Literary history, the dominant form of literary scholarship throughout the 19th century, is currently recapturing the imaginations of a new generation of scholars eager to focus on the context of literature after a half-century or more of "close" readings of isolated texts. This book represents current thinking on some of the theoretical issues and dilemmas in the conception and writing of literary history, expressed by a group of scholars from North America, Europe and Australia. They consider afresh a broad range of topics: the role of literary history in "new" societies, the problem of finding a starting point for literary history, the problem of literary classification, problems of ideology, of institutional mediation, periodization, and the attack on literary history.
- ISBN10 0674879120
- ISBN13 9780674879126
- Publish Date 8 August 1991
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 17 June 2010
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Harvard University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 312
- Language English