English Fiction of the Romantic Period 1789-1830 is the first comprehensive historical survey of fiction from that period for many decades. It combines a clear awareness of the period's social history with recent developments in literary criticism, theory and history, and explains the astounding variety of forms in Romantic fiction in terms of the various cultural, political, social, regional and gender conflicts of the time.
It provides a broad-ranging survey from the major authors and works through to the sub-genres of the period. Jan Austin and Sir Alter Scott are discussed...

The multi-volume Longman literature in English series aims to provide students of literature with a critical introduction to the major genres in their historical and cultural context. This book looks at cinema, painting and architecture in 20th-century America, as well as the culture of politics.

Here is an introduction to the history of English writing from East and West Africa drawing on a range of texts from the slave diaspora to the post-war upsurge in African English language and literature from these regions.

In this book Professor Berkowitz studies the diversity of American drama from the stylistic, experimental plays of O'Neill, through verse, tragedy and community theatre, to the theatre of the 1990s. The discussions range through dramatists, plays, genres and themes, with full supporting appendix material. It also examines major dramatists such as Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, Sam Shephard, Tennessee Williams and August Wilson and covers not only the Broadway scene but also off Broadway movements and fringe theatres and such subjects as women's and African-American drama.

English Drama before Shakespeare surveys the range of dramatic activity in English up to 1590. The book challenges the traditional divisions between Medieval and Renaissance literature by showing that there was much continuity throughout this period, in spite of many innovations. The range of dramatic activity includes well-known features such as mystery cycles and the interludes, as well as comedy and tragedy. Para-dramatic activity such as the liturgical drama, royal entries and localised or parish drama is also covered. Many of the plays considered are anonymous, but a coherent,...

Neil Corcoran's book is a major survey and interpretation of modern British poetry since 1940, offering a wealth of insights into poets and their work and placing them in a broader context of poetic dialogue and cultural exchange. The book is organised into five main parts, beginning with a consideration of the late Modernism of T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden and ranging, decade by decade, from the poetry of the Second World War and the New Romanticism' of Dylan Thomas to the Movement, the poetry of Northern Ireland, the variety of contemporary women's poetry and the diversity of the...

Explores the poetry of the Renaissance, from Dunbar in the late 15th century to the Songs and Sonnets of John Donne in the early 17th. The book offers more than the wealth of literature discussed: it is a pioneering work in its own right, bringing the insights of contemporary literary and cultural theory to an overview of the period.