A Handbook of English Renaissance Literary Studies

A Handbook of English Renaissance Literary Studies is a groundbreaking guide to the contemporary engagement with critical theory within the larger disciplinary area of Renaissance and Early Modern studies. Comprising of commissioned contributions from leading international scholars, it provides an overview of literary theory, beyond Shakespeare, focusing on most major figures, as well as some lesser–known writers of the period.

This book represents an important first step in bridging the divide between the abundance of titles which explore applications of theory in Shakespeare studies, and the relative lack of such texts concerning English Literary Renaissance studies as a whole, which includes major figures such as Marlowe, Jonson, Donne, and Milton. The tripartite structure offers a map of the critical landscape so that students can appreciate the breadth of the work being done, along with an exploration of the ways in which the treatments of or approaches to key issues have changed over time.

A Handbook of English Renaissance Literary Studies is essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students of early modern and Renaissance English literature, as well as scholars in the field and related areas.

Acknowledgments viii

Notes on Contributors ix

Introduction 1
John Lee

Part I Conditions of Subjectivity 13

1 Gender 15
Catherine Bates

2 Love and Friendship 29
James M. Bromley

3 Race and Colonization 43
Jean E. Feerick

4 Agency and Choice 56
John Lee

5 Religion and the Religious Turn 70
Julia Reinhard Lupton

6 Desire and Representation 86
Simon Ryle

7 Service 101
David Schalkwyk

8 The Body and Its Lives 115
William W.E. Slights

9 Objects and Things 130
Julian Yates

Part II Places, Spaces, and Forms 145

10 The Market 147
David J. Baker

11 Nature and the Non ]Human 159
Bruce Boehrer

12 Nation and Archipelago 173
Willy Maley

13 London 190
Ian Munro

14 The Church 206
Anne M. Myers

15 The Republic of Letters and the Commonwealth of Learning 220
Joanna Picciotto

16 Romance 235
Benedict S. Robinson

17 The Court 249
Lauren Shohet

18 The Household 265
Mary E. Trull

Part III Practices and Theories 279

19 Rhetorics of Similitude 281
Judith H. Anderson

20 Publication 295
Joshua Eckhardt

21 Authorship 310
Jane Griffiths

22 Reading 324
Mary Ann Lund

23 Science and Early Modern Literature 337
Howard Marchitello

24 Representation 353
Patricia Phillippy

25 Historiography 368
Nicholas Popper

26 Devotion 382
Timothy Rosendale

27 The Book 396
Helen Smith

28 Travel and Chorography 411
Angus Vine

Index 426

John Lee is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Bristol, UK. His work on Renaissance English literature has included a selection of Spenser′s shorter poems and a monograph, Shakespeare and the Controversies of Self.