Praise and Paradox: Merchants and Craftsmen in Elizabethan Popular Literature

by Laura Caroline Stevenson

Overview

Praise and Paradox explores the relationship of language, literary structure, and social ideology in the popular Elizabethan literature that praised merchants, industrialists and craftsmen. Part I defines a canon of 296 popular vernacular works, relates the increasing popularity of tales about tradesmen to the development of the English economy and the expansion of the Elizabethan audience, and discusses the social origins of the popular authors. Part II is concerned with the change of the merchant's literary image from that of a greedy usurer to that of a 'businessman in armour' who defended his monarch on the battlefield and entertained princes at lavish banquets. Part III discusses the change in the literary image of the craftsman, who ceased to be a clown or a rebel and became a 'gentle craftsman' who fought bravely on the battlefield when necessary but was happier in his humble shop, where he sang, danced, and courted pretty girls.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521522076
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/22/2002
Series:	Past and Present Publications
Edition description:	FIRST/REPRINT
Pages:	268
Product dimensions:	5.55(w) x 8.54(h) x 0.75(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Prefactory note; Introduction: praise and paradox; Part I. Elizabethan Popular Literature: 1. Elizabethan popular literature and its economic context; 2. The popular Elizabethan authors; 3. The popular Elizabethan audience; Part II. The Business in Armour: 4. Principal citizens and chief yeomen; 5. The merchant as usurer: a stock image in decline; 6. The merchant as knight, courtier and prince; 7. Lessons in diligence and thrift; Part III. The Gentle Craftsman: 8. Clown and rebel: the craftsman as one of 'the fourth sort of people'; 9. The gentle craftsman in Arcadia; Appendices; Index.