The Short Oxford History of English Literature
provides in a single volume a comprehensive beginner's
guide to the literature of the British Isles from the
Anglo-Saxon period to the present day. Now established
as the leading introduction to English literature,
separate chapters trace the development from Beowulf to
the 'post-modern' fictions of Seamus Heaney and Angela
Carter. The History provides detailed discussion of Old
and Middle English Literature, the Renaissance,
Shakespeare, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
the Romantics, Victorian and Edwardian literature,
Modernism, and post-war writing. Discussions of key
writers and works from Anselm and Chaucer to Spencer and
Bunyan, and from Swift and Johnson to Dickens and D.H.
Lawrence, are combined with analysis of the impact on
literature of contemporary political, social, and
intellectual developments. The History looks again at
the canon of English literature and provides a fresh
assessment of the distinctive contribution of Scottish,
Irish, and Welsh writers, and it asks about the future
of the canon in the light of the fragmented condition of
British writing in the post-imperial period. This
revised edition includes for the first time detailed,
chapter-by-chapter guidance on further reading. Lively,
accessible, and up-to-date, The Short Oxford History of
English Literature will be an invaluable source for
general readers and a key textbook for sixth-form
students, first year undergraduates, and foreign
students of English literature.
|
|