|
|
 |
 |
 |
- The history of eighteenth-century literature
was first composed by the Romantics, who
prized "originality" and "individuality." For
examples of Romantic poetry, see Childe
Harold's Pilgrimage by George Gordon,
Lord Byron, and Prometheus Unbound by
Percy Bysshe Shelley, covered in "The
Romantic Period" (see pages 563–587
and 732–762, respectively, in volume
2A).
- Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting
Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano,
or Gustavus Vasso, the African, Written
by Himself presents an early view of
the effects of the British slave trade
on Africa. For a view of the legacies of
the slave trade and colonization, see Chinua
Achebe's Things Fall Apart,
covered in "The Twentieth Century" (see
pages 2617–2706 in volume 2C).
- The writings of female authors, such as
Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu, and Frances Burney,
investigate the gap between the self as it
appears to us in introspection and the identity
that others fasten to us from a female perspective.
These writings anticipate the more political
stance of Mary Wollstonecraft's A
Vindication of the Rights of Women, covered
in "The Romantic Period" (see pages
166–192 in volume 2A), but they also
draw parallels to the much earlier Book
of Margery Kempe, covered in "The
Middle Ages" (see pages 367–379
in volume 1A).
- Aphra Behn's Oroonoko escapes
classification as fact or fiction, history
or romance, continuing a tradition in English
literature that includes Sir Thomas Malory's Morte
Darthur, covered in "The Middle
Ages" (see pages 421–439 in volume
1A).
|
 |
|
 |
|
|