that these may not be in all cases the most respective. The average writing of the time was not so brilliant as that of its headlines; the general life of the spirit is never so vivid, nor the life of the imagination so colourful, as that of its Coleridges and Brownings and Dickenses. Genius is likely to take extreme positions, far to the lect or right of the average sens of the time. Besides, it is not the history of the age that we are tracing but that of its literary art. And here we find ourselved concened with questions of quality, of aesthetic significance. Our aim is to give most prominence to the most significant writers. Significant is a word that will bear defining; it is a challenge to critical consideration more extended that can be afforded in a literary history. These are all English (or British) writers, using the language of Chaucer and bacon, bred to the island life of Great Britain, part and parcel of its intricate peculiar culture. And that will be our point of departure. In a few cases, such as Scott's and Macaulay's we might almost consider them simply as a exponents of British life and attitudes, celebrating whatever is admirable and satisfying in British culture. More often the clue to our discussion must be found in the interplay between British actuality and some ideal state of things to which they aspire outside, otin addition to, the actuality of British life. In the following chapters the terns romantic and Victorian will not be used in a critically partisan sense as implying favourable or unfavourable value judgements. For purposes of characterization and evaluation, these terms, though suggestive and helpful where used with discretion, may be as misleading when employed by writers with a passion for doctrinaire generalities as other blancket terms like bourgeois and baroque.

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Shri Parmanand returned as a senior lecturer from the services of the Government of Delhi. He has been teaching English literature in senior classes and has been a very successful teacher and lecturer. He has published many books on teaching of English and political science. Shri Parmanand has visited several parts of India and has thorough knowledge of India secondary and Higher Education. Shri Parmanand lives in Pitampura in North West Delhi. Table of Contents Point of Departure Poetry of the Romantic Period Essayists of the Romantic Period The Earlier Novelists The Literature of Learning General Victorian Prose The Victorial Prose Victorial Poetry The Nineteenth Century: Recapitulation The Turn of the Century The Middle Ages and Early Renaissance: 1350-1580 The High Renaisance: 1580-1660 Classicism to High Romanticism: 1580-1660 Late Romanticism to Post-Romanticism: 1830-1940 Modern English Poetry: 1940-Present Day From the Middle Ages to the High Renaissance (1350-1660): The Beginnings of English Criticism The Age of Reason (1660-1789): The Critic in Authority The Romantic Age (1790-1830): The Critic as Explorer The Victorian Age (1830-1914): The Critic Against Society The Twentieth Century (1914-Present Day): The Responsibility of the Critical Function Bibliography Index