本书共6章。每章以英国文学史各历史阶段为主线,精选了英国文学中公认的经典作品作为选读材料,每篇选读都配有对该选读材料的简单介绍和文学评论、英语的注释和针对该选读材料进行的提问。每个章节前还附有该文学历史阶段的纲要、文学术语、作家、作品及重要作品的简单扼要的评价。

Chapter I Old and Medieval English Literature
Ⅰ. An Outline of the Literature of This Period
Ⅱ. Beowulf
Ⅲ. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Ⅳ. Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales (Excerpt)
Chapter 2 The Renaissance Period
Ⅰ. An Outline of the Literature of This Period
Ⅱ. Christopher Marlowe
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Ⅲ. William Shakespeare
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Excerpt)
The Merchant of Venice (Excerpt)
Macbeth (Excerpt)
Sonnet 18
Sonnet 29
Ⅳ. Francis Bacon
Of Studies
Ⅴ. Iohn Donne
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
Death, Be Not Proud
Ⅵ. John Milton
Paradise Lost (Excerpt)
On His Blindness
Ⅶ. John Bunyan
The Pilgrim' s Progress (Excerpt)
Chapter 3 The Age of Enlightenment
Ⅰ. An Outline of the Literature of This Period
Ⅱ. Daniel Defoe
Robinson Crusoe (Excerpt)
Moll Flanders (Excerpt)
Ⅲ. Jonathan Swift
Gulliver' s Travels (Excerpt)
A Modest Proposal
Ⅳ. Thomas Gray
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (Excerpt)
Ode on the Spring
Ⅴ. Alexander Pope
An Essay on Criticism (Excerpt)
Ⅵ. Richard Bringsley Sheridan
The School for Scandal (Excerpt)
Ⅶ. Samuel Johnson
Letter to the Right Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield
Chapter 4 The Romantic Period
Ⅰ. An Outline of the Literature of This Period
Ⅱ. William Blake
The Chimney Sweeper
The Chimney Sweeper
The Tyger
Ⅲ. Robert Burns
A Red, Red Rose
My Heart's in the Highlands
Ⅳ. William Wordsworth
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
……
Chapter 5 The Victorian Age
Chapter 6 The Modern Period
References