English Literature, A Survey for Students

by Anthony Burgess

"English Literature, A Survey for Students" by Anthony Burgess is a new edition of the original classic survey, first published in 1958 under the author's pen name J. Burgess Wilson. The text has been thoroughly revised and incorporates the developments in English Literature since the 1950s.

Illustrations are included to help place the literature under discussion in its social and intellectual context, and a chronological table places the major developments in English Literature in their historical context. There is also a detailed bibliography of other major critical studies listed both generally and chronologically.

The new design makes this an easy-to-use reference book for the student, and a most readable volume for all general readers interested in the path of English Literature.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literature, English Literature, Criticism, History, Academic, Literary Criticism

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Seriocomic novels of noted British writer and critic Anthony Burgess, pen name of John Burgess Wilson, include the futuristic classic A Clockwork Orange (1962).

He composed also a librettos, poems, plays, screens, and essays and traveled, broadcast, translated, linguist and educationalist. He lived for long periods in southeastern Asia, the United States of America, and Europe along Mediterranean Sea as well as England. His fiction embraces the Malayan trilogy ( The Long Day Wanes ) on the dying days of empire in the east. The Enderby quartet concerns a poet and his muse. Nothing like the Sun re-creates love life of William Shakespeare. He explores the nature of evil with Earthly Powers , a panoramic saga of the 20th century. He published studies of James Joyce, Ernest Miller Hemingway, Shakespeare, and David Herbert Lawrence. He produced the treatises Language Made Plain and A Mouthful of Air . His journalism proliferated in several languages. He translated and adapted Cyrano de Bergerac , Oedipus the King , and Carmen for the stage. He scripted Jesus of Nazareth and Moses the Lawgiver for the screen. He invented the prehistoric language, spoken in Quest for Fire . He composed the Sinfoni Melayu , the Symphony (No. 3) in C , and the opera Blooms of Dublin .

Reviews

[Tamer Lokman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are you a student of English Literature? .. Well, this is the book you must read .. Everything is there, not every detail but your starting point is here. A must have for those interested in the title. It really deserves a 5 star rating.

[Adriana Scarpin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Li durante a graduação de Letras e tinha me esquecido completamente.

[Farah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to study this book for one of my classes and I enjoyed every minute of it.
It is a great book; it is really helpful and informative for those who are looking for a quick scan of about 800 years of literature.

[Magda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written and easy to understand. There are notes in margins to help you find what you're looking for, however they not always indicate where everything is. Sometimes it is hard to fish out the most important informations from the sea of information.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative, colourfully comprehensive and often impassioned. A little murkier towards the 20th century (why so harsh on the beautiful realism of Arnold Bennett? And only a passing mention of Henry James, pioneer of closely-traced consciousness in the modern novel?) but it's hardly his fault, really - time has given us a greater perspective. Smashing stuff in all.

[Hana Mohammed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is this book suffocating me with all the information I have to study for my History of English literature exam? A huge yes.
But, is that book enjoyable and brilliant if you like to read about history and literature of English? Also, a huge YES.

[Neda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really informative book for students of literature and at the same time written in a very simple language. I really fell in love with English Literature with this book.

[Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tragedy comes from the Greek word "Tragos" which means goat, hahahaha ^_^ funny and delicious piece of info. Nice book, must admit it. Reading it sometimes feels like reading a literary book (novel/story). The good part of it is that it starts from how literature comes into being, how drama,poetry, and novel begin to form and be recognized going back to human instincts to the formation of the genre including a lot of examples.

However, most of the information offered in this book is not different from another I studied at college. AN Outline of English Literature is its name. It was better and more decisive.

I read This book "English Literature" by my own, looking and searching for answers that were not provided by the previous book I studied. Unfortunately this book doesn't provide them either. Some questions are presented in this book but not sufficiently answered. What is literature, for example. Some people tend to think of it as an easy question, but believe me it is not at all that easy. What makes a literary book literary and why some book were/are not recognized as literary books. I read an article or a booklet on the subject. Yet I am looking for more.

Before reading this book, I have been looking for answers, explanation, and charts to explain 1 the main types of novel, poetry, and play. secondly, Ways to classify a work of literature.

I am lacking a complete mental picture of English Literature.

[Mohamed · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read it except for the 20th century, gives a total image of history of England and it's literature, include a full alphabetical-ordered-index by which we can easily refer to writers and important works whether it was dramas, poems, plays, or books

[Hollis Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant overview of the subject, although it is dated now (published in the 1970s).

[Aiste_K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nebaisu, kai po anglų literatūros istoriją už rankos veda A. Burgess. Čia susipažįstam su istoriniu kontekstu, čia atiduodam pagarbą Elžbietos I-osios laikų dramaturgui, tada keliamės į kitą epochą, bet Burgess atviras - šito šiais laikais niekas neskaito. Mane labiausiai domino šių laikų rašytojai, bet knyga išleista 1958, kai Haris Poteris dar nebuvo gimęs. Oh well.

Apibendrinant, skirtingų autorių ir jų kūrinių man buvo kiek per daug, bet kultūrinis-istorinis kontekstas įdomus tai tikrai.

[Eugenio Fouz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential handbook on English Literature. Nicely written by Anthony Burgess

[Issa · Rating 3 out of 5]

الكتاب جيد من ناحية عرضه للأعمال الأدبية، لكن يعيب عليه تركيزه على أعمال أقل شهرة وربما أقل أهمية، في مقابل إهماله بعض الأعمال المهمة.

لكنه كتاب مفيد ويصلح أن يكون مرجع مختصر.

[Hagar Mohamed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Studying this was one hell of task but for some reason I LOVED IT.

[Paul Magnussen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This slimmish book attempts no lesser task than to survey the whole of English literature, from the birth of the English language to the present day (or, more precisely, to the date when this 2nd edition was published, which was 1974).

As you might expect from the author of A Clockwork Orange and Tremor of Intent, it’s extremely readable, a far cry from the usual academic podge — but none the less extremely well informed and literate.

Of necessity, the amount of space dedicated to each work is quite short, although larger sections are devoted to particular writers. The author’s evaluations of their various merits and demerits seemed to me very well judged (although of course your mileage may differ). There are also several appendices which I detail below.

I thought I didn’t like poetry, until I read this book. Then I realised that it was because all the poetry rammed down my throat at school was 19th century, whereas the poetry I like is Elizabethan and Jacobean.

So, thoroughly recommended.

The chapters are as follows:

Foreword
01 What is Literature?
02 What is English Literature?
03 The First English Literature
04 The Coming of the Normans
05 Chaucer and After

Interlude — the English Bible

06 The Beginnings of Drama
07 The Beginnings of English Drama
08 Early Elizabethan Drama
09 William Shakespeare
10 Other Elizabethan Dramatists
11 Tudor Poetry and Prose
12 The Age of Milton: End of a Period
13 The Age of Dryden
14 The New Drama
15 Poetry in the Age of Reason
16 Prose in the Age of Reason
17 The Romantics
18 The Victorian Age
19 Fresh Life in the Drama
20 The Coming of the Modern Age
21 To the Present Day
22 The British Novel Since 1950

English verse forms
Chronological table
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index

Also, curiously, there is an entry in the Index for Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate; but no mention of that book or its author on the specified page, nor any other as far as I can make out.

I conjecture that this is a reference to something in the 1st edition that was deleted — a pity in my view, as that’s one of my favourite books.

[Salma · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read book for anybody who is interested in English Literature and its history from the very beginning, Starting from the Anglo-Saxon Age till the Modern Age. There are a lot of useful references as well that will help you get more engaged and delve deeper if you are interested.

[Amira · Rating 5 out of 5]

yah ya berry, Dr. Shadia Fahim will be proud of us!

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books that talk about the history of English Literature .

[Amina · Rating 5 out of 5]

for everyone who wants to start a literature career .

[Jake Merris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lo lei debido a que era necesario para una clase en la universidad, pero acabe descubriendo muchas cosas interesantes de la historia de la literatura inglesa.

[Miar Said · Rating 4 out of 5]

*internal screaming*

[Steve Clark]

Edition: 1