“John Milton has, since his own lifetime, always been one of the major figures in English literature, but his reputation has changed constantly. He has been seen as a political opportunist, an advocate of 'immorality' (he wrote in favour of… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“Milton argued, in 1649, after the execution of Charles I, that a people 'free by nature' had a right to overthrow a tyrant; a… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“Johnson's later life, from 1763, is among the best documented of all literary lives. James Boswell gave himself the enormous task, after Johnson's death… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“SHAKESPEARE What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“THE METAPHYSICAL POETS Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime (Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress) While theatre… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“Two literary figures bridge the gap between the mediaeval age and the Renaissance. They are Sir Thomas Malory, the author of Le Morte D'Arthur,… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“One of the first books of travel, giving European readers some insight into the unfamiliar world of the Orient, was published in 1356-67 in… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“Shakespeare's plays do not present easy solutions. The audience has to decide for itself. King Lear is perhaps the most disturbing in this respect.… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“The language of Shakespeare is the first and lasting affirmation of the great changes that took place in the sixteenth century, leaving the Middle… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“Chaucer's world in The Canterbury Tales brings together, for the first time, a diversity of characters, social levels, attitudes, and ways of life. The… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“The beliefs and behaviour of the Restoration reflect the theories of society put forward by Thomas Hobbes in The Leviathan, which was written in… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“In the humanist world following Erasmus, man is at the centre of the universe. Man becomes largely responsible for his own destiny, behaviour and… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“Few poets better convey the uneasy transition from Victorianism to Modernism than Thomas Hardy. His novels, written between 1870 and 1895, made him not… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“The range and variety of Chaucer's English did much to establish English as a national language. Chaucer also contributed much to the formation of… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“Christian monks and nuns were, in effect, the guardians of culture, as they were virtually the only people who could read and write before… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
“Revolution was the great nightmare of eighteenth-century British society, and when first the American Revolution of 1776, then the French Revolution of 1789 overturned… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
