AF 20802 HARVARD 001 10 1902 Ost x 120 THE CENTURY CO. Published, August, 1910 PREFATORY NOTE CENTURY READINGS was compiled to meet the needs of students in the general and comprehensive course in English literature now offered in most American colleges. Since the book is the result of some years of experience with such a course in the University of Wisconsin, the contents may best be explained by reference to the practice of that institution. The course entitled General Survey of English Literature occupies three class periods 4 week. During two of these periods the students meet in small groups, of about twenty persons each, for the intimate discussion of a piece of literature previously assigned for study. At the third meeting, four or five such groups join to attend a lecture treating the relevant period of English literature. Most of the pieces assigned for study are found in CENTURY READINGS. The editors have tried, in general, to provide selections that are complete in themselves. The book undertakes not to supply short passages from all English writers, but rather to offer significant and substantial examples of the work of the more important authors. Plays and novels, however, although several appear among the assignments of the course, are not included in this book, for it is thought that these can be effectively studied only as wholes, and the inclusion of them would have extended the present compilation unduly. The lectures undertake to explain the relation of the particular works studied to the complete achievements of the authors, and to the proper periods of literary history. This undertaking is made possible through each student's having before him in the lecture-room the STUDENTS' HANDBOOK OF THE FACTS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, issued by the same publishers, a brief manual containing merely the unembellished facts of literary history and biography arranged in tabular form. These tables serve the double purpose of conveying names and dates in an accurate and orderly form, and of leaving the lecturer free for his proper function of literary and historical interpretation. No effort has been spared to secure the accuracy of the texts presented. Unless there were cogent reasons for preserving the original spelling and punctuation, modern usage has been followed. Omissions are indicated by asterisks; changes or insertions, by square brackets. Only the author's original notes are given at the foot of the page. The editors are indebted to numerous predecessors for help both in determining the various texts and in elucidating them. They wish particularly to acknowledge their obligations to the Houghton Mifflin Company and Professor R. E. N. Dodge for permission to use the latter's Cambridge edition of Spenser. Thanks are offered also to other colleagues for kindly interest in the undertaking and for assistance in proofreading. P* |