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 | | Making the English Canon: Print Capitalism and the Cultural Past, 1700-1770 by Jonathan Brody Kramnick ISBN-10: 9780521641272 ISBN-10: 0-521-64127-6 ISBN-13: 9780521641272 ISBN-13: 978-0-521-64127-2 Hardcover 1999-01-13 Cambridge University Press Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product 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 analyzes the tensions that inhabited the categories of national literature and public culture at the moment of their emergence. | ||
Book Description This book offers an original examination of the formation of the English canon during the first two thirds of the eighteenth century, looking in particular at the treatment of Shakespeare, Spenser and Milton. Through close readings of periodical essays, editions, treatises, reviews, disquisitions, pamphlets and poems, Jonathan Brody Kramnick recounts the origins of modern literary study and situates the rise of national literary tradition in the broad context of the making of a public culture. | ||
Download 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 analyzes the tensions that inhabited the categories of national literature and public culture at the moment of their emergence. | ||
Reviews | ||
Partly read scholarly work Making the English Canon: Print-Capitalism and the Cultural Past, 1700-1770 I am a history graduate student, and I am studying Rev. James Barclay (1747-1771) who is mentioned in connection with Shakespeare. There is little in print about him as he died at age 24, so I am grateful for a detailed discussion of the points that Barclay made. So I have used the book as a reference tool, not thoroughly read it all. Barclay wrote a critique of Kenrick, who in turn had critiqued Johnson's Shakespeare. Barclay was the first man to redefine the word "journalist" as we understand it--before that, it merely meant someone who kept a journal. He defended Johnson (someone, he said, who everyone knew) against the sniping of Kenrick (someone, nobody knew). His critique is deemed important, I think, because of the tension between the literary scholars of the day and the general mass of people who were beginning to read. What is good literature? How do you judge it against the Classics? Why should it enter the English Canon as a work that will last? So far, I have read some of the early chapters and that specific part about Barclay. It is heavy going for me because scholarly, not in my field, and I am not familiar with the subject; so I have to reread a lot as I go. It focusses on the works of Milton, Shakespeare, and Spenser. It would be easier to read for an English Literature major. I think it is a very important book, and I intend to persevere with reading it. | ||