The Rise of English”- by Terry Eagleton
In eighteenth-century England, literature was considered to be that which conformed to the standards of ‘polite letters’, meaning that which embodied the values and tastes of the upper classes (usually). After the bloody civil war of the previous century, literature became even more important in bringing the middle classes into unity with the upper classes.
Literature, in the modern sense, really emerged around the nineteenth century during the Romantic period; the idea that literature is something imaginative or inventive while prosaic writing is dull or uninspiring is a relatively new concept in history.
During the Romantic period, types of literature like poetry no longer were simply a technical way of writing, they had significant social, political, and philosophical implications (many major Romantic poets were political activists themselves). The stress upon the sovereignty and autonomy of the imagination was another emphasis finding its way into the concept of literature. The rise of the ‘symbol’ also came towards the end of the eighteenth century; with it, various contradictory concepts could finally be captured together.
Literature, as defined by Eagleton earlier, IS an ideology. Eagleton suggests that the growth of English studies in the later nineteenth century was caused by the failure of religion, something he believes was a very simple yet powerful form of ideology that was above all else a pacifying influence. Apparently, English literature worked as a suitable replacement. English became a subject used to cultivate the middle class and infuse them with some values of the leftover aristocracy; thus English literature became the new way to pacify the working and middle classes. Literature would convey timeless truths and distract the masses from their present commitments and c0nditions; it was also a way to experience things or events that were not possible to experience in a person’s life. English as an academic subject was nothing more than the poor man’s Classics. In addition, English became the new vehicle for transferring the moral law, which was no longer taken from religion.
Because English was not exactly considered a ‘real’ subject, it was often given to the ladies of higher learning institutions when were now grudgingly admitting women; however, as the century drew on, English took on more of a masculine aspect. It still took a while for the study of English to be taken seriously, but finally English literature came into power, mostly because of wartime nationalism. The new subject was created by the offspring of the bourgeoisie, rather than those who currently held social power.
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