Companion to British Literature, 4 Volume Set

Robert DeMaria, Jr. is the Henry Noble MacCracken Professor of English Literature at Vassar College, USA. He is the General Editor of the Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson, the editor of the Johnsonian News Letter, and the author of Johnson's Dictionary and the Language of Learning (1986), The Life of Samuel Johnson (Blackwell, 1993), and Samuel Johnson and the Life of Reading (1997). He is also the editor of Classical Literature and Its Reception (with Robert Brown, Blackwell, 2007) and British Literature 1640-1789: An Anthology (Blackwell, 1996; 3rd edn, 2008).Heesok Chang is Associate Professor of English at Vassar College, USA. He is the author of the forthcoming Wiley Blackwell title Handbook to British Modernism, and is currently working on a book on literary modernism and media technologies. In addition, he is the author of articles on critical theory and literary modernism. Samantha Zacher is an Associate Professor of English and Medieval Studies at Cornell University, USA,  where she teaches Old and Middle English Literature. She is the author of Preaching the Converted: The Style and Rhetoric of the Vercelli Book Homilies (2009) and co-editor, with Andy Orchard, of New Readings in the Vercelli Book (2009). Her new monograph, Rewriting the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon Verse: Becoming the Chosen People is forthcoming (2013). She is also editing a new collection of essays entitled Imagining the Jew: Jewishness in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture (forthcoming, 2013).

"A Companion to British Literature is a fascinating four-volume set. Most of the essays are engaging and informative, and the comprehensive index as well as the chronology makes the volumes easy to browse." (Reference Reviews, May 2016)

• Volume I: Medieval Literature 700 - 1450Full Table of Contents ixEditors xixNotes on Contributors to Volume I xxGeneral Introduction xxivRobert DeMaria, Jr.Introduction to Medieval Literature xxxiSamantha ZacherChronology 43 - 1476 xlvii1 The Oral and the Written: Aspects of Oral Composition, Performance, and Reception 1Karl Reichl2 Old English Literature and the Negotiations of Tradition 16Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe3 Lyric Form, Subjectivity, and Consciousness 30Emily V. Thornbury4 Sermons and Saints: From the Late Tenth to the Eleventh Centuries 48Paul E. Szarmach5 The Lost and (Not) Found: Sources for Female Saints' Legends in John of Tynemouth's Sanctilogium 65Virginia Blanton6 Racial Imagination and the Theater of War: Captivity and Execution in Richard, Coer de Lion 81Suzanne M. Yeager7 The Norman Conquest and English Literary Culture After 1066 97Neil Cartlidge8 Writing the Self: Regulating Sex, Body, and Soul 114Liz Herbert McAvoy9 Courtly Love and Its Impossible Implementation: The Narrative Pragmatics of an Ideal 130Christine Chism10 Writing Revolution 146Marion Turner11 The Romance Genre 161Corinne Saunders12 Interior Visions: Piers Plowman and the Dream Vision Genre 180Michael Calabrese13 British Chaucer 202John M. Ganim14 Writing Heresy, Apostasy, and Anticlericalism in Medieval England 215Andrew Galloway15 Ecstasy, Intimacy, and Middle English Contemplative Culture 232Denise L. Despres16 Sources, Analogues, Creativity 243Tim William Machan17 Performing Communities: The Variety of Dramatic Practices in Medieval England 256Christina M. Fitzgerald18 Old English and Anglo-Latin: The Odd Couple 273Andy Orchard19 Before the Makars: Older Scots Literature Under the Early Stewart Kings 293Rhiannon Purdie20 Originating Britain: Welsh Literature and the Arthurian Tradition 308Helen Fulton21 Writing from the "Other Shore" and the Beginnings of Vernacular Literature in Ireland 323Joseph Falaky Nagy22 The Circulation and Compilation of Devotional Books: Assessing the Material Evidence of Women's Reading 337Jacqueline Jenkins23 Collectors and Collections: Libraries and Their Social and Private Functions 355David N. Bell24 In Praise of Power: Prince and Poet in Fifteenth-Century Court Poetry 369Robert J. Meyer-Lee25 Word and Image 384Elaine Treharne26 New Technologies: From Manuscript to Print 403Sian EchardSelected References and Further Reading 418Index to Volume I 435Volume II: Early Modern Literature 1450 - 1660Full Table of Contents ixEditors xixNotes on Contributors to Volume II xxGeneral Introduction xxvRobert DeMaria, Jr.Introduction to Early Modern Literature xxxiiRobert DeMaria, Jr.Chronology 1450 - 1662 xxxix1 The Spectral Past: Medieval Literature in the Early Modern Period 1David Matthews2 The Fortunes of Arthur: Malory to Milton 16Willy Maley and Adam Swann3 Robert Burton and the Discontents of Print 29David J. Baker4 Anglo-European Literary Relations in the Sixteenth Century 40Alessandra Petrina5 Mapping the British Archipelago in the Renaissance 54Stewart Mottram6 Renaissance or Reformation? 70Michael Payne7 Religious Reading and Writing in an Age of Bloodshed 82Achsah Guibbory8 Translations of Virgil from Gavin Douglas to Sir John Denham 98Robin Sowerby9 England, the "Orient," and the Ocean 116Benedict Robinson10 Politics and Religion in Elizabethan Drama 129Lisa Hopkins11 Women's Literary and Intellectual Endeavors: A Case for the Anonymous Riposte 142Marcy L. North12 Shakespeare and the Arts of Persuasion 164Michael Macdonald13 Texts and Performances in the Age of Elizabeth 181Tom Rutter14 Physics, Metaphysics, and Religion in Lyric Poetry 197Wendy Beth Hyman15 The Early English Essay 213Joshua Scodel16 Francis Bacon and Aristotelian Afterlives 231Christopher Crosbie17 Scots Literature in the Age of the Makars and Beyond 249Katherine H. Terrell18 Violence in Jacobean Drama 264Zoltan Markus19 First Folios: Jonson and Shakespeare 280Adam G. Hooks20 Riding Westward: Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, and the Literature of Empire 295Jonathan Locke Hart21 Cheap Print and Popular Reading During the Civil Wars, 1637 - 1660 309Joad Raymond22 Republican Writing from Milton to Locke 326Nigel Smith23 John Bunyan and the Spaces of Religious Writing 342Cynthia Wall24 Paradise Lost: Contexts and Poetic Creation 359Barbara K. Lewalski25 Human, Animal, and Machine in the Seventeenth Century 375Lucinda Cole and Robert MarkleySelected References and Further Reading 391Index to Volume II 402Volume III: Long Eighteenth-Century Literature 1660 - 1837Full Table of Contents ixEditors xixNotes on Contributors to Volume III xxGeneral Introduction xxivRobert DeMaria, Jr.Introduction to Long Eighteenth-Century Literature xxxiRobert DeMaria, Jr.Chronology 1658 - 1835 xxxviii1 Understanding Genre: Epic, Mock Epic, and Some Versions of Heroism from Milton to Pope 1David Venturo2 History and Literature from Milton to Wollstonecraft 19Ruth Mack3 Shakespeare in the Eighteenth Century 35Neil Rhodes4 Aphra Behn and the Profession of Writing in the Restoration and Early Eighteenth Century 49Catherine Ingrassia5 The Virgilian Way from Milton to Wordsworth 62Adam Potkay6 Women Readers and the Rise of the Periodical Essay 78Manushag N. Powell7 Female Satirists of the Eighteenth Century 95Paul Baines8 Ireland, England, and Anglo-Irish Writers in England 113David Oakleaf9 Alexander Pope: Religion, Politics, and Poetry 127Pat Rogers10 Eighteenth-Century Science and the Literary Imagination 143Tita Chico11 Epistolary Writing in the Long Eighteenth Century 159Thomas Keymer12 Poetry Anthologies, Taste, and the Canon 174Adam Rounce13 Performance in Eighteenth-Century English Verse: Oral Expressiveness 189John Richetti14 Ranging Knowledge by the Alphabet: The Literature of Categorization and Organization 1700 - 1830 207Lynda Mugglestone15 History, Biography, and Anecdote 223Freya Johnston16 The Other in the British Eighteenth Century 240Lynn Festa17 Aesthetics and Taste: The Beautiful, the Sublime, and Beyond in the Eighteenth Century 258G. Gabrielle Starr18 The Poetry of Melancholy from Finch to Keats 277John Sitter19 Jane Austen and the Conditions of Knowledge 298Jenny Davidson20 Genius and Originality 1750 - 1830: Young, Wordsworth, and Shelley 312Christopher R. Miller21 Blake and His Contemporaries 329Laura Quinney22 Romantic Celebrities: Poets in an Age of Print 345Richard Cronin23 Gothic and Celtic Revivals: Antiquity and the Archipelago 361Nick Groom24 Romantic Women Writers in the Lecture Room 380Sarah M. ZimmermanSelected References and Further Reading 396Index to Volume III 408Volume IV: Victorian and Twentieth-Century Literature 1837 - 2000Full Table of Contents ixEditors xixNotes on Contributors to Volume IV xxGeneral Introduction xxivRobert DeMaria, Jr.Introduction to Victorian and Twentieth-Century Literature xxxiHeesok ChangChronology 1800 - 2006 xxxvii1 Charles Dickens, Dramatist 1Eileen Gillooly2 Becoming George Eliot: Female Authorship in the Nineteenth Century 14Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi3 "What Do the Women Do?": The Work of Women in the Fiction of the Brontës 33Susan Zlotnick4 Evolution and Entropy: Scientific Contexts in the Nineteenth Century 52Suzy Anger5 Theater, Exhibition, and Spectacle in the Nineteenth Century 68Sharon Aronofsky Weltman6 Art, Self, and Society: Tennyson and the Brownings, 1830 - 1857 89Matthew Campbell7 Pre-Raphaelite Brothers, Lovers, and the Sister Arts 107Wendy Graham8 Regionalism and Consciousness: Thomas Hardy's Imagined Geographies 129Keith Wilson9 Modernism and Empire 144Laura Winkiel10 The Irish Literary Revival 160James L. Pethica11 Re-Envisioning Yeats's A Vision: Modernist Spirality and the Distribution of the Sensible 175Nico Israel12 First World War Poetry 195Adam Piette13 "How to Enjoy James Joyce's Great Novel": Making and Marketing in Ulysses 210Stephen Dilks14 Anglophobia and Anglophilia: Hugh MacDiarmid and T. S. Eliot 231Robert Crawford15 Virginia Woolf and Experimental Fiction 246Anne E. Fernald16 Sartorial Modernity: Fashion, Gender, and Sexuality in Modernism 260Jane Garrity17 Doom in the Bud: Beckett's Drama and After 280Paul Lawley18 Form, Figure, and Ground: Auden and England After Modernism 296C. D. Blanton19 Historical Turns in Twentieth-Century Fiction 314John T. Connor20 Anthologizing Poetry: The Movement and After 333Nigel Alderman21 "Frail, and So Full of Fire": The Angry Young Man and Changing Masculinities 350Praseeda Gopinath22 Imagining Female Authorship After 1945: Lessing's and Spark's Portraits of the Artist Manqué 367Maria Francesca Fackler23 Sticks and Stones: Three Nearly Unnamable Figures and a Review of Postcolonialism 385Elaine K. Chang24 The Modern Scottish Novel 404Cairns Craig25 Queer Fiction in Contemporary Britain 424Jodie Medd26 Global Markets: Contemporary British Fiction and the Book Trade 440Richard Todd27 The British Dystopian Novel from Wells to Ishiguro 454Phillip E. WegnerSelected References and Further Reading 471Index to Volume IV 484Consolidated Index 511