Backgrounds to English Literature

Abstract

This essay was mainly written with the students of the English departments in our universities in mind. After having taught in different English departments at different colleges for over thirty seven years now, my judgment is that the students enter and finish their four years in college and are never given a comprehensive knowledge about the backgrounds of the literature they study which is English literature. They are also not given any idea as to how to make connections with world literature. In fact they are not made aware of the historical fact that not only Western classical literature but also Eastern classical literature and the Mesopotamian literature in particular, are connected with the English literature they study