Publisher 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.

Table of Contents

Introduction: the modernity of the past; Part I: 1. The structural transformation of literary history; 2. The mode of consecration: between aesthetics and historicism. Part II: 3. Novel to Lyric: Shakespeare in the field of culture, 1752–1754; 4. The cultural logic of late feudalism: or, Spenser and the romance of scholarship, 1754–1762; Part III. 5. Shakespeare's nation: the literary profession and the 'shades of ages'; Afterword: the present crisis.

Review

From the hardback review: 'While the rise of the English canon has been a topic of continuous and fraught interest over the past couple of decades Jonathan Kramnick offers the most coherent and detailed discussion of what is arguably its crucial historical moment: the middle decades of the eighteenth century. Kramnick's discussion of how Shakespeare and Spenser became the first English 'classics' will itself become classic. Making the English Canon is not simply a monograph on eighteenth-century literary aesthetics, it is a singularly powerful and authoritative contribution to perhaps the most important discussion going on in the literary humanities today.' Terry Castle From the hardback review: 'Kramnick's discussion of how Shakespeare and Spenser became the first English 'classics' will itself become classic. Making the English Canon is not simply a monograph on eighteenth-century literary aesthetics, it is a singularly powerful and authoritative contribution to perhaps the most important discussion going on in the literary humanities today.' Terry Castle 'From the hardback review: Making the English Canon ... is a singularly powerful and authoritative contribution to perhaps the most important discussion going on in the literary humanities today.' Terry Castle

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Examines the English canon in the first two-thirds of the eighteenth century.

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Examines the English canon in the first two-thirds of the eighteenth century.

Description for Bookstore

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.

Description for Library

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.

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