Spanning the period from the British Civil War to the French Revolution, the fourth edition of this successful anthology increases its coverage of canonical writings, plays, and of the development of British Literature in the American colonies. A thoroughly updated new edition of this popular anthology which focuses firmly on the eighteenth century without neglecting the seventeenth century Contains new texts including the play Rover by Aphra Behn, and Beggars' Opera by John Gay; increased canonical works, including works by Dryden, Pope, and Johnson; and historical contextual materials, with particualr attention to the Americas Features updated introductions throughout, taking into acccount recent critical works and editions Includes useful resources such as an alternative list of contents by theme, and a chronolgy of literary and political events, providing valuable historical and cultural context

An indispensable reference for scholars and students of eighteenth-century English literature This addition to the celebrated Wiley-Blackwell Keywords series explores the meanings of fifty-eight of the most important words in British literature of the period 1640-1789. Professor DeMaria focuses on words used with frequency and urgency throughout the works of most major and several minor writers of the British Neoclassical era, with the occasional reach back to the early seventeenth century for a definitive usage found in Francis Bacon, for instance, and look forward to the nineteenth century to the works of Wordsworth, Austen, and Keats. Through discussions of words such as atom, economy, humanity, labor, machine, slavery, society, and system he reveals underlying assumptions about the way writers of the period thought about the physical and social world. Likewise, considerations of words such as happiness, passion, truth, and virtue shed light on the ethical and moral commitments of the age. Unlike dictionaries and many big-data semantics projects, this book brings forth the ambiguities, nuances, and ironies that accrued to word usages during the period through a heightened awareness of the contexts in which they occurred. Highlights and exposes the salient cultural and literary debates and metamorphic moments of cultural thought Reveals an increase in irony and a decrease in allegorical usage as an important trend in the evolution of literary language during the Neoclassical period Stresses the contexts within which words or phrases appear in order to offer a fuller understanding of their meanings and significance than available from digital databases Draws upon a vast compilation of sources from one of the most transformative eras of English literature Rigorous in its scholarship and historical reach, British Literature 1640-1789: Keywords is an indispensable resource which scholars and students of British Neoclassical literature will want to keep close at hand. It is certain to become a fixture of most university reference libraries.

British Literature 1640-1789: An Anthology covers the period between the British Civil War and the French Revolution. It includes the works of a great many authors and provides an invitingly wide variety of genres, forms, opinions, viewpoints, and styles. Canonical literary works are extensively represented and most texts are reprinted in their entirety including, for example, Aphra Behn's Oronooko and John Milton's Paradise Lost from first editions, or in the earliest recoverable versions. Other major works include: Daniel Defoe's The Shortest Way with Dissenters, Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad, Jonathan Swift's A Tale of a Tub and A Modest Proposal, Samuel Johnson's The History of Rasselas. Selections from contemporary documents (such as court reports) are used to illuminate important cultural and social issues at particular points of history. A central aim has been to represent the period in a way that would have been more recognizable to people who lived at the time than the more conventional collection of great works of literature might do. By including the literature of private life and public life - letters, political ballads, broadsides, mock-epic poetry - DeMaria helps us to revise our sense of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature.

"Discusses keywords from British literature in the period 1640 to 1789"--

Designed to complement DeMaria's textbook British Literature 1640-1789: An Anthology , this critical reader contains seventeen essays by sixteen contemporary literary critics and covers the full range of works printed in the anthology.

The Cambridge History of English Literature, 1660-1780 offers readers discussions of the entire range of literary expression from the Restoration to the end of the eighteenth century. In essays by thirty distinguished scholars, recent historical perspectives and new critical approaches and methods are brought to bear on the classic authors and texts of the period. Forgotten or neglected authors and themes as well as new and emerging genres within the expanding marketplace for printed matter during the eighteenth century receive special attention and emphasis. The volume's guiding purpose is to examine the social and historical circumstances within which literary production and imaginative writing take place in the period and to evaluate the enduring verbal complexity and cultural insights they articulate so powerfully.

In Samuel Johnson and the Life of Reading, Robert DeMaria considers the surprising influence of one of the greatest readers in English literature. Johnson's relationship to books not only reveals much about his life and times, DeMaria contends, but also provides a dramatic counterpoint to modern reading habits. As a superior practitioner of the craft, Johnson provides a compelling model for how to read—indeed, he provides different models for different kinds of reading. DeMaria shows how Johnson recognized early that not all reading was alike—some requiring intense concentration, some suited for cursory glances, some requiring silence, some best appreciated amid the chatter of a coffeehouse. Considering the remarkable range of Johnson's reading, DeMaria discovers in one extraordinary career a synoptic view of the subject. "Enacts Johnson's celebrated variation on a theme from Horace—it does not merely delight and instruct, but rather instructs by delighting us . . . DeMaria proves himself a reader altogether worthy of his subject."—Times Literary Supplement "Fascinatingly perceptive both of Johnson's own reading habits and of their significance in the cultural history of reading."—Modern Language Review "Both a scholarly and an imaginative achievement, combining detailed detective work, abstract categorization, and sympathetic understanding. The finished product re-creates the detailed fabric of Johnson's reading career while locating it in a cultural landscape of rapid publication and growing literacy . . . Eminently readable, learned, and thoughtful."—Modern Philology "An intellectual history of the writer and his age."—Magill's Literary Annual "DeMaria presents an imaginative re-creation of Johnson's library and suggests how his reading habits offered a model for preventing the disappearance of the reader."—Biblio

In recent years the canon of eighteenth-century poetry has greatly expanded to include women poets, labouring-class and provincial poets, and many previously unheard voices. Fairer’s book takes up the challenge this ought to pose to our traditional understanding of the subject. This book seeks to question some of the structures, categories, and labels that have given the age its reassuring shape in literary history. In doing so Fairer offers a fresh and detailed look at a wide range of material.

A Companion to British Literature is a comprehensive guide to British literature and the contexts and ideas that have shaped and transformed it over the past thirteen centuries. Its four volumes cover literature from all periods and places in Britain and demonstrate the wide variety of approaches to studying the subject. Provides an authoritative reference on British literature, and the contexts, writers, and ideas that have shaped and transformed it over the past thirteen centuries Spans historical, social, political, domestic, linguistic, institutional, and material contexts Offers the most inclusive and far-reaching overview available of British literature from 700-2,000,across four volumes and over 100 chapters Written by an internationally diverse range of expert contributors including both distinguished academics and up-and-coming young stars Comprises readings from across geographical, cultural, institutional, economic and mediological contexts Features a general index and a thematic table of contents to enable readers to navigate the development of British Literature 4 Volumes www.britishliteraturecompanion.com

A Companion to British Literature is a comprehensive guide to British literature and the contexts and ideas that have shaped and transformed it over the past thirteen centuries. Its four volumes cover literature from all periods and places in Britain and demonstrate the wide variety of approaches to studying the subject. Provides an authoritative reference on British literature, and the contexts, writers, and ideas that have shaped and transformed it over the past thirteen centuries Spans historical, social, political, domestic, linguistic, institutional, and material contexts Offers the most inclusive and far-reaching overview available of British literature from 700-2,000,across four volumes and over 100 chapters Written by an internationally diverse range of expert contributors including both distinguished academics and up-and-coming young stars Comprises readings from across geographical, cultural, institutional, economic and mediological contexts Features a general index and a thematic table of contents to enable readers to navigate the development of British Literature 4 Volumes www.britishliteraturecompanion.com