Literature as History Essays in Honour of Peter Widdowson

Literature as History presents a selection of specially commissioned essays by a range of key contemporary thinkers on the interdisciplinary study of literature and history. The unifying theme is the interrelationship between literary / cultural production and its historical moment. The essays in the collection are astute and exciting in terms of their engagement with ever-changing developments in critical and theoretical practice while retaining an invaluable focus on familiar and engaging texts and authors. The contributors offer a reappraisal of the nature of literary studies today, looking back over the thirty-five years of Peter Widdowson's career - a career which has coincided with the emergence of, challenges to, and reformulations of critical theory - and ask what the future holds, particularly for the interdisciplinary ways of working which Widdowson pioneered. Bringing together distinguished scholars in the interdisciplinary study of English and History, it seizes the opportunity to take stock of the current field of literary studies and to ask searching questions about its future development. >

Introduction, by Simon Barker and Jo Gill List of Contributors 1. The Poverty of (New) Historicism, Catherine Belsey (University of Wales, Swansea, UK) 2. Re-reading English, Re-reading Modernism, Helen Carr (Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK) 3. ‘I would have her whipped': David Copperfield in its historical moment, Simon Dentith (University of Reading, UK)4. Hardy's Realism and Hardy-country Tourism, Tim Dolin (Curtis University of Technology, Australia) 5. Tragedy and Revolution, Terry Eagleton (National University of Ireland, Ireland; University of Notre Dame; USA; University of Lancaster, UK) 6. 'The Weight of History': Poets and Artists in WWII, John Lucas (Nottingham Trent University, UK; Shoestring Press) 7. The Plains of War: Byron, Turner and the Bodies of Waterloo, Philip W. Martin (De Montfort University, UK) 8. "Giving Them Back Their History": Peter Widdowson and Literature, Martin Randall (University of Gloucestershire, UK)9. The 'Servant Problem', Social Class and Literary Representation in Eighteenth-Century England, R.C.Richardson (University of Winchester, UK) 10. 'Sway Between a Dance and a Fight': Black Religions in Toni Morrison's Paradise, Shelley Saguaro (Univesity of Gloucestershire, UK) 11. Women, War and the University: Rosamond Lehmann's Dusty Answer, Judy Simons (De Montfort University, UK) 12.Mythological Presents: Modernity, Edward Thomas and the Poetice of Experience, Stan Smith (Nottingham Trent University, UK) 13. Personalia: sketches of Peter Widdowson, Neville Shrimpton; Mary Shakeshaft; Paul Stigant; Mike Walkers; Mary De Jong Obuchowski; Peter Obuchowski; Peter Brooker; Stuart Laing; Victoria Bazin; U.A. Fanthorpe and Rosie Bailey; James Green; Manzu Islam; Emily Wroe; Neil A. Wynn; Charlotte Beyer; Sandra Courtman; Peter Childs; Hilary Hinds; Debby Thacker; John Hughes. Index