pt.1. Introduction. -- pt.2. Literature and history: Medieval literature and the medieval world. -- The renaissance. -- Augustanism. -- Romanticism. -- Modernism. -- Postmodernism. -- pt.3. Poetry: Genre. -- Epic and romance. -- Lyric. -- Narrative verse. -- Women and the poetic tradition. -- Medieval poetry. -- Renaissance poetry. -- Augustan poetry. -- Romantic poetry. Victorian poetry. -- The French symbolists. -- Modern poetry. -- British poetry since 1945. -- Contemporary American poetry. -- pt.4. Drama: Stagecraft. -- Tragedy. -- Comedy. -- Shakespeare. -- Medieval drama. -- Renaissance drama. -- Restoration theatre. -- The origins of the modern British stage. -- Theories of modern drama. -- The theatre of the absurd. -- Theatre and politics. -- Feminist theatre. -- pt.5. The novel: Modes of eighteenth-century fiction. -- Feminine fictions. -- The historical novel. -- The nineteenth-century social novel in England. -- The realist novel: the European context. -- Realism and the English novel. -- American romance. -- Formalism and the novel: Henry James. -- The novel and modern criticism. -- The modernist novel in the twentieth century. -- British fiction since 1930. -- Contemporary fiction. --

pt.6. Criticism: Biblical hermeneutics.

Neo-classical criticism.

The romantic critical tradition.

Great traditions: the logic of the canon.

Marxist criticism.

The new criticism.

Structuralism and post-structuralism.

Feminist literary criticism.

Psychoanalytic criticism.

Deconstruction.

New historicism.

pt.7. Production and reception: Production and reception of the literary book.

The printed book.

Literacy.

Publishing before 1800.

Publishing since 1800.

British periodicals and reading publics.

Libraries and the reading public.

Censorship.

The bibliographic record.

The institutionalization of literature: the university.

pt.8. Contexts: Literature and the history of ideas.

Literature and the Bible.

Literature and the classics.

Folk literature.

Literature and the visual arts.

Literature and music.

Literature and landscape.

The sentimental ethic.

The gothic.

Aestheticism.

Literature and science.

Literature and language.

Culture and popular culture.

pt.9. Perspectives: New English literatures.

African literature in English.

The African-American literary tradition.

Australian literature and the British tradition.

Canadian literature.

Indian literature in English.

New Zealand and Pacific literature.

West Indian literature.

Western literature in modern China.