A History of Seventeenth-Century English Literature
Blackwell History of Literature
1. Edition February 2014
480 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Short Description
A History of Seventeenth-Century Literature outlines significant developments in the English literary tradition between the years 1603 and 1690.
A History of Seventeenth-Century Literature outlines significant developments in the English literary tradition between the years 1603 and 1690.
* An energetic and provocative history of English literature from 1603-1690.
* Part of the major Blackwell History of English Literature series.
* Locates seventeenth-century English literature in its social and cultural contexts.
* Considers the physical conditions of literary production and consumption.
* Looks at the complex political, religious, cultural and social pressures on seventeenth-century writers.
* Features close critical engagement with major authors and texts
Thomas Corns is a major international authority on Milton, the Caroline Court, and the political literature of the English Civil War and the Interregnum.
Preface x
1 The Last Years of Elizabeth I: Before March 1603 1
Literary Consumption and Production 2
Latin, Neo-Latin and English 14
Manuscript, Performance, Print 16
The Press and its Controls 22
The Final Years of Elizabethan Theatre 26
Patronage and Court Culture 30
2 From the Accession of James I to the Defenestration of Prague: March 1603 to May 1618 33
Changes and Continuities 33
The Making of the Royal Courts 35
Masques and Other Court Entertainments 38
Early Jacobean Theatre 42
Jacobean Shakespeare 45
Other Drama 70
Non-Dramatic Poetry 87
Non-Fictional Prose 113
3 From the Defenestration of Prague to the Personal Rule: May 1618 to March 1629 119
Continental Wars 119
Three Funerals and a Wedding 123
Masques and Pageants 129
Plays and Players 133
Poetry and Prose Romance 151
Non-Fictional Prose 156
News 164
4 The Literature of the Personal Rule: March 1629 to April 1640 167
The Making of the Caroline Court 167
Masques of the Personal Rule 176
Other Entertainments 182
Music and Literature at the Caroline Court 184
Themes, Occasions and Conversations 186
From Manuscript to Print 190
Plays and Players 192
Literature and Laudianism 203
George Herbert 206
The Emblem Books of Quarles and Wither 215
Early Milton 221
5 From the Short Parliament to the Restoration: April 1640 to May 1660 229
Events and Consequences 229
Royalist Poetry 239
Crashaw and Vaughan 264
Mid-Century Drama 273
Sir Thomas Browne 277
Poetry for Parliament and Protectorate 283
Pamphlet Wars 295
Newspapers 311
6 The Literature of the Rule of Charles II: May 1660 to February 1685 317
Dissent, Popery and Arbitrary Government 317
Theatre of the Rule of Charles II 327
Rochesterism 352
The Poetry of Dryden and Butler 360
Marvell After 1660 370
Bunyan, Pepys and Sprat 381
Milton, St Nicholas and Hutchinson 391
Katherine Philips and Margaret Cavendish 405
7 From the Accession of James II: After February 1685 409
James II and the Williamite Revolution 409
Aphra Behn: The Late Works 413
Dryden and James II 416
After 1690 421
Bibliography 429
Index 453
Thomas Corns has written an exceptionally fine and remarkably ambitious history of seventeenth-century English literary culture. One of its great virtues is that this history begins with the late Elizabethan period and extends its account to the very end of the seventeenth century, thereby crossing and reexamining traditional boundaries of literary historical periodisation. Corns deftly illuminates the distinctive aesthetic achievements of seventeenth-century English writers, while precisely situating their works in their social, political, and religious contexts, as well as in relation to the other arts. Students and scholars alike will find this new, wide-ranging literary history of the period invaluable. It is an outstanding achievement. --David Loewenstein, University of Wisconsin-Madison
