Studying English Literature in Context: Critical Readings

ISBN-13: 9781108749572 / Angielski / Miękka / 2023

Paul Poplawski

Opis

From early medieval times to the present, this diverse collection of thirty-one essays sets literary texts in their historical contexts.

Recenzje

'Studying English Literature in Context is a superb collection of essays by leading scholars that will foster stimulating response, reignite debate, and demand intellectual engagement by readers of representative texts from the long history of English. The authors recognise that from The Dream of the Rood's multivalence to Aphra Behn's colonial novel Oroonoko and Grace Nichols' feminist poetry, literature both contributes to, as well as reflects socio-cultural critique, linking past modes of creative expression with current conversations about form, textual ambiguity, literary resistance, and periodisation. In addition to this impressive set of critical interpretations, generous resources are provided to situate the student in the long chronology and complex range of generic, stylistic, material, and performative possibilities offered by literature. The whole volume works to ensure enhanced understanding of the significance of poetry, prose, and drama both to authors and creators and to audiences globally; as Poplawski anticipates, this book offers contextured readings, encouraging connections between eras, affect, and modalities to amplify the power of the written and spoken word.' Elaine Treharne, Stanford University

Spis treści

Introduction Paul Poplawski; Section I. Medieval English, 500–1500: 1. Finding the dream of the rood in old English literature Emily V. Thornbury; 2. The translator as author: The case of Geoffrey Chaucer's the Parliament of Fowls Filip Krajnik; 3. Arthurian romance as a window onto medieval life: The Case of Ywayne and Gawayne and The Awntyrs off Arthure K. S. Whetter; Section II: The renaissance, 1485–1660: 4. The renaissance in England: A meeting point Alessandra Petrina; 5. 'Mr Spencer's moral invention': The global horizons of early modern epic Jane Grogan; 6. Arden of Faversham Christa Jansohn; 7. 'A little touch of Harry in the night' – mysteries of kingship and the stage in Shakespeare's the life of king Henry the fifth Ina Habermann; 8. Poems and contexts: The case of Henry Vaughan Robert Wilcher; Section III: The restoration and eighteenth century, 1660–1780: 9. Periodising in context: The case of the restoration and eighteenth Century Lee Morrissey; 10. Truth-telling and the representation of the Surinam 'Indians' in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko Oddvar Holmesland; 11. 'The pamphlet on the table': The life and adventures of sir Launcelot Greaves Richard J. Jones; Section IV: The romantic period, 1780–1832: 12. 'Transported into asiatic scenes': Romanticism and the orient Daniel Sanjiv Roberts; 13. Historical fiction in the romantic period: Jane Porter, Walter Scott and the sublime hero Fiona Price; 14. Jane Austen and her publishers: Northanger Abbey and the publishing context of the early nineteenth century Katie Halsey; 15. 'O for a life of sensations' or 'the internal and external parts': Keats and medical materialism Paul Wright; Section V: The victorian age, 1832–1901: 16. Poetry and science in the victorian period Jordan Kistler; 17. 'In characters of tint indelible': Life writing and legacy in Charlotte Brontë's Villette Maria Frawley; 18. Money, narrative and representation from Dickens to Gissing Ben Moore; 19. Reading and remediating nineteenth-century serial fiction: Closing down and opening up Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla Fionnuala Dillane; 20. Public places, private spaces in Fin de Siècle British women's writing Sue Asbee; Section VI: The Twentieth Century, 1901–1939: 21. D. H. Lawrence's women in Love: An anthropological reading Stefania Michelucci; 22. The epigraph for T. S. Eliot's Marina: Classical tradition and the modern era Anna Budziak; 23. Passing as a male critic: Mary Beton's coming of age in Virginia Woolf's a room of one's own Judith Paltin; Section VII: The twentieth and twenty-first centuries, 1939–2020: 24. An ecocritical reading of the poetry of Ted Hughes Terry Gifford; 25. Women publishers in the twenty-first century: Assessing their impact on new writing – and writers Catherine Riley; 26. Crisis and community in contemporary British theatre Clare Wallace; Section VIII: Postcolonial literature in english: 27. Complexities and concealments of eros in the African novel: Chinua Achebe's things fall apart F. Fiona Moolla; 28. Bessie Head's feminism of everyday life Loretta Stec; 29. The gender politics of Grace Nichols: Joy and resistance Izabel F. O. Brandao; 30. 'The all-purpose quote': Salman Rushdie's meta-contextuality Joel Kuortti; 31. Postcolonial literature and the world, 2017–2019: Contemporary complexities Ulla Rahbek; Appendices; Appendix A: Glossary of critical terms; Appendix B: Study guide: Learning from the essays; Appendix C: Essays listed by genre and theme; Index.