Scope: English, British, English
A book which means to do something definite defines its scope. The subject-
matter of this book is defined by when it was written, where it was written, and by
whom. The period extends from the point at which writing in English begins,
before the year 680, to the present. The first extant poet in English was not
Geoffrey Chaucer, who died in 1400, but Cædmon, who died before 700. A one-
volume history of 1340 years is not a full survey but a series of projections, clari-
fying certain things while distorting others. Authors have to be selected and their
chief works chosen. If the discussion is to get beyond critical preliminaries,
authors as great as Jonathan Swift may be represented by a single book. Half of
Shakespeare’s plays go undiscussed here, though the range of his work is sampled.
Readers who use this Historyas a textbook (it aspires to be more than a textbook)
should remember that it is selective.
‘English literature’ can refer to writing by English writers, or to writing in English.
This book is about the first; the second is too much for one volume, even if an
author could be found equal to the task. ‘English writers’ is taken nationally. Some,
not many, British writers who contributed notably to English literature, or who
changed it, are also included. Two pages are devoted to two Americans who when
they lived in England influenced English literature.
Since well before the death of one of these, Henry James, in 1916, Americans have
seen their writers as part of American, not of English, literature. Some Americans
will agree with Johnson that ‘the chief glory of every people arises from its authours’;
a greater number may feel the honourable bigotry known as patriotism. Such feel-
ings have a real basis: Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson were not English. Other
ex-colonies followed suit, and each has its own literary history. So it happens that
naturalized British subjects such as Joseph Conrad and T. S. Eliot are in histories of
English literature, but that non-Brits are not. (‘British’ is defined below.) Fifty years
ago the nationality of a Henry James or of a James Joyce was regarded – in a univer-
sity English course – as an unimportant consideration. Still today, at Cambridge
University, an English paper called ‘The English Moralists’ begins with Plato. But a
book with a historical intention must take account of historical developments, such
as the right of nations to political self-determination, and the consequences of their
independence.
Turning from principle to practice, a scholarly history of all the literatures in
English would be a multi-authored work of reference. Only one single-volume
single-authored history of world literature (not merely of literature in English) is
known to me: Ford Madox Ford’s The March of Literature: From Confucius to
Modern Times (1938).This is an engaging view from above, written by ‘an old man
mad about writing’, an amateur of genius. The world of literature is now, for good
and ill, more professional. Scholars do not look out from Mount Olympus but work
in the fields below.
An entity known as ‘British Literature’ is often studied, but only outside Britain.
A history of British, as distinct from English, literature would seem a theoretical
possibility. Yet no Briton has written one: it would be resented in Wales, disputed in
Scotland and laughed out of court in Ireland, a country in which Shakespeare does
not have the standing he has in England. In a history of British literature, writers
impor tant in the literature of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, such as Lady Charlotte
Guest, Dylan Thomas, Robert Fergusson, John Galt, Charles Lever and James4 INTRODUCTIONAlexander Introduction 16/11/12 2:21 pm Page 4