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19th Century British Literature: A Golden Age of Literary Innovation
The 19th century witnessed a flourishing of British literature, a period often lauded as a "golden age." This era saw profound societal shifts—industrialization, urbanization, and the rise of empire—all reflected in the diverse and compelling works produced. From the Romantic poets' passionate explorations of nature to the Victorian novelists' intricate social commentaries, 19th-century British literature remains incredibly influential, shaping our understanding of the human condition and the complexities of modern life. This comprehensive guide delves into the key movements, authors, and themes that defined this remarkable literary period, providing insights for both students and enthusiasts of British literary history.
Article Outline:
I. Introduction: Defining the scope of 19th-century British literature and its historical context.
II. Romanticism (Early 19th Century): Exploring the key characteristics of Romanticism, focusing on major figures like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.
III. The Victorian Era (Mid-to-Late 19th Century): Analyzing the dominant themes and styles of Victorian literature, encompassing novels, poetry, and drama.
IV. Key Victorian Authors and Their Works: In-depth discussions of significant authors such as Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen (although technically Regency, her influence continues), George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy, highlighting their unique contributions.
V. Social Commentary in 19th-Century Literature: Examining how literature reflected and responded to social issues like poverty, industrialization, class inequality, and the rise of empire.
VI. The Rise of Realism and Naturalism: Exploring the shift towards more realistic portrayals of life and the impact of scientific thought on literary styles.
VII. The Development of the Novel: Discussing the evolution of the novel form during this period, its increasing popularity, and its role in shaping social consciousness.
VIII. Conclusion: Summarizing the enduring legacy of 19th-century British literature and its continued relevance today.
IX. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
X. Related Keywords
I. Introduction: A Century of Change and Creativity
The 19th century in Britain was a time of dramatic transformation. The Industrial Revolution fundamentally reshaped society, creating vast wealth alongside crippling poverty. The British Empire expanded its reach globally, leading to complex debates about colonialism and national identity. These societal upheavals profoundly influenced the literature of the time, leading to a rich tapestry of styles, themes, and perspectives. We'll explore how writers responded to these changes, reflecting both the triumphs and the anxieties of the era.
II. Romanticism (Early 19th Century): Passion, Nature, and Rebellion
Romanticism, flourishing in the early decades of the 19th century, emphasized emotion, intuition, and the beauty of nature. Poets like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, celebrated in their Lyrical Ballads, championed a return to simpler language and themes drawn from everyday life and the natural world. Lord Byron, with his brooding heroes and passionate verse, captured the spirit of rebellion against societal constraints. Percy Bysshe Shelley's revolutionary ideals and John Keats' sensuous imagery further enriched the Romantic movement's diverse landscape.
III. The Victorian Era (Mid-to-Late 19th Century): Morality, Social Reform, and Empire
The Victorian era, spanning the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), is characterized by a complex interplay of social progress and deep-seated inequalities. Victorian literature grappled with issues of morality, social reform, and the moral ambiguities of the expanding British Empire. The novel, in particular, rose to prominence as a powerful medium for social commentary and storytelling.
IV. Key Victorian Authors and Their Works: Giants of the Literary World
Charles Dickens: A master of social realism, Dickens vividly portrayed the poverty and social injustices of Victorian London in novels like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations. His characters are memorable and his narratives are both engaging and thought-provoking.
Charlotte Brontë: Her novels, such as Jane Eyre, explore themes of love, social class, and female autonomy. Jane Eyre is a powerful testament to the strength and resilience of the female spirit.
Jane Austen: Though technically a Regency-era writer (late 18th/early 19th century), her influence permeates Victorian literature. Her novels, including Pride and Prejudice and Emma, offered insightful social commentary and witty character studies that are still relevant today.
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans): Known for her realistic portrayals of rural life and complex characters, her novels like Middlemarch and Silas Marner explore social and moral issues with psychological depth.
Thomas Hardy: Hardy's novels, such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, depict the harsh realities of rural life and the struggles of individuals against fate and social forces. His work often reflects a pessimistic view of the human condition and the impact of societal change.
V. Social Commentary in 19th-Century Literature: A Mirror to Society
19th-century British literature served as a powerful mirror reflecting the social, political, and economic realities of the time. Authors tackled head-on issues such as poverty, child labor, industrial pollution, class inequality, and the moral dilemmas associated with colonialism. The stark descriptions of urban poverty in Dickens's works, for instance, prompted social reform movements.
VI. The Rise of Realism and Naturalism: Truth and Objectivity
As the century progressed, a shift occurred towards realism and naturalism. Authors sought to depict life as it was, without romanticizing or idealizing it. This movement emphasized objective observation and detailed descriptions of everyday life. This realism influenced the style and content of many novels and plays, impacting writers like George Eliot and Thomas Hardy.
VII. The Development of the Novel: A Dominant Literary Form
The novel's popularity soared during the 19th century, becoming the dominant literary form. Its versatility allowed authors to explore complex narratives, develop intricate characters, and offer detailed social commentary. The serialized novel, published in installments in magazines and newspapers, further broadened its reach and impact.
VIII. Conclusion: A Lasting Legacy
19th-century British literature remains a cornerstone of English literature, offering a rich and varied exploration of the human condition during a period of immense societal change. The themes of social justice, individual struggles, and the complexities of human relationships continue to resonate with readers today. The enduring legacy of these writers lies in their ability to capture the spirit of their time while exploring universal truths about human experience.
IX. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q: What are the main differences between Romantic and Victorian literature? A: Romanticism emphasized emotion, intuition, and nature, while Victorian literature focused on social issues, morality, and realism.
Q: Who are some of the most important female writers of the 19th century? A: Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and the Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne) are among the most significant.
Q: How did industrialization affect 19th-century literature? A: Industrialization's impact is evident in the rise of realism, the portrayal of urban poverty, and the exploration of social inequalities.
Q: What is the significance of the novel in 19th-century literature? A: The novel became the dominant literary form, allowing for complex narratives and detailed social commentary.
X. Related Keywords:
19th century British literature, Victorian literature, Romantic literature, British novelists, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Victorian era, Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, British poetry, social commentary, industrial revolution, British Empire, literary movements.
| th century british literature: The Routledge Concise History of Twentieth-century British Literature Ashley Dawson, 2013 In The Routledge Concise History of Twentieth-Century British Literature Ashley Dawson identifies the key British writers and texts, shaped by era-defining cultural and historical events and movements from the period. He provides: Analysis of works by a diverse range of influential authors Examination of the cultural and literary impact of crucial historical, social, political and cultural events Discussion of Britain's imperial status in the century and the diversification of the nation through Black and Asian British Literature Readers are also provided with a comprehensive timeline, a glossary of terms, further reading and explanatory text boxes featuring further information on key figures and events. |
| th century british literature: A History of Eighteenth-Century British Literature John Richetti, 2017-10-05 A History of Eighteenth-Century British Literature is a lively exploration of one of the most diverse and innovative periods in literary history. Capturing the richness and excitement of the era, this book provides extensive coverage of major authors, poets, dramatists, and journalists of the period, such as Dryden, Pope and Swift, while also exploring the works of important writers who have received less attention by modern scholars, such as Matthew Prior and Charles Churchill. Uniquely, the book also discusses noncanonical, working-class writers and demotic works of the era. During the eighteenth-century, Britain experienced vast social, political, economic, and existential changes, greatly influencing the literary world. The major forms of verse, poetry, fiction and non-fiction, experimental works, drama, and political prose from writers such as Montagu, Finch, Johnson, Goldsmith and Cowper, are discussed here in relation to their historical context. A History of Eighteenth-Century British Literature is essential reading for advanced undergraduates and graduate students of English literature. Topics covered include: Verse in the early 18th century, from Pope, Gay, and Swift to Addison, Defoe, Montagu, and Finch Poetry from the mid- to late-century, highlighting the works of Johnson, Gray, Collins, Smart, Goldsmith, and Cowper among others, as well as women and working-class poets Prose Fiction in the early and 18th century, including Behn, Haywood, Defoe, Swift, Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett The novel past mid-century, including experimental works by Johnson, Sterne, Mackenzie, Walpole, Goldsmith, and Burney Non-fiction prose, including political and polemical prose 18th century drama |
| th century british literature: The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature Laura Marcus, Peter Nicholls, 2004 Publisher Description |
| th century british literature: Nineteenth-Century British Literature Then and Now Professor Simon Dentith, 2014-04-28 Envisioning today’s readers as poised between an impossible attempt to read texts as their original readers experienced them and an awareness of our own temporal moment, Simon Dentith complicates traditional prejudices against hindsight to approach issues of interpretation and historicity in nineteenth-century literature. Suggesting that the characteristic aesthetic attitude encouraged by the backward look is one of irony rather than remorse or regret, he examines works by Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, William Morris and John Ruskin in terms of their participation in significant histories that extend to this day. Liberalism, class, gender, political representation and notions of progress, utopianism and ecological concern as currently understood can be traced back to the nineteenth century. Just as today’s critics strive to respect the authenticity of nineteenth-century writers and readers who responded to these ideas within their historical world, so, too, do those nineteenth-century imaginings persist to challenge the assumptions of the present. It is therefore possible, Dentith argues, to conceive of the act of reading historical literature with an awareness of the historical context and of the difference between the past and the present while allowing that friction or difference to be part of how we think about a text and how it communicates. His book summons us to consider how words travel to the reality of the reader’s own time and how engagement with nineteenth-century writers’ anticipation of the judgements of future generations reveal hindsight’s capacity to transform our understanding of the past in the light of subsequent knowledge. |
| th century british literature: The Other East and Nineteenth-Century British Literature T. McLean, 2011-11-30 The Polish exile and the Russian villain were familiar figures in nineteenth-century British culture. This book restores the significance of Eastern Europe to nineteenth-century British literature, offering new readings of Blake's Europe , Byron's Mazeppa , and Eliot's Middlemarch , and recovering influential works by Thomas Campbell and Jane Porter. |
| th century british literature: Cold Comfort Farm Clare West, Stella Gibbons, 1998-01-01 A school reader for secondary pupils, in the OXFORD BOOKWORMS. BLACK SERIES STAGE 6. This new series offers students at all levels the opportunity to extend their reading and appreciation of English. |
| th century british literature: The Cambridge Companion to the Twentieth-Century English Novel Robert L. Caserio, 2009-04-30 The twentieth-century English novel encompasses a vast body of work, and one of the most important and most widely read genres of literature. Balancing close readings of particular novels with a comprehensive survey of the last century of published fiction, this Companion introduces readers to more than a hundred major and minor novelists. It demonstrates continuities in novel-writing that bridge the century's pre- and post-War halves and presents leading critical ideas about English fiction's themes and forms. The essays examine the endurance of modernist style throughout the century, the role of nationality and the contested role of the English language in all its forms, and the relationships between realism and other fictional modes: fantasy, romance, science fiction. Students, scholars and readers will find this Companion an indispensable guide to the history of the English novel. |
| th century british literature: The Image of the English Gentleman in Twentieth-Century Literature Dr Christine Berberich, 2013-04-28 Studies of the English gentleman have tended to focus mainly on the nineteenth century, encouraging the implicit assumption that this influential literary trope has less resonance for twentieth-century literature and culture. Christine Berberich challenges this notion by showing that the English gentleman has proven to be a remarkably adaptable and relevant ideal that continues to influence not only literature but other forms of representation, including the media and advertising industries. Focusing on Siegfried Sassoon, Anthony Powell, Evelyn Waugh and Kazuo Ishiguro, whose presentations of the gentlemanly ideal are analysed in their specific cultural, historical, and sociological contexts, Berberich pays particular attention to the role of nostalgia and its relationship to 'Englishness'. Though 'Englishness' and by extension the English gentleman continue to be linked to depictions of England as the green and pleasant land of imagined bygone days, Berberich counterbalances this perception by showing that the figure of the English gentleman is the medium through which these authors and many of their contemporaries critique the shifting mores of contemporary society. Twentieth-century depictions of the gentleman thus have much to tell us about rapidly changing conceptions of national, class, and gender identity. |
| th century british literature: Romances of Free Trade Ayse Celikkol, 2011-08-03 Exploring works by Walter Scott, Harriet Martineau, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, and their lesser-known contemporaries, Romances of Free Trade historicizes globalization as it traces the perception of dissolving borders and declining national sovereignty back into the nineteenth century. The book offers a new account of the cultural work of romance in nineteenth-century Britain. Çelikkol argues that novelists and playwrights employed this genre to represent a radically new historical formation: the emergence of a globalized free-market economy. In previous centuries, the British state had pursued an economic policy that chose domestic goods over foreign ones. Through the first half of the nineteenth century, liberal economists maintained that commodity traffic across national borders should move outside the purview of the state, a position and practice that began to take hold as the century progressed. Amid the transformation, Britons pondered the vertiginous effects of rapidly accelerating economic circulation. Would patriotic attachment to the homeland dissolve along with the preference for domestic goods? How would the nation and the empire fare if commerce became uncontrollable? The literary genre of romance, characterized by protagonists who drift in lawless spaces, played a meaningful role in addressing such pressing questions. From the figure of the smuggler to the episodic plot structure, romance elements in fiction and drama narrated and made tangible the sprawling global markets and fluid capital that were reshaping the world. In addition to clear-eyed close readings of nineteenth-century novels and plays, Çelikkol draws on the era's major economic theorists, figures like Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus, to vividly illustrate the manifold ways the romance genre engaged with these emerging financial changes. |
| th century british literature: Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Postcolonial Studies Suvir Kaul, 2009-02-25 'This book convincingly challenges both the extremely short historical memory of most postcolonial work and the all-too-insularly English world still conjured by period specialists. Hogarthian whores and Grub Street hacks, coffee houses and fashionable pastimes, and the burgeoning of print culture all stand revealed as intimately bound to portents of plantation insurgency, agitation for abolition, and the vast fortunes produced by the labouring bodies of the poor, the colonized, and the enslaved. Eighteenth-century studies has never appeared in a more engaged and fascinating light.'Professor Donna Landry, University of KentIn this volume Suvir Kaul addresses the relations between literary culture, English commercial and colonial expansion, and the making of 'Great Britain' in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He argues that literary writing played a crucial role in generating the vocabulary of British nationalism, both in inter-national terms and in attempts to realign political and cultural relations between England, Scotland, and Ireland. The formal innovations and practices characteristic of eighteenth-century English literature were often responses to the worlds brought into view by travel writers, merchants, and colonists. Writers (even those suspicious of mercantile and colonial expansion) worked with a growing sense of a 'national literature' whose achievements would provide the cultural capital adequate to global imperial power, and would distinguish Great Britain for its twin success in 'arms and arts'. The book ranges from Davenant's theatre to Smollet's Roderick Random to Phillis Wheatley's poetry to trace the impact of empire on literary creativity.Key Features*An introduction to the impact of mercantilism and empire on the crafting of eighteenth-century British literature*Encourages students to examine the key formal innovations that define eighteenth-century British literary history as they were produced by writers who redefined |
| th century british literature: Manly Leaders in Nineteenth-Century British Literature Daniela Garofalo, 2009-01-08 Examines fantasies of charismatic, virile leaders in British literature from the 1790s to the 1840s. |
| th century british literature: The Oxford Book of Twentieth-century English Verse Philip Larkin, 1973 Anthology of about 600 poems from more than 200 twentieth century English poets. |
| th century british literature: Folklore and the Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction Jason Marc Harris, 2016-04-15 Jason Marc Harris's ambitious book argues that the tensions between folk metaphysics and Enlightenment values produce the literary fantastic. Demonstrating that a negotiation with folklore was central to the canon of British literature, he explicates the complicated rhetoric associated with folkloric fiction. His analysis includes a wide range of writers, including James Barrie, William Carleton, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Sheridan Le Fanu, Neil Gunn, George MacDonald, William Sharp, Robert Louis Stevenson, and James Hogg. These authors, Harris suggests, used folklore to articulate profound cultural ambivalence towards issues of class, domesticity, education, gender, imperialism, nationalism, race, politics, religion, and metaphysics. Harris's analysis of the function of folk metaphysics in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century narratives reveals the ideological agendas of the appropriation of folklore and the artistic potential of superstition in both folkloric and literary contexts of the supernatural. |
| th century british literature: The Crisis of Action in Nineteenth-century English Literature Stefanie Markovits, 2006 We think of the nineteenth century as an active age - the age of colonial expansion, revolutions, and railroads, of great exploration and the Great Exhibition. But in reading the works of Romantic and Victorian writers one notices a conflict, what Stefanie Markovits terms a crisis of action. In her book, The Crisis of Action in Nineteenth-Century English Literature, Markovits maps out this conflict by focusing on four writers: William Wordsworth, Arthur Hugh Clough, George Eliot, and Henry James. Each chapter offers a case-study that demonstrates how specific historical contingencies - including reaction to the French Revolution, laissez-faire economic practices, changes in religious and scientific beliefs, and shifts in women's roles - made people in the period hypersensitive to the status of action and its literary co-relative, plot.--BOOK JACKET. |
| th century british literature: Britain in the Twentieth Century Charles More, 2014-05-22 In a century of rapid social change, the British people have experienced two world wars, the growth of the welfare state and the loss of Empire. Charles More looks at these and other issues in a comprehensive study of Britain’s political, economic and social history throughout the twentieth century. This accessible new book also engages with topical questions such as the impact of the Labour party and the role of patriotism in British identity. |
| th century british literature: A Guide to Twentieth Century Literature in English Harry Blamires, 2021-06-23 First published in 1983, A Guide to Twentieth Century Literature in English is a detailed and comprehensive guide containing over 500 entries on individual writers from countries including Africa, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the UK. The book contains substantial articles relating to major novelists, poets, and dramatists of the age, as well as a wealth of information on the work of lesser-known writers and the part they have played in cultural history. It focuses in detail on the character and quality of the literature itself, highlighting what is distinctive in the work of the writers being discussed and providing key biographical and contextual details. A Guide to Twentieth Century Literature in English is ideal for those with an interest in the twentieth century literary scene and the history of literature more broadly. |
| th century british literature: Missionary Cosmopolitanism in Nineteenth-Century British Literature Winter Jade Werner, 2023-05-08 Examines the missionary roots of cosmopolitanism through Romantic and Victorian literature, revealing the interconnectedness between evangelically motivated imperialisms and secularized cosmopolitanism. |
| th century british literature: A History of Twentieth-Century British Women's Poetry Jane Dowson, Alice Entwistle, 2005-05-19 Publisher Description |
| th century british literature: Novel Bodies Jason S. Farr, 2019-06-07 Novel Bodies examines how disability shapes the British literary history of sexuality. Jason Farr shows that various eighteenth-century novelists represent disability and sexuality in flexible ways to reconfigure the political and social landscapes of eighteenth-century Britain. In imagining the lived experience of disability as analogous to—and as informed by—queer genders and sexualities, the authors featured in Novel Bodies expose emerging ideas of able-bodiedness and heterosexuality as interconnected systems that sustain dominant models of courtship, reproduction, and degeneracy. Further, Farr argues that they use intersections of disability and queerness to stage an array of contemporaneous debates covering topics as wide-ranging as education, feminism, domesticity, medicine, and plantation life. In his close attention to the fiction of Eliza Haywood, Samuel Richardson, Sarah Scott, Maria Edgeworth, and Frances Burney, Farr demonstrates that disabled and queer characters inhabit strict social orders in unconventional ways, and thus opened up new avenues of expression for readers from the eighteenth century forward. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press. |
| th century british literature: The Modernist Self in Twentieth-Century English Literature Dennis Brown, John Theodore, 1989-05-15 An exploration of how key modern writers challenged conventional ways of characterizing selfhood, thus developing a discourse expressive of the subtleties of experience in a post-Freudian world long before the self-representation theories of the post-structuralists and post-modernists. |
| th century british literature: The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro, 2010-07-15 BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, here is “an intricate and dazzling novel” (The New York Times) about the perfect butler and his fading, insular world in post-World War II England. This is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of a butler named Stevens. Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the great gentleman, Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's greatness, and much graver doubts about the nature of his own life. |
| th century british literature: Replotting Marriage in Nineteenth-century British Literature Jill Nicole Galvan, 2018-06 Top scholars in Victorian studies reexamine questions about marriage and the marriage plot from cutting-edge perspectives. |
| th century british literature: The Working Class and Twenty-First-Century British Fiction Phil O'Brien, 2019-12-05 The Working Class and Twenty-First-Century British Fiction looks at how the twenty-first-century British novel has explored contemporary working-class life. Studying the works of David Peace, Gordon Burn, Anthony Cartwright, Ross Raisin, Jenni Fagan, and Sunjeev Sahota, the book shows how they have mapped the shift from deindustrialisation through to stigmatization of individuals and communities who have experienced profound levels of destabilization and unemployment. O'Brien argues that these novels offer ways of understanding fundamental aspects of contemporary capitalism for the working class in modern Britain, including, class struggle, inequality, trauma, social abjection, racism, and stigmatization, exclusively looking at British working-class literature of the twenty-first century. |
| th century british literature: Reversing the Conquest Clare A. Simmons, 1990 |
| th century british literature: Aesthetics of Space in Nineteenth-Century British Literature, 1843-1907 Giles Whiteley, 2020-03-02 Charting an 'aesthetic', post-realist tradition of writing, this book considers the significant role played by John Ruskin's art criticism in later writing which dealt with the new kinds of spaces encountered in the nineteenth-century. |
| th century british literature: Novel Cultivations Elizabeth Hope Chang, 2019 This book looks at the transnational circulation of both people and plants as a feature of Victorian speculative fiction-- |
| th century british literature: The Broadview Anthology of British Literature Volume 2: The Renaissance and the Early Seventeenth Century - Third Edition Joseph Black, Leonard Connolly, Kate Flint, Isobel Grundy, Don LePan, Roy Liuzza, Jerome J. McGann, Anne Lake Prescott, Barry V. Qualls, Claire Waters, 2016-03-14 In all six of its volumes The Broadview Anthology of British Literature presents British literature in a truly distinctive light. Fully grounded in sound literary and historical scholarship, the anthology takes a fresh approach to many canonical authors, and includes a wide selection of work by lesser-known writers. The anthology also provides wide-ranging coverage of the worldwide connections of British literature, and it pays attention throughout to issues of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. It includes comprehensive introductions to each period, providing in each case an overview of the historical and cultural as well as the literary background. It features accessible and engaging headnotes for all authors, extensive explanatory annotations, and an unparalleled number of illustrations and contextual materials. Innovative, authoritative and comprehensive, The Broadview Anthology of British Literature has established itself as a leader in the field. The full anthology comprises six bound volumes, together with an extensive website component; the latter has been edited, annotated, and designed according to the same high standards as the bound book component of the anthology, and is accessible by using the passcode obtained with the purchase of one or more of the bound volumes. For the third edition of this volume a considerable number of changes have been made. Newly prepared, for example, is a substantial selection from Baldassare Castiglione’s The Courtier, presented in Thomas Hoby’s influential early modern English translation. Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy is another major addition. Also new to the anthology are excerpts from Thomas Dekker’s plague pamphlets. We have considerably expanded our representation of Elizabeth I’s writings and speeches, as well as providing several more cantos from Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene and adding selections from Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia. We have broadened our coverage, too, to include substantial selections of Irish, Gaelic Scottish, and Welsh literature. (Perhaps most notable of the numerous authors in this section are two extraordinary Welsh poets, Dafydd ap Gwilym and Gwerful Mechain.) Mary Sidney Herbert’s writings now appear in the bound book instead of on the companion website. Margaret Cavendish, previously included in volume 3 of the full anthology, will now also be included in this volume; we have added a number of her poems, with an emphasis on those with scientific themes. The edition features two new Contexts sections: a sampling of “Tudor and Stuart Humor,” and a section on “Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, and Covenanters.” New materials on emblem books and on manuscript culture have also been added to the “Culture: A Portfolio” contexts section. There are many additions the website component as well—including Thomas Deloney’s Jack of Newbury also published as a stand-alone BABL edition). We are also expanding our online selection of transatlantic material, with the inclusion of writings by John Smith, William Bradford, and Anne Bradstreet. |
| th century british literature: The Catholic Revival in English Literature, 1845-1961 Ian Turnbull Ker, 2003 A thorough study of the six principal writers of the Catholic revival in English Literature - Newman, Hopkins, Belloc, Chesterton, Greene and Waugh. Beginning with Newman's conversion in 1845 and ending with Waugh's completion of the trilogy 'The Sword of Honour' in 1961, this book explores how Catholicism shaped the work of these six prominent writers. Ian Ker is a member of the theology faculty at Oxford University. He is well known as one of the leading authorities on the life and work of Cardinal John Henry Newman. |
| th century british literature: Literary Historicity Ruth Mack, 2009 Literary Historicity explores how eighteenth-century British writers considered the past as an aspect of experience. Mack moves between close examinations of literature, historiography, and recent philosophical writing on history, offering a new view of eighteenth-century philosophies of history in Britain. Such philosophies, she argues, could be important literarily without being focused, as has been assumed, on questions of fact and fiction. Eighteenth-century writerslike many twentieth-century philosophersoften used literary form not in order to exhibit a work's fictional status but in order to consider what the relation between the past and present might be. Literary Historicity portrays a British Enlightenment that both embraces the possibility of historical experience and interrogates the terms for such experience, one deeply engaged with historical consciousness not as an inevitability of the modern world, but as something to be understood within it. |
| th century british literature: Anthology of Twentieth-century British and Irish Poetry Keith Tuma, 2001 Collects over 450 works by such poets as Thomas Hardy, Catherine Walsh, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, T. S. Eliot, and D.H Lawrence; and covers modernist traditions, black British poets, and avant-garde poetry. |
| th century british literature: A Companion to Early Twentieth-Century Britain Chris Wrigley, 2008-04-15 This Companion brings together 32 new essays by leading historians to provide a reassessment of British history in the early twentieth century. The contributors present lucid introductions to the literature and debates on major aspects of the political, social and economic history of Britain between 1900 and 1939. Examines controversial issues over the social impact of the First World War, especially on women Provides substantial coverage of changes in Wales, Scotland and Ireland as well as in England Includes a substantial bibliography, which will be a valuable guide to secondary sources |
| th century british literature: The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature Clare A. Lees, 2012-11-29 Informed by multicultural, multidisciplinary perspectives, The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature offers a new exploration of the earliest writing in Britain and Ireland, from the end of the Roman Empire to the mid-twelfth century. Beginning with an account of writing itself, as well as of scripts and manuscript art, subsequent chapters examine the earliest texts from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and the tremendous breadth of Anglo-Latin literature. Chapters on English learning and literature in the ninth century and the later formation of English poetry and prose also convey the profound cultural confidence of the period. Providing a discussion of essential texts, including Beowulf and the writings of Bede, this History captures the sheer inventiveness and vitality of early medieval literary culture through topics as diverse as the literature of English law, liturgical and devotional writing, the workings of science and the history of women's writing. |
| th century british literature: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (A New Verse Translation) , 2008-11-17 One of the earliest great stories of English literature after ?Beowulf?, ?Sir Gawain? is the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse, who rudely interrupts King Arthur's Round Table festivities one Yuletide, challenging the knights to a wager. Simon Armitrage, one of Britain's leading poets, has produced an inventive and groundbreaking translation that helps] liberate ?Gawain ?from academia (?Sunday Telegraph?). |
| th century british literature: Eighteenth-century English Literature Maximillian E. Novak, 1983-01-01 |
| th century british literature: The Eighteenth Century Pat Rogers, 1978 |
| th century british literature: Good Words Mark Knight, 2019 This study explores how evangelicalism played a role in the development of the Victorian novel-- |
| th century british literature: Who's who in Twentieth Century Literature Martin Seymour-Smith, 1976 |
| th century british literature: Twenty-First-Century British Fiction and the City Magali Cornier Michael, 2018-07-31 The essays in this edited collection offer incisive and nuanced analyses of and insights into the state of British cities and urban environments in the twenty-first century. Britain’s experiences with industrialization, colonialism, post-colonialism, global capitalism, and the European Union (EU) have had a marked influence on British ideas about and British literature’s depiction of the city and urban contexts. Recent British fiction focuses in particular on cities as intertwined with globalization and global capitalism (including the proliferation of media) and with issues of immigration and migration. Indeed, decolonization has brought large numbers of people from former colonies to Britain, thus making British cities ever more diverse. Such mixing of peoples in urban areas has led to both racist fears and possibilities of cosmopolitan co-existence. |
| th century british literature: Piers Plowman William Langland, 1995 |
| th century british literature: Encyclopaedia Britannica Hugh Chisholm, 1910 This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style. |
What do we call the “rd” in “3ʳᵈ” and the “th” in “9ᵗʰ”?
Aug 23, 2014 · The addition of -th/ -eth relates to numbers 4 to 20 (and similarly,) and is a suffix to the cardinal number. However, as in the second and third examples, the rd & st simply come …
“20th century” vs. “20ᵗʰ century” - English Language & Usage ...
There they have idiosyncratically used 20 th rather than 20 th, but the point is that the letters and numbers — more properly, the figures — look different. Figures can be proportionally spaced …
Is there a rule for pronouncing “th” at the beginning of a word?
The awareness that some Latin words in t- were from Greek th- encouraged over-correction in English and created unetymological forms such as Thames and author, while some words …
Why was the "th" combination chosen for the "th" sound?
Dec 6, 2014 · The origin of 'th' really has nothing to do with the development of the English language. It comes directly from the Roman alphabet. From Wikipedia.: The digraph ‹th› was …
Is there any rule for differentiating between the endings "th" and …
The secondary issue is that of spelling, as you find th and ht confusing. This is a matter of mis-parsing some common English digraphs. This is a matter of mis-parsing some common …
Is there any word in English where "th" sounds like "t+h"?
Mar 1, 2016 · Some non-compounds spelled th and pronounced /th/ rather than /θ/ are: Thomas, thyme, Thailand, and, sometimes, Neanderthal. Many natives might tell you that the h is …
abbreviations - When were st, nd, rd, and th, first used - English ...
In English, Wikipedia says these started out as superscripts: 1 st, 2 nd, 3 rd, 4 th, but during the 20 th century they migrated to the baseline: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. So the practice started during …
What is the phonological error pronouncing /θ/ as /s/ called?
Nov 22, 2014 · th-alveolarization In rarer or older varieties of African American Vernacular English, /θ/ may be pronounced [s], as in bathroom [ˈbæsɹum]. Children with a lisp , however, …
etymology - What is the origin of the "-th" suffix? What is the ...
Dec 3, 2016 · The suffix -th was added to it in Middle English by analogy with words like length and width. The vowel also ended up being shortened, which is not surprising since the word …
What is the ‘‑ht vs ‑th’ grammar or spelling rule? [duplicate]
Feb 13, 2023 · As for -th vs. -t. . . you're probably aware that there are a few endings that are always -th (e.g. the ordinal ending as in eighth) and a few endings that are always -t (e.g. the …
What do we call the “rd” in “3ʳᵈ” and the “th” in “9ᵗʰ”?
Aug 23, 2014 · The addition of -th/ -eth relates to numbers 4 to 20 (and similarly,) and is a suffix to the cardinal number. However, as in the second and third examples, the rd & st simply come …
“20th century” vs. “20ᵗʰ century” - English Language & Usage ...
There they have idiosyncratically used 20 th rather than 20 th, but the point is that the letters and numbers — more properly, the figures — look different. Figures can be proportionally spaced …
Is there a rule for pronouncing “th” at the beginning of a word?
The awareness that some Latin words in t- were from Greek th- encouraged over-correction in English and created unetymological forms such as Thames and author, while some words …
Why was the "th" combination chosen for the "th" sound?
Dec 6, 2014 · The origin of 'th' really has nothing to do with the development of the English language. It comes directly from the Roman alphabet. From Wikipedia.: The digraph ‹th› was …
Is there any rule for differentiating between the endings "th" and …
The secondary issue is that of spelling, as you find th and ht confusing. This is a matter of mis-parsing some common English digraphs. This is a matter of mis-parsing some common …
Is there any word in English where "th" sounds like "t+h"?
Mar 1, 2016 · Some non-compounds spelled th and pronounced /th/ rather than /θ/ are: Thomas, thyme, Thailand, and, sometimes, Neanderthal. Many natives might tell you that the h is …
abbreviations - When were st, nd, rd, and th, first used - English ...
In English, Wikipedia says these started out as superscripts: 1 st, 2 nd, 3 rd, 4 th, but during the 20 th century they migrated to the baseline: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. So the practice started during …
What is the phonological error pronouncing /θ/ as /s/ called?
Nov 22, 2014 · th-alveolarization In rarer or older varieties of African American Vernacular English, /θ/ may be pronounced [s], as in bathroom [ˈbæsɹum]. Children with a lisp , however, …
etymology - What is the origin of the "-th" suffix? What is the ...
Dec 3, 2016 · The suffix -th was added to it in Middle English by analogy with words like length and width. The vowel also ended up being shortened, which is not surprising since the word …
What is the ‘‑ht vs ‑th’ grammar or spelling rule? [duplicate]
Feb 13, 2023 · As for -th vs. -t. . . you're probably aware that there are a few endings that are always -th (e.g. the ordinal ending as in eighth) and a few endings that are always -t (e.g. the …
