The Cambridge History Of English Literature Vol 7 Classic Reprint PDF Download

Excerpt from The Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. 1: Edited by Ward and Waller From time to time, buried treasure comes to light; things seemingly of a day suddenly reveal the strength that is in them and become things for all time; and the way then lies open for a profitable retrospect. Thus, the editors have thought it simpler to defer an enquiry into the first glimmerings of the English drama and an account of the miracle plays until towards the close of the second volume, and to deal, on broad lines, with the progress of the English language, as the vehicle of English literature, with changes in English prosody and with the work of universities and scholarship, towards the end of successive periods, rather than piecemeal at successive stages of each. With regard to future volumes - since the history of a nation's literature cannot be divorced from some consideration of its political, religious, and social life, including its manners as well as its phases of sentiment and fashion, its trivial thoughts no less than its serious movements - the editors have thought it well to make some provision for treating certain subjects more or less closely allied to literature pure or proper. Such are the literature of science and philosophy; and that of politics and economics; parliamentary eloquence; the work of schools and universities and libraries; scholarship; the pamphlet literature of religious and political controversy; the newspaper and the magazine; the labours of the press and the services of booksellers; homely books dealing with precept and manners and social life; domestic letters and street songs; accounts of travel and records of sport - the whole range of letters, in its widest acceptation, from the "Cambridge Platonists" to the "fraternity of vagabonds." And, since the literatures of the British Colonies and of the United States are, in the main, the literature of the mother-country, produced under other skies, it is intended to give, in their proper place, some account of these literatures also. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.