SOURCE: Rogers, Pat. “Thomas Warton and the Waxing of the Middle Ages.” In Medieval Literature and Antiquities: Studies in Honour of Basil Cottle, edited by Myra Stokes and T. L. Burton, pp. 175-86. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1987.

In the following essay, Rogers contends that Warton's History of English Poetry played a significant role in the codifying of historical eras in literature.

In any age, Basil Cottle would have been a notable scholar. But it is only within the last century and a half that he could possibly have held a distinguished post in Medieval English. The prime reason for this has nothing to do with the belated appearance of departments of English within universities (Dr Cottle could, in any case, have survived happily under the aegis of ‘classical studies’ (to use an anachronistic form), such are his attainments in the ancient languages). But the middle ages, as a...