A detailed examination of the poet John Skelton's satirical assault upon Cardinal Wolsey.

John Skelton and Poetic Authority is the first book-length study of Skelton for almost twenty years, and the first to trace the roots of his poetic theory to his practice as a writer and translator. It demonstrates that much of what has been found challenging in his work may be attributed to his attempt to reconcile existing views of the poet's role in society with discoveries about the writing process itself. The result is a highly idiosyncratic poetics that locates thepoet's authority decisively within his own person, yet at the same time predicates his 'liberty to speak' upon the existence of an engaged, imaginative audience. Skelton is frequently treated as a maverick, but this book places his theory and practice firmly in the context of later sixteenth as well asfifteenth-century traditions. Focusing on his relations with both past and present readers, it reassess his place in the English literary canon.

Introduces Skelton and his work to readers unfamiliar with the poet, gathers together the vibrant strands of existing research, and opens up new avenues for future studies.

"In this collection eighteen scholars offer various readings on British literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Although the period covered ranges from the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries, the essays are tied together by a common interest in one of three topics: poetic personae, dramatic production, and the influence of social context upon authors or dramatists. Common to these topics is the crucial point of contact between an artist and society that prompts the literary imagination to respond either with the creation of a new character or with the demonstration of change in an old one."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Hampton Court Palace has been the locus of monarchy, revolution, religious fundamentalism, sexual scandals, and military coups. Russel moves through the rooms and the decades to focus on the people who called Hampton Court their home. From the Tudors to the present, he captures the stories of the many sovereigns and servants who lived and worked in its halls. In doing so, Russel reveals the personal tragedy and political importance of this extraordinary place. -- adapted from jacket.

The Children’s Troupes and the Transformation of English Theater 1509–1608 uncovers the role of the children’s companies in transforming perceptions of authorship and publishing, performance, playing spaces, patronage, actor training, and gender politics in the sixteenth century. Jeanne McCarthy challenges entrenched narratives about popular playing in an era of revolutionary changes, revealing the importance of the children’s company tradition’s connection with many early plays, as well as to the spread of literacy, classicism, and literate ideals of drama, plot, textual fidelity, characterization, and acting in a still largely oral popular culture. By addressing developments from the hyper-literate school tradition, and integrating discussion of the children’s troupes into the critical conversation around popular playing practices, McCarthy offers a nuanced account of the play-centered, literary performance tradition that came to define professional theater in this period. Highlighting the significant role of the children’s company tradition in sixteenth-century performance culture, this volume offers a bold new narrative of the emergence of the London theater.

Deploying literary analysis, theories of emotion from the sciences and humanities, and an archival account of Tudor history, Emotion in the Tudor Court examines how literature both reflects and constructs the emotional dynamics of life in the Renaissance court. In it, Bradley J. Irish argues that emotionality is a foundational framework through which historical subjects embody and engage their world, and thus can serve as a fundamental lens of social and textual analysis. Spanning the sixteenth century, Emotion in the Tudor Court explores Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and Henrician satire; Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and elegy; Sir Philip Sidney and Elizabethan pageantry; and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and factional literature. It demonstrates how the dynamics of disgust,envy, rejection, and dread, as they are understood in the modern affective sciences, can be seen to guide literary production in the early modern court. By combining Renaissance concepts of emotion with modern research in the social and natural sciences, Emotion in the Tudor Court takes a transdisciplinary approach to yield fascinating and robust ways to illuminate both literary studies and cultural history.