Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction to the age of Chaucer. 2. Realism in 14 and 15 century. 3. English Chaucerians. 4. Elizabethan prose writers. 5. Renaissance and Queen Elizabeth. 6. Beginning of drama. 7. Shakespeare's Comedy. 8. Cavalier and metaphysical poets. 9. Jacobean and the Caroline age. 10. Restoration age. 11. Satire in restoration period. 12. New-classical age. Index.

"Literature is generally subject to the law of evolutionary development. And though a man may do more than others by way of contributing to this development we should be chary of conferring upon him the medal of fatherhood. When it is said that Chaucer is the father of English poetry, and even the father of English Literature we broadly mean that his contribution to the evolution of English poetry or literature is much more significant than that of his contemporaries and predecessors and to be similarly rated is his introduction of so many novel features into it.

Chaucer is one of the greatest humorists in the English language, and, as with most of his few peers in humour, he possesses a simple religious faith and a generous humanity. He likes a laugh at the oddities and also the obscenities of men, but his style seems to rise in quality when he is writing about the nobler side of human nature, so that few poets have made simple goodness and purity of heart so attractive as he. Even the more than seventy times--seven-forgiving patience of Griselda takes on an appealing human quality as we are made to see how it refines and ennobles the devotion of those around her." (jacket)