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The ancient works of Greek civilization had almost been wiped out of human consciousness until Renaissance revisited it. In early 1800s, when Greece was revolting against Turks after 400 years of slavery, Europe discovered the old Greek tragedies and works of Greek philosophers which had been oppressed by political power bearers. In the 19th century many free spirits like Lord Byron (who died in Greece during the war) were intrigued by these works and began to reinterpret and analyse them to locate universals truths relating to philosophy, ecology, psychology, natural sciences, etc in them.Ever since Renaissance (when Shakespeare made abundant use of Greek Myths in his plays) the craze and interest in Greek mythology has not slowed down. From Homer to John Milton to John Keats to Thomas Hardy, all old and contemporary writers have looked towards Greek Myths for substance for their writing and have used them in all possible genres of literature. This paper attempts to trace the influence of Greek Mythology on English literature and contemporary culture, to point towards the literary works of various centuries which intensively used Greek myths and those English films which depict the same. An effort has been made at finding out the reason behind this continuing popularity of ancient myths and to analyse such a tremendously powerful phenomenon.

This paper reviews the concept and the corpus of English literature and its development in the context of culture and the academy from the 18th Century onwards. I argue that the category of literature is a 'liquid' notion best understood as a form of 'social action' (after Eagleton) relevant to wider social, cultural, and political contexts that produce and 'consume' it. In the academy, through extending the notion of the institution to a wider social and political context, literature could be best understood as an 'institutional reality' reflecting perceived relations of power. Deeming literature as an ideological tribute is crucially important to arguing against the monolithic and essentialist (Anglo-American literary tradition) as embodying a universal value that still prevail in post-colonial institutions. This argument helps conceptualise and interrogate the cultural constructs embodied in English literature, in general, and the English canonical texts, in particular; it also makes it possible to refute the claim that literature transcends its local boundaries and nationalist sentiments to articulate the universal concerns and values of all people. In my approach to these claims and assumptions, I resort to a critical narrative review to the 'story' of the English literature in cultural, political, social, geographical and institutional contexts. In academy, particularly in post-colonial settings, I conclude that the adopted literary tradition reflects a matrix of relations of power and institutional affiliations. Such conceptualisation of literature helps to challenge the claim that English literature largely embodies a humanistic enterprise of universal values and uniform human experience.

Featuring twenty one newly-commissioned essays, A Companion to the Global Renaissance: English Literature and Culture in the Era of Expansion demonstrates how today's globalization is the result of a complex and lengthy historical process that had its roots in England's mercantile and cross-cultural interactions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. An innovative collection that interrogates the global paradigm of our period and offers a new history of globalization by exploring its influences on English culture and literature of the early modern period. Moves beyond traditional notions of Renaissance history mainly as a revival of antiquity and presents a new perspective on England's mercantile and cross-cultural interactions with the New and Old Worlds of the Americas, Africa, and the East, as well with Northern Europe. Illustrates how twentieth-century globalization was the result of a lengthy and complex historical process linked to the emergence of capitalism and colonialism Explores vital topics such as East-West relations and Islam; visual representations of cultural 'others'; gender and race struggles within the new economies and cultures; global drama on the cosmopolitan English stage, and many more.

This study critically interrogates the representations of bodies with disabilities in Sri Lankan English novels as sites of immense possibilities that provide an in-depth engagement with hegemonic constructions/ normative readings of "traditional" Sri Lankan/South Asian identities. Studies on Sri Lankan English literature have analysed portrayals of gender, ethnic and racial identities, creating a huge lacuna in research that explores its depiction of disabilities. Thus, this study aims to critically examine the representations of bodies with disabilities in the Sri Lankan English novels, Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje and The Road from Elephant Pass by Nihal de Silva to argue that, such bodies can be marked as new epistemic spaces where the hegemonic understandings of gender, ethnicity and knowledge are challenged, demanding in that process a re-negotiation of the traditional identity markers that are considered unassailable. The study critically analyses the two selected novels by drawing on theories on critical disability and intersectionality to contend that, disability as an identity marker that cuts across different social identities is crucial to interrogate the multi-layered experiences uniquely felt by South Asian countries due to their common struggles such as ethnic crisis, religious fundamentalism and economic disparities. Using the two novels, this study points out that bodies with disabilities can be employed as alternative grounds where struggles such as continuing western influence in the production of knowledge, the impact of hegemonic religious beliefs, persistent stereotyping of gender identities can be contested: a third space similar to what Homi K. Bhabha describes in his theory of hybridity. Moreover, the study explores the performance/ pretence of disability with special reference to the novel The Road from Elephant Pass to portray the disabled body as an agent of empowerment thereby recasting disability in a more positive light. Therefore, this study concludes that bodies with ...

The study aims to examine how different agents namely individuals, groups, and organizations form the Cambodian literary field compete through selected practices. Certain strategies are applied in accordance to the rules of game in the literary field production. Having different habitus and capitals, agents struggle and compete for positions in the literary field. Applying literary study and classical ethnographic methods this study shows that political distance from the government in the field of cultural production allows external forces to interfere and reshape the Cambodian literary field. Agents make the structure and are structured in dynamic competition within the field. Strategies are mainly intended to create new network and to gain legitimacy, thereby accumulating capitals. Bilingual Khmer/English literature is important literary phenomenon in Cambodia as it indicates practices of contestation in response to the global field of cultural production.

Why is English synonymous with literature in the United States? At the turn of the twentieth century, literature courses were taught in the original language, and English did not signify literature any more than did French, Italian, or other modern languages. Fifty years later, English had colonized literature, and non-English literatures became configured as "foreign language study." This timely and important intervention into an on-going debate shows how the multilingual population of American faculty and students became progressively more monoglot, as did the configuration of literary studies. Thomas Paul Bonfiglio locates these changes within the anti-immigration, xenophobic, anti-labor, mercantile, militarist, and technocratic ideologies that arose in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and recommends the return of literary studies and the humanities to their roots. ; https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1114/thumbnail.jpg

Review

Citation: Brenner, Flora Edna. Race elements in the formation of the English language, and the effects of these elements upon English literature. Senior thesis, Kansas State Agricultural College, 1906. ; Morse Department of Special Collections ; Introduction: English is not a language derived from any single source. Only intracing its development, however, do we come to realize the vast number of elements that enter into its formation. Almost every written or spoken tongue on the face of the earth, has, in a greater or less degree, imparted some quality, in some particular manner, to the English. Despite the fact of its borrowing from all these sources, English is primarily Indo-European or Aryan. The Aryans were a primitive race, of whom very little is known. Even their abode is disputed, some authorities ascribing it to Europe, and some to Asia. From these people, descendants have scattered to all parts of the earth and developed different tongues for themselves, but there still remains resemblances in certain words and grammatical forms. It is my purpose in this paper, to give an account of only the most important of the racial elements, directly entering into, and influencing the formation, and development of our language, and literature. The Keltic Element. The British Isles, the cradle of the English language, was, at the earliest record, inhabited by the Kelts, a race of people possessing many interesting characteristics. Their manners and customs were rude, and their homes were huts of timbers and reeds. They were divided, into tribes, each tribe, having its chief who called his people together, to confer upon matters of general concern. War was their main occupation, and swords, spears, axes, and chariots, with scythes projecting, were their weapons. Their mode of summoning warriors, was by sending a messenger, who carried a stick burnt at the end, and dipped in blood. This, they called the "Cran tara". The religion of the Kelts was Druidism, and priests were arbiters of disputes, and judges of crime. They taught Eternal Transmigration of souls, and made appeals to their gods, by offering human sacrifice. There were also Keltic Bards who went about singing the praises of heroes, using a musical instrument consisting of a wheel striking upon strings. The disposition of the Kelts exhibited varied contrasts. They were passionate and emotional, varying from great vivacity, and hilarity, to melancholy and tenderness. They were lovers of gay colors, and of gorgeous displays in any form. They have shown these characteristics in their literatures even sacrificing the best style to an elaborate manner of expression. They were remarkable for their genius, and the beauty of their writings, but lack d a balance of patience and stability, so essential to strong national government.

Abstract
During lockdown in 2020, in English Literature class, 4th year students majoring in Primary Education had to create stories in which optional male or female characters were allowed. Some conditions were pre-established: thus stories had to be digital and able to be used in online classes with primary pupils. Also, the stories had to follow a determined narrative structure. As a third condition, it was recommended to be aware of the fairness of using female protagonists, as well as male, and give it a thought before choosing either one or the other. This paper will explain the methodology, explain the participants' digital contributions and show the results with some analysis of the students' creations.

В статье представлена рецензия на монографии E. Goodwin, в которой автор рассматривает переводы на русский язык произведений английской детской литературы за период 1918-2015 гг. ; The article reviews the monograph of the well-known British specialist in the field of history andtheory of translation of fiction Elena Goodwin. E. Goodwin analyzes translations of classic English books for children into Russian in the period of 1918-2015, thus creating a broad panorama of interaction between cultures and literatures of the period.

This dissertation is an archaeology of a neglected literary mode in England's post-Reformation literature. The georgic mode takes its name from Virgil's poem about agriculture. Unlike pastoral and other forms of nature writing that emphasize otium, recreation, and the distinction between nature and culture (a binary that appears in alternative forms such as country/city, science/politics, and wilderness/civilization), the georgic mode emphasizes the necessity of work in nature, and the mutual imbrication of the human and non-human world. The Protestant Reformation affirmed and worried over the value of labor, work, and action — the hierarchy of human activity that Hannah Arendt calls the vita activa. The troping of all activity as georgic activity is symptomatic of the pressures modernity put on the vita activa. Those pressures are due to several related early modern phenomena: 1) the Protestant Reformation, 2) the development of capitalism and the new professional opportunities it spawned, and 3) the invention of modern political forms, including the nation state, competing modes of parliamentary and monarchical rule, and nation-building through both Old- and New-World imperialism. The first three chapters explore georgic reformations of labor, work, and action through canonical Early Modern texts. Shakespeare's As You Like It, The Winter's Tale, and All's Well That Ends Well use the georgic mode to stage what Arendt calls the rise of the social by grafting private labor to political action. Shakespeare's Sonnets use the georgic mode to evaluate two competing career options – making a living as a playwright in a labor society or aspiring to be an artist ("the only 'worker' left in a laboring society," according to Arendt). The Faerie Queene and Paradise Lost dramatize the process by which epic action was transformed from an externally oriented category of public deeds to an inwardly oriented hermeneutic for navigating the fallen world. The fourth chapter explores how the georgic mode structured Early Modern world-making, and authorized colonial appropriation. The afterword considers how the georgic mode survives in current discourses of the Anthropocene, and considers what an active, georgic education might mean for the humanities in the twenty-first century.