Literature, the Humanities, and Humanity
The author does not claim the book is comprehensive, and in fact he draws attention to the limits of its chapter topics. The book is comprehensive in the sense that it marshals many reasons to study literature, but the author chooses to focus on a few favorite works to illustrate those reasons. There is evidence that the author's knowledge of the field is comprehensive, but the book itself encourages readers to make their own efforts to garner comprehensive knowledge of English literature.
The author is direct and clear about his biases toward certain periods, genres, and authors, and justifies those biases. There are several typos in the book, some of them problematic. I found the plot summaries and analyses to be accurate and error-free. You might want to be a little kinder to shepherds on page 67 (Shakespeare's Corin is actually a very wise man). You might want to give bibliomancy a name on page 68.
The author discusses several canonical works that we will continue to teach for several hundred years, but his anecdotes and analogies will become obsolete more quickly. The dated material will be easy to identify and replace; the surveys of critical responses to the works can be easily supplemented as new critical studies become available.
The text seems aimed at advanced placement high school students, college students who are not majoring in English but are taking a literature class, and adult learners who would like to know more about English literature. This audience will have no trouble understanding the author's clear and logical prose. Definitions are deftly and consistently offered, and there is no lit-crit jargon used.
The book's purpose is clear from the introduction forward, and the author's argument about the value of literature develops clearly and logically with each chapter. There is a consistent habit of using well-chosen examples, and a sensible and repeated structure in each chapter, making it possible for students to read the chapters over the course of the semester without losing sight of the pattern.
The chapters can easily be read individually and in any order, but there is a welcome tendency to recall earlier chapters in brief, relevant ways.
The works are organized chronologically, and the author draws attention to artistic and technical developments that demonstrate how the later works evolve from the earlier ones.
No noticeable distractions. The layout, in fact, is quite nicely done.
There are errors, although they seem inadvertent. On page 20, in line 11 of the quoted poem, "wen" should be "went." On page 82, the number of Shakespeare's sonnets is incorrect: it's 154. On page 84, ste-dame should be step-dame, and three-no should be three-note. There is a lay/lie error on page 95. On page 119, beards should not be capitalized. On page 131, elast should be least. One page 132, I'the storm should be i' the storm (lower case i). The opening sentence of Chapter 6 should end with a question mark. On page 150 in the last paragraph, I think "to" should be "too," but I may be misreading the sentence. On page 157, appear should be appeal. On page 193, paragraph 2, should "there" be "these"? In the chapter on _Middlemarch_, George Eliot's real name should be spelled correctly throughout: it's Mary Ann Evans. On page 224, the title of _The Iliad_ is inconsistently italicized.
This book is of relevance to students of the humanities. It covers a period of western history when most writers were male and white, but the author takes the time to explain why this is so and to offer ways in to these poems, plays, and novels for all readers.
The anecdotes become a bit wearing by the middle of the text. The analogies are good, and the gentle, positive tone will reassure readers who are new to literature. The frequent demonstrations of how to do a close reading provide a valuable model for readers, and the thoughtful efforts to link the works through cross-references make the book a coherent study. The conversational tone and the author's obvious love of the material make this an accessible, readable text for non-specialist audiences.