A Concise Companion to English Renaissance Literature

This Concise Companion launches students into the study of English Renaissance literature by way of the key contexts that informed it.

The contributors, who are all highly regarded scholars and teachers in the field, place the literature of the period within a set of relevant historical, intellectual and cultural contexts, including: economics; religion; empire and exploration; education, humanism and rhetoric; censorship and patronage; royal marriage and succession; treason and rebellion; others in England; private lives; cosmology and the body; and life–writing. Their contributions incorporate recent developments in the field, as well as work soon to be published.

The volume as a whole makes the period accessible and enticing to students, and provides innovative syntheses that will be of interest to scholars.

Notes on Contributors.

Introduction: Donna B. Hamilton (University of Maryland).

1 Economics: S. P. Cerasano (Colgate University).

2 Religion: Donna B. Hamilton (University of Maryland).

3 Royal Marriage and the Royal Succession: Paul E. J. Hammer (University of St Andrews).

4 Patronage, Licensing, and Censorship: Richard Dutton (Ohio State University).

5 Humanism, Rhetoric, Education: Peter Mack (University of Warwick).

6 Manuscripts in Early Modern England: Heather Wolfe (Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC).

7 Travel, Exploration, and Empire: Ralph Bauer (University of Maryland).

8 Private Life and Domesticity: Lena Cowen Orlin (University of Maryland).

9 Treason and Rebellion: Andrew Hadfield (University of Sussex).

10 Shakespeare and the Marginalized Others : Carole Levin (University of Nebraska).

11 Cosmology and the Body: Cynthia Marshall (Rhodes College).

12 Life–Writing: Alan Stewart (Columbia University).

Index

Donna B. Hamilton is Professor of English at the University of Maryland. Her previous publications include Virgil and ′The Tempest′: The Politics of Imitation (1990), Shakespeare and the Politics of Protestant England (1992), Religion, Literature and Politics in Post–Reformation England (co–edited with Richard Strier, 1996), Anthony Munday and the Catholics, 1560–1633 (2005), and an edition of Middleton′s The Puritan (2005).

The book considers the key concepts that are thought to have informed the texts of the period. Relevant historical, intellectual, and cultural contexts are considered by well–known scholars, who include such fields as economics, humanism, royal marriage, censorship, rebellion, and cosmology. ( Year′s Work in English Studies, 2008)