The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of London

by Lawrence Manley

Overview

London has provided the setting and inspiration for a host of literary works in English, from canonical masterpieces to the popular and ephemeral. Drawing upon a variety of methods and materials, the essays in this volume explore the London of Langland and the Peasants' Rebellion, of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan stage, of Pepys and the Restoration coffee house, of Dickens and Victorian wealth and poverty, of Conrad and the Empire, of Woolf and the wartime Blitz, of Naipaul and postcolonial immigration, and of contemporary globalism. Contributions from historians, art historians, theorists and media specialists as well as leading literary scholars exemplify current approaches to genre, gender studies, book history, performance studies and urban studies. In showing how the tradition of English literature is shaped by representations of London, this volume also illuminates the relationship between the literary imagination and the society of one of the world's greatest cities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107486874
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/18/2011
Series:	Cambridge Companions to Literature
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Lawrence Manley is William R. Kenan, Jr Professor of English at Yale University, Connecticut.

Table of Contents

Chronology; Introduction Lawrence Manley; 1. Images of London in medieval English literature Ralph Hanna; 2. London and the early modern stage Jean E. Howard; 3. London and the early modern book Adrian Johns; 4. 'Sweet Thames! Run softly': London and poetry to 1750 Brean Hammond; 5. Upon the town: staging London in the Restoration and eighteenth century Laura J. Rosenthal; 6. London and narration in the long eighteenth century Cynthia Wall; 7. London and nineteenth-century poetry William Sharpe; 8. City walkers: London in the Victorian novel Rosemarie Bodenheimer; 9. London in Victorian visual culture Shearer West; 10. London in poetry since 1900 Peter Barry; 11. London and modern prose, 1900–50 Leo Mellor; 12. Immigration and postwar London literature John C. Ball; 13. London eyes: writing London in the twenty-first century John McLeod; 14. Inner London James Donald; Further reading; Index.