Reading Sixteenth-Century Poetry - Hardcover

Cheney, Patrick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1405169540 ISBN 13: 9781405169547

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011

Synopsis

Reading Sixteenth-Century Poetry combines close readings of individual poems with a critical consideration of the historical context in which they were written. Informative and original, this book has been carefully designed to enable readers to understand, enjoy, and be inspired by sixteenth-century poetry.

• Close reading of a wide variety of sixteenth-century poems, canonical and non-canonical, by men and by women, from print and manuscript culture, across the major literary modes and genres
• Poems read within their historical context, with reference to five major cultural revolutions: Renaissance humanism, the Reformation, the modern nation-state, companionate marriage, and the scientific revolution
• Offers in-depth discussion of Skelton, Wyatt, Surrey, Isabella Whitney, Gascoigne, Philip Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Mary Sidney Herbert, Donne, and Shakespeare
• Presents a separate study of all five of Shakespeare’s major poems - Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, 'The Phoenix and Turtle,' the Sonnets, and A Lover's Complaint- in the context of his dramatic career
• Discusses major works of literary criticism by Plato, Aristotle, Horace, Longinus, Philip Sidney, George Puttenham, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Seamus Heaney, Adrienne Rich, and Helen Vendler

About this title

From the Back Cover

Reading Sixteenth-Century Poetry combines close readings of individual poems with a critical consideration of the historical context in which they were written.

Esteemed Early Modern critic Patrick Cheney emphasises the accessibility of poetry written during the sixteenth century by illuminating the dynamic and enduring nature of these works and their ability to influence readers' lives. A broad range of poetic genres are discussed, including lyric, narrative, and the dramatic, featuring a variety of poets, such as Skelton, Wyatt, Surrey, Isabella Whitney, Gascoigne, Philip Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Mary Sidney Herbert, Donne, and Shakespeare.

Informative and original, this book has been carefully designed to enable readers to understand, enjoy, and be inspired by sixteenth-century poetry.

About the Author

Patrick Cheney is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Penn State University. He is the author of books on Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Spenser, most recently Shakespeare’s Literary Authorship (2008) and Marlowe’s Republican Authorship: Lucan, Liberty, and the Sublime (2009). He has also edited Cambridge Companions to Marlowe and Shakespeare’s Poetry, co-edited Oxford Companions to early modern English poetry and drama, and co-edited an Oxford edition of Marlowe’s poems. Currently, he serves as a General Editor of The Oxford Edition of the Collected Works of Edmund Spenser.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1405169540
• ISBN 13: 9781405169547
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352