English literature

[WICKES]

What do you mean when you use the phrase 'English Literature'? Do you mean literature written in English, or the literature of England (i.e Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, Spenser, Keats etc etc)? Americans talk about American literature, the Irish talk about Irish literature (i.e Beckett, Joyce etc) but what about the English?

[stlukesguild]

This has been a question that has led to endless debate. From my experience in discussion in the US, English Literature would denote literature written by an English writer. British Literature is broadly used (although this may be unique to us in the US) to denote literature written in English of the British Isles (England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland...). If one means to denote all literature written in English perhaps the best term might be English Language Literature. Personally I organize my own library by language... not by national boundaries... which continually shift around. Thus I have a section of Latin writers... which includes Virgil (Roman), Augustine of Hippo (born in present-day Algeria), Francis of Assisi (Tuscan/Italian/French), Spanish writers who include writers from Spain, Mexico, and South America, and Hebrew writers who include Biblical authors, Russian authors, Spanish authors, and Israeli authors. My English or Anglo section houses English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, American, Canadian, Australian, etc...

[Erichtho]

I use the term English literature to refer to literature from England. When I want to talk about literature written in English I call it anglophone literature.

[Equality72521]

When I talk about literature, I will generally classify it by country i.e., English Literature, from England, American Literature from America, and as you referred, Irish Literature from Ireland and so on and so forth.

[stlukesguild]

So what is Dante? Italy... as a nation... did not exist. Are we to call him Tuscan or Florentine... at least prior to his expulsion? Greece as a nation did not exist for Homer nor Aeschylus.

[Niamh]

English Literature to me is that from England. American Lit obviously denotes, American Authors, Irish Lit= Irish Authors and British Literature that of Great Britain. I.e. England, Scotland and Wales. (not Ireland. I'm Irish. Were not included in british lit. But thats a whole other debate i am sick to my teeth with arguing, so lets not go there.)

[stlukesguild]

And Hitler was Austrian, nor German... but Mozart, and Schubert... they were German. These continual squabbles about borders is why I organize all of my literature by language... in spite of being aware of where each writer came from. I simply don't have time to examine whether this Czechoslovakian writer is Czech, Slovak, German, Hungarian, or what have you. The language in which they wrote is what I'll go with.

[Leabhar]

So what is Dante? Italy... as a nation... did not exist. Are we to call him Tuscan or Florentine... at least prior to his expulsion? Greece as a nation did not exist for Homer nor Aeschylus.

The countries did not exist yet but the writers in question were ethnically Italian and Greek.

[blazeofglory]

A language can originate anywhere, in any part of the world and it expands over time. I do not think English is something that has to do with the the UK. No doubt earlier they have been colonizers, and they were deemed superior,in fact they are not, and there is nothing to validate this point.

It is language, despite the colonizers role in spreading it across all continents, has been accepted by many as a lingua-franca . I am from Nepal and I learned much later. I consider it just as a means of communication. Some of the purists do not want the variety of it, and they take pride in the fact that they are native speakers and all the English speakers and writers must subscribe to their ideas. I do not accede the point. They are totally wrong.

I too happened to fall into a series of discussions and I was immensely criticized for my poor use of the English language.

I totally argue against the idea English literature is the property of the UK, the USA and Australia. No, now it is spoken widely across the world. I am from Nepal and we have already a couple of writers who earned high acclaim and popularity in the west, and one got even an award beating his rivals from these English speaking nations. I am always all set to argue again this narro notion or scope of English literature. Do not boast of being born in the UK or the US and think that English literature has its roots in these few countries.

[blazeofglory]

When I talk about literature, I will generally classify it by country i.e., English Literature, from England, American Literature from America, and as you referred, Irish Literature from Ireland and so on and so forth.

I subscribe to your ideas by adding a little more: Indian literature from India, Nepali literature from Nepal and African literature from Africa, all are contributing to and shaping the size and form of English literature the way it is now.

[blazeofglory]

English Literature to me is that from England.

No I argue against it. English literature can be from anywhere else despite the fact that once upon a time it originated in the UK. Now the UK is a tiny segment of the people using it. In India the total number of people speaking the English language outnumbers the total number of those speaking in this medium. Just it originated in England does not mean that it is their language or it has to do with the UK.

[blazeofglory]

English Literature would denote literature written by an English writer.

I wholeheartedly subscribe to your ideas. It is unbaised.

[WICKES]

I use the term English literature to refer to literature from England. When I want to talk about literature written in English I call it anglophone literature.


I think that is a good way of classifying it.

English literature means the literature of England.

When Aeschylus was writing there was no such thing as a Greek nation state, when Dante wrote the Divine Comedy there was no such thing as Italy (or Germany in Goethe's day ) yet England WAS a nation when Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth etc lived and still is (though part of the UK/ Britain). Joseph Conrad was Polish, but he lived and wrote in England; his novels are therefore a part of 'English literature'. An Indian, writing in India in the English language is contributing to 'Indian literature' (he just happens to be writing in a different language- in English rather than Urdu). Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Doris Lessing etc are adding to the body of English literature because they are English and identify themselves as English, while Cormac Macarthy is adding to the canon of American literature (though writing in English). I am English, but let's say I wrote a masterpiece in French- as far as I was concerned it would still be part of English literature, it would just be written in French rather than English.


It really makes me angry when people question this. It is ok for an American to be proud of American literature or an Irishman to be proud of Joyce and Beckett etc, but when an Englishman says he is proud of the astonishing body of literature that this island has produced he is accused of everything from xenophobia to neo colonialism and parochialism. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the exchange of ideas, I hugely admire many non English writers who happen to write in my nations language and I dislike extreme nationalism, but I don't see anything wrong in being proud of the literature of my country and of calling it English Literature.

[Niamh]

I totally argue against the idea English literature is the property of the UK, the USA and Australia. No, now it is spoken widely across the world. I am from Nepal and we have already a couple of writers who earned high acclaim and popularity in the west, and one got even an award beating his rivals from these English speaking nations. I am always all set to argue again this narro notion or scope of English literature. Do not boast of being born in the UK or the US and think that English literature has its roots in these few countries.


No I argue against it. English literature can be from anywhere else despite the fact that once upon a time it originated in the UK. Now the UK is a tiny segment of the people using it. In India the total number of people speaking the English language outnumbers the total number of those speaking in this medium. Just it originated in England does not mean that it is their language or it has to do with the UK.

No sorry Blase i dont agree with you. People in England are called the English. It just so happens that the English Language is named from them. English Literature is that of people who are English an born in England. Shakespeare was an Englishman, and therefore contrabuted to "English Literature". Robert Burns was Scottish, and therefore part of Scottish literature. Its not about language per say, Its about Ethnicity, roots, culture and country predominantly.

[Erichtho]

So what is Dante? Italy... as a nation... did not exist. Are we to call him Tuscan or Florentine... at least prior to his expulsion? Greece as a nation did not exist for Homer nor Aeschylus.

Did we not discuss this already in the last thread? :crash: Is it so difficult to grasp that there is a difference between nation and country?

[jgweed]

We talk about English music, and think of Elgar.
We talk about English history, and think of ElizabethI.
We talk about English literature, and think of Dickens.

[book_jones]

I never heard the term English Literature much when I was a student. It seemed like it was split up between American and British lit. Even with this designation there are still some problems. Where do you put someone like Joseph Conrad who was born in Poland but wrote in English? Or even someone like Gertrude Stein who was born in America and wrote about it often but spent most of her life in Europe.

However, there are also big stylistic differences between British and American writers. The two countries have very different voices. People who like the one don't always like the other. Also, if you tried to squeeze the two together it would take far to long to teach. So I can see that there is a need to split them up, but I can also see that there is a gray area where some things are difficult to classify.

Anyway, as I said earlier I don't usually hear the term English Literature. The ambiguity with the term is probably the reason that it has fallen out of favor.

[cipherdecoy]

The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England

-Wikipedia

[stlukesguild]

Did we not discuss this already in the last thread? Is it so difficult to grasp that there is a difference between nation and country?

Yes... because you are assuming everyone shares your notion of what constitutes a national division vs that of border-lines. What exactly differentiates the Scottish from the the English to such an extent to qualify as a national division... as opposed to what differentiates California or Texas from New York or Hawaii from West Virginia? ... or as opposed to what is lacking to so differentiate Germans, from Austrians, from German Swiss, from German Chechs, from Germans living in Alsace, France? You argue that Austrians and German-speaking Czechs are all "German". I have certainly met a few Austrians who would completely reject the notion that they are German. Strasbourg was historically German... as was Matthias Grunwald, the great painter whose works hang in Alsace... yet do the Alsatians consider themselves German? Do the French? Personally, with regard to literature (or music for that matter) if it was written in German it goes in the German section of my library. By the same token... if it was written in English by an author somewhere in the British Isles... it goes in the British section. I have no time for a Balkanization of my library... establishing a section for every little sub-group with claims to national independence regardless of a common language and shared history. I have even less use for such in real-world politics.

[JBI]

That makes sense when you have 4000 books, but if you had 40,000 you would probably sort more thoroughly by national divide, separating the Welsh and the English Welsh from the British, and the Irish from the Scottish, and the Scottish from the English and the English from the Irish. The problem is, that there are too many traditions, not too many languages. The style of writing in Scotland, though closer than French to German, is still distinctly different from that of England.

[stlukesguild]

If I had 40,000 books I'd probably break things down far more accurately in terms of chronology and also alphabetically. I certainly agree that there are aspects that are distinctly Scottish or Irish... but question whether these are any more "extreme" than what differentiates a writer from the American South from one from New England or California. I especially question this huge difference when we consider many figures such as Yeats, Swift, Shaw, and Wilde lived and worked for extended periods (in some cases for most of their careers) in England.

[aabbcc]

I usually use the term anglophone literature to refer to the literature written in English. Likewise, I use the term francophone literature to refer to the literature written in French, regardless of the geographic area it was written in or the ethnicity and nationality of the person who wrote it.

If I speak in geographic terms, then I use the terms French literature to point specifically to those francophone literary works written in France, likewise, if I use the term English literature, I have in mind anglophone literary works from England.
I try to avoid defining literature in ethnic terms (by the ethnicity of the author) or political terms (by the formal nationality of the author).

Thus, I have no problems with authors such as Joseph Conrad, since I can squeeze them in some group by the language. The problems arise when you have, for example, an author such as Vladimir Nabokov or Milan Kundera and wish to classify that author's opus as opposed to any specific work by him - I am never quite sure how to handle that. Usually then, when faced with plurality of languages one has written in, I apply ethnic/national criterion and 'classify' Nabokov as Russian literature and Kundera as Czech literature.

Perhaps not the best solution, but it is the only one I came up with so far.

[JBI]

I would have to disagree with you. Though there are divides in American literature (South/North and ethnic divides being the most evident) communications were far more developed, and literacy was far more common when American literature began. Scotland and Ireland have their traditional languages, and mythological influences. Their cultures developed even into different dialects of English before they even began writing. American literature has a relatively constant language in the North, and occasionally different one in the south (though I feel the Faulknerian Southern drawl is fading). The distinction between even Hardy's Wessex dialect, a London dialect, and even moreso Walter Scott's dialect are very different. I would argue even more different than South and North U.S.

The thing is, those cultures go way back, and for the most part, American culture does not. Sure, you guys seem to have borrowed to some extent from the Native Americans, but in itself, your literature evolved as a break away from England, and then as an amalgamation pot of exterior influences. The first canonical American writer seems to be Irving, Scottish, Welsh, English, and Irish literature dates back before the middle ages. The tradition is far more defined.

[Niamh]

Its not about language per say, Its about Ethnicity, roots, culture and country predominantly.


I would have to disagree with you. Though there are divides in American literature (South/North and ethnic divides being the most evident) communications were far more developed, and literacy was far more common when American literature began. Scotland and Ireland have their traditional languages, and mythological influences. Their cultures developed even into different dialects of English before they even began writing. American literature has a relatively constant language in the North, and occasionally different one in the south (though I feel the Faulknerian Southern drawl is fading). The distinction between even Hardy's Wessex dialect, a London dialect, and even moreso Walter Scott's dialect are very different. I would argue even more different than South and North U.S.

The thing is, those cultures go way back, and for the most part, American culture does not. Sure, you guys seem to have borrowed to some extent from the Native Americans, but in itself, your literature evolved as a break away from England, and then as an amalgamation pot of exterior influences. The first canonical American writer seems to be Irving, Scottish, Welsh, English, and Irish literature dates back before the middle ages. The tradition is far more defined.

Well said. Point i tried to make, but very poorly. Its good to see someone else agrees its about culture, and a countries roots, as opposed to just language. If it was because of a common language, American Literature would be mixed up with that of the english, Irish, Australian etc.

[benvincent]

As discussed above, English literature to me derives from ENGLAND. (i.e. Shakespeare).

Joyce = Irish, not English.