The Project/ Gutenberg eBook, Brief History of English and American Literature, by Henry A. Beers, et al

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Title: Brief History of English and American Literature

Author: Henry A. Beers

Release Date: April 15, 2007 [eBook #21090]

Language: English

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRIEF HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

Transcriber's note:

   The volume from which this e-book was prepared contains two of
   Beers' books, "An Outline Sketch of English Literature" and
   "An Outline Sketch of American Literature," which start on
   pages 7 and 317, respectively.

Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}, to facilitate use of the index. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book. For its Index, a page number has been placed only at the start of that section.

BRIEF HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

by

HENRY A. BEERS

Introduction and Supplementary Chapters on the Religious and Theological Literature of Great Britain and the United States

by

John Fletcher Hurst

New York: Eaton & Mains
Cincinnati: Jennings & Pye

Copyright, 1886, 1887, by
Phillips & Hunt
New York
Copyright, 1897, by
Eaton & Mains
New York

{3}

INTRODUCTION.

At the request of the publishers the undersigned has prepared this Introduction and two Supplementary Chapters on the Religious and Theological Literature of Great Britain and the United States. To the preacher in his preparation for the pulpit, and also to the general reader and student of religious history, the pursuit of the study of literature is a necessity. The sermon itself is a part of literature, must have its literary finish and proportions, and should give ample proof of a familiarity with the masterpieces of the English tongue.

The world of letters presents to even the casual reader a rich and varied profusion of fascinating and luscious fruit. But to the earnest student who explores with thorough research and sympathetic mind the intellectual products of countries and times other than his own, the infinite variety, so strikingly apparent to the superficial observer, resolves itself into a beautiful and harmonious unity. Literature is the record of the struggles and aspirations of man in the boundless universe of thought. As in physics the correlation and conservation of force bind all the material sciences together into one, so in the world of intellect all the diverse departments of mental life and action find their common bond in literature. Even the {4} signs and formulas of the mathematician and the chemist are but abbreviated forms of writing—the stenography of those exact sciences. The simple chronicles of the annalist, the flowing verses of the poet, clothing his thought with winged words, the abstruse propositions of the philosopher, the smiting protests of the bold reformer, either in Church or State, the impassioned appeal of the advocate at the bar of justice, the argument of the legislator on behalf of his measures, the very cry of inarticulate pain of those who suffer under the oppression of cruelty, all have their literature.

The minister of the Gospel, whose mission is to man in his highest and holiest relations, must know the best that human thought has produced if he would successfully reach and influence the thoughtful and inquiring. Perhaps our best service here will be to suggest a method of pursuing a course of study in literature, both English and American. The following work of Professor Beers touches but lightly and scarcely more than opens these broad and inviting fields, which are ever growing richer and more fascinating. While man continues to think he will weave the fabric of the mental loom into infinitely varied and beautiful designs.

In the general outlines of a plan of literary study which is to cover the entire history of English and American literature, the following directions, it is hoped, will be of value.

1. Fix the great landmarks, the general periods—each {5} marked by some towering leader, around whom other contemporary writers may be grouped. In Great Britain the several and successive periods might thus be well designated by such authors as Geoffrey Chaucer or John Wiclif, Thomas More or Henry Howard, Edmund Spenser or Sir Walter Raleigh, William Shakspere or Francis Bacon, John Milton or Jeremy Taylor, John Dryden or John Locke, Joseph Addison or Joseph Butler, Samuel Johnson or Oliver Goldsmith, William Cowper or John Wesley, Walter Scott or Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth or Thomas Chalmers, Alfred Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle, or William Makepeace Thackeray.

A similar list for American literature would place as leaders in
letters: Thomas Hooker or Thomas Shepard, Cotton Mather, Jonathan
Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Philip Freneau, Noah Webster or James Kent,
James Fenimore Cooper or Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson or
Edward Everett, Joseph Addison Alexander or William Ellery Channing,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, or Nathaniel
Hawthorne.

2. The prosecution of the study might be carried on in one or more of several ways, according either to the purpose in view or the tastes of the student. Attention might profitably be concentrated on the literature of a given period and worked out in detail by taking up individual authors, or by classifying all the writers of the period {6} on the basis of the character of their writings, such as poetry, history, belles-lettres, theology, essays, and the like.

3. Again, the literature of a period might be studied with reference to its influence on the religious, commercial, political, or social life of the people among whom it has circulated; or as the result of certain forces which have preceded its production. It is well worth the time and effort to trace the influence of one author upon another or many others, who, while maintaining their individuality, have been either in style or method of production unconsciously molded by their confréres of the pen. The divisions of writers may, again, be made with reference to their opinions and associations in the different departments of life where they have wrought their active labors, such as in politics, religion, moral reform, or educational questions.

The influence of the great writers in the languages of the Continent upon the literature of England and America affords another theme of absorbing interest, and has its peculiarly good results in bringing the student into close brotherhood with the fruitful and cultured minds of every land. In fact, the possible applications of the study of literature are so many and varied that the ingenuity of any earnest student may devise such as the exigencies of his own work may require.

JOHN F. HURST,