This textbook,cornposed of two volumes, is intended for theteaching of English literature to both English and non-English ma-jors in higher educational institutions as well as for those who LearnEnglish in their spare time and whose English has reached such alevel that guidance for further study seems necessary.

Chapter One The Anglo-Saxon period(450-1066)
1.Historical background
2.Northumbrian School and Wessex literature
3.Anglo-Saxon poetry
Beowulf
Chapter Two The Norman Period(1066-1350)
1.Historical backgroung
2.Middle English
3.Religious Literature
4.Romance and the in fluence of French of French literature Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Chapter Three The age of Chaucer(1350-1400)
Historical background
Geoffrey Chaucer(ca.1340?-1400)
The Canterbury Tales
Chapter Four The Fifteenth Century(1400-1550)
1.Historical background
2.Popular ballads
3.Sir Thomas Malory(ca.1405-1471)
4.Early English plays
The Popular Ballads
The Three Ravens
Sir Patrick Spens
Robin Hood and the Three Squires
Chapter Five The English Renaissance(1550-1642)
1.Historical background
2.The enclosure movement
3.Humanism
Edmund Spenser(1522?-1599)
The Faerie Queene
4.the flourishing of drama
Christopher Marlowe(1564-1593)
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
William Shakespeare(1564-1593)
Sonnets
Sonnets 18
Sonnets 19
Sonnets 66
Romeo and Juliet
The Merchant of Venice
Julius Caesar
Hamlet
Chapter Six The Seventeenth Century(1603-1688)
Chapter Seven The Eighteenth Century(1688-1798)