Right Romance: Heroic Subjectivity and Elect Community in Seventeenth-Century England (Cultural Inquiries in English Literature, 1400–1700) - Hardcover

Book 1 of 3: Cultural Inquiries in English Literature, 1400?1700

Jones, Emily Griffiths

 
9780271084923: Right Romance: Heroic Subjectivity and Elect Community in Seventeenth-Century England (Cultural Inquiries in English Literature, 1400–1700)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0271084928 ISBN 13: 9780271084923
Publisher: Penn State University Press, 2019

Synopsis

In this book, Emily Griffiths Jones examines the intersections of romance, religion, and politics in England between 1588 and 1688 to show how writers during this politically turbulent time used the genre of romance to construct diverse ideological communities for themselves.

Right Romance argues for a recontextualized understanding of romance as a multigeneric narrative structure or strategy rather than a prose genre and rejects the common assumption that romance was a short-lived mode most commonly associated with royalist politics. Puritan republicans likewise found in romance strength, solace, and grounds for political resistance. Two key works that profoundly influenced seventeenth-century approaches to romance are Philip Sidney’s New Arcadia and Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, which grappled with romance’s civic potential and its limits for a newly Protestant state. Jones examines how these works influenced writings by royalists and republicans during and after the English Civil War. Remaining chapters pair writers from both sides of the war in order to illuminate the ongoing ideological struggles over romance. John Milton is analyzed alongside Margaret Cavendish and Percy Herbert, and Lucy Hutchinson alongside John Dryden. In the final chapter, Jones studies texts by John Bunyan and Aphra Behn that are known for their resistance to generic categorization in an attempt to rethink romance’s relationship to election, community, gender, and generic form.

Original and persuasive, Right Romance advances theoretical discussion about romance, pushing beyond the limits of the genre to discover its impact on constructions of national, communal, and personal identity.

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About the Author

Emily Griffiths Jones is Assistant Professor of English at the University of South Florida.

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Publisher
Penn State University Press
Publication date
2019
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0271084928
ISBN 13 
9780271084923
Binding
Hardcover
Edition number
1
Number of pages
288

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780271088099: Right Romance: Heroic Subjectivity and Elect Community in Seventeenth-Century England (Cultural Inquiries in English Literature, 1400–1700)

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0271088095 ISBN 13:  9780271088099
Publisher: Penn State University Press, 2020
Softcover