This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com.
Editorial note: Project Gutenberg has a later version of this work, which is titled Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI: Renaissance and Reformation. See E-Book#10532, https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/5/3/10532/10532.txt, https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/5/3/10532/10532.zip https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/5/3/10532/10532-8.txt https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/5/3/10532/10532-8.zip https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/5/3/10532/10532/10532-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/5/3/10532/10532-h.zip The numbering of volumes in the earlier set reflected the order in which the lectures were given. In the later version, volumes were numbered to put the subjects in historical sequence.
Beacon Lights of History
by John Lord, LL.D.
The antiquity of Poetry
The greatness of Poets
Their influence on Civilization
The true poet one of the rarest of men
The pre-eminence of Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Goethe
Characteristics of Dante
His precocity
His moral wisdom and great attainments
His terrible scorn and his isolation
State of society when Dante was born
His banishment
Guelphs and Ghibellines
Dante stimulated to his great task by an absorbing sentiment
Beatrice
Dante's passion for Beatrice analyzed
The worship of ideal qualities the foundation of lofty love
The mystery of love
Its exalted realism
Dedication of Dante's life-labors to the departed Beatrice
The Divine Comedy; a study
The Inferno; its graphic pictures
Its connection with the ideas of the Middle Ages
The physical hell of Dante in its connection with the Mediaeval
doctrine of Retribution
The Purgatorio; its moral wisdom
Origin of the doctrine of Purgatory
Its consolation amid the speculations of despair
The Paradiso
Its discussion of grand themes
The Divina Commedia makes an epoch in civilization
Dante's life an epic
His exalted character
His posthumous influence
The characteristics of the fourteenth century
Its great events and characters
State of society in England when Chaucer arose
His early life
His intimacy with John of Gaunt, the great Duke of Lancaster
His prosperity
His poetry
The Canterbury Tales
Their fidelity to Nature and to English life
Connection of his poetry with the formation of the English Language
The Pilgrims of the Canterbury Tales
Chaucer's views of women and of love
His description of popular sports and amusements
The preponderance of country life in the fourteenth century
Chaucer's description of popular superstitions
Of ecclesiastical abuses
His emancipation from the ideas of the Middle Ages
Peculiarities of his poetry
Chaucer's private life
The respect in which he was held
Influence of his poetry