Synopses & Reviews
Early Modern English Poetry: A Critical Companion presents twenty-eight original essays on the major poems of the English Renaissance. Each essay is written by a leading scholar and examines a poem in the context of an important topic in early modern culture. The selections provide groundbreaking scholarship on subjects ranging from the invention of English verse, Petrarchism, pastoral, elegy, and satire to women's religious verse, the politics of town, the place of homoeroticism, and Cavalier poetry.
An ideal supplement to both primary texts and anthologies of Renaissance literature, Early Modern English Poetry offers fresh approaches to poems by Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Aemilia Lanyer, John Donne, John Milton, and many others. The first three chapters set the rest of the volume in context with coverage of the sixteenth-century invention of verse, print and manuscript culture in early modern England, and Renaissance treatises on the art of poetry. The remaining chapters are structured around authors and their works--which are each related to a specific issue in early modern culture--and organized chronologically according to the dates of composition or publication of the poems discussed. This innovative and flexible design corresponds perfectly with courses in which students first read a primary text and then expand their understanding of the work with detailed critical commentary. The book is enhanced by a general introduction, recommended reading lists at the end of each chapter, and a chronology of Renaissance poetry tailored to the book's contents. Early Modern English Poetry provides an accessible introduction both to a key selection of canonical poetic works in English and to historical and cultural topics that illuminate them.
Review
"In this densely packed, compact book, Kendall covers a great deal of territory, and delivers extremely sharp and insightful judgments and distinctions that also have the virtue of being relatively brief and pithy."--Stephen E. Tabachnick, English in Literary Transition
"An enjoyable read with potentially immense pedagogical value." --Sixteenth Century Journal
Table of Contents
Contents: Thematic and Generic
Preface
Select Chronology, 1503-1681
Introduction: Reading Renaissance Poetry
1. Inventing English Verse, Susanne Woods
2. Print, Manuscripts, and Miscellanies, Arthur F. Marotti
3. Tudor and Stuart Defenses of Poetry, Peter C. Herman
4. Wyatt, Surrey, and the Henrician Court, Catherine Bates
5. Spenser's May Eclogue and Mid-Tudor Religious Poetry, John N. King
6. Early Courtier Verse: Oxford, Dyer, and Gascoigne, Steven May
7. Sidney's Astrophil and Stella and Petrarchism, William J. Kennedy
8. Spenserian Pastoral, Bart van Es
9. Spenser's Poetry and the Apocalypse, John Watkins
10. Spenser, Virginity, and Sexuality, Elizabeth D. Harvey
11. Raleigh, the Queen, and Elizabethan Court Poetry, William A. Oram
12. Marlowe's Erotic Verse, Alan Sinfield
13. Literary Criticism, Literary History, and the Place of Homoeroticism, Jonathan Goldberg
14. "The Phoenix and the Turtle," Renaissance Elegies, and the Language of Grief, Lynn Enterline
15. Shakespeare's Literary Career and Narrative Poetry, Patrick Cheney
16. Shakespeare's Sonnets and English Sonnet Sequences, Sasha Roberts
17. Mary Sidney Herbert and Women's Religious Verse, Danielle Clarke
18. Lady Mary Wroth and Women's Love Poetry, Naomi J. Miller
19. Donne's Songs and Sonets and Artistic Identity, Andrew Hadfield
20. Satire and the Politics of Town, Andrew McRae
21. Donne's Religious Poetry and the Trauma of Grace, Achsah Guibbory
22. Lanyer and the Poetry of Land and Devotion, Helen Wilcox
23. Jonson, King, and Court, Julie Sanders
24. Herbert, God, and King, Michael Schoenfeldt
25. Crashaw and Religious Bias in the Literary Canon, Lowell Gallagher
26. Cavalier Poetry and Civil War, Laura Lunger Knoppers
27. Marvell and Pastoral, Thomas Healy
28. Milton, the Nativity Ode, the Companion Poems, and Lycidas, Barbara K. Lewalski
Notes on Contributors
Index