CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Historical documents serve only as a clue to reconstruct the visible The outer man is only a clue to study the inner, invisible man.......... 1. Race .... II. Surroundings III. Epoch ....... History is a mechanical and psychological problem. Within certain limits man can foretell..... ... 19 Production of the results of a primordial cause. Common elements. Law of formation of a group. Examples and indications.... PG 8 SS 31 34 40 46 53 56 63 71 VI.-Christian Poems VII.-Primitive Saxon Authors VIII.-Virility of the Saxon Race... V. The English Tongue.-Early English Literary Impulses... 91 VI.-Feudal Civilization ..... VII.-Persistence of Saxon Ideas.. VIII.-The English Constitution IX. Piers Plowman and Wyclif... CHAPTER THIRD The New Tongue 103 108 113 119 The Pagan Renaissance Part I.-Manners of the Time I.-Ideas of the Middle Ages... II. Growth of New Ideas... III.-Popular Festivals IV.-Influence of Classic Literature. 169 171 178 180 V. Wherein Lies the Strength of the Poetry of this Period.... 204 VI.-Edmund Spenser ... 214 VII.-Spenser in his Relation to the Renaissance. 221 SECTION Part III.-Prose. I.-The Decay of Poetry.... II. The Intellectual Level of the Renaissance. PAGE 237 243 248 252 255 VI.-Furious Passions.-Exaggerated Characters 296 305 V.-Limits of Jonson's Talent.-His Smaller Poems.-His Masques VI.-General Idea of Shakespeare... CHAPTER FOURTH Shakespeare 318 321 327 333 345 350 I.-Life and Character of Shakespeare... II.-Shakespeare's Style.-Copiousness.-Excesses III.-Shakespeare's Language and Manners... IV.-Dramatis Personæ V.-Men of Wit.... |