Overview
A majestic literary history, revealing the power and possibilities of silence found in literary works.Silence: A Literary History traces silences over twelve centuries of English literature, from the solitary states of exile on icy seas described in Anglo-Saxon poems to searches for silence in our own Age of Pings. This pioneering work of 'big' literary history encompasses exalted states of blissful union with the divine and with the natural world, the deep hushes of intimacy, spell-binding silent scenes on stage, encrypted expressions of same-sex love, the great literary epics of inarticulable grief, the game-changing idea of silence within the mind, the failure of words in the face of two World Wars, the hilarious awkwardness of some social silences, the echoing absence of lost voices, and silences as a powerful form of protest.Throughout, Kate McLoughlin illuminates the intellectual and cultural influences shaping our relationships with silence and explores the paradoxical ways in which authors create silences through words. Medieval lyricists express complex theological notions through simple lullabies shushing babies to sleep. Renaissance sonneteers protest their tongue-tiedness in dazzling displays of verbal ingenuity. Shakespeare creates silences that stage violent misogyny, calculating statecraft, the hurt of having to grow up and hard-won equanimity. Out of political favour at the Restoration, Milton dreams of a silent paradise. Wordsworth and Coleridge are dumbfounded by the sublimity of God's creation. Jane Austen deflates pomposities with perfectly-timed pauses. Tennyson composes a three-thousand-line poem about the death of his best friend leaving him lost for words. Virginia Woolf repeatedly writes a novel about the things that people don't say.In Silence: A Literary History, Kate McLoughlin explores such silences in all their richness and variety, illuminating the intellectual, cultural, political, and religious traditions that shape them. Across English literature silences emerge as powerful, moving, and sometimes very funny.
Full Product Details
Author: Kate McLoughlin (Professor of English Literature, Professor of English Literature, University of Oxford)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 16.50cm
, Height: 4.50cm
, Length: 24.20cm
Weight: 1.245kg
ISBN: 9780192855626
ISBN 10: 019285562
Pages: 720
Publication Date: 26 March 2026
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Out of Stock Indefinitely
Availability: To order
Reviews
This is a magnificent work, exhilarating in the breadth of its journeys through time, across religious divides, and from intimate lullabies to public protests. McLoughlin has written a British literary history for our times, alert to the unsaid and the suppressed, teeming with variegated riches, demonstrating the power of dauntless reading, deep scholarship, and contemplative curiosity as we listen for the voices of the living past. * Alexandra Harris, author of Weatherland: Writers & Artists Under English Skies * Silence: A Literary History is a fascinating journey through English Literature, from the Middle Ages to the present, by way of its absences, stillnesses, and breakings-off. Kate Mcloughlin writes beautifully, with great erudition, and revels in the paradox of being so eloquent on the subject of missing words. * Bart van Es, author of The Cut Out Girl * Intellectually ambitious in the best way, Kate McLoughlin's new book offers an extraordinary meditation on literary silences. When so many critical studies are focused on texts within a defined period, it is quietly exhilarating to be taken through twelve centuries of different kinds of silence by such a learned and thoughtful guide. This is a powerful, deeply considered account which looks set to become the standard point of reference for years to come. * Fiona Stafford, author of Time and Tide: The Long, Long Life of Landscape * Silence: A Literary History richly demonstrates how much there is to say about the gaps, pauses, cessations and quiet places of literature. Kate McLoughlin provides an erudite and readable tour of literary silences in their many moods and variations, combining acute close readings with sweeping breadth. This is, to a rare extent, both a learned and a moving book. * Joe Moshenska, author of Darkness to Light: The Lives and Times of John Milton *
This is a magnificent work, exhilarating in the breadth of its journeys through time, across religious divides, and from intimate lullabies to public protests. McLoughlin has written a British literary history for our times, alert to the unsaid and the suppressed, teeming with variegated riches, demonstrating the power of dauntless reading, deep scholarship, and contemplative curiosity as we listen for the voices of the living past. * Alexandra Harris, author of Weatherland: Writers & Artists Under English Skies * Silence: A Literary History is a fascinating journey through English Literature, from the Middle Ages to the present, by way of its absences, stillnesses, and breakings-off. Kate Mcloughlin writes beautifully, with great erudition, and revels in the paradox of being so eloquent on the subject of missing words. * Bart van Es, author of The Cut Out Girl * Intellectually ambitious in the best way, Kate McLoughlin's new book offers an extraordinary meditation on literary silences. When so many critical studies are focused on texts within a defined period, it is quietly exhilarating to be taken through twelve centuries of different kinds of silence by such a learned and thoughtful guide. This is a powerful, deeply considered account which looks set to become the standard point of reference for years to come. * Fiona Stafford, author of Time and Tide: The Long, Long Life of Landscape * Silence: A Literary History richly demonstrates how much there is to say about the gaps, pauses, cessations and quiet places of literature. Kate McLoughlin provides an erudite and readable tour of literary silences in their many moods and variations, combining acute close readings with sweeping breadth. This is, to a rare extent, both a learned and a moving book. * Joe Moshenska, author of Making Darkness Light: The Lives and Times of John Milton *
Author Information
Kate McLoughlin is a Professor in English Literature at the University of Oxford. She studied for a BA in English Language and Literature at Oxford and an MPhil in Renaissance Literature at Cambridge before qualifying as a barrister. She then worked for the Government Legal Service, with stints at the European Commission in Brussels, the Conseil d'Etat in Paris and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, before returning to Oxford for a DPhil in English. Thereafter, she held posts at the University of Glasgow and Birkbeck, University of London. Her other books include Authoring War: The Literary Representation of War from the Iliad to Iraq (2011) and Veteran Poetics: British Literature in the Age of Mass Warfare, 1790DS2015 (2018) and, as editor, The Cambridge Companion to War Writing (2009) and The Modernist Party (2013). She holds a diploma in piano performance from the Royal College of Music and occasionally publishes poetry.
