The New Cambridge History Of English Literature

Publisher Description

A set of reference works on the history of English literature throughout the major periods of its development.

The Cambridge History of English Literature, 1660-1780 offers readers discussions of the entire range of literary expression from the Restoration to the end of the eighteenth century. In essays by thirty distinguished scholars, recent historical perspectives and new critical approaches and methods are brought to bear on the classic authors and texts of the period. Forgotten or neglected authors and themes as well as new and emerging genres within the expanding marketplace for printed matter during the eighteenth century receive special attention and emphasis. The volume's guiding purpose is to examine the social and historical circumstances within which literary production and imaginative writing take place in the period and to evaluate the enduring verbal complexity and cultural insights they articulate so powerfully.

Now available in paperback, this is the first full-scale history of early modern English literature in nearly a century. It offers new perspectives on English literature produced in Britain between the Reformation and the Restoration. While providing the general coverage and specific information expected of a major history, its twenty-six chapters address recent methodological and interpretive developments in English literary studies. The book has five sections: Modes and Means of Literary Production, Circulation, and Reception , The Tudor Era from the Reformation to Elizabeth I , The Era of Elizabeth and James VI , The Earlier Stuart Era , and The Civil War and Commonwealth Era . While England is the principal focus, literary production in Scotland, Ireland and Wales is treated, as are other subjects less frequently examined in previous histories, including women s writings and the literature of the English Reformation and Revolution. This innovatively-designed history is an essential resource for specialists and students.

Informed by multicultural, multidisciplinary perspectives, The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature offers a new exploration of the earliest writing in Britain and Ireland, from the end of the Roman Empire to the mid-twelfth century. Beginning with an account of writing itself, as well as of scripts and manuscript art, subsequent chapters examine the earliest texts from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and the tremendous breadth of Anglo-Latin literature. Chapters on English learning and literature in the ninth century and the later formation of English poetry and prose also convey the profound cultural confidence of the period. Providing a discussion of essential texts, including Beowulf and the writings of Bede, this History captures the sheer inventiveness and vitality of early medieval literary culture through topics as diverse as the literature of English law, liturgical and devotional writing, the workings of science and the history of women's writing.

First published in 1932, this book aims 'to give a connected account of the successive movements of English literature'.

Based on The Cambridge history of English literature.

This was the first full-scale history of medieval English literature for nearly a century. Thirty-three distinguished contributors offer a collaborative account of literature composed or transmitted in England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland between the Norman conquest and the death of Henry VIII in 1547. The volume has five sections: 'After the Norman Conquest'; 'Writing in the British Isles'; 'Institutional Productions'; 'After the Black Death' and 'Before the Reformation'. It provides information on a vast range of literary texts and the conditions of their production and reception, which will serve both specialists and general readers, and also contains a chronology, full bibliography and a detailed index. This book offers an extensive and vibrant account of the medieval literatures so drastically reconfigured in Tudor England. It will thus prove essential reading for scholars of the Renaissance as well as medievalists, and for historians as well as literary specialists.