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A SURVEY OF
ENGLISH LITERATURE
1780-1880
BY
OLIVER ELTON
HON. D. LITT. (MANCHESTER)
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL
IN FOUR VOLUMES
VOL. II
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920
All rights reserved
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XIV
SOUTHEY AND LANDOR
I. Robert Southey: career; affinities with other poets. Eclogues,
ballads, short pieces
:
II. Southey plan and ambition of his long poems: Thalaba and its
metre; Curse of Kehama; Madoc; Roderick
III. Southey's prose: discussion of his style; its 'achromatic'
quality; The Doctor. Rough classification of his works. Books of
travel, essays, Colloquies on Society. Works on Spanish and Portuguese
subjects; Peninsular War, History of Brazil. Biographies: the Nelson
and the Wesley; Life of Cowper. Character of his conservatism; posi-
tion in letters.
IV. W. S. Landor; his 'solitariness'; divisions of his career, 1795-
1824, 1825-46, 1847-64.
V. Landor: Poems of 1795; Gebir and Gebirus; manner and source
and excellences; 'arrestedness' of imagery; plastic effects. Poems,
1802 .
VI. 'Dramatic scenes,' or plays: Count Julian, Andrea of Hungary,
etc.; Siege of Ancona.
VII. Short lyrics, epigrams, elegies; poems to friends and to old age.
Economy of passion; classical manner, affinities with Jonson
VIII. The Hellenics: usage of the term; those translated from the
Latin compared with the others; analogies with sculpture. Increase of
naturalness; imaginative quality
IX. Imaginary Conversations: variety, range, length, possible models.
Grouping under six kinds :—(1) Heroic action and passion depicted;
conversations of Greeks and Romans, and modern subjects of like kind.
(2) Brutal and ferocious scenes. (3) Idyllic, gracious, and playful scenes.
(4) Humorous and ironic
X. Imaginary Conversations:-non-artistic, or non-dramatic: (5) polit-
ical and constitutional, or ethical, disquisitions in dialogue. (6) Con-
versations of 'literary men,' and criticisms
XI. Longer prose works, or protracted 'imaginary conversations':
Pericles and Aspasia, Pentameron, Citation, etc., of W. Shakespeare
XII. Robert Eyres Landor: Count Arezzi, etc.; prose romances
CHAPTER XV
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
I. The Confession in literature, secular and religious; meeting of the
two currents in Wordsworth
II. Chief successive publications in verse. Alterations of text
survival of Wordsworth's genius
VOL. II.
text. Late
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III. Traits of his mental history, as told in The Prelude, etc. Visita-
tions of mystical experience; nature and humanity; connection with
pantheism
IV. Crisis in his faith; political hopes, disappointment, recovery.
Malady of analysis, how corrected
V. Early poems: An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches (1793).
Other pieces
VI. Wordsworth a great inventor of forms. Lyrical Ballads (1798,
eto.). Their relation to ethical ideas; variety of pace; skill of
narrative. Longer tales in blank verse; Michael, The Brothers, etc.
VII. Peculiar attitude to evil and calamity; connection of this with
the creed of Wordsworth, and with his reminiscent temper
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60
62
63
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VIII. Long philosophic poems: unexecuted plan. The Prelude, how
laid out; The Excursion; The Recluse.
71
IX. Lyra Heroica: Brougham Castle and The White Doe of Rylstone;
The Happy Warrior; Ode to Duty. Ode on the Intimations of Immor-
tality, etc.
X. Wordsworth and the Sonnet. Earlier groups of Sonnets, 1802,
1803, 1806, 1810. Premeditated series: The River Duddon, Ecclesias-
tical Sketches, On the Punishment of Death. Miltonic inspiration ;
variation from Milton's metrical structures. An example analysed
XI. Character of Wordsworth's blank verse.
XII. Style its hardness, strength, purity, and naturalness. Redemp-
tion of metaphysical style in verse; use of playful blank verse .
XIII. Problem of poetic diction. New sphere for poetry; consequent
remoulding of language. Division of labour in Lyrical Ballads.
'real language of men,' how defined? Does it refer to vocabulary only?
Criticism by Coleridge. Summary of controversy
The
XIV. Prose of Wordsworth: critical writings, Essay on Epitaphs, etc.
Political and descriptive prose .
92
XV. Wordsworth's 'healing power'; witnesses adduced. The poetry
of happiness. Value of his consolations. Treatment of poetic ideas.
Influence on later English poets
CHAPTER XVI
THE COLERIDGES
I. S. T. Coleridge: phases of his career: (a) till 1797; experimental
poetry, Unitarian tenets, and idealistic bent. (b) 1797-1802, period of
poetic genius and production; drift towards political conservatism; visit
to Germany. (c) 1803-17, confused and indistinot period, but beginning
of literary lectures and criticism. The Friend, Statesman's Manual,
etc., and Biographia Literaria. (d) 1817-34, partial recovery of poetic
power; Lay Sermons, etc.; position as talker and intellectual rallying.
point.
II. Vein of gentleness and simplicity; the dream-faculty, and strain
of melancholy; the 'subtle-souled psychologist”
III. Early verse. Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Kubla Khan, Love,
Dejection
IV. Later verse: Garden of Boccaccio. Dramas: Osorio (Remorse);
Zapolya; translation of Wallenstein.
Poetic prose
V. Coleridge's prose; disgressiveness; incompleteness of his books.