The Enlightenment and English Literature: Prose and Poetry of the Eighteenth Century by John L. Mahoney (review)

100 Ahmed and ends without Robert Young; she in fact refers her reader very usefully to the work of both scholars, and to much other work besides. A signal strength in this book, therefore, is its constant commitment to a principled inclusiveness which mirrors intellectually the philanthropic projects of the period (‘‘Am I not a man and a brother?’’). There is a genuine interdisciplinary focus, with climate theory here and Linnaeantaxonomythere deftly joined to the analysis of narrative. The range of texts extendsfromRobinson Crusoe (1719) to Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative (1789), with space in between for such provocative pairings of contemporaneous works as that of Johnson ’s Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775) and Edward Long’s History of Jamaica (1774). Ms. Wheeler’s term ‘‘amalgamation,’’ for the subject of her central chapter, defines the spirit of her study generally. What it yields is very fine and consistently compelling. Peter Merchant Canterbury Christ Church University College, U.K. JOHN L. MAHONEY. The Enlightenment and English Literature: Prose and Poetry of the Eighteenth Century. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland, 1999. Pp. xiv ⫹ 625. $43.95 It takes some investigative work to discover this anthology’s history. Although it is not billed as a second edition, small print on the copyright page reveals that it appeared in 1980, when it was called The Enlightenment and English Literature: Prose and Poetry of the Eighteenth Century , with Selected Modern Critical Essays . But it seems to have been conceived even before that: of the dozens of titles cited in the ‘‘Suggestions for Further Reading,’’ only two were published after 1971. In fact, to judge by the selection of texts and the tenor of the commentary,the anthology would have been considered old-fashioned even in the early seventies. It is closest in character not to Tillotson, Fussell, and Waingrow’s Eighteenth-Century English Literature (1969), but to such volumes from the previous generation as R. S. Crane’s Collection of English Poems and Bredvold, Root, and Sherburn’s Eighteenth-Century Prose (both 1932). Such a blast from the past may not be unwelcome, but it seemsmore a curiosity than a serious anthology for a classroom. Most surprising is the narrowness of the canon. This volume is billed as a ‘‘companion volume’’ to Mr. Mahoney’s earlier anthology, The English Romantics : Major Poetry and Critical Theory, with Selected Modern Critical Essays (Lexington, MA, 1978), which contains only the big six Romantic poets and Hazlitt . The selection here is a little broader, but more than 70% of the volume’s pages are given to just five authors: Pope, Swift, Johnson, Boswell, and Burke. They are followed by ‘‘A Selection of Key Eighteenth -Century MinorPoetry’’(oneortwo poems each by Dyer, Thomson, Watts, Young, Blair, Akenside, Joseph Warton, Collins, Gray, Goldsmith, Chatterton, Cowper, Burns, and Crabbe), and ‘‘A Selection of Critical and Philosophical Prose’’ (extracts from Locke, Addison, Rymer, Shaftesbury, the Wartons, Young, Hume, Hurd, Duff, and Reynolds). Mr. Mahoney excludes drama and most fiction , although selections from A Tale of a Tub and Rasselas make it in. The Restoration is also excluded (except for brief extractsfromLocke’sEssay),asaremany late-century authors. The result is only twenty-eight authors, all male, all firmly canonical. Devoting nearly 450 pages to just five 101 authors has advantages. Selections are uncommonly generous: Rasselas is included complete; Reflections on the Revolution in France is represented by nearly 20,000 words, and Tale of a Tub by nearly 25,000. It does, however, run contrary to most pedagogy in the last 20 years, when the canon has expanded to include not only works by women and minorities,but also less obviously ‘‘literary’’genres.The commentary reflects this attention to masterpieces, piously celebrating great men and great works: Pope is ‘‘the eighteenth -century English man-of-letters par excellence,’’ ‘‘Swift is the master satirist not simply of English but of world literature ,’’ Johnson was ‘‘perhaps a representative of the whole range of human possibility,’’ ‘‘Boswell’s biography . . . stands as a masterpiece of its kind,’’ Burke is ‘‘the statesman/man-of-letters par excellence.’’ The lengthy headnotes are useful, and the texts themselves are fairly reliable, though the sources are not identified. Although Mr...