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History of English literature, tr. by H. van Laun (1871)
History of English literature tr by H van Laun - 1871 Author:Hippolyte Adolphe Taine Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VII. The Poets. I. Rule and realm of the classical spirit—Its characters, works, scope, and limits —How it is centred in Pope. II. Pope—Education—... more »Precocity—Beginnings—Pastoral poems—Essay on Criticism—Personal appearance—Mode of life—Character—Mediocrity of his passions and ideas—Largeness of his vanity and talent—Independent fortune and assiduous labour. III. Epistle of Kloiaa to Abelard—What the passions become in artificial poetry —The Rape l/ the Lock—Society and the language of society in France and England—Wherein Pope's badinage is painful and displeasing—The Dunciail—Obscenity and vulgarities—Wherein the English imagination and drawing-room wit are irreconcilable. IV. Descriptive talent—Oratorical talent—Didactic poems—Why these poems are the final work of the classical spirit—The Essay on Han—His deism and optimism—Value of his conceptions—How they are connected with the dominant style—How they are deformed in Pope's hands—Methods and perfection of his style—Excellence of his portraits—Why they are superior —Translation of the Iliad—Change of taste during the past century. V. Incommensurability of the English mind and the classical decorum—Prior— Gay—Ancient pastoral impossible in northern climates—Moral conception natural in England—Thomson. VI. Discredit of the drawing-room—Entrance of the man of sensations—Why the return to nature is more precocious in England than in France—Sterne— Richardson—Mackenzie—Macpherson—Gray, Akenside, Beattie, Collins, Young, Shenstone—Persistence of the classical form—Domination of the period—Johnson—The historical school—Robertson, Gibbon, Hume—Their talent and their limits—Beginning of the modern age. "T.TTHEN we take in in one view the vast literary region in England, Yy extending from the restoration of...« less