A History of English Literature [antikvár]

PREFACE In submitting a new revision of A History of English Literature to the public, I feel that I should quote parts of the prefaces to earlier editions, which express the attitude of the authors toward the teaching of literature. In this preface to the first edition we wrote: ''An attempt has here been made to present the history of English literature from the earliest times to our own day, in a historical scheme simple enough to be apprehended by young students, yet accurate and substantial enough to serve as a permanent basis for study, however far the subject is pursued. But within the limits of this formal scheme, the fact has been held constantly in mind that literature, being the vital and fluid thing it is, must be taught, if at all, more by suggestion and by stimulation of the student's own instinctive mental life, than by dogmatic assertion. More than any other branch of study, literature demands on the part of the teacher an attitude of respect toward the intelligence of the student; and if at any point the authors of this book may seem to have taken too much alertness of mind for granted, their defence must be that only by challenge and invitation can any permanent result in the way of intellectual growth be accomplished. The historian of English literature deals with the most fascinating of stories, the story of the imaginative career of a gifted race; he is in duty bound not to cheapen or to duU his theme, but, so far as in him lies, to give those whom he addresses a realizing sense of the magnitude of our common heritage in letters. To do this, he must work in the literary spirit, and with freedom of appeal to all the latent capabilities of his reader's mind."