Lighter English Prose [antikvár]

This is a book of Lighter English Prose. The object of the compilers has been to show in chronological order English literature in its lighter moments. Their choice has not always been exercised on the farcical or the laughter-provoking, for humour likes to don grave attire at times, and the wit which most readily brings a smile to the lips is not necessarily the most durable nor the most capable of revealing human character. It is a common saying that nothing is more localised in time or space than a joke. This is true of the more ephemeral types of humour, but, on the other hand, one of the reasons of the greatness of a Shakespeare or a Cervantes is that each has sought in the very essential elements of human nature the stuff of which their humour is made. The freshness of a satire directed against the fashions of an age must pass with those fashions. But certain aspects of human nature persist through the ages, and it is by these that great humour exists. It has not been possible to represent every epoch of English literature in this book. Some of its phases are too discordant with modern tendencies and feelings. After the great Elizabethans, came the repressive atmosphere of Puritanism, and after the Puritans the reaction of the Restoration. Not until Addison was the great current of noble English 5