English Literature An Illustrated Record From The Beginnings To The Age Of Henry Viii

Author : Richard Garnett
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9780282588182
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (881 download)

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Download or read book English Literature, an Illustrated Record, Vol. 2 of 4 written by Richard Garnett and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-07-25 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from English Literature, an Illustrated Record, Vol. 2 of 4: From the Age of Henry VIII to the Age of Milton When the Greeks spoke of Homer, they did not always name him. They said the poet, certain that no vestige of doubt could exist as to the application of the description. Englishmen might thus speak of Shakespeare with no less security from misapprehension. In a literature eminent beyond most for the multitude of its great poets, many of whom may have excelled Shake speare in this or that branch of art, not one could be selected as a possible rival to Shakespeare, and for this plain reason, that their excellence is par ticular, and his is universal. There is nothing within the compass of poetry in which he has not either achieved supremacy or shown that supremacy lay within his power; there is no situation of human fortune or emotion of the human bosom for which he has not the right word; if he cannot be described as of imagination all compact, it is only because his observation is still more extraordinary. His art is as consummate as his genius, and save when he wrote or planned in haste, impeccable. Infallibility may equally be predicated of the other two supreme poets of the world, Homer and Dante, but the restriction of their spheres forbids any claim to Shakespeare's distinguishing characteristic of universality. The knowledge, and by consequence the sym pathy, of their periods was narrow in comparison with his he was in contact with a thousand things of which they had no cognisance; while, since Shake Speare's day, human interests and activities have so greatly multiplied that, unless civilisation should retrograde, the occurrence of another universal poet may well be deemed impossible. This overawing vastness of Shakespeare renders it almost impossible to obtain a point of view from which he can be contemplated as a whole. The critic will do best to gradually wind into his subject by a recital of the ordinary, and in Shakespeare's case the obscure, circumstances of ancestry and parentage. 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.