Part Ⅰ Old and Middle English Periods （450-1485）
Chapter 1 Old English Period and Beowulf
Ⅰ.Old English Period
Ⅱ. Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem Beowulf
Chapter 2 Middle English Period and Chaucer
Ⅰ.Middle English Period
Ⅱ. Geoffrey Chaucer

Part Ⅱ English Renaissance and Shakespeare （1485-1616）
Chapter 3 The English Renaissance Literature
Ⅰ.Introduction of the Period
Ⅱ. Ten Renaissance Writers
Chapter4 William Shakespeare
Ⅰ.Shakespeare's Life and Achievements
I1. Discussions of Shakespeare's Major Works

Part Ⅲ The Seventeenth Century （1616-1688）
Chapter 5 The Bourgeois Revolution and Milton
Ⅰ.Background Knowledge
Ⅱ. John Milton
Chapter 6 The Metaphysical Poets and the Restoration Drama
Ⅰ.The Metaphysical Poets
Ⅱ. The Restoration Drama
Chapter 7 Dryden and Bunyan
Ⅰ.John Dryden
Ⅱ. John Bunyan

Part Ⅳ The Eighteenth Century （1688-1780）
Chapter 8 The Age of Classicism
Ⅰ.Background Knowledge of the First Half of the Eighteenth Century
Ⅱ. Discussions of the Chief Representatives
Chapter 9 The Rise of the Novel
Ⅰ.Background Knowledge About the Rise of the Novel in England
Ⅱ. Discussions of the Major Novelists
Chapter 10 The Pre-Romantic Literature
Ⅰ.Background Knowledge About the Literature at the Turn of the Century
Ⅱ. Pre-RomanticPoetry
Ⅲ. The Gothic Novel

Part Ⅴ The Romantic Period （1780-1830）
Chapter 11 Wordsworth and Coleridge
Ⅰ.Background Knowledge
Ⅱ. The Romantic Sage, William Wordsworth
Ⅲ. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Poet and Critic
Chapter 12 Byron, Shelley and Keats
Ⅰ. George Gordon Byron and the Byronic Hero
Ⅱ. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Poet and Utopian Socialist
Ⅲ. John Keats, the Poet of Beauty
Chapter 13 Walter Scott and Jane Austen
Ⅰ. Walter Scott, Romantic Writer of Historical Themes
Ⅱ. Jane Austen, Novelist of Social Manners

Part Ⅵ The Victorian Literature （1830-1880）
Chapter 14 The Victorian Age
Ⅰ. Background Knowledge
Ⅱ. Major Literary Achievements
Chapter 15 Victorian Novelists
Ⅰ. Charles Dickens
Ⅱ. William Makepeace Thackeray
Ⅲ. Charlotte and Emily Bronte
Ⅳ. George Eliot
Chapter 16 Victorian Poets
Ⅰ.Alfred Tennyson
Ⅱ. Robert Browning
Ⅲ. Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Ⅳ. Matthew Arnold as a Poet
Chapter 17 Victorian Prose Writers
Ⅰ.Thomas Carlyle
Ⅱ. Thomas Macaulay
Ⅲ. John Stuart Mill
Ⅳ. John Ruskin
Ⅴ. Matthew Arnold

Part Ⅶ Fin de siecle and Modernist Literature （1880-1930）
Chapter 18 Fin de siec/e
Ⅰ.Historical Background
Ⅱ. Intellectual Background
Chapter 19 Later Victorian to the First World War
Ⅰ. Fin de siecle Aestheticism
Ⅱ. Late Victorian Poetry
Ⅲ. Novels of This Period
Ⅵ. Drama of This Period
Ⅴ. Other Writers of This Period
Chapter 20 Modernist Literature
Ⅰ. Background Knowledge
Ⅱ. Modernist Novel and Novelists
Ⅲ. Modernist Poetry
Chapter 21 Non-Modernists Between the Wars
Ⅰ. Reflections on War and History
Ⅱ. Writers Between the Wars
Ⅲ. The Rise of Academic English Studies

Part Ⅷ Mid-Twentieth Century （1930-1990）
Chapter 22 The Second World War
Chapter 23 Literature of the Second World War
Ⅰ. Surrealism
Ⅱ. War Poets
Ⅲ. Other Writers of This Period
Chapter 24 Postwar Literature
Ⅰ.Novels of This Period
Ⅱ. Drama of This Period
Ⅲ. Poetry of This Period
Chapter 25 Towards the New Century
Self Test
References
Chronology
Glossary of Literary Terms
Key to the Quizes and Self Test
Index of British Writers