routledge+history+of+literature+in+english

Scottish Enlightenment, diarists and Gibbon
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and Fall of the Roman Empire, a massive six-volume work published
between 1776 and 1788, precisely between the American Revolution
and the French Revolution. The context is important, as the author
Edward Gibbon was examining not only the greatness of Rome, but
the forces which brought about its decay. The story of the burning of
Rome is rather different from Pepys’s or Evelyn’s Great Fire of London,
and ends with something more legendary than historical.
In the tenth year of the reign of Nero, the capital of the empire
was afflicted by a fire which raged beyond the memory or example
of former ages. The monuments of Grecian art and of Roman
virtue, the trophies of the Punic and Gallic wars, the most holy
temples, and the most splendid palaces, were involved in one
common destruction. Of the fourteen regions or quarters into
which Rome was divided, four only subsisted entire, three were
levelled with the ground, and the remaining seven which had
experienced the fury of the flames displayed a melancholy
prospect of ruin and desolation. . . .
The voice of rumour accused the emperor as the incendiary of
his own capital: and, as the most incredible stories are the best
adapted to the genius of an enraged people, it was gravely
reported and firmly believed, that Nero, enjoying the calamity
which he had occasioned, amused himself with singing to his
lyre the destruction of ancient Troy.
Gibbon’s interpretation of history was controversial, especially in its
examination of the growth of Christianity, but his accurate scholarship
and engaging prose style have made The Decline and Fall the most
enduring work of history in English.
In the eighteenth century, history is seen as a branch of belleslettres,
and it subsumes within it scriptural authority on the one hand,
and fictional narrative on the other. History is, in effect, the new
secular authority of the Enlightenment, and comes to be a very wideranging
category of writing.