The Early Seventeenth Century Verse Miscellany

Directions and Re-Directions
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-89718-9
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 560 g

Reihe: Material Readings in Early Modern Culture

A deeply researched study of the social transmission and adaptation of poetry texts originating in pre-Civil War England, traced through the seventeenth century and sometimes beyond. Both manuscript and printed miscellanies are used, as well as other forms of publication, and case studies unusually span elite, popular and provincial audiences. As far as possible, texts are placed according to their original contexts and functions (“Directions”) then followed through various answerings, parodies, co-optings and social, commercial and political adaptations (“Re-directions”). Case studies choose examples which have not been fully researched, so that a large amount of new material is presented from poets writing in a variety of environments. Results are sometimes startling and often amusing, giving a vivid sense of how poems were read and used in material exchange and providing a picture of literary activity far removed from what traditional, canonical literary history has often assumed.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Brown, Cedric C.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Lyrik und Dichter
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Strömungen & Epochen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

List of illustrations

Chapter 1: Why “Directed” and “Re-directed” Texts?

Chapter 2: Songs: performances, provocations, and opportunistic responses

Chapter 3: William Browne writes death, and networks in Oxford

Chapter 4: William Browne’s later friendships and opportunities; redirections in a new reign

Chapter 5: The courtier poet Aurelian Townshend treads on eggshells; young Katherine Philips understands

Chapter 6: The development of Strode’s performative identity

Chapter 7: The popular Strode: three stories of direction and re-direction

Chapter 8: Pastoral pictures, topographies, and working under Laud

Chapter 9: Leonard Wheatcroft, Derbyshire artisan, church clerk, in dialogue with Thomas Randolph and the gentry

Chapter 10: Final words: challenges and delights

Appendix 1: William Strode and Elizabeth Lucy/Ferrers/Cromwell – a quiet friendship to discover?

Appendix 2: Merton College and the scribe of Folger MS V.a.345

Appendix 3: Harley MS 6931, Devon politics, and the socio-religious complexities of poetry collecting in 1630s Christ Church

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Cedric C. Brown, Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Reading, subsequently Professorial Research Consultant at the University of Plymouth, was formerly a well-known Miltonist and the founder Editor of the very long-running interdisciplinary book series, Early Modern Literature in History, which has now passed 100 titles. With regard to the present project, he also published frequently on occasional poetry of all kinds. There are also connections with his Friendship and its Discourses in the Seventeenth Century (2016).