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Article: Christopher Cannon, The Grounds of English Literature.(Book review)
- Article from:
- Medium Aevum
- Article date:
- March 22, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Society for the Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literature. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Christopher Cannon, The Grounds of English Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), xi + 237 pp. ISBN 0-19-927082-1. 41.00 [pounds sterling].
Throughout this complex and provocative book, play is made with the idea of 'grounds' as rhetorical topoi, as textual matter, as scribal medium, and as topography. 'Grounds' are also identified with 'foundations' in such a way as to suggest that the texts addressed here constitute, in some significant and specific way, the foundations of 'English literature'. Paradoxically, it is also argued that the idea of 'English literature' is a 'metaphysical' imposture from which 'early Middle English texts' are ...