Introduction

In recent years there has been an awakening of interest in the history of English studies, with a number of books and articles dealing with the subject. This interest has arisen in parallel with the rise to prominence of critical theory. Awareness of alternative critical methods of studying literary texts, structuralist, post-structuralist, feminist, new historicist and so on, has led scholars to examine the critical assumptions of the past and the institutionalizing of these assumptions in educational establishments. Cultural studies, in particular, have provided both impetus and methodology for an analysis of how and why this academic discipline became established.