LibGuides: British Literature: Books & eBooks

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British Literature in Transition, 1980 - 2000 : Accelerated Times The literature of twentieth-century Britain's final twenty years represents a crash course in transitional history. In the aftermath of the 1970s, the nation's hopes of becoming more efficient were high, leading to the fundamental domestic shake-up that was Margaret Thatcher's neoliberal revolution (1979-90). Following the end of the Cold War, Europe was undergoing radical rejuvenation, while the world as a whole began to thrive on new levels of connectivity and proximity brought through rapid advances in communication technology. Later, in the 1990s, Britons were asked to countenance not only internal devolution, but also the crystallisation of a brand-new European and global order. This volume shows how British literature recorded contemporaneous historical change. It traces the emergence and evolution of literary trends as well as enduring transitional shifts in genre, tone, style and thematic preoccupation.
The History of British Literature on Film, 1895-2015 From The Death of Nancy Sykes (1897) to The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) and beyond, cinematic adaptations of British literature participate in a complex and fascinating history. The History of British Literature on Film, 1895-2015 is the only comprehensive narration of cinema's 100-year-old love affair with British literature. Unlike previous studies of literature and film, which tend to privilege particular authors such as Shakespeare and Jane Austen, or particular texts such as Frankenstein, or particular literary periods such as Medieval, this volume considers the multiple functions of filmed British literature as a cinematic subject in its own right-one reflecting the specific political and aesthetic priorities of different national and historical cinemas. In what ways has the British literary canon authorized and influenced the history and aesthetics of film, and in what ways has filmed British literature both affirmed and challenged the very idea of literary canonicity? Seeking to answer these and other key questions, this indispensable study shows how these adaptations emerged from and continue to shape the social, artistic, and commercial aspects of film history.
Landmarks in English Literature This comprehensive survey of writers and their works presents a "good reading guide" of important books from Chaucer to T. S. Eliot, and clear explanations of the history and techniques of fiction, poetry and drama.
Manly Leaders in Nineteenth-Century British Literature Examines fantasies of charismatic, virile leaders in British literature from the 1790s to the 1840s.
Postwar British Literature and Postcolonial Studies Examines the legacy of imperialism and decolonisation, globalisation and national identityGraham MacPhee explains how postwar writers blended the experimentalism of prewar modernism with other cultural traditions to represent both the pain and the pleasures of multiculturalism. He discusses a wide range of writers, from Auden, Orwell, T.S. Eliot and Larkin to Linton Kwesi Johnson, Tony Harrison, Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan.Key Features* Explores concepts and critical terms such as 'British national literature', 'new ethnicities', 'migrancy' and 'hybridity'* Case studies of postwar texts include: Sam Selvon's The Lonely Londoners, John Arden's Serjeant Musgrave's Dance, Linton Kwesi Johnson's Dread Beat an' Blood, Tony Harrison's V, Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, Leila Aboulela's Minaret and Ian McEwan's Saturday.
Race and Antiracism in Black British and British Asian Literature Race and Antiracism in Black British and British Asian Literature offers the first extended exploration of the cultural impact of the politics of race and antiracism in Britain through focussing on a selection of recent novels by black British and British Asian writers. The study argues thatan understanding of how race and ethnicity function in contemporary Britain can only be gained through attention to antiracism: the politics of opposing discrimination that manifest at the level of state legislation, within local and national activism, and inside the scholarly exploration of race.It is antiracism that now most strongly conditions the emergence of racial categorisations but also of racial identities and models of behaviour.This sense of how antiracism may determine the form and content of both political debate and individual identity is traced through an examination of ten novels by black British and British Asian writers. These authors range from the well known to the critically neglected: works by Monica Ali, NadeemAslam, Fred D'Aguiar, Ferdinand Dennis, Hanif Kureishi, Gautam Malkani, Caryl Phillips, Mike Phillips, Zadie Smith, and Meera Syal are carefully read to explore the impacts of antiracism. These literary studies are grouped into three main themes, each of which is central to the direction of racialpolitical identities over the last two decades in Britain: the use of the continent of Africa as a symbolic focus for black political culture; the changing forms of Muslim culture in Britain; and the emergence of a multiculturalist ethos based around the notion of ethnic communities.
The Routledge History of Literature in English This new guide to the main developments in the history of British and Irish Literature uniquely charts some of the main features of literary language development and highlights key language topics. Clearly structured and highly readable, unlike traditional histories of literature it spans over a thousand years of literary history from AD 600 to the present day. It emphasizes the growth of literary writing, its traditions, conventions and changing characteristics, and includes literature from the margins, both geographical and cultural. Key features of the book are: * an up-to-date guide to the major periods of literature in English in Britain and Ireland * extensive coverage of post-1945 literature * language notes spanning AD 600 to the present * extensive quotations from poetry, prose and drama * a timeline of the important historical and political events This will be essential reading for all students of English literature and language.
Screening the Gothic Screening the Gothic offers a radical new way of understanding the relationship between film and the Gothic as it surveys a wide range of films, many of which have received scant critical attention. Its central claim is that, paradoxically, those texts whose affiliations with the Gothic were the clearest became the least Gothic when filmed. Thus, Hopkins surprises readers by revealing Gothic elements in films such as Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park, as well as exploring more obviously Gothic films like The Mummy and The Fellowship of the Ring. Written in an accessible and engaging manner, Screening the Gothic will be of interest to film lovers as well as students and scholars.
A Short History of English Literature 'It is good to see a reprint and complete updating of this well-known historical tour de force, with its evidence of vast reading and literally thousands of useful facts.' - Times Educational Supplement
Trauma and Romance in Contemporary British Literature Drawing on a variety of theoretical approaches including trauma theory, psychoanalysis, genre theory, narrative theory, theories of temporality, cultural theory, and ethics, this book breaks new ground in bringing together trauma and romance, two categories whose collaboration has never been addressed in such a systematic and in-depth way. The volume shows how romance strategies have become an essential component of trauma fiction in general and traumatic realism in particular. It brings to the fore the deconstructive powers of the darker type of romance and its adequacy to perform traumatic acting out and fragmentation. It also zooms in on the variations on the ghost story as medium for the evocation of trans-generational trauma, as well as on the therapeutic drive of romance that favors a narrative presentation of the working-through phase of trauma. Chapters explore various acceptations and extensions of psychic trauma, from the individual to the cultural, analyzing narrative texts that belong in various genres from the ghost story to the misery memoir to the graphic novel. The selection of primary sources allows for a review of leading contemporary British authors such as Peter Ackroyd, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Graham Swift, Sarah Waters and Jeanette Winterson, and of those less canonical such as Jackie Kay, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Justine Picardie, Peter Roche and Adam Thorpe.

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A Brief History of English Literature This new edition of an established text provides a succinct and up-to-date historical overview of the story of English literature. Focusing on how writing both reflects and challenges the periods in which it is produced, John Peck and Martin Coyle combine close readings of key texts with recent critical thinking on the interaction of literary works and culture. Providing a lively introductory guide to English literature from Beowulf to the present day, the authors write in their characteristically lucid and accessible style. A true masterpiece of clarity and compression, this is essential reading for undergraduate students coming across the vast areas of English literature for the first time and looking for a way of making critical sense of the texts being studied. In addition, the concise nature and narrative structure of this book makes it excellent reading for general readers.
The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of London London has provided the setting and inspiration for a host of literary works in English, from canonical masterpieces to the popular and ephemeral. Drawing upon a variety of methods and materials, the essays in this volume explore the London of Langland and the Peasants' Rebellion, of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan stage, of Pepys and the Restoration coffee house, of Dickens and Victorian wealth and poverty, of Conrad and the Empire, of Woolf and the wartime Blitz, of Naipaul and postcolonial immigration, and of contemporary globalism. Contributions from historians, art historians, theorists and media specialists as well as leading literary scholars exemplify current approaches to genre, gender studies, book history, performance studies and urban studies. In showing how the tradition of English literature is shaped by representations of London, this volume also illuminates the relationship between the literary imagination and the society of one of the world's greatest cities.
Cassell's History of English Literature A complete chronicle of the literature of the British Isles, from "Beowulf "to the beginning of the third millennium--all in one volume. This classic work of literary history has now been updated to cover new developments in writing over the past 20 years. Not only does it provide an encyclopedic survey, but also a personal, chronological interpretation of the English tradition with an emphasis on the continuity of major literary forms and on the ways in which important figures transform the art. The many literary genres, themes, and authors that receive a fascinating analysis include The Epic; Chaucer; Two Versions of the Pastoral; The Sonnet; Spenser's Garden; Shakespeare; Revenge Tragedy; Restoration Comedy; Inventing the Novel; Gothic Follies; Wordsworth and Coleridge; and Imagination and Fiction.
English Literature : A Very Short Introduction Sweeping across two millennia and every literary genre, acclaimed scholar and biographer Jonathan Bate provides a dazzling introduction to English Literature. The focus is wide, shifting from the birth of the novel and the brilliance of English comedy to the deep Englishness of landscape poetry and the ethnic diversity of Britain's Nobel literature laureates. It goes on to provide a more in-depth analysis, with close readings from an extraordinary scene in King Lear to a war poem by Carol Ann Duffy, and a series of striking examples of how literary texts change as they are transmitted from writer to reader. The narrative embraces not only the major literary movements such as Romanticism and Modernism, together with the most influential authors including Chaucer, Donne, Johnson, Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens and Woolf, but also little-known stories such as the identity of the first English woman poet to be honoured with a collected edition of her works. Written with the flair and passion for which Jonathan Bate has become renowned, this book is the perfect Very Short Introduction for all readers and students of the incomparable literary heritage of these islands.
The Longman Anthology of British Literature "The Longman Compact Anthology of British Literature" is a concise and thoughtfully arranged survey of British literature for the one semester course.
The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature The literature of Ireland displays an exceptional richness and diversity - whether in Irish or English, by native Irish and Anglo-Irish writers or by outsiders like Edmund Spenser whose works were deeply imbued with the country in which he lived and wrote. In over 2,000 entries, the Companionto Irish Literature surveys the Irish literary landscape across some sixteen centuries, describing its features and landmarks. Entries range from ogam writing, developed in the 4th century, to the fiction, poetry, and drama of the l990s; and from Cu Chulainn to James Joyce. There are accounts of authors as early as Adomnan, 7th century Abbot of Iona, up to contemporary writers such as Roddy Doyle, Brian Friel, SeamusHeaney, and Edna O'Brien. Individual entries are provided for all major works, from Tain Bo Cuailnge - the Ulster saga reflecting the Celtic Iron Age - to Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent, O Cadhain's Cre na Cille, and Banville's The Book of Evidence. The Companion also illuminates the historical contexts of these writers, and the events which sometimes directly inspired them - the Famine of 1845-8, which provided a theme for novelists, poets, and memoirists from William Carleton to Patrick Kavanagh and Peadar O Laoghaire; the founding of theAbbey Theatre and its impact on playwrights such as J. M. Synge and Padraic Colum; the Easter Rising that stirred Yeats to the `terrible beauty' of `Easter 1916'. It offers a wealth of information on general topics, ranging from the stage Irishman to Catholicism, Protestantism, the Irish language,and university education in Ireland; and on genres such as annals, bardic poetry, and folksong. The majority of entries include a succinct bibliography, and the volume also provides a chronology and maps.
Reader's Guide to Literature in English Reader's Guide Literature in English provides expert guidance to, and critical analysis of, the vast number of books available within the subject of English literature, from Anglo-Saxon times to the current American, British and Commonwealth scene. It is designed to help students, teachers and librarians choose the most appropriate books for research and study.