Forming English Literature in the Early Modern World

FAIN: HB-257867-18

Andras Kisery
CUNY Research Foundation, City College (New York, NY 10031-9101)

Research and writing leading to publication of a book on the dissemination and consumption of English literature in and beyond England during the 16th to 18th centuries.

My monograph is a study of the changing idea of English literature between the late 16th and the late 18th centuries, through the lens of the production and distribution of books and of information about books across Britain, England's colonies, and Europe. The project is based on the recognition that a reading public and its experience are shaped by where and how, through what networks of agents and what mechanisms of transmission they access their books. My aim is therefore to reveal how urban and national, colonial and international geographies impacted the mediation and perception of English literature in the key period when England rose from the cultural periphery of Europe to global significance, when literature separated from other fields of learning, and recreational reading became the repository of aesthetic value and national identity. I am requesting support for researching and drafting the second half of this project.