1362. Trials at law in the King's Courts directed by the statute of 36 Edward III. to be conducted no longer in French but in English; Victory of the native tongue in its new composite form over its foreign rival, and recovery of its old position as the literary language of the country, under the impulse of the war with France, and of the genius of Minot, Langland, and Chaucer; 1455. Outbreak of the desolating War of the Roses, and complete extinction for a time of the light of literature in England; 1558. Accession of Elizabeth; Commencement of a new literary era, with the native language in sole dominion; 1660. Restoration of the Stuarts; Noonday of the Gallican age of English literature; 1760. Accession of George III.; Complete association in the national literature of Scottish and Irish writers with those of England. The English Language Original English (commonly called Saxon, or Anglo-Saxon) The Norman Conquest Arabic and other New Learning 12 16 20 24 29 Schools and Universities 34 Rise of the Scholastic Philosophy 39 Classical Learning; Mathematics; Medicine; Law; Books 41 The Latin Language Latin Chroniclers Last Age of the French Language in England Re-emergence of the English as a Literary Tongue 82 Second English (commonly called Semi-Saxon) 85 The Brut of Layamon 89 The Ormulum 95 THIRD ENGLISH (Mixed or Compound English) Geoffrey Chaucer John Gower John Barbour Compound English Prose: Sir John Mandevil; Trevisa; Wiclif; Chaucer Printing in England :-Caxton English Chroniclers Bishop Pecock; Fortescue; Malory Scottish Poets:-Wynton; James I.; Henryson; Holland Prose Writers:-More; Elyot; Tyndal; Cranmer; Latimer Scottish Prose Writers English Poets :-Hawes; Barklay Skelton Roy; John Heywood Scottish Poets:-Gawin Douglas; Dunbar; Lyndsay The Elizabethan Literature The Mirror for Magistrates Origin of the Regular Drama Interludes of John Heywood Udall's Ralph Roister Doister Misogonus Chronicle Histories :-Bale's Kynge Johan, etc. Tragedy of Gorboduc:—Blank Verse Other Early Dramas. Second Stage of the Regular Drama :—Peele; Greene PAGE 121 121 155 157 164 167 Earlier Elizabethan Prose:-Lyly; Sidney; Spenser; Nash; etc. 219 Marlow 224 237 238 Theological Writers :-Bishop Andrews; Donne; Hall; Hooker 274 Francis Bacon Other Religious Poets:-Quarles; Herbert; Herrick; Crashaw 283 284 Poets of the French School:-Carew; Lovelace; Suckling Denham Cleveland William Browne Prose Writers :-Charles I. Milton's Prose Works. Hales; Chillingworth Jeremy Taylor 286 288 289 290 296 297 299 301 302 Other Prose Writers :-Cudworth; More; Barrow; Bunyan; &c. 337 |