From Chaucer to Tennyson.

To follow English literature from Chaucer to Tennyson is to watch a language and its writers grow from medieval springtime to Victorian fullness. This survey sets out to guide the reader along that long and rewarding road.

What it's about

From Chaucer to Tennyson offers a compact history of English literature, moving from the age of Chaucer through the Renaissance, the era of Shakespeare and Milton, the eighteenth century, and on to the Romantic and Victorian poets. It introduces the principal authors and their works, sketches the movements and periods that shaped them, and provides the reader with a connected sense of how the tradition developed over five centuries.

Themes

The book traces continuity and change across the long arc of English writing, showing how each age built upon and reacted against the last. It is animated by a belief in the value of the literary heritage and a desire to make that heritage accessible, offering context and judgement rather than mere lists of names and dates.

Why it still matters

A good literary survey remains one of the best ways to gain a map of a vast subject before venturing deeper into it. As an introduction to the sweep of English literature, this book gives the general reader and the student alike a framework on which to hang a lifetime's reading.

Who it's for

For students beginning the study of English literature, for readers who want an orderly overview of its great names, and for anyone wishing to see the whole tradition whole before exploring its parts.