Five Poems 1470-1870: An Elementary Essay On The Background Of English Literature
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good to fair. Jacket: worn/faded, chipping and tears but still structural (refer to image). Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
Few scholars have possessed the range and acuity to trace the arc of English literary history across four centuries with the clarity of E. M. W. Tillyard, and Five Poems 1470-1870 stands as a testament to that rare gift. This elegant critical study presents a sequence of five landmark poems — spanning from the late medieval period through to the Victorian age — as a framework for understanding the shifting cultural and intellectual backgrounds that shaped English literature at each pivotal moment. Tillyard, Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, argues with characteristic precision and economy that individual poems are not isolated achievements but products of vast, often invisible, historical and philosophical forces. His style is measured and authoritative, drawing the reader into a world where literary criticism becomes a form of cultural archaeology. Written as an accessible essay rather than a dense academic treatise, the work bridges the scholarly and the general reader — leaving one to wonder which five poems Tillyard deemed worthy of carrying the entire weight of English literary tradition.
Author: E. M. W. Tillyard
Format: Hardback
Published: 1948, Chatto & Windus
Genre: Literary theory
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good to fair. Jacket: worn/faded, chipping and tears but still structural (refer to image). Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
Few scholars have possessed the range and acuity to trace the arc of English literary history across four centuries with the clarity of E. M. W. Tillyard, and Five Poems 1470-1870 stands as a testament to that rare gift. This elegant critical study presents a sequence of five landmark poems — spanning from the late medieval period through to the Victorian age — as a framework for understanding the shifting cultural and intellectual backgrounds that shaped English literature at each pivotal moment. Tillyard, Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, argues with characteristic precision and economy that individual poems are not isolated achievements but products of vast, often invisible, historical and philosophical forces. His style is measured and authoritative, drawing the reader into a world where literary criticism becomes a form of cultural archaeology. Written as an accessible essay rather than a dense academic treatise, the work bridges the scholarly and the general reader — leaving one to wonder which five poems Tillyard deemed worthy of carrying the entire weight of English literary tradition.