Preface
Introduction: Approaching Literary Practice and Studying British Literature in History
Preliminaries: Learning Literary Heritage through Critical Tradition or Back to Tynyanov
Genre Theory for Poetry
The Intellectual Background
1.1 The Period and Its Historical, Social and Cultural Implications
1.2 The Philosophical Advancement of Modernity
1.2.1 Francis Bacon and the “New Method”
1.2.2 The Advancement of Classicism: French Contribution
1.2.3 The Social and Political Philosophy: Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan
1.2.4 Rationalists and Empiricists
1.3 The Idea of Literature as a Critical Concern in the Seventeenth Century
1.3.1 The English “Battle of the Books” or “La Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes” in the European Context
1.3.2 Restoration, John Dryden and Prescribing Neoclassicism
The Literary Background
2.1 The British Seventeenth Century and Its Literary Practice
2.2 Metaphysical Poetry, Its Alternatives and Aftermath
2.3 The Puritan Period and Its Literary Expression
2.4 The Restoration Period and Its Literature
2.5 The Picaresque Tradition in European and English Literature
Major Literary Voices
3.1 The Metaphysical Poets I: John Donne
3.2 The Metaphysical Poets II: George Herbert
3.3 The Metaphysical Poets III: Andrew Marvell
3.4 John Milton: The Voice of the Century
3.4.1 L’Allegro and Il Penseroso
3.4.2 Lycidas and Sonnets
3.4.3 Paradise Lost and the Epic of Puritanism
3.5 John Dryden and His Critical Theory and Literary Practice
Conclusion: The Literature of a Turbulent Age
References and Suggestions for Further Reading
Index
Petru Golban holds a PhD in English and American Literature from Al. I. Cuza University of Iasi, Romania. His academic and professional career started in 1995, and he currently teaches literary theory and English literature-related classes as an Associate Professor at Tekirdağ Namik Kemal University, Turkey. He is also the author of 9 books, including A History of the Bildungsroman: From Ancient Beginnings to Romanticism, The Foundations of English Literary Criticism: From Philip Sidney to Henry James and Texts Analyzing Literature as Argument, and some 50 literary studies. His research concerns include particular aspects of the history of English literature, comparative literary studies, and literary theory and criticism.