Early Modern/Renaissance Literature

In this new study the authors examine a range of theories about the state of nature in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England, considering the contribution they made to the period's discourse on sovereignty and their impact on literary activity. Texts examined include Leviathan, Oceana, Paradis..

Measure for Measure, Malcontent and other disguised ruler plays are typically interpreted as synchronic political commentaries about King James. Quarmby, by contrast, traces the disguised ruler's medieval origins and marks its presence on the Elizabethan stage. Influenced by European tragicomedy, th..

Measure for Measure, Malcontent and other disguised ruler plays are typically interpreted as synchronic political commentaries about King James. Quarmby, by contrast, traces the disguised ruler's medieval origins and marks its presence on the Elizabethan stage. Influenced by European tragicomedy, th..

Early modern geographers and compilers of travel narratives drew on a lexicon derived from cartography’s seemingly unchanging coordinates to explain human diversity. Sandra Young’s inquiry into the partisan knowledge practices of early modernity brings to light the emergence of the early modern glob..

Revisiting Elizabethan literary culture through the lenses of popularity, this collection allows us to view the subject from an angle unfamiliar to modern eyes, but fundamental for early modern readers. Throughout, the aim is to unpack assumptions about the popular, revealing a literary England in ..

First published in 1882, this volume formed the sixth part of a unique series of English-language Charlemagne romances and contains three poetic texts in 15th and 16th century English with accompanying glosses: ‘The Taill of Rauf Coilyear’, ‘Rouland and Vernagu’ and ‘Otuel’...

This volume, first published in 1989, offers detailed readings of The Faerie Queene's seven books, along with introductory chapters on Spenser’s career, and the roots of the poem in the English and continental traditions. Humphrey Tonkin pays particular attention to the work’s political and cultural..

The Gentle Craft..

Tropes of monstrosity, madness, venereal disease, incest and atheism define a group of macabre plays which burst onto the London stage in the 1670s. Dubbed the ’horror’ or the ’blood and torture villain tragedies’ by modern critics, these deeply unsettling plays fascinated contemporary audiences. He..

Tracing the literary development of the satanic form into a humanized form, Nancy Rosenfeld looks anew at well known texts by four seventeenth-century English writers-John Milton, John Bunyan, George Etherege and John Wilmot (Earl of Rochester). Rosenfeld focuses on the works from each author in wh..

Tracing the literary development of the satanic form into a humanized form, Nancy Rosenfeld looks anew at well known texts by four seventeenth-century English writers-John Milton, John Bunyan, George Etherege and John Wilmot (Earl of Rochester). Rosenfeld focuses on the works from each author in wh..

The first book length study of the motif of impotency in poetry from early antiquity through to the late Restoration, this book explores the impotency poem as a recognisable form of poetry in the longer tradition of erotic elegy. Hannah Lavery demonstrates that impotency poems can be seen on one lev..