British Literary History

Abstract

The following chapters offer an overview of English literary history, which we have divided in seven parts: the Middle Ages, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the eighteenth century, Romanticism, the Victorian Age, modernism, and postmodernism. As we have emphasised in the general introduction to Literary Studies, this division has become a standard in literary studies that helps us structure our knowledge of the past and present, but it is by no means absolute. The boundaries between the periods are permeable, and the chapters often comment on authors and works which continue earlier developments or anticipate later strands of literary history. For example, prominent authors of the early modern period like Edmund Spenser drew on medieval literature and deliberately employed an archaic language and a traditional genre to develop a specifically English form of writing. This endeavour also shows that English literature always has to be investigated with a view to its sources and branches outside the British Isles. For instance, in the early modern period, English literature was strongly influenced by Italian, French and Spanish texts; the legacy of ancient Greek and Roman authors persisted into the twentieth century, though it decreased in importance; and ever since the eighteenth century, English literature has been closely associated with American literature and the ‘new’ English literatures that began to thrive in England’s colonies. Accordingly, many of the prestigious Booker Prizes for the best novel of the year have been awarded to Indian, South-African, and Australian authors.KeywordsEighteenth CenturySeventeenth CenturyLiterary StudyEarly Modern PeriodWoman WriterThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.