Course In English Masterpieces

Author : Alfred H. Welsh
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781539066705
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (667 download)

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Download or read book English Masterpiece Course written by Alfred H. Welsh and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-09-24 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the PREFACE. This work, while not requiring an acquaintance with such, may be regarded as supplemental to all those whose business is a generalization of the whole body of our literature. From that wide and populous region it selects for systematic study on the seminary plan (involving a careful perusal of the masterpiece selected, the consultation of printed authorities, and an essay-statement of results, followed, in the class-room, by a written critique and an oral discussion of the paper presented) the leading productions of those who have been most prominent in the successive eras of our literary history. It will be seen that the division into periods according to their predominant features is essentially that of the author's ' Development of English Literature and Language.' Each period is prefaced by references designed to reveal the connection between the literature and the temper of the times acting and reacting on each other, and to show especially a writer's inspirations in their relation to dominant events, opinions, and passions. Each writer is introduced by a schedule relating to his individual position, his characteristics as an author and a man. The compilations on his representative writing or writings are disposed under the heads of ' Criticism' and (in the instances of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare) 'Sources.' The sources of information will be found to be suggestively as well as directly helpful, to set forth dissenting as well as concordant views, each discussing the subject from its own standpoint, supplying what another omits, or correcting what another understates or overstates, and thus leading, through an enforced comparison and discrimination, to an intelligent familiarity with the use of books. It has been sought to make the lists as full as practicable, not because it is deemed necessary or advisable to read all the authorities cited, but to comprise with approximate certainty a sufficient number of available references for those who may live at a distance from large public libraries. The subjects of investigation, it is believed, are eminently fitted not only to insure the requisite acquaintance with literature, whether historically in tracing its development or critically in analyzing its phenomena, but to promote the ends of liberal education, - spherical training and growth, the command and employment of the faculties in general. They comprehend in the choicest forms of expression all the great departments of study, practical and speculative, - the Essay, the Drama, the Novel, Criticism, History, Poetry, Oratory, Science, Theology; all the great interests of human life and culture, - taste and imagination, conscience and duty, virtue and God, the present worth and the future destiny of man....