Concentrating on the period 1660-1781, this book explores how the English literary past was made. It charts how antiquarians unearthed the raw materials of the English (or more widely) British tradition; how scholars drafted narratives about the development of native literature; and howcritics assigned the leading writers to canons of literary greatness. Poetry and the Making of the English Literary Past also analyzes the various kinds of occasion on which the contents of the literary past are rehearsed. Discussed, for example, is the rise of Poets' Corner as a national shrine forthe consecration of literary worthies; and the author also considers a wide range of poetic genres that lent themselves to recitals of the literary past: the funeral elegy, the progress-of-poesy poem and the session of the poets poem. The book concludes that the opening up and ordering of theEnglish literary past occurs earlier than is generally supposed; and the same also applies to the process by which women writers achieve their own distinctive form of canonical recognition.

"Concentrating on the period 1660-1781, this book explores how the English literary past was made. It charts how antiquarians unearthed the raw materials of the English (or more widely) British tradition; how scholars drafted narratives about the development of native literature; and how critics assigned the leading writers to canons of literary greatness. Poetry and the Making of the English Literary Past also analyzes the various kinds of occasion on which the contents of the literary past are rehearsed. Discussed, for example, is the rise of Poets' Corner as a national shrine for the consecration of literary worthies; and the author also considers a wide range of poetic genres that lent themselves to recitals of the literary past : the funeral elegy, the progress-of-poesy poem and the session of the poets poem. The book concludes that the opening up and ordering of the English literary past occurs earlier than is generally supposed; and the same also applies to the process by which women writers achieve their own distinctive form of canonical recognition."--Résumé de l'éditeur

Poetry and the Creation of a Whig Literary Culture offers a new perspective on early eighteenth century poetry and literary culture, arguing that long-neglected Whig poets such as Joseph Addison, John Dennis, Thomas Tickell, and Richard Blackmore were more popular and successful in their own time than they have been since. These and other Whig writers produced elevated poetry celebrating the political and military achievements of William III's Britain, and were committed to an ambitious project to create a distinctively Whiggish English literary culture after the Revolution of 1688. Far from being the penniless hacks and dunces satirized by John Dryden and the Scriblerians, they were supported by the patronage of the wealthy Whig aristocracy, and their works promoted as a new English literature to rival that of classical Greece and Rome. Poetry and the Creation of a Whig Literary Culture maps for the first time the evolution of an alternative early eighteenth-century poetic tradition which is central to our understanding of the literary history of the period.

Paradise Lost and the Making of English Literary Criticism identifies the early reception of Paradise Lost as a site of contest over the place of literature in political and religious controversy. Milton’s earliest readers and critics (Dryden, Addison, Dennis, Hume, and Bentley) confronted a poem and author at odds with prevailing culture and the revanchist conservatism of the restored monarchy. Grappling with the epic required navigating Milton’s reputation as a “fanatick” who had called in print for Charles I’s execution, inveighed openly against monarchy on the eve of Charles II’s return, and held heretical views on the trinity, baptism, and divorce. Harper argues that foundational figures in English literary criticism rose to this challenge by innovating new ways of reading: producing creative (and subversive) rewritings of Paradise Lost, articulating new theories of the sublime, explaining the poem in the first substantial body of annotations for an English vernacular text, and by pioneering early forms of textual criticism and editing.

Before the Empire of English offers a broad re-examination of Eighteenth-century British literary culture, centred around issues of language, nationalism, and provinciality. It revises our tendency to take for granted the metropolitan centrality of English-language writers of this period and shows, instead, how deeply these writers were conscious of the traditional marginality of their literary tradition in the European world of culture. The book focuses attention on crucial but largely overlooked aspects of Eighteenth-century English literary culture: the progress of English topos since the death of Cowley and the cultural aspirations and anxieties it condenses; the concept of the republic of letters and its implications for issues of cultural centrality and provinciality; and the importance of cultural nationalist emphases in 'Augustan' poetics in the context of these concerns about provinciality. The book examines imperial aspirations and imaginings in the English literary culture of the period, but it shows how such aspirations are responses to provincial anxieties more so than they are marks of imperial self-assurance.

This anthology gathers 368 poems by 80 British women poets of the long eighteenth century. Few of these poems have been reprinted since originally published, and all are crucial to understanding fully the literary history of women writers. Paula R. Backscheider and Catherine E. Ingrassia demonstrate the enormous diversity of poetry produced during this time by organizing the poems in three broad and deliberately overlapping categories: by genre, establishing that women wrote in all of the forms that men did with equal mastery and creativity; by theme, offering a revisionary look at the range of topics these writers addressed, including war, ecology, friendship, religion, and the stages of life; and by the poems’ more specific focus on the women’s experiences as writers. Backscheider and Ingrassia have selected poems that represent the best work of skilled poets, creating a wonderful mix of canonical and little-known pieces. They include the complete texts of longer poems that are abridged or omitted in other collections. Their substantial part introductions, textual notes, bibliographical information, and biographical sketches situate the poets and their writings within the cultural and political milieu in which they appeared. To generate further scholarship on this subject, this essential anthology puts primary texts in front of students, scholars, and general readers. It fills the persistent need to document women’s poetic expression during the long eighteenth century and to rewrite the literary history of the period, a history from which women have largely been excluded.

New Essays on Samuel Johnson: Revaluation is a collection of essays by various hands that examines its point of focus, the inexhaustible English author Samuel Johnson, from a variety of different critical perspectives. The book also simultaneously interrogates particular texts (such as the Dictionary, the Lives of the Poets) alongside general themes (such as Johnson and intertextuality, Johnson and autobiography). The word “revaluation” from the title connotes both the deployment of specifically au courant approaches—viewing, for example, Johnson in relation to climate change, or Johnson and the notion of “osmology”—as well as more general reflections upon Johnson’s importance to our present cultural and temporal moment.

Arising from a research project on depression in the eighteenth century, this book discusses the experience of depressive states both in terms of existing modes of thought and expression, and of attempts to describe and live with suffering. It also asks what present-day society can learn about depression from the eighteenth-century experience.

This volume offers an introduction to British literature that challenges the traditional divide between eighteenth-century and Romantic studies. Contributors explore the development of literary genres and modes through a period of rapid change. They show how literature was shaped by historical factors including the development of the book trade, the rise of literary criticism and the expansion of commercial society and empire. The wide scope of the collection, juxtaposing canonical authors with those now gaining new attention from scholars, makes it essential reading for students of eighteenth-century literature and Romanticism.

Mock-heroic is the exemplary genre of the English Augustan era: it is one of the few genres that the Augustans invented themselves, and it stands in a symbolic relation to a culture still reverential of the grandeurs of the classical past and uneasy about its ability to emulate them. Mock-Heroic from Butler to Cowper shows the protean nature of mock-epic at this time. It recounts the rise of mock-heroic, discusses the properties of the form, and explores its relation both to classical epic and to contemporary genres such as the poetic travesty and the novel. It also tracks the relation of mock-heroic to the concept to the sublime, especially to the low sublime unwittingly perfected by Richard Blackmore. Terry goes beyond previous commentators in arguing that mock-heroic was not merely a conventional genre, but also provided a supple discourse through which writers could represent a range of personal and social issues. He identifies mock-heroic properties in the Mandevillian discourse of economics and in the rhetoric of male gallantry towards women, in which women were simultaneously elevated and put down. He also sees mock-heroic as informing the idea of divine grace in the poetry and letters of William Cowper. Mixing a historical approach with incisive close readings, Terry provides a powerful re-evaluation of the form.