Characteristics of English Poets from Chaucer to Shirley |
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Page 9
... passage in the Book of the Duchess ' that seems to have staggered belief in an otherwise plain fact . Chaucer opens that poem with an account of a restlessness and sleeplessness that has tormented him of late , and goes on to say that ...
... passage in the Book of the Duchess ' that seems to have staggered belief in an otherwise plain fact . Chaucer opens that poem with an account of a restlessness and sleeplessness that has tormented him of late , and goes on to say that ...
Page 10
... passage so uncertain must not stand in the way of the documen- tary evidence of the poet's marriage . What was the personal appearance of this soldier , scholar , courtier , poet , man of business , and successful wooer of a queen's ...
... passage so uncertain must not stand in the way of the documen- tary evidence of the poet's marriage . What was the personal appearance of this soldier , scholar , courtier , poet , man of business , and successful wooer of a queen's ...
Page 17
... passages as the elaborate self - disclosure of Januarius , when he consults with his friends about the expediency of marrying , or the imprudent candour of the Pardoner , or the talk between Chanticleer and Pertelot in the tale of the ...
... passages as the elaborate self - disclosure of Januarius , when he consults with his friends about the expediency of marrying , or the imprudent candour of the Pardoner , or the talk between Chanticleer and Pertelot in the tale of the ...
Page 33
... passages that would doubtless have seemed tame and commonplace to them , strike us with all the freshness of reawakened nature , or with the strange interest of things exhumed after long ages of burial . We cannot recover , with any ...
... passages that would doubtless have seemed tame and commonplace to them , strike us with all the freshness of reawakened nature , or with the strange interest of things exhumed after long ages of burial . We cannot recover , with any ...
Page 34
... passage with obsolete words in it does not move us as it moved contemporary readers . What may have been the effect ... passages is to make them sweeter and simpler by making them more childlike . Such lines as— or " The newë green , of ...
... passage with obsolete words in it does not move us as it moved contemporary readers . What may have been the effect ... passages is to make them sweeter and simpler by making them more childlike . Such lines as— or " The newë green , of ...
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Common terms and phrases
admiration Æneid beauty blank verse Canterbury Canterbury Tales century character Chaucer colour comedy Court of Love death delight doth drama dramatist Elizabethan English expression eyes Faery Queen fair fancy favour feeling flowers French genius gentle Gorboduc Gower Greene Hamlet hath heart heaven Henry hero Hero and Leander honour humour imagination imitation Italian Jean de Meun Jonson King Knight's Tale knights lady language less lines lived look lovers ludicrous Lydgate Marlowe merry Mirror for Magistrates moral nature never Parliament of Birds passage passion Pembroke personages plays poem poet poet's poetical poetry praise probably revenge rhymes Richard Richard II romance rose satire seems sentiment Shakespeare shepherds sing song sonnets soul Spenser spirit stage stanza Stratford supposed Surrey Surrey's sweet tale Tamburlaine tears tender thee things thou tion tragedy translation Troilus Trouvères unto Venus verse wanton words write written wrote Wyatt youth
Popular passages
Page 277 - Coral is far more red than her lips' red: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound...
Page 365 - Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day; And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale! Light thickens; and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood: Good things of day begin to droop and drowse; Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse.
Page 279 - Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime ; So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
Page 283 - The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutor'd lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours.
Page 390 - Be not afeard ; the isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears ; and sometime voices, That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep, Will make me sleep again : and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me ; that, when I wak'd, I cried to dream again.
Page 356 - I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was (indeed) honest, and of an open and free nature...
Page 366 - O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention ! A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene...
Page 380 - Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not let me sleep; methought I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes.
Page 304 - Forsake thy king, and do but join with me, And we will triumph over all the world : I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains, And with my hand turn Fortune's wheel about; And sooner shall the sun fall from his sphere Than Tamburlaine be slain or overcome.
Page 392 - Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me : the brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is invented on me : I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.