Resources for English Language & Literature:
English Literature
The following is a list of general works and compilations of scholarly essays on English literature from our collection. It does not represent the extent of our collection on any given subject. For books on more specific titles, subjects, writers, or genres, please search our Library Catalog or the databases suggested at: English Language & Literature: Searchable Databases and Online Tools.
This work acts as a quick reference guide, providing a concise background or definition for the most important terms, names, titles and ideas related to English literary study. The scope ranges from Old English texts to modern writers still living.
This quick reference guide offers the reader a basic introduction to concepts, genres, works, and writers of the English-speaking world from the birth of the language to the present, and covering any geographic area from the United States to New Zealand. The work is searchable, and entries are hyper-linked.
This set of volumes provides lengthy biographical entries on some of the major figures in English literature. Volumes are arranged by time period (with a few entries out of order), beginning with Langland in the fourteenth century and continuing to contemporary writers.
This Encyclopedia offers brief biographical, historical, and critical looks at the major figures of British literature of all ages, and most entries include a helpful bibliography of important works about the writer discussed. The work is searchable or browsable.
This dictionary provides the reader with brief entries of introduction to major concepts, people and works of English literature. It is searchable, and entries are hyperlinked.
This introductory work will be most helpful to the student just beginning a historical overview of English literature. The book is divided into chapters that discuss the development of literary genres chronologically. The 19th and 20th centuries receive the most weight, and only the most important figures in literature are discussed. A name index will direct students to particular works or discussions of authors.
This book attempts to situate particular writers in the development of the novel as literary form. The author stays fairly general, and the book is meant to be a basic introduction to the development and influences of the English Novel. It will be useful for introductory students looking for background information.
Nation and Novel: The English Novel from its Origins to the Present Day
This collection of essays attempts to situate the development of the novel alongside the historical, political, cultural and societal development of England through the pre-novel prose writing of the 15th century, to the formation of novel as literary form, to the present day.
This resource provides a good overview of the important writers and stylistic elements particular to genres of fifteenth century literature. Discussions of romances, poetry, and prose (including some discussions of sermons and mystical writing) are included.
This book attempts to situate Chaucer among the literary genres of the fifteenth century, and among the other influential writers that sprung from that era. Its companion volume, English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages, is listed below.
This collection of essays by leading scholars discusses the genre of Medieval romance in historical terms, both in its original development and as it influenced genres across Europe. This volume will be helpful to all researchers, from the undergraduate student to th
This work provides a good introduction to the historical backdrop of 15th century England that shaped and influenced poetry of the time. Discussions include both national and foreign events and sentiments affecting England.
This book argues for a broadening of critical boundaries in examining Medieval poetry, suggesting that the typical vein of discussions centered around Chaucerian verse ignore other poetical camps. Ballads, lays and romance poems are all discussed.
English Literature - Renaissance
In-depth Works:
English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century, 1600-1660
This definitive source is meant to be a critical survey of the literary scope of the time period of the early 17th century in England. Chapters are divided by different types of genres and ideas, and include thorough discussions of Spenser, Donne and Jonson, as well as aspects of political, scientific and religious thoughts of the time.
This work presents a group of discussions that probe the English Renaissance drama from various angles: poetic, social, historical, dramatic, etc. The author does not limit himself to Shakespeare- he discusses other contemporary playwrights alongside him, giving the reader a more panoramic view of Elizabethan theatre as a whole.
The Shakespearean Moment and Its Place in the Poetry of the 17th Century
An important work of English Renaissance criticism, this book discusses the artistic tones of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, comparing and contrasting the poetry of others, particularly John Donne, with Shakespeare's own work.
This volume offers essays meant to be a comprehensive introduction to the study of Shakespeare, in literary, theatrical and historical terms. The texts are searchable and include chronologies and a bibliographic essay.
This work explores the waves of social change that were overtaking English culture in the early 18th century, and places pre-novel writing of the time within such shifts. The author discusses the rise of the novel as a new genre within the context of the construction of readership, both 'high' and 'low' in England at that time.
This collection of essays charts the development of the novel in the eighteenth century with discussions of the most important writers of the time: Swift, Richardson, Defoe, Fielding, Sterne, etc. Chapters also include a discussion of women writers, and popular culture and Gothic fiction. Use the index to search for other writers not listed in chapter titles.
Britannia's Issue: The Rise of British Literature from Dryden to Ossian
This book discusses the formation of a British identity in the context of literary production in the late 17th and early 18th century. Major writers of the period are examined, and discussion hinges on historical situation.
English Literature - 19th Century
In-depth Works:
Prose in the Age of Poets: Romanticism and Biographical Narrative from Johnson to DeQuincey
Chapters in this volume are devoted to Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and Thomas DeQuincey, but the essays discuss other important literary figures , particularly poets, alongside these writers in trying to trace the development of biography alongside the development of prose writing.
The eleven essays that make up this collection represent "a reassessment, a rethinking, of essential terms" that have occupied scholars about the period (quoted from the book's Preface). The book examines the themes of British Romanticism in terms of other literary movements and within the historical significance of the time (including discussions on the British reaction to the French revolution). It is a volume that researchers of all levels will find useful.
This book contains a collection of eleven essays written by some of the most prominent Victorian literature scholars. Chapters cover topics on reader and publishing culture, aesthetic aspects of the novel, as well as such cultural issues as race and sexuality. The volume will prove enlightening to readers at all levels.
This volume is divided into chapters devoted to particular writers: Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontes, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Trollope and Meredith are all devoted a chapter, as are minor literary figures. A good bibliography for each chapter might direct readers further.
This volume collects essays on particular themes of Victorian life and their representation in literature, written by prominent Victorian scholars. Sections of the volume include Passages of Life, with chapters on Childhood, Adolescence, Walks of Life, etc., including discussions of different professional categories, and Kinds of Writing, made up of essays about different genres of literature. The essays will be helpful at all levels of research, and bibliographies at the end of each chapter might be extremely useful to the in-depth researcher.
Within this work, discussion of influential poets is fused with inquiry into the terms that define modern and postmodern poetry, and situated within a broader cultural context.
This volume is made up of five chapters: a basic introduction to British Modernism, followed by discussions of specific writers (Woolf, Hardy, Murdoch, Beckett, etc.).
This book discusses modernist and postmodernist novels in the context of their relation or conceptualization of 'realism.' While it is not a survey, many important British writers are discussed. The upper-level student will find it most useful.
A Companion to the British and Irish Novel: 1945-2000
The essays in this book probe the boundaries of novel in the changing cultural and literary space of the late twentieth century. The essays range in scope from those on particular works to those on how novels in general relate to genres of film and video, for instance. It will be useful for students at all levels.
