A history of English literature : the Middle Ages and the Renascence (650-1660) /

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface / Anthony Quiller-Couch -- General introduction -- Introduction [to] Part I: the Middle Ages and the Renascence (650-1660) -- Introduction [to] Part II: Modern times (1660-1963) -- Part I -- Book I: Origins (650-1350) -- Anglo-Saxon literature (650-1066) -- From the Norman Conquest to Chaucer (1066-1350) -- Book II: The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (1350-1516) -- The fourteenth century (1350-1400): round about Chaucer -- Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?-1400) -- The fifteenth century: from the death of Chaucer to the Renascence (1400-1516) -- Book III: The preparation for the Renascence (1516-78) -- The part of the humanists -- The Reformation and the religious controversies from 1525 to 1578 -- Poetry: Italianism, Wyatt and Surrey; Sackville and "The Mirror for Magistrates"; Gascoigne -- The theatre from 1520 to 1578 -- Book IV: The flowering of the Renascence (1578-1625) -- General characteristics of the great period -- The pioneers: Lyly, Sidney, and Spenser -- Poetry from 1590 to 1625 -- Prose from 1578 to 1625 -- The drama until Shakespeare, from 1580 to 1592 -- Shakespeare's plays (1590-1616) -- Shakespeare's contemporaries and immediate successors -- Shakespeare's successors: drama under Charles I (1625-42) -- Book V: The end of the Renascence (1625-60) -- Prose from 1625 to 1660 -- Poetry from 1625 to 1660 -- Milton -- Part II -- Book I: Literature of the Restoration (1660-1702) -- Sources and characteristics of the new literature -- Dryden and lyrical poetry -- Satire and the satirical spirit -- The theatre -- Nationalism and Restoration prose -- The dissident writers -- The transition -- Book II: Classicism (1702-40) -- The age of classicism -- The classical school of poetry -- The spirit of controversy -- The literature of the middle classes -- The dawn of sentimentalism in English literature -- Book III: The survival of classicism (1740-70) -- Doctrinal classicism: Johnson -- The poetry of sentiment -- The novel of sentiment -- Realism.

Political literature -- The theatre -- Rationalism -- Book IV: The pre-romantic period (1770-98) -- The awakening of imagination -- The religious awakening -- The pre-romantic novel -- Rationalism -- The classical temperaments -- The French Revolution and English literature -- Pre-romantic poetry -- Book V: The romantic period (1798-1832) -- The first generation of poets -- The novel -- Intellectualism and political literature -- The second generation of poets -- The semi-romanticists -- Book VI: The search for balance (1832-75) -- The new period: causes and characteristics -- Intellectualism and science -- The idealistic reaction -- The poetry of the Victorian era -- Realism -- Book VII: New divergences (1875-1914) -- The change in literary thought: causes and characteristics -- The revolt against mechanism -- The new romanticism -- The doctrines of action -- Literary individualism -- Book VIII: The twentieth century (1914-63) -- The novel and the short story -- The theatre -- Poetry.