This is not a complete history of English studies, but an attempt to show why and how our language and literature have become subjects of academic study. The process was long and at times fiercely resisted, for the study of English in England began in quite a humble and informal way, as a kind of poor man’s Classics, and more than a hundred years passed before it won recognition as a branch of scholarship in the highest seats of learning. I have illustrated the assumptions and attitudes which gave direction and increasing importance to the subject throughout the nineteenth century: in a complex of social and educational change, the missionaries of culture and the proliferating examination system between them fostered a subject of unprecedented popularity, but its developing possibilities and pleasures were stunted for want of proper academic standards and of trained teachers.
Author(s): David John Palmer
Series: University of Hull Publications
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 1965
Language: English
Pages: 202
PREFACE vii
I. RHETORIC AND BELLES LETTRES 1
II. THE LONDON COLLEGES 15
III. AN EDUCATION FOR THE INDUSTRIAL CLASSES 29
IV. THE MUSE IN CHAINS 41
V. THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN OXFORD 66
VI. JOHN CHURTON COLLINS AND THE ATTACK ON OXFORD 78
VII. THE FOUNDING OF THE OXFORD ENGLISH SCHOOL IO4
VIII. WALTER RALEIGH AND THE YEARS OF THE ENGLISH FUND 118
IX. FROM CAMBRIDGE TO BRIGHTON I5I
APPENDIX I: THE EARLY STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN SCOTTISH UNIVERSITIES 171
APPENDIX II: THE BOARD OF EDUCATION REPORT (1921) 179
INDEX 187
