PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xix

discussions organised by the: Poetics and Linguistics Association (Sheffield 1994);

Conference on College Composition and Communication (Washington 1995);
Australian Association for the Teaching of English (Adelaide 1996); European Society
for the Study of English (Debrecen 1997 and Coimbra 1999); Council for College
and University English (Loughborough 1998); Continuing Education Department,
University of Oxford (1998, 2000); National Association of Writers in Education
(Bangor 1998 and Oxford 2000); Development of University English Teaching
(Norwich 2001); English Subject Centre (London 2000, 2002); English Association
(Oxford 2001), and ‘Speak-Write’ Project (Cambridge 1997–2002).
For another thing, I remain profoundly indebted to those who read a first draft of
the first edition. Susan Bassnett, Ron Carter, Aileen Askwith, Riccardo Duranti,
Stephen Muecke, Rick Rylance, David Stacey, Jean Jacques Weber, Alex Taylor, and
an anonymous correspondent from Holland all gave invaluable encouragement and
advice. If I haven’t always managed to act on the latter, it isn’t their fault. Those who
advised on a second edition, often anonymously, were equally helpful; as were Robert
Eaglestone and David Stacey, who agreed to read through a penultimate draft.
Meanwhile, Nathalie Blondel, Graeme Harper, Lynnette Turner and others mentioned
elsewhere continue, with me, to gather materials for a critical and historical source
book to go alongside and beyond the present volume. Work in progress with these
people has helped clarify many issues in the following pages.
Much of the above reading, feedback and advice was initiated and co-ordinated
by Moira Taylor and Louisa Semlyen at Routledge, who have carried the project
through with the same energy and warmth they brought to the first edition. At the
same time, working on the actual re-design, copy-editing and production of the second
edition with Christy Kirkpatrick and Julie Tschinkel has been a delight when it could
so easily have become a pain. They have handled tricky materials with great skill and
a seemingly endless supply of patience and good humour (a glance at the sheer number
of permissions and the complexity of the index will confirm that you need all these
qualities in abundance when producing a book such as this). Thank you to all these
people. This has been in the fullest possible sense a joint project, and I have again
been fortunate to work in such a pleasant professional atmosphere.
I am even more fortunate in my partner, Tanya. For someone who has no particular
reason to be interested in what I write, she none the less manages to be remarkably
understanding and supportive about the fact that it interests me. My children,
meanwhile, remain healthily sceptical about the whole thing. Which is fine too – and
why I have dedicated the book to them.

FURTHER ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ANON / TRADITIONAL SEMINOLE, ‘Song for Bringing a Child into the World’ and
‘Song for the Dying’ (Native American Chants), from Frances Denmore, Seminole
Music, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C., Bureau of Ethnology Bulletin
no. 161, 1956.
MARGARET ATWOOD, ‘Happy Endings’, reprinted in The Secret Self I: Short Stories
by Women, ed. Hermione Lee, J M Dent and Sons, Everyman Books, 1993.
HARRY BECK, 1931 Map of the London Underground, reproduced by permission of
London’s Transport Museum.
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xx

SAMUEL BECKETT, from Not I, play extract from Collected Shorter Plays. Copyright
1973 by Samuel Beckett, reprinted by permission of Grove/Atlantic Inc. and Faber
& Faber.
ROBYN BOLAM, ‘Gruoch’ published under the name of Marion Lomax, Raiding the
Borders, Bloodaxe Books, 1996.
BILL BRYSON, extract from Notes from a Small Island, Black Swan Publishing, 1996.
MARY BUTTS, extract from the Journals of Mary Butts, ed. Nathalie Blondel, Yale
University Press, 2002.
CARYL CHURCHILL, from Cloud Nine, in Churchill: Plays One, copyright Caryl
Churchill, published by Methuen, 1985.
MERLE COLLINS, ‘No Dialects Please’ from Singing Down the Bones, ed. Jeni Couzyn,
first published by The Women’s Press, 1989.
CHARLES DARWIN, extract from Beagle Diary, ed. R.D. Keynes, Cambridge University
Press, 1988.
U.A. FANTHORPE, ‘Knowing About Sonnets’, from Voices Off, 1984. Copyright
Ursula Fanthorpe, reproduced by permission of Peterloo Poets.
JANET FRAME, prose extract from An Autobiography: To the Is-land, vol. 1.
Copyright Janet Frame, 1982, reproduced by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd,
London, on behalf of Janet Frame Clutha.
BRIAN FRIEL, extract from Translations, Faber and Faber, 1981.
ATHOL FUGARD, Boesman and Lena, play extract from Selected Plays, 1986, Oxford
University Press.
GEORGE GÖMÖRI, ‘Daily I change tongues’, translated by Clive Wilmer and George
Gömöri and first published in Mother Tongues: Non-English-Language Poetry in
England (Modern Poetry in Translation, No 17, 2001).
HEINEKEN: transcript extract from Lowe Howard-Spink’s ‘Windermere’ commercial
‘Heineken refreshes the poets other beers can’t reach’.
GEOFF HOLDSWORTH, for his re-write of Defoe: ‘I call him Tuesday afternoon’.
ALAN HOLLINGHURST, extract from The Swimming Pool Library, Penguin Books,
1989, first published by Chatto and Windus Ltd., 1988.
ZORA NEALE HURSTON, prose extract from Their Eyes Were Watching God,
reprinted by permission of Little Brown. US copyright Harper Collins.
JEREMY JACOBSON, extract from ‘The Postmodern Lecture’, from Poetry as a Foreign
Language: Poems connected with English as Foreign or Second Language, ed. Martin
Bates, White Adder Press, 1989, reprinted by permission of the author.
JUDITH KAZANTSIS, ‘Leda and Leonardo the Swan’, from her Selected Poems 1977-
1992, 1995, Sinclair Stevenson. Originally in The Wicked Queen, 1980, Sidgwick
and Jackson.
RUDYARD KIPLING, ‘The Story of Muhammad Din’, short story from Plain Tales from
the Hills, 1988. Reprinted by permission of A.P.Watt Ltd, on behalf of The National
Trust for Places of Historical Interest or Natural Beauty.
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xxi

URSULA LE GUIN, extract from The Left Hand of Darkness, Virago Press, 1969.
BILLY MARSHALL-STONEKING, ‘Passage’, from Singing the Snake, 1990. Published in
The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse, 2nd edition, 1991, Oxford University
Press, Australia. Visit his website at http://stoneking.org.
IAN McEWAN, ‘Only love and then oblivion’, Copyright © 2001, Ian McEwan.
Reproduced by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge and White Ltd.,
20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN. First published in The Guardian, 15 September
2001.
EDWIN MORGAN, ‘The First Men on Mercury’, from Complete Poems, Carcanet
Press, 1984.
TONI MORRISON, prose extract from Beloved: A Novel, reprinted by permission of
International Creative Management Inc. Copyright 1987, Alfred Knopf Inc.
GRACE NICHOLS, ‘Tropical Death’, from The Fat Black Woman’s Poems, Virago,
1984, reprinted by permission of Little Brown.
πo, ‘7 Daiz’, first printed in The Fitzroy Poem, 1989, Collective Effort Press, P.O. Box
2430V, GPO Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia. Reprinted by permission of the
author.
LYNN PETERS, ‘Why Dorothy Wordsworth is not as famous as her brother’, from The
Virago Book of Wicked Verse, Virago, 1992. Copyright Lynn Peters.
MARIO PETRUCCI, ‘The Complete Letter Guide’, ‘Mutations’, ‘Reflections’, ‘Trench’,
reprinted by permission of the author.
TERRY PRATCHETT and NEIL GAIMAN, prose extract from Good Omens, Corgi.
Copyright Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Reprinted by permission of Carole Blake
of Blake Friedmann.
QUEEN, text of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, words and music by Freddie Mercury © 1975.
Reproduced by permission of B. Feldman & Co. Ltd, trading as Trident Music,
London.
JEAN RHYS, prose extract from Wide Sargasso Sea. First published by Andre Deutsch,
1966. Copyright 1966 Jean Rhys. Reprinted by permission of Penguin UK and
W.W. Norton & Co. Inc.
ADRIENNE RICH, ‘Dialogue’ from The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems Selected and New,
1950–1984. Copyright 1984 by Adrienne Rich; copyright 1975, 1978 by W.W.
Norton & Company Inc.; copyright 1981 by Adrienne Rich. Reprinted by permission
of the author and W.W. Norton & Company Inc.
ARUNDHATI ROY, prose extract from ‘Algebra of Infinite Justice’. First published in
The Guardian, 29 September 2001.
WILLY RUSSELL, play extract from Educating Rita, Methuen, 1988.
LORNA SAGE, extract from Bad Blood, HarperCollins Publishers, 2000.

MAY SARTON, prose extract from As We Are Now. Copyright 1973 by May Sarton.
Reprinted by permission of W.W. Norton & Company Inc.
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xxii

DENNIS SCOTT, ‘Uncle Time’ from collection Uncle Time. Copyright © 1973, reprinted
by permission of the University of Pittsburg Press.
SUSUMU TAKIGUCHI, three versions of a haiku by Basho, in The Twaddle of an
Oxonian – Haiku Poems and Essays, Ami-Net International Press, 1997, reprinted
by permission of the author.
DYLAN THOMAS, from Under Milk Wood: A Play for Voices, reprinted by permission
of David Higham Associates Ltd.
AMOS TUTUOLA, prose extract from The Palm Wine Drinkard, Faber & Faber, 1987.

WILLIAM B. YEATS, ‘Leda and the Swan’. Permission granted by A.P. Watt Ltd on
behalf of Michael Yeats. Reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster from
The Collected Works of W.B.Yeats, volume 1: The Poems. Revised and edited by
Richard J. Finneran. Copyright 1928 by Macmillan Publishing Company; permission
renewed 1956 by Bertha Georgie Yeats.
Routledge has made every effort to trace copyright holders and to obtain permission
to publish extracts. Any omissions brought to our attention will be remedied in future
editions.
WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT
AND HOW TO USE IT

This book provides an introduction to the theory and practice of contemporary

English Studies. It combines the functions of study guide, critical dictionary and text
anthology, and is designed to support learning and teaching across a wide range of
courses. Most undergraduate English courses now have a considerable variety of
emphases – literary, linguistic and more broadly cultural. This book aims to recognise
and support all, or at least most, of them in a flexible yet coherent way. The choice
of the label English Studies is calculating not casual. It signals an extremely capacious
subject matter (English) and puts equal emphasis on the educational process of
understanding it (Studies). Indeed, the book, like the contemporary subject, is in many
senses interdisciplinary. So any talk of ‘the subject’ (definite article and singular) can
be misleading if it obscures the fact that English (sometimes controversially dubbed
‘englishes’) is a fundamentally plural and constantly changing series of subjects
(Studies). ‘It’ often turns out to be ‘they’.
This is a handbook in that it is designed for flexible handling and for freedom of
movement. Don’t aim to read it straight through from cover to cover. But do expect
to move from one part to another, and from this text in one hand to another text in
front of you, or in your mind’s eye. Most sections are just a few pages long. They can
be used on their own as focuses for a single session, or in interrelated clusters over
several sessions. Cross-referencing is copious (see below) and provides constant
reminders of connected issues and larger frameworks. The book is also a kind of
‘companion’ in that it is designed to be of continuing and cumulative use across a
wide range of courses right through from introductory to advanced levels. It can be
used as a coursebook in its own right or for self-directed study.
Who the book is for : ‘You’, it is imagined, are primarily a student. You are
somewhere between first and final years of a degree or similar programme (perhaps
nearer the beginning when you first pick this up). Your programme probably involves
a fair amount of English Literature (including Literature in English) and at least some
work in English Language. There may also be some dimensions of Communication
and Composition or Cultural and Media Studies to what you do. You may be
spending most or all of your time in a department called ‘English’. However, you may
also be studying English as part of a joint, combined, major-minor or modular
programme. In any event, it is imagined that you are interested in exploring the rich
variety of subjects called ‘English’ both in themselves and in relation to other subjects
that interest you, inside and outside formal education.
But you may also be a teacher or lecturer of English, or perhaps a trainee teacher.
An important, albeit secondary, function of this book is to contribute to debate about
THE ENGLISH STUDIES BOOK 2

the present shape and future directions of the subject. It is framed so as to prompt
discussion and provide a practical aid to course (re-)design, while also supporting
teaching and learning on existing programmes. In any case, whether nominally
teachers or learners, we are all in a fundamental sense students of English. The past,
present and future of our subject is everybody’s business and a shared concern. Indeed,
it is as much the diversity as the unity of English Studies that exercises us here:
variations over time, place and social space as much as any supposedly homogeneous
object or project.
The book is organised in six distinct yet interconnected parts (seven including the
Prologue):

Prologue: Change and Challenge today

1 Introduction to English Studies
2 Theoretical Positions and Practical Approaches
3 Common Topics
4 Textual Activities and Learning Strategies
5 Anthology of Sample Texts
6 Glossary of Grammatical and Linguistic Terms

It is recommended that you read the Prologue and first part early on to get some initial
bearings. Thereafter move around the rest of the book in whatever order and patterns
meet your needs.

HOW TO MOVE AROUND

For ease of use the book is variously signposted and cross-referenced. In addition to the
general Contents pages at the beginning, there are more detailed Preview pages which
preface each of the six parts. There is also a comprehensive Index at the end where you
can find page references for all the main terms, topics, titles and authors, including all the
‘hot’ terms featured within the body of the text. These ‘hot’ terms are of three kinds and
highlighted in three ways:

• SMALL CAPITALS (e.g., LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, FEMINISM, POSTMODERNISM) refer

to the main fields of study and the critical approaches to which whole sections are
devoted in Parts One and Two.
• Bold (e.g., discourse, novel, narrative, text) refers to the common terms and topics
featured as substantial entries in Part Three.
• *Asterisks (e.g., *accent, *creole, *noun, *sign) refer to words defined in the Glossary
of Grammatical and Linguistic Terms in Part Six.

Below is a brief summary of each of the six parts of the book. Parts One to Four
follow a common pattern of exposition, example, activity, discussion and further
reading. They therefore reinforce the notion that English (like other educational
subjects) is best conceived as something we make and do as well as something we find
and find out about. That is, ‘doing English’ entails various processes of telling,
WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT 3

showing, doing, reflecting and researching. Turn to the preview pages at the beginning
of each part of the main text if you want still further information at this stage.

Part One: Introduction to English Studies surveys the many things that ‘English’ has
been, is currently and yet may be. The overarching questions are ‘Which Englishes?’
and ‘How studied?. In both cases the answer is emphatically ‘Many and various’,
depending upon the times, places, societies and media in play. Beginning with the
formation of English as an educational subject in schools, colleges and university
during the late nineteenth century, we then trace the ways in which such subjects as
CLASSICS, THEOLOGY, RHETORIC and HISTORY all contributed to crucial stages in
its development. We observe fundamental shifts from literary appreciation to literary
criticism and literary and cultural theory over the course of the twentieth century;
and we explore recent constructions of the subject in relation to such configurations
as LITERARY, COMPOSITION, CULTURAL, COMMUNICATION and MEDIA Studies. The
first part concludes by identifying Language, Literature and Culture (in various
permutations) as our main fields of study, and introduces the basic models, methods
and tools we need to move across them.

Part Two: Theoretical Positions and Practical Approaches offers a ‘hands-on’

introduction to all the major theories and approaches that inform contemporary
English Studies. The emphasis throughout is upon theory that works and on getting
you to work (and play) with theory for yourself. This part of the book spans
everything from the relatively un- or under-theorised practices of PRACTICAL
CRITICISM and (old) NEW CRITICISM to the hyper-theorised (some would say over-
theorised) models of POSTSTRUCTURALISM and POSTMODERNISM. Meanwhile, at
the core of this section we explore a range of psychological and political approaches
that continue to inform and transform critical agendas: PSYCHOLOGICAL, MARXIST
and NEW HISTORICIST, FEMINIST and GENDERED, POSTCOLONIAL and MULTI-
CULTURAL. The section on ECOLOGY and ETHICS draws attention to points of
convergence in contemporary debates on humanity, nature, science and responsibility.
It thereby tentatively sketches the grounds for a kind of NEW ECLECTICISM – though
in effect the gathering and applying of whatever works (eclectically and pragmatically)
is fundamental to the present theoretical–practical project as a whole. Each section
includes simple yet comprehensive advice on ‘How to practise’ the theory or approach
in question. There are worked examples, further activities and cues for discussion.
The overall aim is to encourage reflective critical practice and a habit of actively
engaged theorising – not vague gestures to ‘Theory’ in the abstract or the parroting
of ‘-isms’. The result is as likely to be idiosyncratic synthesis as exclusive allegiance.

Part Three: Common Topics features over a hundred common terms such as author,
canon, character, creative, genre, poetry, narrative, text, context and intertextuality,
writing and reading. These are ‘common’ precisely because they occur in critical
discourses of many kinds, often with competing senses, and are not the exclusive
property of any one critical school or movement (discourse is itself such a term and
therefore included). Again there is an emphasis on using these terms practically, as
tools, rather than merely bandying them around for effect. You are also encouraged
to carry on building and refining a critical vocabulary of your own.