The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2 [Hardcover]

M. H. Abrams (Editor), Stephen Greenblatt (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0393974901 | ISBN-13: 978-0393974904 | Publication Date: November 1, 1999 | Edition: 7th

This seventh edition's thoroughly revised text incorporates recent scholarly developments while retaining the elements that have made the anthology useful in the past. New features includes a broader representation of women writers of all historical periods such as Marie de France, Frances Burney, Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson, Elizabeth Gaskell and Eavan Boland; a richer treatment of post-Colinial writers such as Jean Rhys, Chinua Achebe, V.S. Naipaul, Anita Desai, Les Murray, Salman Rushdie, J.M. Coetzee and Paul Mundoon; and a new set of cultural and thematic "Issues" such as "The Literature of the Sacred", "The Science of Self and World", "Slavery and Freedom", "Revolution, Rights and Liberation" and "The Rise and Fall of Empire". The period introductions, author headnotes, annotations and bibliographies have been revised and many have been rewritten for this edition. The highlight of this edition is a new verse translation of "Beowulf" by Seamus Heaney.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 3036 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc (Np); 7th edition (November 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393974901
• ISBN-13: 978-0393974904
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 2.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #816,555 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great anthology of English Literature, December 4, 2002

By 

bixodoido (Utah, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2 (Hardcover)

I had to buy this book for two of my English Literature survey courses. I'm sure that most people who buy this volume do the same--they buy it because they have to. Still, it is an excellent volume and a very thorough survey of English Literature, from the middle ages on down to the nineteenth century.

Highlights from this volume include Seamus Heaney's exceptional translation of Beowulf (in its entirety), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, many selections from the Canterbury Tales, lots of Shakespeare, and Milton's masterpiece Paradise Lost, reprinted in full.

As I said before, many who buy this volume will do so because they have to. Still, I think most people will find this anthology to be one they will not be selling back at the end of the semester. I know I'll definitely be keeping mine. This is a great place to start a study of English Literature.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a useful anthology receiving unwarranted criticism, February 25, 2000

By 

David J. Ward "d ward" (new york, ny) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2 (Hardcover)

For some as-yet unknown reason, I feel compelled to defend the Norton Anthology against the various charges being brought against it here. So far, it's been accused of being a tool for "academically lazy" professors, [essentially] a superfluous moneygrubbing update, and something which (somehow) renders authors "boring." Another person feels that it's too poetry- and essay-heavy to be representative of the covered periods.

I'll confess that I don't really understand these accusations. It is both what it looks like and what it claims to be: 3,000 pages with as much bang for your literary buck as is possible. The only novels included are those which are exceedingly important and/or representative of a period... which is as it should be.

And frequent updates (which take place every few years -- hardly a serious issue for most people) are absolutely necessary. A static canon would be boring, and likely would leave scholars with nothing to do. I, for one, am happy with the authors added in the seventh edition. <shrug>

It's an outstanding introduction to two centuries of English lit.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A disappointing edition of a famous book, March 31, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2 (Hardcover)

I'm a university professor who has taught the _Norton Anthology_ for years, and bought it this year with high hopes for the new edition. I was greatly disappointed to see that all that seems to have happened was more and more was added and little was taken away--the book has long since gone past being ridiculously oversized, and while the expansion of the canon can be commended insofar as now many female writers and writers of color have been added, there should have been some omissions to balance the extra page length. Do students in an introductory survey really need Walter Savage Landor, Arthur Hugh Clough, or Ernest Dowson? And even if they are one teacher's personal favorite, might they not then be photocopied by that particular teacher to add to her or his class?

The headnotes and historical introductions are also much too lengthy to be of much use to students coming to this material for the first time. Finally, the inclusion of _Things Fall Apart_ to this edition was a very poor choice: while a work by a novelist of color was greatly appreciated, a shorter work more oriented towards the problems of the British postcolonialism per se (such as Naipaul's _In a Free State_ ) would have been much more useful than Achebe's overassigned novel.