History of English Literature Volume 2 (of 3)

The volume traces English literary development from the Christian Renaissance through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, examining how religious upheaval, social manners, and political change shaped styles and genres. It analyzes Luther and the Reformation's moral reactions, outlines Anglican and Puritan currents, and studies figures such as Bunyan and Milton in life and literary method. It then treats the Restoration and the emergence of classic tastes, surveying courtly satire, theatre, and writers like Dryden, and considers the moral and intellectual effects of the Revolution. Finally it profiles essayists, satirists, and novelists — Addison, Swift, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, Goldsmith, Johnson — and discusses evolving prose, drama, and the novel's rise.