本书分上、下两册，由7个部分组成，共44单元。每一部分首先介绍了学习要点和背景知识，然后是分单元讲解的作家作品。学习要点由关键词组成，放在各部分前面，明确教学目标，提示学习重点，在正文中出现时都以黑体标记。这也有利于在学习中加深印象，以及对相关参考书目的选择。背景知识主要介绍与作家作品相关的文学思潮，及其生成的社会、历史、文化背景，以及不同文学体裁的转换原因和新特点，还有对代表性作家作品的概述。

每一单元(1—3单位除外)以作家为标题，主要内容是作家介绍与作品选读，以及注释、评论要点、问题思考、课堂活动和作家名言等。

本书是供高等学校英语专业学生使用的英国文学教材，涵盖了从Anglo-Saxon时期到20世纪的主要作家作品。全书分上、下两册，共44个单元，可供一个学年使用。本书具有以下特点：

在介绍作家和文学作品的同时，巧妙地融合了文学史的内容，体系更完整。

将文学批评方法和理论热点融入到每一单元，帮助学生提高文学欣赏和文学批评水平。

每单元设有课后问答题，便于学生更好地理解内容，也有助于学生准备英语专业研究生入学考试。

每单元后的课堂活动可激发学生的学习积极性，活跃课堂气氛。

Part I The Middle Ages (to ca. 1485)

Unit 1 Beowulf

Background Knowledge: The Anglo-Saxon Period (450=1066)

  Beowulf

  Beowulf's Fight with Grendel

  Beowulf's Funeral

Unit 2 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Background Knowledge: The Norman Period (I066-1350)

  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

  Part I

Unit 3 Ballads

Background Knowledge: The 15th Century ( 1400-1485)

  Sir Patrick Spens

  Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires

Unit 4 Geoffrey Chaucer (ca.1343-1400)

  The Canterbury Tales

  The General Prologue

Part II The Sixteenth Century

  (1485-1603)

Unit 5 Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)

  The Faerie Queene

  Book I Canto IV

Unit 6 Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

  The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

  Prologue

  Act I Scene I

  Scene II

  Scene III

Unit 7 William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

  Sonnet 18

  Sonnet 29

  Sonnet 66

  Romeo and Juliet

  Act II Scene II

  Julius Caesar

  Act III Scene II

  Hamlet

  Act I Scene II

  Act III Scene I

Part III The Seventeenth Century

  (1603-1688)

Unit 8 Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

  Of Marriage and Single Life

  Of Great Place

  Of Studies

Unit 9 Metaphysical Poets and Cavalier Poets

John Donne (1572-1631)

  The Flea

  The Sun Rising

  A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

  Sonnet 10

Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

  To His Coy Mistress

George Herbert (1593-1633)

  Virtue

Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637)

  Song: To Celia

Unit 10 John Milton (1608-1674)

  Paradise Lost

  Book I The Argument

  When I Consider How My Light Is Spent

Unit 11 John Bunyan (1628-1688)

  The Pilgrim's Progress

  Christian Sets out for the Celestial City

  The River of Death and the Celestial City

  The Conclusion

Part IV The Eighteenth Century

  (1688-1798)

Unit 12 Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)

  Robinson Crusoe

  Chapter IV First Weeks on the Island

Unit 13 Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

  A Modest Proposal

  Gulliver's Travels

  Part I A Voyage to Lilliput

Unit 14 Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

  The Royal Exchange

  The Cries of London

  Sir Roger at Church

Unit 15 Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

  An Essay on Man

Unit 16 Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

  To the Right Honourable the Earl of Chesterfield

  The Preface to Shakespeare

  Shakespeare's Excellence. General Nature

  Shakespeare's Faults. The Three Dramatic Unities.,

Unit 17 Henry Fielding (1707-1754)

  The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

  Book I Chapter III

  Book I Chapter IV

  Book I Chapter VI

  Book IV Chapter VIII

Unit 18 Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816)

  The School for Scandal

  Act I

Unit 19 Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

  Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Unit 20 William Blake (1757-1827)

From Songs of Innocence, 1789

  The Lamb

  The Chimney Sweeper

  Holy Thursday

From Songs of Experience, 1794

  Holy Thursday

  The Chimney Sweeper

  The Tyger

  London

Unit 21 Robert Burns (1759-1796)

  Scots, Wha Hae

  For A' That and A' That

  My Heart's in the Highlands

  A Red, Red Rose

  Auld Lang Syne

Bibliography