Gathering Force: Early Modern British Literature in Transition, 1557–1623: Volume 1

Explores how different genres of early modern literature both shape and respond to rapid historical transformations of their time.

Kristen Poole (Edited by), Lauren Shohet (Edited by)

9781108419635, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 January 2019

418 pages, 11 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16 x 2.7 cm, 0.74 kg

'… lapses are rare in this valuable book … we hope that it encourages publishers, often dubious about collections, to publish them-and personnel committees to celebrate the achievements of their editors.' Heather Dubrow, Renaissance Quarterly

During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, England grew from a marginal to a major European power, established overseas settlements, and negotiated the Protestant Reformation. The population burgeoned and became increasingly urban. England also saw the meteoric rise of commercial theatre in London, the creation of a vigorous market for printed texts, and the emergence of writing as a viable profession. Literacy rates exploded, and an increasingly diverse audience encountered a profusion of new textual forms. Media, and literary culture, transformed on a scale that would not happen again until television and the Internet. The twenty innovative contributions in Gathering Force: Early Modern Literature in Transition, 1557–1623 trace ways that five different genres both spurred and responded to change. Chapters explore different facets of lyric poetry, romance, commercial drama, masques and pageants, and non-narrative prose. Exciting and accessible, this volume illuminates the dynamic relationships among the period's social, political, and literary transformations.

Part I. Generic Transitions: 1. The English sonnet: cycles and recycling Catherine Bates
2. Romance: traditions and innovations Kenneth Borris
3. Drama: forming an audience Lois Potter
4. Pageants, masques, and entertainments: old rituals, new forms Lauren Shohet
5. Arts of rhetoric: antique and modern Jenny C. Mann
Part II. Literature and Ideological Transformation: 6. Lyric and spiritualism: John Donne's 'The Ecstasy' Douglas Trevor
7. Romance and the boundaries of genre and gender Andrew Hadfield
8. Drama and globalization in early modern England Daniel J. Vitkus
9. The court masque: art and politics Peter Holbrook
10. Prose, science, and scripture: Francis Bacon's sacred texts Katherine Bootle Attié
Part III. Literature and Cultural Transformation: 11. Lyric and scientific epistemologies: Bacon and Donne Liza Blake
12. Romance and the early modern cultures of the book Sarah Wall-Randell
13. Drama and commodity culture in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus Bradley D. Ryner
14. Pageantry and politics: the anxiety of arrival Tom Bishop
15. Prose and the public sphere David Colclough
Part IV. Literature and Local Transformation: 16. 'Hard to meter well': psalms and early modern English poetry Lucía Martínez Valdivia
17. Romance, magical space, and Wroth's Urania Sheila Cavanagh
18. Drama and the playhouse Lucy Munro
19. Greek tragedy on the university stage: Buchanan and Euripides Hannah Crawforth and Lucy Jackson
20. Prose and the pulpit Lori Anne Ferrell.

Subject Areas: Literary reference works [DSR], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Literature: history & criticism [DS]