Periodization and the notion of the baroque and (neo)baroque in British literature and culture

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the category of the Baroque as a historical period of literature and culture, and the category of (neo)baroque, which has recently become relevant in the description of modern/contemporary literary and cultural phenomena that exhibit the “crisis of representation” and the experience of dramatic movement and change of the world (this pertains to a large part of the so-called post-modernist literature). The article examines the relevance of these categories for the canon of English literature. The traditional periodization of English literature does not usually reveal the historical period of seventeenth-century Baroque and uses other categories instead, which are either Anglocentric/ethnocentric or refer to the style of the Italian Renaissance. The term “baroque” has become indispensable in literary-historical studies due to the necessity to create a transnational/simultaneous and more “spatial” history of literature(s) and culture(s) and because of the need for more universal tools of description.