Britannia's Issue: The Rise of British Literature from Dryden to Ossian

by Howard D. Weinbrot

• ISBN13: 9780521034104
• ISBN10: 0521034108
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-03-05
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This, Howard D.Weinbrot's magnum opus, draws on a large range of material to chronicle the developing confidence in British national literature from the 1670s to the 1770s. Using varied biblical, classical, English, economic, French, historical, literary, philosophical, political and Scottish sources, Professor Weinbrot shows that one of the central trends of eighteenth-century Britain was the movement away from classical towards native values and models. He demonstrates for example that Dryden's Essay of Dramatick Poesy reflects nationalist aesthetics, that Pope's Rape of the Lock affirms domestic peace while rejecting Homeric violence, and that Windsor Forest sings un-Roman peaceful expansion through trade. This learned and lucidly written book offers revisionist but historically grounded interpretations of these and many other important works. It also helps to characterize the complex and varied culture in eighteenth-century Britain.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments and editorial notes

Introduction: an overview of scope and method

Contexts: Intellectual, Psychological and National: Prologue to part I

Moderns, ancients and the secular: the limits of southern hegemony

The spiritual: truth was not the inclination of the first ages

An ambition to excel

The making of a modern canon

Texts Within Contexts

Essaying England: Our Genius, Our Clime: Prologue to part II

Dryden's 'Essay of Dramatick Poesie': the poetics of nationalism

Homeric wars

The 'Pax Romana' and the 'Pax Britannica': the ethics of war and the ethics of trade

'Windsor Forest' and 'The Rape of the Lock'

Growing On One's Own: The British Ode From Cowley to Gray: Prologue to part III

Greek jockeys and British heroes: the rise and fall of the Pindaric ode

Odes to the nation and the north: Dryden, Collins and Gray

Expanding the Borders

Jews and Jesus: This Israel, This England: Prologue to part IV

The house of David and the house of St. George: philosemitism, Hebrews, and Handel

Beyond the Hebrew leaven: smart and the God in Christ

Celts, Germans, and Scots: Towards a United Kingdom: Prologue to part V

Celtic Scotland

Ossian in Scotland, Great Britain and modern Europe: joining Britannia's issue

Conclusion: synthesizing all the nations under heaven

Appendix

Index

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