A History of English Literature

became Latin Secretary to the Council of State, losing his eyesight in 1652 while writing the Council’s defence of its regicide. ...

of a twice-disrupted dynasty onto a round number. (The first century regularly to call itself a century was the 19th century.) L ...

lyrics and high doctrine, and were imitated by Milton. But a masque was the ances- tor of modern opera and ballet, a show not al ...

Aquinas (1225–1274) had thought man good but stupid, whereas Martin Luther (1483–1546) found man bad but clever. The doctrine of ...

Essex, found office and became a Member of Parliament. But in 1602 a rash secret marriage to the young neice of his patron ended ...

his death. Twentieth-century critics were struck especially by such love poems as ‘The Sun Rising’, ‘The Anniversary’ and ‘The G ...

therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.’ Despite its last gesture, this famous passage is commu ...

dividing the supernatural truths of biblical revelation from the truths of nature. After the Advancement of Learning he proposed ...

Donne practised this contraction – as did Jonson, in (reportedly) saying that Donne ‘for not being understood, would perish’ and ...

For my religion, though there be several circumstances that might persuade the world I have none at all, as the general scandal ...

Jonson’s social ideal is exemplified in ‘To Penshurst’, a thank-you letter to the Sidney family for their hospitality at their e ...

Donne ‘affects the metaphysics’ in his love poems, perplexing ‘the fair sex’ with ‘nice speculations of philosophy’. As ‘affects ...

Blindness’). This remoteness was increased for rational Anglicans by the Puritan enthusiasm of the 1640s. Herbert’s simple faith ...

mentioned Mistress Anne Bradstreet, a colonist whose poems were published in London without her knowledge in 1650 as The Tenth M ...

He nothing common did or mean Upon that memorable scene, But with his keener eye The axe’s edge did try .... Praise for Charles ...

rewrite the Bible as it might have been written with the benefit of a humanist English education. If this does not conform to ou ...

widely in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and modern languages, and was remarkable for learning in an age when a reader could know virtuall ...

Milton’s early Protestant ideals now seem at odds with his sophisticated Italianate style. At court, Charles I patronized the ba ...

And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, And now was dropped into the western bay; At last he rose, and twitched his man ...

as good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a g ...