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Representative Poetry Online

Representative Poetry Online, version 3.0, includes 3,162 English poems by 500 poets from Caedmon, in the Old English period, to the work of living poets today. It is based on Representative Poetry, established by Professor W. J. Alexander of University College, University of Toronto, in 1912 (one of the first books published by the University of Toronto Press), and used in the English Department at the University until the late 1960s.

University of Toronto English Library

UTEL (the University of Toronto English Library) is the main undergraduate and graduate site for students and faculty of the Department of English. It was created in 1996 with funds from a grant to Prof. Ian Lancashire from the Provost's Information Technology Courseware Development Fund and with support from the Department of English, chaired by Prof. T. H. Adamowski. The prototype UTEL site was set up on the University of Toronto Library Web server in 1993-94 to make available the Department of English teaching anthology Representative Poetry On-line.

Digital Beowulf

This online Guide is the complete 'Help' facility for the Electronic Beowulf, a set of 2 CD-ROMs published by British Library Publications and the University of Michigan Press. Electronic Beowulf: A Guide The Electronic Beowulf is an image-based edition of Beowulf, the great Old English poem surviving in the British Library in a composite codex known as Cotton Vitellius A. xv.

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes

"Considered the most important work of literary history and criticism ever published, the Cambridge History contains over 303 chapters and 11,000 pages, with essay topics ranging from poetry, fiction, drama and essays to history, theology and political writing. The set encompasses a wide selection of writing on orators, humorists, poets, newspaper columnists, religious leaders, economists, Native Americans, song writers, and even non-English writing, such as Yiddish and Creole."

The Sarah Orne Jewett Text Project

The Sarah Orne Jewett Text Project is an attempt to make all of Jewett's published writings available on the World Wide Web in reliable, annotated editions. —Terry Heller, Coe College Department of English

The English Server

The EServer (founded in 1990 at Carnegie Mellon as the English Server), attempts to provide an alternative niche for quality work, particularly writings in the arts and humanities. Now based at Iowa State University, we offer fifty collections on such diverse topics as art, architecture, race, Internet studies, sexuality, drama, design, multimedia, and current social issues. In addition to short and longer written works, we publish hypertext and streaming audio and video recordings. Our collections grow as increased membership has new works to publish with us, and as we teach new members how to publish works to the Web and to the more than two million readers who visit our site per month. According to Alexa, this makes us the most popular arts and humanities website in the world.

The Rowley Poems by Thomas Chatterton

“Most people know the legend of Thomas Chatterton -- brilliant poet who failed to make a living, starved himself to send expensive presents to his family, and died by his own hand at seventeen -- much better than his poems. Like all legends, it is partial and exaggerated, but was a powerful influence on the Romantic movement and long after. The painting "The Death of Chatterton" by Henry Wallis epitomises this reputation. His fame rests, apart from this almost unbearably romantic life story, on his "Rowley Poems". These he wrote in a sham Middle English dialect, and passed off as the work of Thomas Rowley, a priest of Bristol in the fifteenth century, and some of his friends. The imposture was quickly detected (though some continued to believe in him for many years), but they were published in a collected edition after his death and were popular and much admired by the Romantic poets, especially Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, who dedicated "Endymion" to the memory of Thomas Chatterton.”

Renascence Editions

An Online Repository of Works Printed in English Between the Years 1477 and 1799.
“Renascence Editions is an effort to make available online works printed in English between the years 1477 (when Caxton began printing) and 1799. These texts have been produced with care and attention, but are not represented by the publisher as scholarly editions in the peer-reviewed sense. They are made available to the public for nonprofit purposes only. The publisher and general editor is Richard Bear at the University of Oregon. If you would like to edit a text in this series, send email to the Publisher.”

Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature

Anthology of English Literature: Middle English Literature (1350-1485) | Sixteenth Century Renaissance English Literature (1485-1603) | Early 17th Century English Literature (1603-1660) | English Literature: Restoration and 18th Century (1660-1785)“
In this Work when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed.”
—Samuel Johnson

THE BRAVE OLD OAK

A song to the oak, the brave old oak,
Who hath ruled in the greenwood long;
Here's health and renown to his broad green crown,
And his fifty arms so strong.
There's fear in his frown when the sun goes down,
And the fire in the west fades out;
And he showeth his might on a wild midnight,
When the storms through his branches shout.

Then here's to the oak, the brave old oak,
Who stands in his pride alone;
And still flourish he, a hale green tree,
When a hundred years are gone!
In the days of old, when the spring with cold
Had, brightened his branches gray,
Through the grass at his feet crept maidens sweet,
To gather the dew of May.
And on that day to the rebeck gay
They frolicked with lovesome swains;
They are gone, they are dead, in the churchyard laid,
But the tree it still remains.

He saw the rare times when the Christmas chimes
Were a merry sound to hear,
When the squire's wide hall and the cottage small
Were filled with good English cheer.
Now gold hath sway we all obey,
And a ruthless king is he;
But he never shall send our ancient friend
To be tossed on the stormy sea.
Henry Fothergill Chorley [1808-1872]