Part Ⅰ Old and Middle English Periods(450-1485) 1
Chapter 1 Old English Period and Beowulf 3
Ⅰ．Old English Period 3
Ⅱ．Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem Beowulf 6
Chapter 2 Middle English Period and Chaucer 11
Ⅰ．Middle English Period 11
Ⅱ．Geoffrey Chaucer 16
Part Ⅱ English Renaissance and Shakespeare(1485-1616) 27
Chapter 3 The English Renaissance Literature 29
Ⅰ．Introduction of the Period 29
Ⅱ．Ten Renaissance Writers 32
Chapter 4 William Shakespeare 44
Ⅰ．Shakespeare's Life and Achievements 44
Ⅱ．Discussions of Shakespeare's Major Works 45
Part Ⅲ The Seventeenth Century(1616-1688) 61
Chapter 5 The Bourgeois Revolution and Milton 63
Ⅰ．Background Knowledge 63
Ⅱ．John Milton 67
Chapter 6 The Metaphysical Poets and the Restoration Drama 78
Ⅰ．The Metaphysical Poets 78
Ⅱ．The Restoration Drama 84
Chapter 7 Dryden and Bunyan 89
Ⅰ．John Dryden 89
Ⅱ．John Bunyan 94
Part Ⅳ The Eighteenth Century(1688-1780) 103
Chapter 8 The Age of Classicism 105
Ⅰ．Background Knowledge of the First Half of the Eighteenth Century 105
Ⅱ．Discussions of the Chief Representatives 108
Chapter 9 The Rise of the Novel 127
Ⅰ．Background Knowledge About the Rise of the Novel in England 127
Ⅱ．Discussions of the Major Novelists 129
Chapter 10 The Pre-Romantic Literature 149
Ⅰ．Background Knowledge About the Literature at the Turn of the Century 149
Ⅱ．Pre-Romantic Poetry 151
Ⅲ．The Gothic Novel 161
Part Ⅴ The Romantic Period(1780-1830) 167
Chapter 11 Wordsworth and Coleridge 169
Ⅰ． Background Knowledge 169
Ⅱ．The Romantic Sage,William Wordsworth 173
Ⅲ．Samuel Taylor Coleridge,Poet and Critic 181
Chapter 12 Byron,Shelley and Keats 185
Ⅰ．George Gordon Byron and the Byronic Hero 186
Ⅱ．Percy Bysshe Shelley,Poet and Utopian Socialist 190
Ⅲ．John Keats,the Poet of Beauty 197
Chapter 13 Walter Scott and Jane Austen 205
Ⅰ．Walter Scott,Romantic Writer of Historical Themes 205
Ⅱ．Jane Austen,Novelist of Social Manners 209
Part Ⅵ The Victorian Literature(1830-1880) 219
Chapter 14 The Victorian Age 221
Ⅰ．Background Knowledge 221
Ⅱ．Major Literary Achievements 225
Chapter 15 Victorian Novelists 228
Ⅰ．Charies Dickens 229
Ⅱ．William Makepeace Thackeray 240
Ⅲ．Charlotte and Emily Brontё 243
Ⅳ．George Eliot 249
Chapter 16 Victorian Poets 256
Ⅰ．Alfred Tennyson 257
Ⅱ．Robert Browning 264
Ⅲ．Dante Gabriel Rossetti 275
Ⅳ．Matthew Arnold as a Poet 278
Chapter 17 Victorian Prose Writers 284
Ⅰ．Thomas Carlyle 285
Ⅱ．Thomas Macaulay 287
Ⅲ．John Stuart Mill 289
Ⅳ．John Ruskin 292
Ⅴ．Matthew Arnold 295
Part Ⅶ Fin de siècle and Modernist Literature(1880-1930) 301
Chapter 18 Fin de siècle 303
Ⅰ．Historical Background 303
Ⅱ．Intellectual Background 308
Chapter 19 Later Victorian to the First World War 310
Ⅰ．Fin de siècle Aestheticism 310
Ⅱ．Late Victorian Poetry 313
Ⅲ．Novels of This Period 321
Ⅳ．Drama of This Period 338
Ⅴ．Other Writers of This Period 343
Chapter 20 Modernist Literature 346
Ⅰ．Background Knowledge 346
Ⅱ．Modernist Novel and Novelists 347
Ⅲ．Modernist Poetry 356
Chapter 21 Non-Modernists Between the Wars 365
Ⅰ．Refections on War and History 365
Ⅱ．Writers Between the Wars 366
Ⅲ．The Rise of Academic English Studies 377
Part Ⅷ Mid-Twentieth Century(1930-1990) 385
Chapter 22 The Second World War 387
Chapter 23 Literature of the Second World War 392
Ⅰ．Surrealism 392
Ⅱ．War Poets 393
Ⅲ．Other Writers of This Period 394
Chapter 24 Postwar Literature 398
Ⅰ．Novels of This Period 398
Ⅱ．Drama of This Period 420
Ⅲ．Poetry of This Period 434
Chapter 25 Towards the New Century 451
Self Test 462
References 466
Chronology 468
Glossary of Literary Terms 474
Key to the Quizes and Self Test 478
Index of British Writers 481