English and American Literature [antikvár]

iNIROnLXriON The bewildering variety of comprehensive, high quality literature textbooks available to the tcachcr today made the writing of yet another anthology a daunting prospect. Nevertheless, we feel con\'inced that there is room for a concise anthology wliich might allow both students and teachers the realistic possibility' of coming to terms with the histoiy of Anglo-American Literature in a relatively limited period of time. Any textbook secldng to deal with such a broad subject requires a certain ruthlessness on the part of the author, and the selections we have made inevitably lay us open to charges of omission, but this does not imply negligence. Our decision to omit in-depth analyses of passages was partly governed by the relatively limited length of the volume, but is also symptomatic of an awareness - based on extensive personal teaching experience - that students and teachers are frequently victims of textbook 'overload', and are simply unable to cope with the wealth of exercises contained in longer anthologies. Wliilst acknowledging the undoubted value of stylistic analysis in the decoding of literary language, we remain convinced that all too often the student is denied the right to value the actual content of literary texts and their relation to his/ her everj'day world. Our intentions were to provide the student with a broad overview of Anglo-American literature within a concrete social and historical context. Bearing this deceptively simple aim in mind, the book was organized in the following way: each chapter covers a chronological period, and provides a brief outline of historical and social backgrotmd, as well as the literary context of the age. The major developments in prose, poetiy and drama are summed up and followed by a series of literary extracts, complete with the writer's biography, an appreciation of his/her works and a variety of pre-, while- and post-reading exercises, often culminating in activities where the student is invited to make a personal response to the literaiy extract. The book is also designed to be used as a workbook: ample space is provided for the student's answers, though of course if the book is used in a classroom situation teachers may require a separate exercise book to be used for supplementary notes and essay writing etc. The special syntactic and lexical problems posed by poetry and (often) drama are glossed page by page. However, after much agonizing, we feel that for the prose extracts a student should have the opportunity to develop his dictionary and reading skills without stumbling continually on the author's notes. This may be a slow process, but we are convinced that it is irreplaceable as a learning experience. Some extracts are given for ftuther reading without exercises or analysis: these may be used as the teacher/student wishes. The Teacher's Guide which accompanies this volume provides brief hints regarding the exploitation of the material in class, as well as suggested answers to the exercises and a range of suggestions for warm-up and follow-up activities, as well as a selection of audio-visual aids (videos, slide-packs, poetry readings on tape etc.) which we feel might sharpen the student's insight into works of literature or historical periods.