Literature and Learning - A History of English Studies in Britain

The first comprehensive history of 'English' as an academic discipline in Britain, covering the development of the subject from its late-eighteenth-century beginnings up to the 1960s.

List of contents

• Introduction: Beauty and the Footnote


• PART I: CULTURAL CONTEXTS


• 1: The Ascendancy of Literature


• 2: The Authority of Classics


• 3: The Imperium of History


• PART II: INSTITUTIONAL STORIES


• 4: A Scottish Prologue


• 5: Nineteenth-Century Realities


• 6: London


• 7: Civic Traditions


• 8: Oxford


• 9: Cambridge


• 10: Colleges for Women


• 11: Schools


• PART III: FOUNDING FIGURES


• 12: The Professorial Squad


• 13: Matthew Arnold and John Churton Collins


• 14: A. C. Bradley and George Saintsbury


• 15: Walter Raleigh and Arthur Quiller-Couch


• 16: John Bailey: Criticism as a Vocation


• PART IV: PROFESSIONAL FORMS


• 17: Normal Scholarship


• 18: Local Varieties


• 19: The English Association


• 20: The Newbolt Report


• PART V: MODERN TIMES


• 21: Insurgents


• 22: Normal Criticism


• 23: Cross-Currents


• 24: Meridian


• 25: Scenes from Departmental Life


• 26: Doubts


• Appendix I: Existing Accounts: A Bibliographical Essay


• Appendix II: Professors of English


• Appendix III: Staff Numbers


• Index

About the author

Stefan Collini was educated at Cambridge and Yale. Following a Research Fellowship at St John's College, Cambridge, he was Lecturer, then Reader, in Intellectual History at the University of Sussex 1974-86; Lecturer, then Reader, then Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature at the University of Cambridge 1986-2014. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, and Guardian.

Summary

The first comprehensive history of 'English' as an academic discipline in Britain, covering the development of the subject from its late-eighteenth-century beginnings up to the 1960s.

Product details

• Authors: Stefan Collini, Stefan (Professor Emeritus of Intellectua Collini, Stefan (Professor Emeritus of Intellectual History and English Literature Collini, Collini Stefan
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 10.04.2025
• EAN: 9780198800187
• ISBN: 978-0-19-880018-7
• No. of pages: 656
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; European History, HISTORY / Europe / General, EDUCATION / History, British & Irish history, History of Education, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form