REAL - Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature, Volume 17 (2001)

Over the last few decades thr writing of literary history has become problematical for a number of reasons. First there was the general crisis of representation, then a concomitant distrust in grands récits, then a heightened awareness of the political implications of canon formation, and, last but not lesat, the widening of perspective involved in placing literature within the larger frame of cultural history. As a result we are faced with the paradoxical situation that literary history continues to be written although this is theoretically held to be impossible. What has been singled out as the topic for discussion in the present volume is the relationship between literary history and cultural history and it´s increasing importance under the influence of recent theory and practice.