Norton Anthology of English Literature
Encyclopedia
The Norton Anthology of English Literature is an anthology of English literature
published by the W. W. Norton & Company. It has gone through eight editions since its inception in 1962; it is the publisher's best-selling anthology, with some eight million copies in print. The influential critic and scholar of Romanticism
, M.H. Abrams, served as General Editor for the first seven editions of the anthology before handing the job to Stephen Greenblatt
, a renowned Shakespeare scholar and Harvard professor.
Spread across six volumes and divided into two sets, the anthology provides an overview of poetry
, drama
, prose fiction, essay
s, letters from Beowulf
to the 21st century.
,” “The Sixteenth Century and The Early Seventeenth Century,” and “Restoration
and the Eighteenth Century;” the second set includes “The Romantic
Period,” “The Victorian
Age,” and “The Twentieth Century and After.” The writings are arranged by author, with each author presented chronologically by date of birth. Historical and biographical information is provided in a series of headnotes for each author and in introductions for each of the time periods.
Within this structure, the anthology incorporates a number of thematically linked "clusters" of texts pertaining to significant contemporary concerns. For example, "The Sixteenth Century and The Early Seventeenth Century" contains four such clusters under the headings, "Literature of The Sacred," "The Wider World," "The Science of Self and World," and "Voices of the War." The first of these includes four contemporary English translations of an identical passage from the Bible, those of William Tyndale
, the Geneva Bible
, the Douay-Rheims Version, and the Authorized (King James) Version; selections from the writings of influential Protestant thinkers of the period, including Tyndale
, John Calvin
, Anne Askew
, John Foxe
and Richard Hooker
; as well as selections from the Book of Common Prayer
and the Book of Homilies
.
survey course Abrams and fellow editor David Daiches
taught at Cornell University
. The anthology underwent periodic revisions every few years. The fifth edition in 1986 included the addition of the full texts of Joyce
's “The Dead
” and Conrad
's Heart of Darkness
. The sixth edition, published in 1993, included Nadine Gordimer
and Fleur Adcock
. The Seventh edition added Seamus Heaney
's translation of Beowulf
, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and Chinua Achebe
's novel Things Fall Apart
.
Greenblatt
joined the editorial team during the 1990s: "When Norton asked Greenblatt - who was already editor of "The Norton Shakespeare" - to join the team as Abrams's deputy in the mid-90's, Abrams said he was initially skeptical because of their different critical approaches, but quickly came around. The two had first met in the 80's, when they once delivered opposing lectures. "It was great fun," Abrams said. "He always claimed that I bent his sword. I always claimed he had the better, not of the argument, but of the rhetoric of the argument." Another addition has been an increase in women writers: "The new edition, Greenblatt said, includes 68 women writers, more than eight times as many as in the first edition."
, Frank Kermode
, and Lionel Trilling
. It was discontinued. Bloom
, a former student of Abrams', noted, “We were defeated in battle.”
The Longman
Anthology of British Literature
is also a competitor. Of this relationship, Joyce Jensen of the New York Times wrote in 1999, "The first stone in the war between Longman and W. W. Norton, the David and Goliath of the anthology publishing world, has been cast. With the recent publication of The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Longman has mounted a challenge to Norton to become the literary anthology of choice in colleges and universities around the country." Longman Anthology editor David Damrosch commented on the Seventh edition of the Norton Anthology, arguing:
The Norton Anthology responded that:
Independent Canadian publisher Broadview Press
also offers a 6 volume anthology of British literature that competes with the Norton and Longman anthologies, and a 2-volume Concise Edition that competes with Norton's 2-volume Major Authors Edition and Longman's 2-volume Masters of British Literature. The editorial team for The Broadview Anthology of British Literature includes leading scholars such as Kate Flint, Jerome J. McGann, and Anne Lake Prescott and has in general been very well received, though its sales have yet to match those of the competitors from the two larger publishers.
stated, "Although assailed by some for being too canonical and by others for faddishly expanding the reading list, the anthology has prevailed over the years, due in large part to the talents of Abrams, who refined the art of stuffing 13 centuries of literature into 6,000-odd pages of wispy cigarette paper."
Sarah A. Kelen summarizes the changes to the NAEL's inclusions of medieval literature through successive editions, demonstrating the way the Anthology's contents reflect contemporary scholarship.
Sean Shesgreen, an English professor at Northern Illinois University, published a critical history of the anthology in the Winter 2009 issue of Critical Inquiry
, based on interviews with Abrams and examinations of the editor's NAEL files (see "Further reading" below). Norton president Drake McFeely forcefully denounced the article in a January 23, 2009 story in The Chronicle of Higher Education
.
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
published by the W. W. Norton & Company. It has gone through eight editions since its inception in 1962; it is the publisher's best-selling anthology, with some eight million copies in print. The influential critic and scholar of Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, M.H. Abrams, served as General Editor for the first seven editions of the anthology before handing the job to Stephen Greenblatt
Stephen Greenblatt
Stephen Jay Greenblatt is a literary critic, theorist and scholar.Greenblatt is regarded by many as one of the founders of New Historicism, a set of critical practices that he often refers to as "cultural poetics"; his works have been influential since the early 1980s when he introduced the term...
, a renowned Shakespeare scholar and Harvard professor.
Spread across six volumes and divided into two sets, the anthology provides an overview of poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
, prose fiction, essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s, letters from Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
to the 21st century.
Format
The eighth edition of The Norton Anthology of English Literature comprises six volumes, sold in two sets of three. The first set includes the volumes “The Middle AgesMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
,” “The Sixteenth Century and The Early Seventeenth Century,” and “Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
and the Eighteenth Century;” the second set includes “The Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
Period,” “The Victorian
Victorian literature
Victorian literature is the literature produced during the reign of Queen Victoria . It forms a link and transition between the writers of the romantic period and the very different literature of the 20th century....
Age,” and “The Twentieth Century and After.” The writings are arranged by author, with each author presented chronologically by date of birth. Historical and biographical information is provided in a series of headnotes for each author and in introductions for each of the time periods.
Within this structure, the anthology incorporates a number of thematically linked "clusters" of texts pertaining to significant contemporary concerns. For example, "The Sixteenth Century and The Early Seventeenth Century" contains four such clusters under the headings, "Literature of The Sacred," "The Wider World," "The Science of Self and World," and "Voices of the War." The first of these includes four contemporary English translations of an identical passage from the Bible, those of William Tyndale
William Tyndale
William Tyndale was an English scholar and translator who became a leading figure in Protestant reformism towards the end of his life. He was influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus, who made the Greek New Testament available in Europe, and by Martin Luther...
, the Geneva Bible
Geneva Bible
The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into the English language, preceding the King James translation by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of the 16th century Protestant movement and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John...
, the Douay-Rheims Version, and the Authorized (King James) Version; selections from the writings of influential Protestant thinkers of the period, including Tyndale
William Tyndale
William Tyndale was an English scholar and translator who became a leading figure in Protestant reformism towards the end of his life. He was influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus, who made the Greek New Testament available in Europe, and by Martin Luther...
, John Calvin
John Calvin
John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...
, Anne Askew
Anne Askew
Anne Askew was an English poet and Protestant who was condemned as a heretic...
, John Foxe
John Foxe
John Foxe was an English historian and martyrologist, the author of what is popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, , an account of Christian martyrs throughout Western history but emphasizing the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the fourteenth century through the...
and Richard Hooker
Richard Hooker
Richard Hooker was an Anglican priest and an influential theologian. Hooker's emphases on reason, tolerance and the value of tradition came to exert a lasting influence on the development of the Church of England...
; as well as selections from the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
and the Book of Homilies
Book of Homilies
The Books of Homilies are two books of thirty-three sermons developing the reformed doctrines of the Church of England in greater depth and detail than in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion...
.
History
Published in 1962, the first edition of The Norton Anthology was based on an English literatureEnglish literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
survey course Abrams and fellow editor David Daiches
David Daiches
David Daiches was a Scottish literary historian and literary critic, scholar and writer. He wrote extensively on English literature, Scottish literature and Scottish culture.-Early life:...
taught at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
. The anthology underwent periodic revisions every few years. The fifth edition in 1986 included the addition of the full texts of Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's “The Dead
The Dead (short story)
"The Dead" is the final short story in the 1914 collection Dubliners by James Joyce. It is the longest story in the collection and is often considered the best of Joyce's shorter works. At 15,672 words it has also been considered a novella....
” and Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
's Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. Before its 1903 publication, it appeared as a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine. It was classified by the Modern Library website editors as one of the "100 best novels" and part of the Western canon.The story centres on Charles...
. The sixth edition, published in 1993, included Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer is a South African writer and political activist. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature when she was recognised as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".Her writing has long dealt...
and Fleur Adcock
Fleur Adcock
Kareen Fleur Adcock , CNZM, OBE is a poet and an editor of English and Northern Irish ancestry, who has lived much of her life in England.-Life and career:...
. The Seventh edition added Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...
's translation of Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe
Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe popularly known as Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic...
's novel Things Fall Apart
Things Fall Apart
Things Fall Apartis a 1958 English language novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. It is a staple book in schools throughout Africa and widely read and studied in English-speaking countries around the world. It is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English, and one of the first African...
.
Greenblatt
Stephen Greenblatt
Stephen Jay Greenblatt is a literary critic, theorist and scholar.Greenblatt is regarded by many as one of the founders of New Historicism, a set of critical practices that he often refers to as "cultural poetics"; his works have been influential since the early 1980s when he introduced the term...
joined the editorial team during the 1990s: "When Norton asked Greenblatt - who was already editor of "The Norton Shakespeare" - to join the team as Abrams's deputy in the mid-90's, Abrams said he was initially skeptical because of their different critical approaches, but quickly came around. The two had first met in the 80's, when they once delivered opposing lectures. "It was great fun," Abrams said. "He always claimed that I bent his sword. I always claimed he had the better, not of the argument, but of the rhetoric of the argument." Another addition has been an increase in women writers: "The new edition, Greenblatt said, includes 68 women writers, more than eight times as many as in the first edition."
Competing anthologies
The seventies saw the emergence of The Oxford Anthology of English Literature,; its editorial team included leading scholars Harold BloomHarold Bloom
Harold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
, Frank Kermode
Frank Kermode
Sir John Frank Kermode was a highly regarded British literary critic best known for his seminal critical work The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, published in 1967 ....
, and Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling was an American literary critic, author, and teacher. With wife Diana Trilling, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the Partisan Review. Although he did not establish a school of literary criticism, he is one of the leading U.S...
. It was discontinued. Bloom
Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
, a former student of Abrams', noted, “We were defeated in battle.”
The Longman
Longman
Longman was a publishing company founded in London, England in 1724. It is now an imprint of Pearson Education.-Beginnings:The Longman company was founded by Thomas Longman , the son of Ezekiel Longman , a gentleman of Bristol. Thomas was apprenticed in 1716 to John Osborn, a London bookseller, and...
Anthology of British Literature
British literature
British Literature refers to literature associated with the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. By far the largest part of British literature is written in the English language, but there are bodies of written works in Latin, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Cornish, Manx, Jèrriais,...
is also a competitor. Of this relationship, Joyce Jensen of the New York Times wrote in 1999, "The first stone in the war between Longman and W. W. Norton, the David and Goliath of the anthology publishing world, has been cast. With the recent publication of The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Longman has mounted a challenge to Norton to become the literary anthology of choice in colleges and universities around the country." Longman Anthology editor David Damrosch commented on the Seventh edition of the Norton Anthology, arguing:
- Though I could wish that the new edition of the Norton had reflected more independent thought and less reactive borrowing of the most visible innovations of our table of contents, I am very glad that Norton has now also adopted the six-volume format.1 (footnote) Then again, perhaps the Norton hasn't simply been imitating us in its rapid inclusions of Marie de FranceMarie de FranceMarie de France was a medieval poet who was probably born in France and lived in England during the late 12th century. She lived and wrote at an undisclosed court, but was almost certainly at least known about at the royal court of King Henry II of England...
, HogarthHogarth-People:* Burne Hogarth, American cartoonist, illustrator, educator and author* David George Hogarth, English archaeologist* Donald Hogarth, Canadian politician and mining financier* Paul Hogarth, English painter and illustrator...
, The Beggar's OperaThe Beggar's OperaThe Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...
, FrankensteinFrankensteinFrankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
, and a range of new context groupings whose topics track ours with what may only appear to be beagle-like devotion. The Septuagint was produced by independent translators whose versions all came out alike, and this history may have repeated itself here.
The Norton Anthology responded that:
- The new Norton is not (as Longman personnel have charged) simply an attempt to copy Longman… Norton has defined its scope by uniting works whose common bond is the English language, claiming that a shared vocabulary is essential to cultural unity.
Independent Canadian publisher Broadview Press
Broadview Press
Broadview Press is an independent academic publisher that focuses on the humanities. Founded in 1985 by Don LePan, the company now employs over 25 people, has over 500 titles in print, and publishes approximately 50 titles each year...
also offers a 6 volume anthology of British literature that competes with the Norton and Longman anthologies, and a 2-volume Concise Edition that competes with Norton's 2-volume Major Authors Edition and Longman's 2-volume Masters of British Literature. The editorial team for The Broadview Anthology of British Literature includes leading scholars such as Kate Flint, Jerome J. McGann, and Anne Lake Prescott and has in general been very well received, though its sales have yet to match those of the competitors from the two larger publishers.
Reception
In 2006, Rachel Donadio of The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
stated, "Although assailed by some for being too canonical and by others for faddishly expanding the reading list, the anthology has prevailed over the years, due in large part to the talents of Abrams, who refined the art of stuffing 13 centuries of literature into 6,000-odd pages of wispy cigarette paper."
Sarah A. Kelen summarizes the changes to the NAEL's inclusions of medieval literature through successive editions, demonstrating the way the Anthology's contents reflect contemporary scholarship.
Sean Shesgreen, an English professor at Northern Illinois University, published a critical history of the anthology in the Winter 2009 issue of Critical Inquiry
Critical Inquiry
Critical Inquiry is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the humanities published by the University of Chicago Press. It is considered a leading journal within literary studies, and particularly in the field of critical theory....
, based on interviews with Abrams and examinations of the editor's NAEL files (see "Further reading" below). Norton president Drake McFeely forcefully denounced the article in a January 23, 2009 story in The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty, staff members and administrators....
.
Further reading
- Shesgreen, Sean. (2009, Winter). Canonizing the Canonizer: A Short History of The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Critical InquiryCritical InquiryCritical Inquiry is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the humanities published by the University of Chicago Press. It is considered a leading journal within literary studies, and particularly in the field of critical theory....
, 35(2). Retrieved February 16, 2009.