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Before the Empire of English: Literature, Provinciality, and Nationalism in Eighteenth-Century Britain

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  • © 2004
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Overview

Authors:
  1. Alok Yadav
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Table of contents (4 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-viii
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  2. Introduction: (DIS)Establishing the Empire of English

    • Alok Yadav
    Pages 1-19
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  3. The Progress of English

    • Alok Yadav
    Pages 21-53
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  4. The Republic of Letters

    • Alok Yadav
    Pages 55-109
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  5. National Differences and National Autonomy

    • Alok Yadav
    Pages 111-175
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  6. Back Matter

    Pages 177-231
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Keywords

About this book

Before the Empire of English offers a broad re-examination of Eighteenth-century British literary culture, centred around issues of language, nationalism, and provinciality. It revises our tendency to take for granted the metropolitan centrality of English-language writers of this period and shows, instead, how deeply these writers were conscious of the traditional marginality of their literary tradition in the European world of culture. The book focuses attention on crucial but largely overlooked aspects of Eighteenth-century English literary culture: the progress of English topos since the death of Cowley and the cultural aspirations and anxieties it condenses; the concept of the republic of letters and its implications for issues of cultural centrality and provinciality; and the importance of cultural nationalist emphases in 'Augustan' poetics in the context of these concerns about provinciality. The book examines imperial aspirations and imaginings in the English literary culture of the period, but it shows how such aspirations are responses to provincial anxieties more so than they are marks of imperial self-assurance.

About the author

ALOK YADAV is Assistant Professor of English at George Mason University, Virginia, USA.

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