Questions About The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1: The Middle Ages through the Restoration & the Eighteenth Century

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Is it just poetry, or does it have stories like Rime of the Ancient Mariner that you'd find in your british literature class?

Robert McTague Well, firstly, "Rime" is a poem. To answer the question more directly, yes, quite a bit more than poetry. It includes two complete Shakespeare plays (…moreWell, firstly, "Rime" is a poem. To answer the question more directly, yes, quite a bit more than poetry. It includes two complete Shakespeare plays (and others), countless essays, and writings such as Swift's Gulliver's Travels. It has excerpts from Boswell's Life of Johnson. But yes, it's heavily poetry for a logical reason--volumes A,B,&C only go to 1800--before the novel and the modern short story really existed. The most important works in these three volumes are Beowulf, Canterbury Tales (partial), More's Utopia, all 12 books of Paradise Lost and lots of others.(less)

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