Andrew McRae examines the relation between literature and politics at a pivotal moment in English history. He argues that the most influential and incisive political satire in this period may be found in manuscript libels, scurrilous pamphlets, and a range of other material written and circulated under the threat of censorship. These are the unauthorized texts of early Stuart England. From his analysis of these texts, McRae argues that satire, as the pre-eminent literary mode of discrimination and stigmatization, helped people make sense of the confusing political conditions of the early Stuart era. It did so partly through personal attacks, and partly also through sophisticated interventions into ongoing political and ideological debates. In such forms, satire provided resources through which contemporary writers could define new models of political identity and construct new discourses of dissent. This book will be of interest to political and literary historians alike.

In the early modern period, the population of England travelled more than is often now thought, by road and by water: from members of the gentry travelling for pleasure, through the activities of those involved in internal trade, to labourers migrating out of necessity. Yet the commonly held view that people should know their places, geographically as well as socially, made domestic travel highly controversial. Andrew McRae examines the meanings of mobility in the early modern period, drawing on sources from canonical literature and travel narratives to a range of historical documents including maps and travel guides. He identifies the relationship between domestic travel and the emergence of vital new models of nationhood and identity. An original contribution to the study of early modern literature as well as travel literature, this interdisciplinary book opens up domestic travel as a vital and previously underexplored area of research.

Literature of the Stuart Successionsis an anthology of primary material relating to the Stuart successions. The six Stuart successions (1603, 1625, 1660, 1685, 1688-9, 1702) punctuate this turbulent period of British history. In addition, there were two accessions to the role of Lord Protector (those of Oliver and Richard Cromwell). Each succession generated an outpouring of publications in a wide range of forms and genres, including speeches, diary-entries, news reports, letters and sermons. Above all, successions were marked in poems, by some of the greatest writers of the age. By gathering together some of the very best Stuart succession writing, Literature of the Stuart Successions offers fresh perspectives upon the history and culture of the period. It includes fifty texts (or extracts), selected to demonstrate the breadth and significance of succession writing, as well as introductory and explanatory material. -- .

Presenting the best poems from the nationwide Places of Poetry project, selected from over 7,500 entries Poetry lives in the veins of Britain, its farms and moors, its motorways and waterways, highlands and beaches. This anthology brings together time-honoured classics with some of the best new writing collected across the nation, from great monuments to forgotten byways. Featuring new writing from Kayo Chingonyi, Gillian Clarke, Zaffar Kunial, Jo Bell and Jen Hadfield, Places of Poetry is a celebration of the strangeness and variety of our islands, their rich history and momentous present. 

First collection devoted to the Poly-Olbion, bringing out in particular its concerns with nature and the environment. Poly-Olbion (1612-1622), the collaborative work of the poet Michael Drayton, the legal scholar John Selden, and the engraver William Hole, ranks among the most remarkable literary productions of early modern England, and arguably among the most important. An ambitious and idiosyncratic survey of the history, topography, and ecology of England and Wales - ranging in its preoccupations from the supernatural conception of Merlin to the curious habits of beavers, and from celebrations of martial glory to laments over the diminishment of woodlands - the book seems determined to pack all of national and natural history between its covers. In the course of thirty songs, Drayton's Muse traverses a varying landscape in which personified rivers, hills, and forests sing of past glories and disasters, pursuing local and regional rivalries whilst propounding a heterogeneous vision of Britain. However, perhaps because of its very uniqueness, it has received relatively little critical attention. This is the first ever volume of essays on Poly-Olbion, and a reflection of the work's increasing prominence in scholarship on the literature and culture of early modern England: the poem has long been central to critical studies of early modern nationhood and nationalism, but in the last decade it has also assumed a central place in discussions of pre-modern approaches to ecological sustainability and environmental degradation. The contributors here address questions about the form and purpose of Poly-Olbion, as well as engaging with these dominant critical debates, reflecting the extent to which the preoccupations of Drayton and his collaborators have become our own.

Andrew McRae examines the relation between literature and politics at a pivotal moment in English history. He argues that the most influential and incisive political satire in this period may be found in manuscript libels, scurrilous pamphlets and a range of other material written and circulated under the threat of censorship. These are the unauthorised texts of early Stuart England. From his analysis of these texts, McRae argues that satire, as the pre-eminent literary mode of discrimination and stigmatisation, helped people make sense of the confusing political conditions of the early Stuart era. It did so partly through personal attacks and partly also through sophisticated interventions into ongoing political and ideological debates. In such forms satire provided resources through which contemporary writers could define new models of political identity and construct new discourses of dissent. This book wil be of interest to political and literary historians alike.

This book presents a fresh view of crucial processes of change, offering through an interdisciplinary analysis fresh insights into both the history and literature of the land in early modern England. It examines a wide range of source material concerned with the practices and values of rural England--sermons, pamphlets, satiric verse and drama, husbandry and surveying manuals, chorographic texts, and rural poetry. It traces important developments in patterns of representation, which at once parallel and promote the nation's shift toward modern standards of individualism and mercantilism.

This book presents a fresh view of crucial processes of change, offering through an interdisciplinary analysis fresh insights into both the history and literature of the land in early modern England. It examines a wide range of source material concerned with the practices and values of rural England--sermons, pamphlets, satiric verse and drama, husbandry and surveying manuals, chorographic texts, and rural poetry. It traces important developments in patterns of representation, which at once parallel and promote the nation's shift toward modern standards of individualism and mercantilism.

Leading scholars show how laughter and satire in early modern Britain functioned in a variety of contexts both to affirm communal boundaries and to undermine them. This interdisciplinary collection considers the related topics of satire and laughter in early modern Britain through a series of case studies ranging from the anti-monastic polemics of the early Reformation to the satirical invasion prints of the Napoleonic wars. Moving beyond the traditional literary canon to investigate printed material of all kinds, both textual and visual, it considers satire as a mode or attitude rather than a literary genre and is distinctive in its combination of broad historial range and thick description of individual instances. Within an over-arching investigation of the dual role of laughter and satire as a defence of communal values and as a challenge to political, religious and social constructions of authority, the individual chapters by leading scholars provide richly contextualised studies of the uses of laughter and satire in various settings - religious, political, theatrical and literary. Drawing on some unfamiliar and intriguing source material and on recent work on the history of the emotions, the contributors consider not just the texts themselves but their effect on their audiences, andchart both the changing use of humour and satire across the whole early modern period and, importantly, the less often noticed strands of continuity, for instance in the persistence of religious tropes throughout the period. MARK KNIGHTS is Professor of History at the University of Warwick. ADAM MORTON is Lecturer in the History of Britain at the University of Newcastle. Contributors: ANDREW BENJAMIN BRICKER, MARK KNIGHTS, FIONA MCCALL, ANDREW MCRAE, ADAM MORTON, SOPHIE MURRAY, ROBERT PHIDDIAN, MARK PHILP, CATHY SHRANK.

Literature of the Stuart Successionsis an anthology of primary material relating to the Stuart successions. The six Stuart successions (1603, 1625, 1660, 1685, 1688-9, 1702) punctuate this turbulent period of British history. In addition, there were two accessions to the role of Lord Protector (those of Oliver and Richard Cromwell). Each succession generated an outpouring of publications in a wide range of forms and genres, including speeches, diary-entries, news reports, letters and sermons. Above all, successions were marked in poems, by some of the greatest writers of the age. By gathering together some of the very best Stuart succession writing, Literature of the Stuart Successions offers fresh perspectives upon the history and culture of the period. It includes fifty texts (or extracts), selected to demonstrate the breadth and significance of succession writing, as well as introductory and explanatory material. -- .

Moments of royal succession, which punctuate the Stuart era (1603-1714), occasioned outpourings of literature. Writers, including most of the major figures of the seventeenth century from Jonson, Daniel, and Donne to Marvell, Dryden, and Behn, seized upon these occasions: to mark the transition of power; to reflect upon the political structures and values of their nation; and to present themselves as authors worthy of patronage and recognition. This volume of essays explores this important category of early modern writing. It contends that succession literature warrants attention as a distinct category: appreciated by contemporaries, acknowledged by a number of scholars, but never investigated in a coherent and methodical manner, it helped to shape political reputations and values across the period. Benefitting from the unique database of such writing generated by the AHRC-funded Stuart Successions Project, the volume brings together a distinguished group of authors to address a subject which is of wide and growing interest to students both of history and of literature. It illuminates the relation between literature and politics in this pivotal century of English political and cultural history. Interdisciplinary in scope, the volume will be indispensable to scholars of early modern British literature and history as well as undergraduates and postgraduates in both fields.

The Renaissance was a time of unprecedented change in England. Massive intellectual and cultural developments coincided with considerable social instability and political tensions that would lead to the Civil War. While England was in a process of rethinking its structures and values, and subjecting traditional orthodoxy to fresh and incisive scrutiny, the drama of the period was intimately engaged in these processes. This book focuses on the key debates and events of the Renaissance, such as identity, sexuality, social order, religion, state power and colonialism, and provides an introduction to the work of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson, Dekker, Webster, Middleton and Ford.