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London: University of London Press, 1916. 1

<sc>i. tennyson</sc>

Survey of the Romantic Period. Influences upon Tennyson. Temper of his time. His personality. Early verse (1830-1842). Technique. Read: Lady of Shalott, Lotos-Eaters, Mariana, Morte d’Arthur, Ulysses, Locksley Hall, The Two Voices, The Palace of Art

Tennyson’s longer poems. Tennyson’s scientific interests. Politics. Moral teaching. Religious views. Relations with his contemporaries. Read: Maud, In Memoriam, Idylls of the King.

 <sc>ii. browning</sc>

Contrast with Tennyson. His personality. Influences upon him. Early verse. Read: Pauline.

Dramatic qualities of Browning. Characterisation. Range of emotion. His mature technique. Read: Dramatic Lyrics, Dramatic Romances, Dramatis Personae, Men and Women.

Browning’s residence and study in Italy. His thought. Moral ideas. Examination of Sordelloand The Ring and the Book. Read: The Ring and the Book(especially I, V, VI, VII, X).

The dramas. Survey of Browning’s later work. Read: Pippa Passes, A Blot on the ’Scutcheon.

 <sc>iii. elizabeth barrett browning</sc>

Quality of her genius. Marriage and correspondence. Social interests. Read: Rime of the Duchess May, Lady Geraldine’s Courtship, The Lost Bower, The Cry of the Children, The Dead Pan, A Musical Instrument, Sonnets from the Portuguese.

 <sc>iv. carlyle</sc>

Life and personality. Carlyle and Jane Welsh. Carlyle and Froude. Early influences. Study in Germany. Style. Read: Sartor Resartus, John Sterling.

Carlyle as moralist and social reformer. Relation to Chartism. His political views. Read: Chartism, Past and Present, Heroes and Hero Worship.

Carlyle as historian and critic. Historical methods. Comparison with Macaulay. Read: French Revoluton.

 <sc>v. john henry newman</sc>

His temperament, with regard to his change in religious attachment. Relation to the Oxford Movement. Reasons for joining the Church of Rome. His thought. Style. Read: Apologia, Idea of a University.

 <sc>vi. dickens</sc>

Reasons for his greatness. Comparison with earlier novelists and humorists. Development of his work. Plot and situation. Examination of some of his characters. Influence, especially in Russia. Read: Pickwick Papers, David Copperfield, Bleak House.

 <sc>vii. thackeray</sc>

Contrast with Dickens. Education. Influences upon his style. Satire and sentiment. Characterisation. The historical novel. The novel of society. Comparison with other novelists’ handling of similar material. Read: Esmond, Vanity Fair, Pendennis.

Thackeray as critic and essayist. Read: English Humourists, The Four Georges, Roundabout Papers, Poems.

 <sc>viii. george eliot</sc>

Life and personality. Her philosophy of life: moral views. The tragic spirit. Examination of a few of her characters. Eliot, Thackeray, and Dickens as representative of their age. Read: Scenes of Clerical Life, Romola, Mill on the Floss.

 <sc>ix. matthew arnold</sc>

Prose: Survey of literary criticism in England. French influence upon Arnold. Arnold as a guide to taste. Importance of the Essays in Criticism.

Arnold as a moralist. His view of society. Comparison with Carlyle and Emerson. Attitude toward Christianity. Read: Essays in Criticism, Culture and Anarchy.

Poetry: The elegiac spirit. Technique. Quality of emotion. Classical tastes. Restraint. Read: Scholar Gipsy, Rugby Chapel, Dover Beach, Sonnets, Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse, Heine’s Grave, Tristram and Iseult, Empedocles on Etna.

 <sc>x. minor novelists</sc>

Disraeli: Relation of his novels to his political life. Read: Coningsby.

[Thomas Love] Peacock: Satire and wit. Peacock as a precursor of Meredith. Read: Nightmare Abbey, Headlong Hall

Charles Reade: The historical novel. The novel of social reform: Read: Peg Woffington, or The Cloister and the Hearth, It is Never Too Late to Mend.

Trollope: The novel of country society. Compared with Jane Austen. Read: Barchester Towers.

 <sc>xi. the brontës</sc>

Work of the three sisters compared. Comparison with Jane Austen and George Eliot. Read: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Shirley.

 <sc>xii. george borrow</sc>

Unique position of Borrow in literature. His eccentric personality. The novel of gipsy life. His relation to the “picaresque” novel. Unevenness of composition. Read: Lavengro, The Romany Rye, The Bible in Spain.

 <sc>xiii. ruskin</sc>

Life and personality. Ruskin’s work as an art critic. His emphasis upon moral values in art. Survey of art criticism in England. Ruskin's greatness and limitations as a critic. Admiration for the painting of Turner. Read: Stones of Venice, Modern Painters(selections), Lectures...

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