The History Of English Literature: Into The 18th Century; The History Of English Literature: Into The 1980's

This two-tape overview of the history of English Literature is notable both for the breadth of its coverage, and for the outstanding interpretations by six young actors/students. Vol. 1 begins with an introduction to Beowulf, and other Anglo-Saxon poets; touches upon Malory's Morte D'Arthur and samples the morality plays; does selections from Chaucer, Sir Thomas More, the Elizabethan sonneteers; covers the rise of the English drama in Marlowe and Shakespeare; the metaphysical poets, such as John Donne; the supreme religious poem: Milton's Paradise Lost, and one of the great political poets: John Dryden. Vol. 1 closes with the rise of the novel as seen in the works of Defoe and Richardson. Vol. 2 opens with one of the language's most enduring curmudgeons--Samuel Johnson (but strangely omits mention of his indefatigable [in many senses] biographer, James Boswell); gives a generous selection of the romantic poets: Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Coleridge (omitting Byron); dips into the novels of two of the greatest novelists to have ever written: Jane Austen and Emily Bronte (even though her fame rests on one novel); rounds out the Victorian period with the works of Dickens, Tennyson, Eliot, and Wilde (omitting Matthew Arnold, Lewis Carroll, and Rudyard Kipling; and closes with the moderns: Hardy, Conrad, Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, Beckett, Pinter, Hughes, among others. Throughout both programs, the young actors bridge the works with significant historical, cultural, religious, and political events which affected the literature. A few omissions aside--likely, in a survey, in any case--this is an excellent introduction to gems of the language from Britain. A transcript of the text, and sample study questions, are included with each tape. Highly recommended for school and larger public libraries. (Available from: EAV Inc., Pleasantville, NY 10570.)