Early Modern English Literature
Cultural History of Literature
1. Auflage August 2005
336 Seiten, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
When we engage with the writings of Shakespeare and his
contemporaries, we encounter a culture radically unfamiliar to us
at the start of the twenty-first century. The past is a foreign
country, and so too are many of its texts. This readable and
provocative book seeks to enhance our understanding of early modern
literature by recovering the contexts in which it was originally
produced and consumed.
Taking us back to the courts, theatres and marketplaces of early
modern England, Jason Scott-Warren reveals the varied ways in which
literary texts dovetailed with everyday experience, unlocking the
distinctive social practices, economic structures and modes of
behaviour that gave them meaning. He shows how the periods most
beguiling writings were conditioned by long-forgotten notions of
knowledge, nationhood, sexuality and personal identity. Bringing an
anthropologists eye to his materials, he offers richly detailed new
readings of works from within and beyond the canon, covering a span
that stretches from Erasmus and More to Milton and Behn.
Resisting any notion of the period as merely transitional a
staging post on the road leading from the medieval to the modern
world Scott-Warren reveals the distinctiveness of its literary
culture, and equips the reader for fresh encounters with its
extraordinary textual legacy. Any undergraduate student of the
period will find it an essential guide, while scholars will find
its fresh approach invigorating.
Note on Texts.
Introduction.
1. Technologies of the Word.
Places of Writing.
2. The Court.
3. Print in the Marketplace.
4. The Theatres.
Forging Identities.
5. Nature.
6. Nation.
7. Gender and Desire.
8. Self.
Notes.
Chronology.
Further Reading.
Bibliography.
Acknowledgements.
Index
restore a productive sense of strangeness to sixteenth and
seventeenth-century texts"
Times Literary Supplement
"Of immense value for all students of early-modern
literature...a genuinely helpful and informative
guide."
Notes and Queries
"One of the pleasures of this book, throughout, is
Scott-Warren's thoughtful alignment of historical research and
commentary with precise and often enormously insightful close
readings of literary works."
Sixteenth-Century Journal
"A stimulating guide to this period of literature for both
students and more advanced readers."
Ben Jonson Journal
"The strength of Jason Scott-Warren's sensitive and subtle
Early Modern English Literature is that he can be blunt and
dogmatic. Most of all, he basically sees the past for what it was,
another country, blissfully unaware of us and ours, alien and
self-enclosed."
Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance
"If you read one critical work this year, make it: Jason
Scott-Warren, Early Modern English Literature."
University of Warwick teaching blog
"Surveys and samplings of periods have a tendency to sacrifice
subtlety for sweep, and clarity for coverage. When the period in
question is arguably the richest in literary history then theres a
real risk of summary and synthesis becoming superficial.
Fortunately, Jason Scott-Warren's superb overview is as precise as
it is panoramic. Clinically executed close readings of texts
coupled with painstakingly elaborated cultural contexts make this a
must-read volume for students and scholars alike."
Willy Maley, University of Glasgow
