The Oxford Handbook of Tudor Literature: 1485-1603

by Mike Pincombe (Editor), Cathy Shrank (Editor)

Overview

This is the first major collection of essays to look at the literature of the entire Tudor period, from the reign of Henry VII to death of Elizabeth I. It pays particularly attention to the years before 1580. Those decades saw, amongst other things, the establishment of print culture and growth of a reading public; the various phases of the English Reformation and process of political centralization that enabled and accompanied them; the increasing emulation of Continental and classical literatures under the influence of humanism; the self-conscious emergence of English as a literary language and determined creation of a native literary canon; the beginnings of English empire and the consolidation of a sense of nationhood. However, study of Tudor literature prior to 1580 is not only of worth as a context, or foundation, for an Elizabethan 'golden age'. As this much-needed volume will show, it is also of artistic, intellectual, and cultural merit in its own right. Written by experts from Europe, North America, and the United Kingdom, the forty-five chapters in The Oxford Handbook to Tudor Literature recover some of the distinctive voices of sixteenth-century writing, its energy, variety, and inventiveness. As well as essays on well-known writers, such as Philip Sidney or Thomas Wyatt, the volume contains the first extensive treatment in print of some of the Tudor era's most original voices.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191607172
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	09/10/2009
Series:	Oxford Handbooks
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Mike Pincombe is Professor of Tudor and Elizabethan Literature at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne; he convened the Tudor Symposium between 1998 and 2009. He has written books on John Lyly (1996) and Elizabethan Humanism (2001), and also essays and articles on a range of mid-Tudor topics. He is presently working on William Baldwin and A Mirror for Magistrates. Cathy Shrank is Reader in Tudor Literature at the University of Sheffield. Her publications include Writing the Nation in Reformation England, 1530-1580 (Oxford University Press, 2004, 2006) and essays and articles on various Tudor and Shakespearean topics, including language reform, civility, travel writing, cheap print, and mid-sixteenth-century sonnets. She is currently working on an edition of Shakespeare's poems and a monograph on non-dramatic dialogue in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Table of Contents

AcknowledgementsConventions and list of abbreviationsList of illustrationsNotes on contributorsPrologue: The travails of Tudor Literature, Mike Pincombe and Cathy ShrankSection I: 1485-15291. Caxton and the invention of printing, Alexandra Gillespie2. Dramatic theory and Lucres' 'discretion': the plays of Henry Medwall, Kent Cartwright3. Stephen Hawes and courtly education, Daniel Wakelin4. Having the last word: manuscript, print, and the envoy in the poetry of John Skelton, Jane Griffiths5. All for love: Lord Berners and the enduring, evolving romance, Joyce BoroSection II: 1530-15596. Thomas More, William Tyndale, and the printing of religious propaganda, John N. King7. Rhetoric, conscience and the playful positions of Sir Thomas More, James Simpson8. John Bale and controversy: readers and audiences, Peter Happe9. Sir Thomas Elyot and the bonds of community, Cathy Shrank10. John Heywood and court drama, Thomas Betteridge11. Thomas Wyatt and Francis Bryan: plainness and dissimulation, Jason Powell12. Piety and poetry: English psalms from Miles Coverdale to Mary Sidney, Hannibal Hamlin13. Katherine Parr and her circle, Janel Mueller14. John Leland and his heirs: the topography of England, Philip Schwyzer15. Biblical allusion and argument in Luke Shepherd's verse satires, Mark Rankin16. Reforming the reformers: Robert Crowley and Nicholas Udall, Christopher Warley17. William Baldwin and the Tudor imagination, R. W. Maslen18. Directions for English: Thomas Wilson's Art of Rhetoric, George Puttenham's Art of English Poesy, and the Search for Vernacular Eloquence, Wolfgang G. Muller19. Order and Disorder: John Proctor's History of Wyatt's Rebellion (1554), Alan Bryson20. Marian political allegory: John Heywood's The Spider and the Fly, Alice Hunt21. Hall's chronicle and A Mirror for Magistrates: history and the tragic pattern, Scott Lucas22. A place in the shade: George Cavendish and de casibus tragedy, Mike Pincombe23. What is my nation?: language, verse and politics in Tudor translations of Virgil's Aeneid, Margaret Tudeau-Clayton24. Thomas Hoby, William Thomas and mid-Tudor travel to Italy, Jonathan Woolfson25. Popularizing courtly poetry: Tottel's 'Miscellany' and its progeny, Steven W. MaySection III: 1560-157926. Minerva's men: horizontal nationhood and the literary production of Googe, Turberville, and Gascoigne, Laurie Shannon27. 'For This is True or Els I do Lye': Thomas Smith, William Bullein and Mid-Tudor Dialogue, Phil Withington28. English Seneca: Heywood to Hamlet, Jessica Winston29. Political tragedy in the 1560s: Cambises and Gorboduc, Dermot Cavanagh30. John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, 1563-1583: antiquity and the affect of history, Andrew Escobedo31. Tragical histories, tragical tales, Jonathan Gibson32. Foresters, ploughmen and shepherds: versions of Tudor pastoral, Andrew Hadfield33. Interludes, economics and the Elizabethan stage, Paul Whitfield White34. Ovidian reflections in Gascoigne's Steel Glass, Syrithe Pugh35. The art of war: martial poetics from Henry Howard to Philip Sidney, D. J. B. Trim36. Thomas Whythorne and first-person life-writing in the sixteenth century, Elizabeth Heale37. Pageants and Propaganda: Robert Langham's Letter and George Gascoigne's Princely Pleasures at Kenilworth, Janette Dillon38. Sir Philip Sidney and the Arcadias, Helen MooreSection IV: 1580-160339. Gabriel Harvey's choleric writing, Jennifer Richards40. The intimacy of manuscript and the pleasure of print: literary culture from The Schoolmaster to Euphues, Fred Schurink41. Robert Greene's Pandosto and George Pettie's Palace of Pleasure, Katharine Wilson42. Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Nathaniel Woodes's The Conflict of Conscience, David Bevington43. Fictive Acts: Thomas Nashe and the mid-Tudor legacy, Lorna Hutson44. 'Hear my tale or kiss my tail!': The Old Wife's Tale, Gammer Gurton's Needle and the popular cultures of Tudor comedy, Andrew HiscockEpilogue: Edmund Spenser and the passing of Tudor literature, Helen CooperBibliographyIndex

Editorial Reviews

"The first major collection to survey literature from Henry VII to Elizabeth I, this book offers a wealth of information, especially about texts from the earlier, often-overlooked period...All the essays are of exceptionally high caliber. Essential." —Choice

From the Publisher