The Cambridge Companion to Literature in a Digital Age

Literature has experienced two great medium shifts, each with profound implications for its forms, genres, and cultures: that from orality to writing, and that from writing to printing. Today we are experiencing a third shift, from printed to digital forms. As with the previous shifts, this transformation is reconfiguring literature and literary culture. The Cambridge Companion to Literature in the Digital Age is organized around the question of what is at stake for literary studies in this latest transition. Rather than dividing its chapters by methodology or approach, this volume proceeds by exploring the major categories of literary investigation that are coming under pressure in the digital age: concepts such as the canon, periodization, authorship, and narrative. With chapters written by leading experts in all facets of literary studies, this book shows why all those who read, study, and teach literature today ought to attend to the digital.

• Organized around fundamental concepts that are important to all scholars and students of literature
• Provides accessible, readable accounts of the major aspect of literary studies that are coming under pressure in the digital age
• Chapters are written by leading experts in the field, who understand the technical nuance of the work and are also able to explain its broader impact