What's the Cut-Off for "Early British Literature"?

[Extollager]

Please take a moment to say what you think would be the most recent date or period belonging under the term "early British literature." It would be particularly of interest to me if you could sate also the context -- i.e. "Here's how 'early British literature' was defined at the university where I studied literature in the 1990s" or "Here's how I'd think of 'early British literature.'" I'll say why after I see some responses. Thanks.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Put me in the "Here's how I'd think" category, as I was not an English major.

There are many ways to think about this. "Early" could mean Beowulf, while "Middle" could mean The Canterbury Tales, and "Modern" could mean Shakespeare. That's based on the language used.

Based on "stuff that seems 'early' to me as a reader" I suppose I would place the dividing line somewhere around 1800. Both Frankenstein and Pride and Prejudice feel "modern" to me in a way that, say, the (very readable) Swift doesn't.

I hope that's subjective enough.

 

[hitmouse]

Old English lit: up to about 1066 (the Norman conquest) Another language almost entirely. Beowulf etc. English undergraduates carrying texbooks written by Tolkein.
Middle English lit: 1066 up to about 1500. That would include Chaucer and Morte D'Arthur. Tough but not impossible to understand without a dictionary. Clearly related (Chaucer) to modern ribald humour.
After that Shakespeare, Jilly Cooper etc.

My son thinks anything written before about 1985 is Early British Literature.

 

[Bick]

Well, you're asking about British literature. The Acts of Union which formed Britain was passed in 1707 under Queen Anne, so early British literature would be from 1707, until I would say, perhaps Austen around 1800. So, I think we're talking about the 18th century. That would capture Defoe, Fielding, Richardson, Swift.

 

[Extollager]

Thanks, everyone.

My query came out of my dissatisfaction with the definition provided by an entity called the Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature in 2015. The focus was literature "from the beginnings of British Literature through the 18th Century." This seemed, and seems, ridiculous to me. (What's more, one of the papers at the 2015 conference was "The Nature of Identity: Carlyle and Lawrence.")

I'd have thought, right, there's Old English/Anglo-Saxon up to around the time of the Conquest; there's Middle English, up to around the late 1400s; and there's Early Modern English, including Sir Thomas Malory around 1470, and the Elizabethans and Shakespeare, etc. I'd have pegged Modern English as from around 1700.

 

[Dave]

Well, you're asking about British literature. The Acts of Union which formed Britain was passed in 1707 under Queen Anne, so early British literature would be from 1707, until I would say, perhaps Austen around 1800.

Actually, to be pedantic, Britannia was the Roman name for all of the islands off the Brittany coast, and for a long while after that Scotland was still North Britain (unless you were a Celt.)

In History academia, Early Modern History is a very specific period, as you say, post 1600 to Industrial Revolution - Civil War and Restoration included. So, yes, lots of confusion at that Conference..

 

[Extollager]

Back of the Northern Plains "definition" of "Early British Literature" as something so broad as to include Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France and the Lyrical Ballads (1798) must be a pathetic attempt to permit as many papers as possible into the conference -- though, as I pointed out, even so they relaxed their definition so as to admit Carlyle (1795-1881!) and Lawrence. One shudders to think that they regarded D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) as "Early British Literature") -- but who else could be meant? T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935)?

The papers contained plenty of attention to current stuff ("Comparing Class Structure in Le Morte DArthur [sic] and BBC's Merlin", anyway, and let us not forget the workshop on "Class and Gender in the Professoriate."

I'm glad I decline to participate in this Waughesque event.

What an impression of a profession that is played out.

Real English studies are going on, but, often, without academic sponsorship or notice.

As I said to one of my students, "You love a good book? Welcome to the underground."

Thanks, all, and if there are further comments, I'll be interested to see them; but now you know how I came to ask.

 

[Bick]

Actually, to be pedantic, Britannia was the Roman name for all of the islands off the Brittany coast, and for a long while after that Scotland was still North Britain (unless you were a Celt.)

[Extreme Off-Topic Pedantry]Of course, but to be equally pedantic, the ancient people of Britannia in Roman times didn't have any literature we know about, so it doesn't effect the definition. Given there was precious little written down at all before the likes of Bede, Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Anglo Saxon Chronicle (none of which are exactly literature), its reasonable to say that there was no significant 'literature' before the existence of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland circa 800-900, and these only entered a union to become 'Britain' in 1707. [/Extreme Off-Topic Pedantry]