The Norton Anthology of English | Preface to the Eighth Edition
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| what is literature in english |
The Norton england Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1 The Middle Ages through the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century
The outpouring of English literature overflows all boundaries, including the capacious boundaries of The Norton Anthology of English Literature.
But these pages manage to contain many of the most remarkable works written in English during centuries of restless creative effort.
We have included epic poems and short lyrics; love songs and satires; tragedies and comedies written for performance on the commercial stage, and private meditations meant to be perused in silence; prayers, popular ballads, prophecies, ecstatic visions, erotic fantasies, sermons, short stories, letters in verse and prose, critical essays, polemical tracts, several entire novels, and a great deal more. Such works generally form the core of courses that are designed to introduce students to English literature, with its history not only of gradual development, continuity, and dense internal echoes but also of sudden change and startling innovation.