The Oxford English Literary History is the new century's definitive account of a rich and diverse literary heritage that stretches back for a millennium and more. Each of these thirteen groundbreaking volumes offers a leading scholar's considered assessment of the authors, works, cultural traditions, events, and ideas that shaped the literary voices of their age. The series will enlighten and inspire not only everyone studying, teaching, and researching in English Literature, but all serious readers. This volume covers the period 1645-1714, and removes the traditional literary period labels and boundaries used in earlier studies to categorize the literary culture of late seventeenth-century England. It invites readers to explore the continuities and the literary innovations occurring during six turbulent decades, as English readers and writers lived through unprecedented events including a King tried and executed by Parliament and another exiled, the creation of the national entity 'Great Britain', and an expanding English awareness of the New World as well as encounters with the cultures of Asia and the subcontinent. The period saw the establishment of new concepts of authorship and it saw a dramatic increase of women working as professional, commercial writers. London theatres closed by law in 1642 reopened with new forms of entertainments from musical theatrical spectaculars to contemporary comedies of manners with celebrity actors and actresses. Emerging literary forms such as epistolary fictions and topical essays were circulated and promoted by new media including newspapers, periodical publications, and advertising and laws were changing governing censorship and taking the initial steps in the development of copyright. It was a period which produced some of the most profound and influential literary expressions of religious faith from John Milton's Paradise Lost and John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, while simultaneously giving rise to a culture of libertinism and savage polemical satire, as well as fostering the new dispassionate discourses of experimental sciences and the conventions of popular romance.

About the Author
Margaret Ezell is a Distinguished Professor of English and the John and Sara Lindsey Chair of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University. She received her degrees from Wellesley College and Cambridge University.

Reviews
The stated purpose of this interesting and useful book is to provide cultural contexts for the literature of the period. It often quotes obscure texts or explains important, familiar texts in unusual, illuminating ways...Ms. Ezell's breadth and depth of learning is often breathtaking. * Paula R. Backscheider, The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats *
The Later Seventeenth Century is exceptionally readable - clear, entertaining, and just a flat-out good read. * Paula R. Backscheider, Auburn University, The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats *
The text is extremely polished and presents the needed information in a compact manner, addressing just the questions that I might not have even thought of yet, but that happen to inspire new ideas or potential new research streams. I highly recommend this book for all students and teachers of British literature, and I doubt anybody can seriously teach this subject without reading a few books like it. * Anna Faktorovich, Pennsylvania Literary Journal *
The most impressive aspect of this volume is the sheer range and diversity of literary texts and authors Ezell incorporates ... they succeed in highlighting the complexities of seventeenth-century cultural institutions from which a diverse range of readers, writers, and literary forms emerge. * Nathan Hunt, The Seventeenth Century *
Ezell's volume represents a considerable achievement ... it is written with unfailing concision and insight. * Review of English Studies *
Throughout the book is authoritative and amusing: Ezell exhibits an uncommonly keen eye for the deft quotation (by no means the usual chestnuts) and the telling anecdote, many of which will surprise and delight veteran students of the period as well as undergraduate aspirants. ... Summing up: highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. * Choice *



Book Information
ISBN 9780192859129
Author Margaret J. M. Ezell
Format Paperback
Page Count 600
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 732g
Dimensions(mm) 215mm * 136mm * 30mm