BY THE SAME AUTHOR. OUTLINES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 1890-1 914. Crown 8vo, pp. 268. 3s. 6d. net. .. An abridgement of " Modern English Writers " devoting special attention to Poetry. Being a Study of Imaginative Literature Nerbert By Harold Williams Author of 'Two Centuries of the English Novel,' etc. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, Limited to General Librar Phet. Library 10-20-1927 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION This book was completed not long before the outbreak of the war in 1914, a date which will probably present to future generations a visible dividing line in almost every sphere of human activity. No man can be unconscious of a change within himself and in his preconceptions during the past four years. If most of the writers named in the following pages are still alive, few, perhaps those only whose work is an artifice rather than a response to life, continue contentedly in the old paths, and for the majority the pursuit of art and literature, as a primary objective, is temporarily dispossessed. The scope of this survey may, therefore, fairly be regarded as covering a period contained by natural boundaries. The introductory chapter assigns reasons for accepting the year 1890 as marking the end of a stage in literary history and the appearance of new ideals: the beginning of the great war was an abrupt break in all the affairs of men. In only one or two cases has it been thought necessary, at the time of publication, to carry the story beyond the early months of 1914, save in the matter of an added date or footnote. Exceptions to a rule will be found in the pages which treat of Rupert Brooke and James Elroy Flecker, two poets whose deaths fell in the earlier part of the war. In the case of the former, at least, to leave unnamed the work of the last few months would be to omit nearly all that mattered. It has not, on the other hand, been possible to observe rigidly a line (as imaginary as the equator and as useful) drawn through the year 1880; and no more than a loose adherence, in the spirit rather than in the letter, has been attempted. The author is not unconscious of the temerity of criticising in summary writers still living. Contemporary ject to the indistinctness of near vision, to those confusions estimates need not be falsified by time, but they are sub |