Talk:English literature

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Note: Could we please add in considerable mention of Samuel Johnson within the "Augustan Age". Johnson aside from being considered the greatest critic in the language, particularly of Shakespeare, is with Pope the greatest literary figure of the 18th century. His essays, biographies, letters, prayers and poems constitute a body of literature that affords comparison with the greatest writers England has ever produced.70.109.98.165 06:09, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not convinced by the new wording which says that English literature is distinct from Scottish, Irish and Welsh literature. Aren't Oliver Goldsmith, George Bernard Shaw and Sir Walter Scott counted as belonging to the English literary scene? They will certainly be found in the Oxford Companion to English Literature Deb 22:19 Feb 10, 2003 (UTC)

The easy way out is to use a reference book entitled The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. This is also hinted at at the beginning of the article. I think all we need here at Wikipedia is (at least some) consistency plus cross references to the other articles. Do you think it's okay that authors such as Shaw or Wilde are always seen as Englishmen? --KF 22:37 Feb 10, 2003 (UTC)
Absolutely not. However, English literature to me means literature written in English (see Welsh literature). But if that's not what it means to other people, I'm not going to die in a ditch over it. Deb 22:59 Feb 10, 2003 (UTC)
I agree completely with Deb. Mintguy
What about creating an umbrella article called Literature in English or even Literatures in English? There we could state exactly what you have said: that for many people English literature is synonymous with those terms. --KF 23:13 Feb 10, 2003 (UTC)


As I was the one with the new wording: Is American literature the same as English literature? Is Australian? I don't think so, and I think this is the general consensus. There is Irish literature that emphatically is not English literature, and I was assuming that the rest holds true - e.g., literature from Scotland and Wales. My main concern was that 'english' might be taken to mean any literature from the United Kingdom. I don't know enough (or anything, in fact) about Welsh literature to begin an article on that, but I imagine that there's a welshman, somewhere, who writes in english but considers himself and his writing emphatically Welsh. The same is true of literature from India and throughout the old empire. Atorpen 23:14 Feb 10, 2003 (UTC)

Here's a thought. Is it possible that the common view is that English literature is anything in that language, but among scholars (and therefore presumably, people who write encyclopedias) the term is slightly narrower? Atorpen
'English Literature' is 'English (language) literature', not Literature of England. If you want to cover the literature of Ireland or Scotland then have articles titled 'Literature of Scotland' etc.. Mintguy
I can't agree. That language is unneccessarily stilted, and not the normal usage, at least for me. But its a good idea, and one I'm now thinking about :) Atorpen
And, besides Literature of Scotland also have an article called Literature of England?
(These classification problems are always the same -- just have a look at utopia, dystopia and related pages: For example, is Nineteen Eighty-Four a utopian or a dystopian novel?) --KF 23:25 Feb 10, 2003 (UTC)
And there's still the problem of source. Is Walter Scott English or Scot? What do you count? Where the book was published? Where the author lived? What nationality the author identified with? We could go on, and on. I swear, I've seen this warred over somewhere before ... Atorpen 23:27 Feb 10, 2003 (UTC)


I found this, produced by Microsoft's very own encarta ... so for what its worth: [1] The first sentence is pertinent - and then the rest goes on to be both exclusive and inclusive, so Wikipedia could do something similar. Atorpen

Let's have a little quiz: Is Henry James an American or a British author? When you've made up your mind, look here. KF 23:33 Feb 10, 2003 (UTC)
Good point. Classification eventually becomes impossible. Atorpen

Oh dear. I seem to have stirred up a hornets' nest. But you know, I only wanted to be sure that we were all singing from the same hymn sheet (forgive the mixed metaphors). I'm sure that, with careful wording and good cross-referencing, we can get round the problem. We just need to recognise that not everyone will understand the same by "English literature". Deb 19:21 Feb 11, 2003 (UTC)

I think the description of types of English literature is limited, in that it does not include the Slave Narratives which emerged in the eighteenth century and became crucial in the mobilisation of the abolitionist movement. Harry Potter

Were there slave narratives in eighteenth century England? I've read the slave narratives in nineteenth century America, but I'm unfamiliar with the same a century earlier, and across the ocean. Either way, add 'em if you know about 'em. :) Atorpen 00:54 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

Indeed there were. Ukawsaw Gronniosaw had the first Slave Narrative entitled "A Narrative of the Most remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, as related by himself" published in Bath in 1772. Latter Equiano's "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vasa, The African, written by himself" published in London in 1794. Harry Potter

I've always thought it was misleading, the way the introduction suggests there are only three types of English literature. We should make clear that there are lots more. Deb 19:12 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

I agree. There are essays, sermons, prayers . . . Harry Potter

Just to confuse things further, a recent book from Cambridge University Press is called "The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature" which contains discussions of literature in Welsh - which isn't English whatever definition you use (neither Literature in English nor Literature from England)perhaps a more accurate title would have been "A History of Medieval Literature produced in the British Isles in English, Scots, Welsh, Gaelic, French, Anglo-Norman and Latin"! [2]

This debate seems to have died and progress on the page has been slight. The main article on British literature is more evolved, but chronically over-weighted towards literature not in English. I intend to flesh it out some more, and when it is reasonably full, I would like to treat it as the main overview of "English language literature of Great Britain and Ireland" (with an overview of the literatures in other languages). This page could then be cut down to a stub explaining the dual meanings of "English literature" (of which "literature written in English" is overwhelmingly the main one in my opinion) and contains links to the British literature article and the general articles on the other literatures and the main eras. I think a separate history of "literature written in English by English people" is artificial. Scotland, Wales and Ireland may have literary traditions which are separate from Englahd, but for several hundred years England hasn't had a literary tradition which can be separated from the contributions of Scottish, Welsh and Irish writers. What is gained by leaving out Walter Scott, Yeats and Joyce from the main article on British/English/whatever literature in English.
Any comments? Philip 01:36, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I've been working on the main British literature article. Please come and help out. Philip 05:33, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hi, I have noticed you were trying to edit the page. I was going to add the rest of Jacobean literature, but feel free to make your additions and I will end the paragraph without erasing yours. Please let me know. Or we can each work with different sections ;-)

--Wikipedius 14:13, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Erasing The Tempest

If someone erases whole paragraphs from an article because he/she disagrees with content, I suggest they please leave their signature rather than their I.P. address, so I could have more feedback from them. There might have been bolloks in it, sorry about Shakespeare's sonnet, but I think there were other things that might just have been edited, not completely removed.

That soldiers liked Shakespeare's battle scenes is in Anthony Burgess's English Literature (but I might take it from other texts). I did not call Shakespeare's masque a ballet, but hinted to this modern word only to exemplify that to readers who are not acquainted with the genre. That it contained music and dancing and even special effects (artificial lighting and machinery) is a fact. Right, it cannot be proved conclusively, but there is strong evidence supporting the tie between James I and this play.

--Wikipedius 12:41, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Has this debate died? I don't think it ever will. For as long as English is a living language it must remain an evolving language. It is widely recognised now that there are at least as many variants of English as there are nations.

Question: do we list x-ish English literature for each language x?

Suggestion: let "English lit." mean whatever it means prgmatically in the strict context of GCE/GCSE/whatever examinations.

For the real world: English Language Literature would cover all aspects and all countries /regions.

Was Robert Louis Stevenson English? Is "Treasure Island" Eng. lit. ?

Apropos of nothing in particular:

Q: Which major character in Eng. lit. had only one eye?

(This should be spoken, not read;-)

A: Pip.

Patrick, aka: Logicmanalf 20:12, 31 May 2005 (BST)

[edit] Debate again: High time something be done with this article

This article is woeful. Its title is "English Literature", not "Literature in English". It should properly refer (largely) to literature in the English tradition where there isn't an article yet in Wikipedia (as opposed to Scottish or Australian etc), not a mish-mash of everything written in English. We could make exceptions to writers who are properly assimilated in the English tradition (eg. James Joyce, Walter Scott) AND also include them in their respective articles in their regional literature (eg. Joyce, Yeats in Irish literature AND here).

Now what we have is Literature in English, including Australian, American, Irish, Scottish, S. African, Indian, Commonwealth, Filipino etc etc. The first para sounds like someone is having a classification problem. Helpful? I don't think so. Obviously this will make chaos more than anything.

And because someone came up with the awful idea of mixing all strains of written literature in the English language into one article isn't a good enough reason not to do anything about the article. Needs a clean-up tag. 165.21.154.110 22:48, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

In adition to the other problems noted, the section on the romantics neglects Blake entirely. User:Wilhelm Ritter

I think we might keep the timeline used here, but create sub-paragraphs to differentiate between national literatures within each period. Just my point of view. But once a solution is reached, I feel the "concept" should be explained in the incipit. Readers willing to read more about non-English authors can be redirected from this article to Literature in English. --Wikipedius 16:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Celtic and Roman heritage wiped out...

Because the Celtic and Roman heritage was almost entirely erased by the invasion of low German and then Scandinavian populations it is only in the early middle ages that appear the first works of English. This is all a bit odd. Apart from the fact that it survives in Wales and survived in many other parts of Britain for a good long while, any literature produced before the Germanic invasions wouldn't have been in English anyway. They were the English, or rather they spoke the language(s) that became what we call English. Anyway, I've changed it. garik 20:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted Edwardian and Georgian

I have deleted the Edwardian and Georgian sections. Victorianism blends rather neatly over into Modernism which the Modernism section makes clear. To periodize in the manner of Georgian and Edwardian is uncommon and dated. nabelschau 22:00, 9. November 2006 (CET)

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