Making the English Canon

Making the English Canon PDF Author: Jonathan Brody Kramnick
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521641276
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Jonathan Brody Kramnick's book examines the formation of the English canon over the first two-thirds of the eighteenth century. Kramnick details how the idea of literary tradition emerged out of a prolonged engagement with the institutions of cultural modernity, from the public sphere and national identity to capitalism and the print market. Looking at a wide variety of eighteenth-century critical writing, he analyses the tensions that inhabited the categories of national literature and public culture at the moment of their emergence.

Making the English Canon

Making the English Canon PDF Author: Jonathan Brody Kramnick
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521641276
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Jonathan Brody Kramnick's book examines the formation of the English canon over the first two-thirds of the eighteenth century. Kramnick details how the idea of literary tradition emerged out of a prolonged engagement with the institutions of cultural modernity, from the public sphere and national identity to capitalism and the print market. Looking at a wide variety of eighteenth-century critical writing, he analyses the tensions that inhabited the categories of national literature and public culture at the moment of their emergence.

Making of the English Literary Canon

Making of the English Literary Canon PDF Author: Trevor Ross
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773566996
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
An indigenous canon of letters, Ross argues, had been both the hope and aim of English authors since the Middle Ages. Early authors believed that promoting the idea of a national literature would help publicize their work and favour literary production in the vernacular. Ross places these early gestures toward canon-making in the context of the highly rhetorical habits of thought that dominated medieval and Renaissance culture, habits that were gradually displaced by an emergent rationalist understanding of literary value. He shows that, beginning in the late seventeenth century, canon-makers became less concerned with how English literature was produced than with how it was read and received.

The Western Canon

The Western Canon PDF Author: Harold Bloom
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547546483
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 751

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Book Description
The literary critic defends the importance of Western literature from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Kafka and Beckett in this acclaimed national bestseller. NOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD Harold Bloom's The Western Canon is more than a required reading list—it is a “heroically brave, formidably learned” defense of the great works of literature that comprise the traditional Western Canon. Infused with a love of learning, compelling in its arguments for a unifying written culture, it argues brilliantly against the politicization of literature and presents a guide to the essential writers of the western literary tradition (The New York Times Book Review). Placing William Shakespeare at the “center of the canon,” Bloom examines the literary contributions of Dante Alighieri, John Milton, Jane Austen, Emily Dickenson, Leo Tolstoy, Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Pablo Neruda, and many others. Bloom's book, much-discussed and praised in publications as diverse as The Economist and Entertainment Weekly, offers a dazzling display of erudition and passion. “An impressive work…deeply, rightly passionate about the great books of the past.”—Michel Dirda, The Washington Post Book World

The American Canon: Literary Genius from Emerson to Pynchon

The American Canon: Literary Genius from Emerson to Pynchon PDF Author: Harold Bloom
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1598536400
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Our foremost literary critic on our most essential writers, from Emerson and Whitman to Hurston and Ellison, from Faulkner and O'Connor to Ursula K. LeGuin and Philip Roth. No critic has better understood the ways writers influence one another—how literary traditions are made—and no writer has helped readers understand this better, than Harold Bloom. Over the course of a remarkable sixty-year career, in such bestselling books as The Western Canon, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, and How to Read and Why, Bloom brought enormous insight and infectious enthusiasm to the great writers of the Western tradition, from Shakespeare and Cervantes to the British Romantics and the Russian masters. Now, for the first time, comes a collection of his brilliant writings about the American tradition, the ultimate guide to our nation’s literature. Assembled with David Mikics (Slow Reading in a Hurried Age), this unprecedented collection gathers five decades’ worth of Bloom’s writings— much of it hard to find and long unavailable—including essays, occasional pieces, and introductions as well as excerpts from his books. It offers deep readings of 47 essential American writers, reflecting on the surprising ways they have influenced each other across more than two centuries. The story it tells, of American literature as a recurring artistic struggle for selfhood, speaks to the passion and power of the American spirit. All of the visionary American writers who have long preoccupied Bloom―Emerson and Whitman, Hawthorne and Melville, and Dickinson, Faulkner, Crane, Frost, Stevens, and Bishop―make their appearance in The American Canon, along with Hemingway, James, O’Connor, Ellison, Hurston, Le Guin, Ashbery and many others. Bloom’s passion for these classic writers is contagious, and he reminds readers how they have shaped our sense of who we are, and how they can summon us to be better versions of ourselves. Bloom, Mikics writes, “is still our most inspirational critic, still the man who can enlighten us by telling us to read as if our lives depended on it: Because, he insists, they do.” For readers who want to deepen their appreciation of American literature, there's no better place to start than The American Canon.

The Making of the English Literary Canon

The Making of the English Literary Canon PDF Author: Trevor Thornton Ross
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 9780773520806
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
It is widely accepted among literary scholars that canon-formation began in the eighteenth century when scholarly editions and critical treatments of older works, designed to educate readers about the national literary heritage, appeared for the first time. In The Making of the English Literary Canon Trevor Ross challenges this assumption, arguing that canon-formation was going on well before the eighteenth century but was based on a very different set of literary and cultural values. Covering a period that extends from the Middle Ages to the institutionalisation of literature in the eighteenth century, Ross's comprehensive history traces the evolution of cultural attitudes toward literature in English society, highlighting the diverse interests and assumptions that defined and shaped the literary canon. An indigenous canon of letters, Ross argues, had been both the hope and aim of English authors since the Middle Ages. Early authors believed that promoting the idea of a national literature would help publicise their work and favour literary production in the vernacular. Ross places these early gestures toward canon-making in the context of the highly rhetorical habits of thought that dominated medieval and Renaissance culture, habits that were gradually displaced by an emergent rationalist understanding of literary value. He shows that, beginning in the late seventeenth century, canon-makers became less concerned with how English literature was produced than with how it was read and received. By showing that canon-formation has served different functions in the past, The Making of the English Literary Canon is relevant not only to current debates over the canon but also as an important corrective to prevailing views of early modern English literature and of how it was first evaluated, promoted, and preserved. It is widely accepted among literary scholars that canon-formation began in the eighteenth century when scholarly editions and critical treatments of older works, designed to educate readers about the national literary heritage, appeared for the first time. In The Making of the English Literary Canon Trevor Ross challenges this assumption, arguing that canon- formation was going on well before the eighteenth century but was based on a very different set of literary and cultural values. Covering a period that extends from the Middle Ages to the institutionalisation of literature in the eighteenth century, Ross's comprehensive history traces the evolution of cultural attitudes toward literature in English society, highlighting the diverse interests and assumptions that defined and shaped the literary canon. An indigenous canon of letters, Ross argues, had been both the hope and aim of English authors since the Middle Ages. Early authors believed that promoting the idea of a national literature would help publicise their work and favour literary production in the vernacular. Ross places these early gestures toward canon-making in the context of the highly rhetorical habits of thought that dominated medieval and Renaissance culture, habits that were gradually displaced by an emergent rationalist understanding of literary value. He shows that, beginning in the late seventeenth century, canon-makers became less concerned with how English literature was produced than with how it was read and received. By showing that canon-formation has served different functions in the past, The Making of the English Literary Canon is relevant not only to current debates over the canon but also as an important corrective to prevailing views of early modern English literature and of how it was first evaluated, promoted, and preserved.

Workshopping the Canon

Workshopping the Canon PDF Author: Mary E. Styslinger
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780814158470
Category : Canon (Literature)
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description


A Black British Canon?

A Black British Canon? PDF Author: G. Low
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 023062569X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
This much-needed collection examines the formation of a black British canon including writers, dramatists, film-makers and artists. Contributors including John McLeod, Michael McMillan, Mike Phillips and Alison Donnell discuss the textual, political and cultural history of black British and the term 'black British' itself.

Cultural Capital

Cultural Capital PDF Author: John Guillory
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226830608
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 435

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Book Description
An enlarged edition to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of John Guillory’s formative text on the literary canon. Since its publication in 1993, John Guillory’s Cultural Capital has been a signal text for understanding the codification and uses of the literary canon. Cultural Capital reconsiders the social basis for aesthetic judgment and exposes the unequal distribution of symbolic and linguistic knowledge on which culture has long been based. Drawing from Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology, Guillory argues that canon formation must be understood less as a question of the representation of social groups and more as a question of the distribution of cultural capital in schools, which regulate access to literacy, to the practices of reading and writing. Now, as the crisis of the canon has evolved into the so-called crisis of the humanities, Guillory’s groundbreaking, incisive work has never been more urgent. As scholar and critic Merve Emre writes in her introduction to this enlarged edition: “Exclusion, selection, reflection, representation—these are the terms on which the canon wars of the last century were fought, and the terms that continue to inform debates about, for instance, decolonizing the curriculum and the rhetoric of antiracist pedagogy.”

Doing English

Doing English PDF Author: Robert Eaglestone
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134654251
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
Aimed at students in the final year of secondary education or beginning degrees, this immensely readable book provides the ideal introduction to studying English literature. The book will: * orientate you, by explaining what you are doing when you 'do English' * equip you for future study, by introducing current ideas literature, context and interpretation * enable you to bridge the gap between 'traditional' and 'theoretical' approaches to literature, showing why English has had to change and what those changes mean for you. Doing English deals with the exciting new ideas and contentious debates that make up English today, covering a broad range of issues from the history of literary studies and the canon to Shakespeare, politics and the future of English. The second edition has been revised throughout and includes a new chapter on narrative. Robert Eaglestone's refreshingly clear explanations and advice make this volume essential reading for all those planning to 'do English' at advanced or degree level.

Adapting the Canon

Adapting the Canon PDF Author: Silke Arnold-De Simine
Publisher: Legenda
ISBN: 9781781887080
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Adapting the Canon brings together some of the most recent and exciting research in the growing field of adaptation studies, charting the passage of canonical texts across time, cultures and different media. Spanning several Humanities disciplines, the essays in this volume explore key questions about what adaptation means for the canonical work, focusing on texts adapted to and from English, French, German, Dutch, and Italian, from the medieval world to the twenty-first century. Adaptation is much more than the process by which great novels become films. In this rich selection of case studies, canonical figures such as Shakespeare, Voltaire, Kafka, Pound, Villon, Tasso, Calvino, Hugo, Valéry, Zola, Robert Louis Stevenson and Jane Austen are reimagined in a range of media which has never been so broad as today, from theatre, radio and television to the smartphone.