Literary Criticism Books

I. Insomnia, the lack of "tired Nature's sweet restorer," is rapidly becoming the chronic terror of all men of active life who have passed the age of thirty-five or forty years. In early life, while yet he "wears the rose of youth upon him," man rarely, except in sickness, knows the want of sound, undreaming sleep. But as early manhood is left behind and the cares and perplexities... more...

CAMDEN'S "BRITANNIA" BRITAIN: or a chorographical description of the most flourishingKingdomes, England, Scotland and Ireland, and the Ilands adioyning;out of the depth of Antiquitie: beautified with Mappes of the severallShires of England; Written first in Latine by William Camden,Clarenceux K. of A. Translated newly into English by Philémon Holland.Londini, Impensis Georgii Bishop &... more...

SAINT AUGUSTINE The Confessions of St. Augustine are the first autobiography, and they have this to distinguish them from all other autobiographies, that they are addressed directly to God. Rousseau's unburdening of himself is the last, most effectual manifestation of that nervous, defiant consciousness of other people which haunted him all his life. He felt that all the men and women whom he... more...

LECTURE I INTRODUCTORY WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1916 I In the third book of the "Ethics", and in the second chapter, Aristotle, dealing with certain actions which, though bad in themselves, admit of pity and forgiveness because they were committed involuntarily, through ignorance, instances 'the man who did not know a subject was forbidden, like Aeschylus with the Mysteries,' and... more...

INTRODUCTION The identity of the "Anonymous" of Some Remarks on Hamlet Prince of Denmark has never been established. The tradition that Hanmer wrote the essay had its highly dubious origin in a single unsupported statement by Sir Henry Bunbury, made over one hundred years after the work was written, in his Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, with a Memoir of His Life (London, 1838), to the... more...

The Problem of a Preface A peculiar difficulty arrests the writer of this rough study at the very start. Many people know Mr. Bernard Shaw chiefly as a man who would write a very long preface even to a very short play. And there is truth in the idea; he is indeed a very prefatory sort of person. He always gives the explanation before the incident; but so, for the matter of that, does the Gospel of St.... more...

CHAUCER March 17, 1894. Professor Skeat's Chaucer. After twenty-five years of close toil, Professor Skeat has completed his great edition of Chaucer. It is obviously easier to be dithyrambic than critical in chronicling this event; to which indeed dithyrambs are more appropriate than criticism. For when a man writes Opus vitæ meæ at the conclusion of such a task as this, and so lays down his... more...

CHAPTER I. A PRELIMINARY VIEW. Anglo-Saxon literature is the oldest of the vernacular literatures of modern Europe; and it is a consequence of this that its relations with Latin literature have been the closest. All the vernacular literatures have been influenced by the Latin, but of Anglo-Saxon literature alone can it be said that it has been subjected to no other influence. This literature was nursed... more...

The book here included among The World's Classics made its first appearance as an octavo volume of xxiv + 352 pages, with the title- page: Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, By William Hazlitt. London:Printed by C. H. Reynell, 21 Piccadilly, 1817. William Hazlitt (1778-1830) came of an Irish Protestant stock, and of a branch of it transplanted in the reign of George I from the county of... more...

LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE. Shakespeare, by general suffrage, is the greatest name in literature. There can be no extravagance in saying, that to all who speak the English language his genius has made the world better worth living in, and life a nobler and diviner thing. And even among those who do not "speak the tongue that Shakespeare spake," large numbers are studying the English language mainly... more...