"REA: the test prep AP teachers recommend."

Sweeping across two millennia and every literary genre, acclaimed scholar and biographer Jonathan Bate provides a dazzling introduction to English Literature. The focus is wide, shifting from the birth of the novel and the brilliance of English comedy to the deep Englishness of landscape poetry and the ethnic diversity of Britain's Nobel literature laureates. It goes on to provide a more in-depth analysis, with close readings from an extraordinary scene in King Lear to a war poem by Carol Ann Duffy, and a series of striking examples of how literary texts change as they are transmitted from writer to reader. The narrative embraces not only the major literary movements such as Romanticism and Modernism, together with the most influential authors including Chaucer, Donne, Johnson, Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens and Woolf, but also little-known stories such as the identity of the first English woman poet to be honoured with a collected edition of her works. Written with the flair and passion for which Jonathan Bate has become renowned, this book is the perfect Very Short Introduction for all readers and students of the incomparable literary heritage of these islands. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

This new guide covers seven hundred years of English literature. Stephen Coote describes the major figures and works of the period - Beowulf, King Alfred, Chaucer, Langland, Henryson, the Gawain-poet and Malory as well as lesser-known poets. Considerable attention is given to Chaucer and the extensive treatment of 'Troilus and Criseyde' demonstrates the range of concerns that can be brought to a medieval text. Chapters are devoted to alliterative poetry, popular romance, ballad and lyric, medieval drama and Middle English prose, set against a background of the European literary tradition and of medieval circumstances and ways of thought. The discussion of the development of the language from Old English to Middle English show how, through the genius of Chaucer, it took 'its plae beside the great literary vernaculars of Europe'. -- Book cover.

Provides techniques for achieving high scores on the AP English literature exam and includes two full-length practice tests.

TheConcise Oxford Chronology of English Literaturepresents a comprehensive year-by-year digest of 15,000 significant and representative works of literature published in English by British authors from 1474 to the present day. The greats sit alongside long forgotten gems, the trivial, the inspirational, and the unusual, all equally worthy of remembrance. An ideal resource for students and academics of English literature. The main chronology is supplemented by three indexes. An author index allows readers to view the literary output of any given author in chronological order, an index of periodicals gives a short overview of periodicals published during the period covered, and there is also an index of anonymous titles. This edition has been updated to include works of literature from 2002 and 2003.