Reading Shakespeare S Poems In Early Modern England

This is the first comprehensive study of early modern texts, readings, and readers of Shakespeare's poems in print and manuscript, Reading Shakespeare's Poems in Early Modern England makes a compelling contribution both to Shakespeare studies and the history of the book. Examining gendered readerships and the use of erotic works, reading practises and manuscript culture, textual forms and transmission, literary taste and the canonisation of Shakespeare, this book argues that historicist criticism can no longer ignore histories of reading.

This is the first comprehensive study of early modern texts, readings, and readers of Shakespeare's poems in print and manuscript, Reading Shakespeare's Poems in Early Modern England makes a compelling contribution both to Shakespeare studies and the history of the book. Examining gendered readerships and the use of erotic works, reading practises and manuscript culture, textual forms and transmission, literary taste and the canonisation of Shakespeare, this book argues that historicist criticism can no longer ignore histories of reading.

Explores the publication and reception of authority in early modern England.

This book is the first comprehensive examination of commercial drama as a reading genre in early modern England. Taking as its focus pre-Restoration printed drama’s most common format, the single-play quarto playbook, it interrogates what the form and content of these playbooks can tell us about who their earliest readers were, why they might have wanted to read contemporary commercial drama, and how they responded to the printed versions of plays that had initially been performed in the playhouses of early modern London. Focusing on professional plays printed in quarto between 1584 and 1660, the book juxtaposes the implications of material and paratextual evidence with analysis of historical traces of playreading in extant playbooks and manuscript commonplace books. In doing so, it presents more detailed and nuanced conclusions than have previously been enabled by studies focused on works by one author or on a single type of evidence.

This volume updates current assumptions about the early modern English sonnet and its reception and inclusion in poetic collections. It deals both with major (Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser) and minor (Harvey, Barnes) sonneteers, and includes the first modern edition of a 1603 printed miscellany, The Muses Garland.

Reading Shakespeare’s Poetry A lively exploration of Shakespeare’s poems and how they speak to readers Reading Shakespeare’s Poetry presents a fresh interpretation of Shakespeare’s non-dramatic poems, providing insights into the individual poems, their themes and composition, and their relation to the cultural context of Shakespeare’s world. Dympna Callaghan considers what makes Shakespeare’s language poetic and shows how his poetry is comprised not only of lyrical intensity but also of the language of everyday life. Presented chronologically, lucidly-written chapters examine Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, The Phoenix and the Turtle, the Sonnets, and A Lover’s Complaint. Special attention is paid to the distinctive ways in which lineation, rhyme, verse forms, and meter serve to delineate or erase the boundaries of Shakespeare’s poetry. Throughout the book, the author explains how Shakespeare’s language is influenced by predecessors such as Ovid and Petrarch while highlighting how ideas about the social and cultural function of poetry permeate Shakespeare’s works. Offers an eminently readable yet scholarly exploration of the literary importance of Shakespeare’s poems Explains the technical features of Shakespeare’s poetic language Addresses the significance of the material form in which Shakespeare’s poems appear Includes a discussion of songs, poems, and sonnets embedded in Shakespeare’s dramatic verse Reading Shakespeare’s Poetry is both a fresh and indispensable guide to the poems and a significant critical intervention. This is a must-have book for scholars, students, and general readers alike.

This collection reveals the valuable work that women achieved in publishing, printing, writing and reading early modern English books, from those who worked in the book trade to those who composed, selected, collected and annotated books. Women gathered rags for paper production, invested in books and oversaw the presses that printed them. Their writing and reading had an impact on their contemporaries and the developing literary canon. A focus on women's work enables these essays to recognize the various forms of labour -- textual and social as well as material and commercial -- that women of different social classes engaged in. Those considered include the very poor, the middling sort who were active in the book trade, and the elite women authors and readers who participated in literary communities. Taken together, these essays convey the impressive work that women accomplished and their frequent collaborations with others in the making, marking, and marketing of early modern English books.