Synopses & Reviews
Offering essays on the range of English literature produced in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this collection presents new historical perspectives and critical approaches to the classic authors and texts of the period. Neglected authors and themes, as well as new and emerging genres within the expanding print market, are discussed in their social and historical contexts. The volume also includes a complete chronology and bibliographies.
Review
"Like the others in this set, this volume provides a comprehensive survey of authors and literary genres by focusing on a narrative account of what a variety of individual scholars regard as the most signifiacnt features of their subjects."
-American Reference Books Annual"In briefly reflecting on a volume as compendious as this one it is needless to say how much of interest and value it contains that I haven't been able even to allude to. The centurial significance of the Cambridge History of English Literature, 1660-1780, its status as the first of its kind since George Saintsbury and his Peace of the Augustans, only furthers the importance of Richetti's collection."
-Michael McKeon, SEL-Studies in English Literature"This volume succeeds in representing the variety of texts between 1660 and 1780 that are studied as English literature, and simultaneously gives a lively sense of the debates, both in the period represented and in current criticism and scholarship, about the boundaries and the purpose of the category of literature....The volume is reliable and stimulating. It will have a long life as a work of reference, and is an excellent indication of the current state of the subject."
-Forum for Modern Language Studies
Synopsis
In this volume new critical approaches and methods are brought to bear on the range of literature produced in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The essays chart new and emerging genres within their social, cultural and material contexts, and will be invaluable to students and scholars of the period.
Synopsis
A comprehensive history of Restoration and eighteenth-century English literature.
Synopsis
A collaborative account of eighteenth-century writing in all its genres and forms.
About the Author
John Richetti is A. M. Rosenthal Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.
Table of Contents
Introduction John Richetti; Part I. Literary Production and Dissemination: Changing Audiences and Emerging Media: 1. Publishing and bookselling, 1660-1780 James Raven; 2. The social world of authorship, 1660-1714 Dustin Griffin; 3. Popular entertainment and instruction, literary and dramatic: chapbooks, advice books, almanacs, ballads, farces, pantomimes, prints and shows Lance Bertelsen; 4. Novels on the market William B. Warner; Part II. Literary Genres: Adaptation and Reformation: 5. Restoration and early eighteenth-century drama Harold Love; 6. Dryden and the poetic career Steven Zwicker; 7. Political, satirical, didactic and lyric poetry (I): from the Restoration to the death of Pope J. Paul Hunter; 8. Eighteenth-century women poets Paula Backscheider; 9. Systems satire: Swift.com Michael Seidel; 10. Persistence, adaptations and transformations in pastoral and georgic poetry David Fairer; 11. Political, satirical, didactic and lyric poetry (II): after Pope John Sitter; 12. Drama and theatre in the mid- and later eighteenth century Robert D. Hume; 13. Scottish poetry and regional literary expression Fiona Stafford; Part III. Literature and Intellectual Life: The Production and Transmission of Culture: 14. History and literature, 1660-1780 Karen O'Brien; 15. A preliminary discourse on philosophy and literature Michael Prince; 16. British and European literature and thought Jeffrey Barnouw; 17. Religion and literature Isabel Rivers; 18. Literary criticism and the rise of national literary history Lawrence Lipking; 19. Augustan England and British America William C. Dowling; Part IV. Literature and Social and Institutional Change: 20. The eighteenth-century periodical essay Robert De Maria; 21. Public opinion and the political pamphlet R. A. Downie; 22. Sentimental fiction: ethics, social critique and philanthropy Thomas Keymer; 23. Folklore, antiquarianism, scholarship and high literary culture Robert Folkenflik; Part V. Literary Genres: Transformation and New Forms of Expressiveness: 24. Personal letters Patricia Spacks; 25. Diary and autobiography Stuart Sherman; 26. The Gothic novel Terry Castle; 27. Eighteenth-century travel literature Carole Fabricant; 28. Women novelists, 1740s-1780s Felicity Nussbaum; 29. Burke and the uses of eloquence: political prose in the 1770s and 1780s Frans de Bruyn; Part VI. Conclusion: 30. More is different: literary change in the mid- and late eighteenth century Clifford Siskin; Chronology; Biography.