Anthology in English Literature I. [antikvár]

THE EDITORS' PREFACE When we decided to compile the present anthology we were mainly driven by the intent to provide the students attending the courses in early and early modem English literature with some necessary texts. The first of the two survey courses in the history of English literature at Veszprém University embraces nearly a thousand years that is, the periods stretching between Old English times and the Restoration. The objective behind the selection of the texts on the one hand was to give an ample cross-section of the literature of England in the appointed ages, on the other to concentrate on such works that may expressly represent and reflect the spirit of the times in which they were produced. The reason why we did not include any of Shakespeare's dramas in our collection is that several editions of his plays are accessible in the libraries. The first volume of the anthology comprises a selection of early and later medieval as well as renaissance works. Readers can always find lyric works first in the various chapters, these are followed by epic and dramatic texts. The second volume opens with a later renaissance tragedy and a comedy, it also presents a selection of baroque lyric and epic poetry and closes with a famous lyric poem and two comedies from the period of the Restoration. When making the necessary annotations we chiefly relied on such acknowledged sources as The Oxford History of English Literature Vol.1 (general editors: Frank Kermode and John Hollander), Kevin Crossley-Holland's translations of Anglo-Saxon poems in The Anglo-Saxon World, the Penguin Classics of Medieval Verse (Brian Stones' translation). Sixteenth Century Poetry (selected by Paul Driver) and Milton's Paradise Lost (edited by Christopher Ricks), The Penguin Popular Classics' selection of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, Arthur F. Kinney's edition of Renaissance Drama, Irby B. Cauthen Jr.'s edition of Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville's Gorhoduc, The Arden edition of Shakespeare's sonnets, Six Renaissance Tragedies in Colin Gibson's edition, Ben Jonson's Five Plays in G.A. Wick's edition and Scott McMillin's edition of Restoration and Eighteenth Century Comedy. The proper references are indicated in the footnotes. The text of the medieval dramas, that of Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, Udall's Ralph Roister Doister, Jonson's Every Man in His Humour, Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling and Wycherly's The Country Wife were downloaded from the electronic libraries of the Internet; in these cases the anthologies mentioned above served as basis for the modernisation of the language of the texts. As concerns the explanation of old and middle English words our job was helped considerably by Sándor Rot's A Concise Dictionary of Early English. We hope that we have managed to put together an anthology students of English will find useful in their studies. Éva Bús Zsuzsanna Rednik