Sketches of English Literature, from the Fourteenth to the Present Century

Balfour's lively and accessible work surveys four centuries of English literature; it was a favourite of the Victorian bien pensant.

Clara Lucas Balfour (Author)

9781108020244, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 August 2010

418 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.6 cm, 0.42 kg

Clara Lucas Balfour (1808–1878) published Sketches of English Literature in 1852. The work surveys the development of English literature from the revival of letters in the fourteenth century to the literary controversies of the mid-nineteenth. Balfour places a special focus on the work of women writers. The first chapters consider the impact of the Renaissance and Reformation, the development of printing, and the publication of early vernacular Bibles on English literature; and examine the work of a number of Elizabethan writers, including Spenser and Shakespeare. The survey continues with evaluations of later writers including Milton, Dryden and a number of female poets. Later chapters analyse the influence of science on literature and the work concludes with an examination of nineteenth-century socially conscious literature. Balfour's lively and accessible style ensured that the work became a favourite of educated Victorians. It is a classic of popular nineteenth-century literature.

Introduction
1. The fourteenth century
2. The art of printing, its professors and patrons
3. Female education and influence after the introduction of printing
4. The Reformation, and the literary activity of its era
5. The Bible and its translators
6. The Bible, its literary influence
7. Spenser and Shakspeare, and their poetic contemporaries
8. Minor poets between the time of Shakspeare and Milton
9. Science and its martyrs
10. Milton and his literary contemporaries
11. Female writers of the seventeenth century
12. Dryden and the rise of criticism in England
13. Mind and matter, their students and expositors
14. Aspects of the literature of the eighteenth century
15. Eighteenth century (continued)
16. Female writers of the last half of the eighteenth century, and the beginning of the present
17. Modern female poets
18. Illustrious youthful poets
19. Poetical controversies of the present age
20. Literature among the people.

Subject Areas: Literary theory [DSA]