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A Little History of Literature (2013)

de John Sutherland

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337576,209 (3.84)5
This 'little history' takes on a very big subject: the glorious span of literature from Greek myth to graphic novels, from The Epic of Gilgamesh to Harry Potter. John Sutherland is perfectly suited to the task. He has researched, taught, and written on virtually every area of literature, and his infectious passion for books and reading has defined his own life. Now he guides young readers and the grown-ups in their lives on an entertaining journey 'through the wardrobe' to a greater awareness of how literature from across the world can transport us and help us to make sense of what it means to be human. Sutherland introduces great classics in his own irresistible way, enlivening his offerings with humor as well as learning: Beowulf, Shakespeare, Don Quixote, the Romantics, Dickens, Moby Dick, The Waste Land, Woolf, 1984, and dozens of others. He adds to these a less-expected, personal selection of authors and works, including literature usually considered well below 'serious attention' - from the rude jests of Anglo-Saxon runes to The Da Vinci Code. With masterful digressions into various themes - censorship, narrative tricks, self-publishing, taste, creativity, and madness - Sutherland demonstrates the full depth and intrigue of reading. For younger readers, he offers a proper introduction to literature, promising to interest as much as instruct. For more experienced readers, he promises just the same.… (mais)
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Exibindo 5 de 5
A Little History of Literature is a wonderful survey of English literature. This book is no Norton Anthology--but I like how the author (an English Lit Professor and editor) introduces key concepts each with its own chapter. You'll find everything from Shakespeare to the King James Bible to uptopia/dystopias to magic realism discussed. ( )
  auldhouse | Sep 30, 2021 |
The one thing this “little history of literature” isn’t is a dry read, and thank God for that because, given the subject matter, it could have been. Rather than composing a high-brow tome of pedantic drivel (like I just wrote), this volume of work is interesting, accessible, and actually fun to read! I hadn’t even gotten through the first 10 chapters when I was already fangirling, wondering how I could go about getting my hardback autographed. Seriously.

Here something I learned from Sutherland’s Little History: About 80% of the KJV actually comes from the Tyndale translation. Seems as though the king’s committee couldn’t improve upon what Tyndale had already done, and seeing as how Tyndale paid so dear a price for his translation, good on him! Furthermore, Sutherland considers Tyndale’s writing on par with the Bard’s, and with good reason.

Reading Sutherland’s book made me appreciate John Donne’s poetry as never before and provided me with insight and information that I’m going to pass on to my students. I also learned that I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Oroonoko writer Aphra Behn, the first female to write plays for the theatre and to be buried in Westminster Cathedral. I’d already wanted to read Oroonoko, but now I feel compelled.

Sutherland also whet my appetite to read Boccaccio’s Decameron, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Mo Yan’s The Garlic Ballads, and, when I feel up to the task, Donald Barthelme’s short stories. Those may be foregone conclusions to most “well read” people, but I had no idea. I’ve missed so much!

If you want a read that’s going to make you think you’re so much smarter than the average bear, look elsewhere; but if you want a little history of a vast subject, written in a casual tone that makes you feels like you’re conversing over a cuppa by a fireside, talking of books and other literary things with author and professor John Sutherland, you might just love this book. Overall, for what my humble opinion is worth, I highly recommend A Little History of Literature. ( )
  MadMaudie | Sep 5, 2020 |
John Sutherland, author of A Little History of Literature, takes us by the hand and leads us safely through the deep, heavily wooded forest that is the written word. As the author states in his introduction to the book, “…literature is not a little thing. There is hugely more of it than any of us will read in a lifetime.” Thankfully the author utilises a path constructed of wonderful books that make the journey a very pleasant affair.
During the author’s journey we encounter the likes of Homer, Chaucer, the Metaphysical Poets, Dr. Johnson, Jane Austen, the Romantic Poets, Kipling, Woolf and many others. John Sutherland finds the time to stop and tell us stories about Theatre in the Street, Who ‘owns’ literature, The King James Bible and Literature and the censor. It may be ‘a little history’ but the book is 284 pages long.
As with any book that crams a long history of any subject, and particularly literature, into relatively few pages there will be many people debating as to who should have been included within the author’s pages. Personally, I believe the omission of the poet Stevie Smith when discussing the the ‘voice of pain’ as an oversight. Ted Hughes believed that at the bottom of the inner most spirit of poetry is a ‘voice of pain’. Included in this discussion is the poets John Berryman, Anne Sexton. Both of these poets committed suicide and in their poetry they ‘signalled the act’. Stevie Smith is also a member of the suicide club that is very peculiar to poets. Personally, I believe her poetry is head and shoulders above that of John Berrymans and at least on a par with that of Anne Sexton.
I could take umbrage with Mr Sutherland over his decision not to mention or acknowledge the likes of Evelyn Waugh and E.E. Cummings. However, it would be small minded and churlish to dislike a book of this kind for not mentioning some of my favourite writers. John Sutherland’s, if I can borrow a film metaphor, cutting room floor will be covered in the blood of writers who had to be chopped from the book due to lack of space and time.
John Sutherland has written this book in his own inimitable style; witty, erudite and unpatronizing. Like so many of John Sutherland’s other books, ‘Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives’ and ‘Curiosities of Literature: A Feast for Book Lovers’ to name but a few, he manages to write in an informative, adroit, compelling manner that never becomes tedious or pedagogic in style.
I will leave the last word to the author: “This little history is not a manual but advice along the lines of, you may find this valuable, because many others have, but at the end of the day you must decide for yourself.” ( )
  Kitscot | Nov 11, 2013 |
UnCorrected Proof from NetGalley and Yale University Press

Let me say straight off that whosoever says they have been listening to Desert Island Discs for fifty years, as this author states, is mighty fine with me.

John Sutherland introduces us to myth, and the emergence of the literary epic and the Greek Tragedies. Next up is the beginning of literature in English and we are shown the beginnings of two great poems written in England at almost exactly the same time i.e. toward the end of the fourteenth century. The first is Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, written in Anglo Saxon and the second quote is the opening couplet from Canterbury Tales, written in new English, or what we now call Middle English. Darwin's evolution at play even in language.

Next up is the Mystery or Miracle Plays, street theatre, which emerged in the late fifteenth century, early sixteenth century, along with the printing press. Then onto the writers of blank verse, the so called blank verse of Marlow and Shakespeare, which incorporates good drama and bad history. Next up is the King James Bible and the debt owed to the martyr Tyndale, whose writings form the backbone of the KJB. Next up are the Metaphysicals and the major name here is Donne, who was master of both wit and the outlandish conceit, and so onto Edmund Spenser and the epic about England and Elizabeth, Gory and Gloriana, The Faerie Queene.

Milton frankly acknowledged Spenser (as Spenser had acknowledged Chaucer) Page 73

The chapter Who Owns Literature was an interesting look at Printing, Publishing and Copyrigh, and the following chapter, The House of Fiction, leads on to Romantic Revolutionaries namely Keats, Wordsworth, Byron, Coleridge and Shelley, and the Scotsmen Burns and Sir Walter Scott

"Cromwell and his regime were ferociously moralistic. Many taverns were closed, along with the racecourses, cock-fighting pits, houses of ill-repute, and, most damaging, the country's theatres. The printed word was rigorously censored. It was a difficult time for literature. An impossible time for drama." Page 88

The diagram at the start of the Jane Austen chapter, The Sharpest Mind, is delightful, and through George Eliot and onto The Giant: Dickens, then the Brontës. My favourite chapter about children's fiction is followed by the Flowers of Decadence, where the trend was 'author as dandy': Wilde, Proust, Whitman. In 'New Lands: America finds its Voice' there are some scathing attacks across the pond upon the question of merit, or lack thereof. I was pleased to see a chapter devoted to 'The Great Pessimist: Hardy' and the opening line had me chuckling: Imagine you could create something called the 'Literary Happiness Scale. In 'Dangerous Books: Literature and the Censor' it is the Russian authors that take centre stage and in 'Empire' there is a look at Kipling, Forster and Conrad.

As it says in the title this is a short history and an ideal, charming primer for those looking to embrace a literary education. It is written warmly and there are some little gems that even the well-read will be surprised by. I would give this to a young teen for directional inspiration.

Cross-posted: NetGalley, LibraryThing, BookLikes, aNobii, GoodReads ( )
  mimal | Oct 17, 2013 |
By now the history of modern literature is several hundred year old and has been through an amazing variety of growth, change, spirited extravagance and history-making importance. It has quieted tantrums and brought down kings.

A Little History of Literature is that rare amalgam that can engage the younger student as well as a more mature, perhaps cynical, reader.

Sutherland gives us chapters on myth and the epic narrative, quickening through Greek tragedy and into the true beginnings of English literature with Chaucer and the semi-urban Mystery Plays. We experience the world-changing grandeur of Shakespeare; Donne and the metaphysical poets; Milton and Spenser and the growth of the British Empire, where it is established that England, in fact, has a true literature, favorably comparable to any in the world.

Short chapters are devoted to the beginnings of printing and the laws created to protect the authors and rights-holders. We explore the beginnings of modern literature as defined by five European proto-novels including Boccaccio’s Decameron and Cervantes’ Don Quixote.

The novel comes into play with Defoe and the fiction of Robinson Crusoe and we pick up speed with Jane Austen, the Brontes and Charles Dickens; decadence and censorship, jingoism and social revolution — the novel houses the voices of a literate and disparate people.

Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Beckett, Pinter, Plath. Rushdie, Marquez and the many voices against prejudice and injustice. The list could be endless and this Little History touches the tip of a very large iceberg — written with spirit and understanding. Highly recommended. ( )
1 vote abealy | Oct 9, 2013 |
Exibindo 5 de 5
As a guidebook, it’s a cracker. What Sutherland has to offer is formidable breadth of reading, a generous spirit and a rebounding enthusiasm for his subject.
adicionado por Nickelini | editarThe Spectator, Sam Leith (Nov 16, 2013)
 

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This 'little history' takes on a very big subject: the glorious span of literature from Greek myth to graphic novels, from The Epic of Gilgamesh to Harry Potter. John Sutherland is perfectly suited to the task. He has researched, taught, and written on virtually every area of literature, and his infectious passion for books and reading has defined his own life. Now he guides young readers and the grown-ups in their lives on an entertaining journey 'through the wardrobe' to a greater awareness of how literature from across the world can transport us and help us to make sense of what it means to be human. Sutherland introduces great classics in his own irresistible way, enlivening his offerings with humor as well as learning: Beowulf, Shakespeare, Don Quixote, the Romantics, Dickens, Moby Dick, The Waste Land, Woolf, 1984, and dozens of others. He adds to these a less-expected, personal selection of authors and works, including literature usually considered well below 'serious attention' - from the rude jests of Anglo-Saxon runes to The Da Vinci Code. With masterful digressions into various themes - censorship, narrative tricks, self-publishing, taste, creativity, and madness - Sutherland demonstrates the full depth and intrigue of reading. For younger readers, he offers a proper introduction to literature, promising to interest as much as instruct. For more experienced readers, he promises just the same.

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