A History of Eighteenth-Century Literature (1660–1780)

This landmark study was one of the first works of English academic literary criticism, covering the period 1660 to 1780.

Edmund Gosse (Author)

9781108033916, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 24 October 2013

430 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.4 cm, 0.54 kg

This work by Edmund Gosse (1849–1928) was commissioned by Macmillan as the third volume in a series of literary histories, and published in 1889, when literary criticism was still a relatively new field of academic study. His earlier work had led to his appointment as Lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1884 and to a hugely popular American lecture tour that same year. An established poet, author and critic, Gosse had a loyal following within the literary establishment of Cambridge and London, despite lacking formal academic qualifications. His approach to analysis was through personal impressions, and discussions of the biographies as well as output of a wide range of writers from Dryden to Johnson. Reviewers noted his identification of the years 1660–1780 as being central to the beginnings of the novel and the concern to 'reform and regulate ordinary writing', and praised his comparison of English and Continental literature.

Preface
1. Poetry after the Restoration
2. Drama after the Restoration
3. Prose after the Restoration
4. Pope
5. Swift and the Deists
6. Defoe and the essayists
7. The dawn of naturalism in poetry
8. The novelists
9. Johnson and the philosophers
10. The poets of the Decadence
11. The prose of the Decadence
12. Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]