The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare
CONTENTS.
PAGE
TABLE OF CONTENTS 5
EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 11
INTRODUCTION 23
CHAPTER I.
_BEFORE SHAKESPEARE_ 31
I. Remote origin of the novel--Old historical romances or epics--Beowulf.
The French conquest of England in the eleventh century--The mind and literature of the new-comers--Their romances, their short tales 31
II. Effects of the conquest on the minds of the English inhabitants--Slow awakening of the native writers--Awakening of the clerks, of the translators and imitators--The English inhabitants connected through a literary imposture with Troy and the classical nations of antiquity--Consequences of this imposture.
Chaucer--His lack of influence on later prose novelists--The short prose tales of the French never acclimatized in England before the Renaissance--More's Latin "Utopia" 37
III. Printing--Caxton's _role_--Part allotted to fiction in the list of his books--Morte Darthur.
Development of printing--Mediaeval romances set in type in the sixteenth century 52
CHAPTER II.
_TUDOR TIMES--THE FASHIONS AND THENOVEL_ 69
I. The Renaissance and the awakening of a wider curiosity--Travelling in Italy--Ascham's censures 69
II. Italian invasion of England--Italian books translated, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Tasso, &c.
English collections of short stories imitated from the French or Italian--Separate short stories--Lucrece of Sienna--A "travelling literature" 74
III. Learning--Erasmus' judgment and prophecies--The part played by women--They want books written for themselves--Queen Elizabeth, her talk, her tastes, her dress, her portraits--The "paper work" architecture of the time 87
CHAPTER III.
_LYLY AND HIS "EUPHUES"_ 103
I. "Euphues," a book for women 103
II. "Euphuism," its foreign origin--How embellished and perfected by Lyly--Fanciful natural history of the time--The mediaeval bestiaries--Topsell's scientific works 106
III. The plot of the novel--Moral tendencies of "Euphues"--Lyly's precepts concerning men, women and children 123
IV. Lyly's popularity--Courtly talk of the time--Translations and abbreviations of "Euphues" in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 135
CHAPTER IV.
_LYLY'S LEGATEES_ 145
I. Lyly's influence--His principal heirs and successors, Riche, Dickenson, Melbancke, Munday, Warner, Greene, Lodge, &c. 145
II. Robert Greene's biography--His autobiographical tales--His life and repentance, characteristic of the times 150
III. His love stories and romantic tales--His extraordinary success--His tales of real life--His fame at home and abroad 167
IV. N. Breton, an imitator of Greene--Thomas Lodge, a legatee of Lyly--His life--His "Rosalynd" and other works--His relation to Shakespeare 192
CHAPTER V.
_SIR PHILIP SIDNEY AND PASTORALROMANCE_ 217
Of shepherds.
I. Sidney's life--His travels and friendship with Languet--His court life and love--His death--The end of "Stella" 219
II. Sidney's works--Miscellaneous writings--The "Apologie"--Sidney's appreciation of the poetic and romantic novel.
The "Arcadia," why written--Sidney's various heroes: shepherds, knights, princesses, &c.--Eclogues and battles, fetes, masques and tournaments--Anglo-arcadian architecture, gardens, dresses and furniture.
Sidney's object according to Fulke Greville, and according to himself--His lovers--Youthful love, unlawful love, foolish love, innocent love--Pamela's prayer--The final imbroglio.
Sidney's style as a novel writer--His wit and brightness--His eloquence--His bad taste--His fanciful ornaments 228
III. Sidney's reputation in England--Continuators, imitators, and admirers among dramatists, poets and novelists--Shakespeare, Jonson, Day, Shirley, Quarles--Lady Mary Wroth and her novel--Sidney's reputation in the eighteenth century, Addison, Young, Walpole, Cowper--Chap-books.
In France--He is twice translated, and gives rise to a literary quarrel--Charles Sorel's judgment in the "Berger extravagant," and Du Bartas' praise--Mareschal's drama out of the "Arcadia"--Niceron and Florian 260
CHAPTER VI.
_THOMAS NASH; THE PICARESQUE ANDREALISTIC NOVEL_ 287
I. Merry books as a preservative of health--Sidney's contempt for the comic.
Studies in real life--The picaresque tale; its Spanish origin--Its success in Europe---Lazarillo and Guzman 287
II. Thomas Nash--His birth, education and life--His writings, his temperament--His equal fondness for mirth and for lyrical poetry--His literary theories on art and style--His vocabulary, his style.
His picaresque novel, "Jack Wilton"--Scenes and characters--Observation of nature--Dramatic and melodramatic parts--Historical personages--Nash's troubles on account of "Jack Wilton."
His other works--Scenes of light comedy in them--Portraits of the upstart, of the sectary, &c. 295
III. Nash's successors--H. Chettle--Chettle's combined imitation of Nash, Greene and Sidney.
Dekker--His dramatic and poetical faculty--His prose works--His literary connection with Nash--His pictures of real life--His humour and gaiety--Grobianism--A gallant at the play-house in the time of Shakespeare--Defoe and Swift as distant heirs 327
CHAPTER VII.
_AFTER SHAKESPEARE_ 347
I. Heroical romances--Their origin mainly French--The new heroism _a panache_ on the stage, in epics, in the novel, in real life--The heroic ideal--The Hotel de Rambouillet 347
II. Heroes and heroism _a panache_ migrate to England--Their welcome in spite of the Puritans--Translations of French romances--Use of French engravings--Imitation and appreciation of French manners--Orinda, the Duchess of Newcastle, Dorothy Osborne, Mrs. Pepys 362
III. Original English novels in the heroical style--Roger Boyle, J. Crowne--Heroism on the stage 383
IV. Reaction in France--Sorel, Scarron, Furetiere, &c.--Reaction in England--"Adventures of Covent Garden," "Zelinda," &c. 397
V. Conclusion--The end of the period--Ingelo, Harrington, Mrs. Behn; how she anticipates Rousseau.
Connection between the master-novelists of the eighteenth century and the prentice-novelists of the sixteenth 411
INDEX 419
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