Marshall Grossman 
The Seventeenth — Century Literature Handbook [EPUB ebook] 

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE HANDBOOK

‘Never a dull read, Marshall Grossman’s elegant volume bristles with sharp ideas to inform, stimulate and challenge his audience.’

Thomas Corns, Bangor University

The seventeenth century was a dramatic period in British history, witnessing two revolutions, huge constitutional change, the widening of the political and literary classes, and the gradual acceptance of women as authors. This easy-to-use Handbook offers readers a succinct overview of this complex period, guiding them through the principal literary works, figures and innovations of the time. Focusing on studying texts in context, Marshall Grossman explores the ways in which major works, including Hamlet, Paradise Lost and The Pilgrim’s Progress, both reflected and helped to shape the history of the time, while concise sections on topics such as the Gunpowder Plot and the Pamphlet Wars allow the reader to engage more fully with the central themes and preoccupations of the period. Concluding with a series of brief biographical profiles describing the life and works of the century’s most significant and influential writers, The Seventeenth-Century Literature Handbook is essential reading for anyone interested in British Literature across the civil war and restoration periods.

Содержание

Preface xi

Chronology xv

Part 1 Texts and Contexts: An Overview 1

Reading the Historical Landscape 3

Renaissance and/or Reformation: From Elizabeth to James 5

New Science Leaves All in Doubt 14

Business and Trade 34

Breaking the State 59

The Restoration 86

The Short Reign of James II and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 97

The Production of Culture in the Seventeenth Century 104

Part 2 Topics in Seventeenth-Century Literature 125

Aemilia Lanyer and the Gendering of Genre 127

Changing Conventions: Hamlet and The Alchemist 141

Pamphlet Wars: To Kill a King! 149

Everything Happens Twice 166

Part 3 Some Key Texts 189

The Winter’s Tale 191

Areopagitica 203

Paradise Lost 212

The Pilgrim’s Progress 220

Part 4 Writers of the Seventeenth Century 225

Astell, Mary (1666-1731) 227

Bacon, Francis (1561-1626) 229

Baxter, Richard (1615-1691) 236

Beaumont, Francis (1584-1616) 240

Behn, Aphra (1640?-1689) 243

Boyle, Robert (1627-1691) 247

Browne, Sir Thomas (1605-1682) 250

Bunyan, John (1628-1688) 253

Burton, Robert (1577-1640) 257

Carew, Thomas (1594/5-1640) 259

Cavendish, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673) 261

Cowley, Abraham (1618-1667) 263

Crashaw, Richard (1613-1648) 265

Davenant, Sir William (1606-1668) 267

Donne, John (1572-1631) 270

Dryden, John (1631-1700) 278

Filmer, Sir Robert (1588-1653) 283

Fletcher, John (1579-1625) 285

Fox, George (1624-1691) 287

Hartlib, Samuel (1600-1662) 290

Herbert, George (1593-1633) 293

Herrick, Robert (1591-1674) 297

Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679) 299

Hutchinson, Lucy (1620-1681) 303

Hyde, Edward, First Earl of Clarendon (1609-1674) 306

Jonson, Ben (1572-1637) 309

Lanyer, Aemilia (1569-1645) 314

Locke, John (1632-1704) 316

Lovelace, Richard (1617-1657) 322

Marvell, Andrew (1621-1678) 325

Middleton, Thomas (1580-1627) 330

Milton, John (1608-1674) 333

Otway, Thomas (1652-1685) 342

Pepys, Samuel (1633-1703) 345

Philips, Katherine (1632-1664) 347

Shadwell, Thomas (1640-1692) 350

Shakespeare, William (1564-1616) 353

Suckling, Sir John (1609-1641) 358

Traherne, Thomas (1637-1674) 360

Vaughan, Henry (1621-1695) 364

Webster, John (1578?-1638?) 367

Wilmot, John, Earl of Rochester (1647-1680) 370

Wroth, Lady Mary (1587-1653?) 373

Works Cited 375

Index 387

Об авторе

Marshall Grossman is Professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA. He is the author of The Story of All Things: Writing the Self in English Renaissance Narrative Poetry (1998) and ‘Authors to Themselves’: Milton and the Revelation of History (1987); he is editor of two collections of essays, Reading Renaissance Ethics (2007) and Aemilia Lanyer: Gender, Genre, and the Canon (1998). He is currently completing a book on Milton and rational religion.