ated with Spenser are the minor poets, Thomas
Sackville, Michael Drayton, George Chapman, and Philip Sidney. Chapman is
noted for his completion of Marlowe's poem, _Hero and Leander_, and for his
translation of Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. Sidney, besides his poetry,
wrote his prose romance _Arcadia_, and _The Defense of Poesie_, one of our
earliest critical essays.

(2) The Rise of the Drama in England; the Miracle plays, Moralities, and
Interludes; our first play, "Ralph Royster Doyster"; the first true English
comedy, "Gammer Gurton's Needle," and the first tragedy, "Gorboduc"; the
conflict between classic and native ideals in the English drama.

(3) Shakespeare's Predecessors, Lyly, Kyd, Nash, Peele, Greene, Marlowe;
the types of drama with which they experimented,--the Marlowesque, one-man
type, or tragedy of passion, the popular Chronicle plays, the Domestic
drama, the Court or Lylian comedy, Romantic comedy and tragedy, Classical
plays, and the Melodrama. Marlowe is the greatest of Shakespeare's
predecessors. His four plays are "Tamburlaine," "Faustus," "The Jew of
Malta," and "Edward II."

(4) Shakespeare, his life, work, and influence.

(5) Shakespeare's Successors, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster,
Middleton, Heywood, Dekker; and the rapid decline of the drama. Ben Jonson
is the greatest of this group. His chief comedies are "Every Man in His
Humour," "The Silent Woman," and "The Alchemist"; his two extant tragedies
are "Sejanus" and "Catiline."

(6) The Prose Writers, of whom Bacon is the most notable. His chief
philosophical work is the _Instauratio Magna_ (incomplete), which includes
"The Advancement of Learning" and the "Novum Organum"; but he is known to
literary readers by his famous _Essays_. Minor prose writers are Richard
Hooker, John Foxe, the historians Camden and Knox, the editors Hakluyt and
Purchas, who gave us the stirring records of exploration, and Thomas North,
the translator of Plutarch's _Lives_.

SELECTIONS FOR READING. _Spenser_. Faery Queen, selections in Standard
English Classics; Bk. I, in Riverside Literature Series, etc.; Shepherd's
Calendar, in Cassell's National Library; Selected Poems, in Canterbury
Poets Series; Minor Poems, in Temple Classics; Selections in Manly's
English Poetry, or Ward's English Poets.

_Minor Poets_. Drayton, Sackville, Sidney, Chapman, Selections in Manly or
Ward; Elizabethan songs, in Schelling's Elizabethan Lyrics, and in
Palgrave's Gol