The Scottish Invention of English Literature

Explores the international dimension and Scottish origins of the founding of English literature as a university subject.

Robert Crawford (Edited by)

9780521590389, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 June 1998

272 pages
23.6 x 16.1 x 2.1 cm, 0.505 kg

'This is a riveting book. Its implications for intellectual history and for current political questions are far-reaching. As we watch Britishness apparently breaking up, this learned and lucid expression of Scottish cultural self-confidence is very welcome. It contributes to the self-understanding of England as well as that of Scotland, and at a critical moment.' The Observer

The Scottish Invention of English Literature explores the origins of the teaching of English literature in the academy. It demonstrates how the subject began in eighteenth-century Scottish universities before being exported to America and other countries. The emergence of English as an institutionalised university subject was linked to the search for distinctive cultural identities throughout the English-speaking world. This book explores the role the discipline played in administering restraints on the expression of indigenous literary forms, and shows how the growing professionalisation of English as a subject offered a breeding ground for academics and writers with an interest in native identity and cultural nationalism. This book is a comprehensive account of the historical origins of the university subject of English literature and provides a wealth of new material on its particular Scottish provenance.

Introduction Robert Crawford
1. From rhetoric to criticism Neil Rhodes
2. Adam Smith, Samuel Johnson, and the institutions of English Ian Duncan
3. The prerequisites of power: Blair, belles lettres, and law Rajit Dosanjh
4. Blair's Ossian, Romanticism, and the teaching of literature Fiona Stafford
5. The origins of the university teaching of the novel Paul Bator
6. William Greenfield: gender and the transmission of literary culture Martin Moonie
7. The impact of Scottish literary teaching in North America Franklin E. Court
8. Scottish academia and the invention of American studies Andrew Hook
9. The influence of Scottish rhetoric on the formation of English studies in nineteenth-century English universities Linda Ferreira-Buckley
10. The impact of Scottish literary teaching in Australasia Chris Worth
11. Scottish writing and English studies Robert Crawford
Bibliography Linda Ferreira-Buckley
List of bibliographical essays.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]