The Oxford Handbook of the Age of Shakespeare

Description

The Oxford Handbook of the Age of Shakespeare presents a broad sampling of current historical scholarship on the period of Shakespeare's career that will assist and stimulate scholars of his poems and plays. Rather than merely attempting to summarize the historical 'background' to Shakespeare, individual chapters seek to exemplify a wide variety of perspectives and methodologies currently used in historical research on the early modern period that can inform close analysis of literature. Different sections examine political history at both the national and local levels; relationships between intellectual culture and the early modern political imagination; relevant aspects of religious and social history; and facets of the histories of architecture, the visual arts, and music. Topics treated include the emergence of an early modern 'public sphere' and its relationship to drama during Shakespeare's lifetime; the role of historical narratives in shaping the period's views on the workings of politics; attitudes about the role of emotion in social life; cultures of honour and shame and the rituals and literary forms through which they found expression; crime and murder; and visual expressions of ideas of moral disorder and natural monstrosity, in printed images as well as garden architecture. Cover_Password_Removed Preface and Acknowledgements Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors Abbreviations and Conventions 1. Introduction: Reflections on Interdisciplinary Frontiers PART I POLITICS 2. William Cecil Lord Burghley and the Management of Elizabeth’s England 3. The Earl of Essex 4. Robert Cecil and the Transition from Elizabeth to James I 5. James I and the Consolidation of British Monarchy? 6. War, Soldiers, and High Politics under Elizabeth I 7. Shakespeare, the Irish, and Military Culture 8. Catholicism and Tyranny in Shakespeare’s Warwickshire 9. Ancient Liberties, Royal Honour, and the Politics of Commonweal in English Forests, 1558– 1625 PART II INTELLECTUAL CULTURE AND POLITICAL THOUGHT AND IMAGINATION 10. Poets, Patronage, and the Prince’s Court 11. The Theatre and the ‘Post- Reformation Public Sphere’ 12. Rhetorical Training in the Elizabethan Grammar School 13. English Vernacular Historical Writing and Holinshed’s Chronicles 14. European Historiography in English Political Culture 15. Roman History, Essex, and Late Elizabethan Political Culture 16. Other Republicanisms 17. The Gordian Knot of Policy: Statecraft and the Prudent Prince 18. Seneca and English Political Culture 19. David Hume, Richard Verstegan, and the Battle for Britain 20. The Politics of Race in England, Scotland, and Ireland PART III ASPECTS OF RELIGIOUS CULTURE 21. English Catholics and the Continent 22. The Bible in English Culture: The Age of Shakespeare 23. Religious Nonconformity and the Quality of Mercy: The Merchant of Venice in Reformation Context 24. Protestantism and the Devil PART IV SOCIAL BELIEFS AND PRACTICES 25. The Affective Life in Shakespearean England 26. Chivalry and the English Gentleman 27. Elizabethan Verse Libel 28. Gender, Writing Technologies, and Early Modern Epistolary Communications 29. The Shamings of Falstaff 30. Cuckold’s Haven: Gender and Inversion in Popular Culture 31. ‘Murder’s Crimson Badge’: Homicide in the Age of Shakespeare 33. Criminal London: Fear and Danger in Shakespeare’s City 34. Families and Households in Early Modern London, c.1550– 1640 615_Password_Removed 35. Theatre, Church, and Neighbourhood in the Early Modern Blackfriars 36. The Cultural Geography of St Paul’s Precinct PART V ARCHITECTURE, VISUAL CULTURE, AND MUSIC 37. Art and Architecture in Provincial England 38. Garden Design and Experience in Shakespeare’s England 39. Art Collecting and Patronage in Shakespeare’s England 40. Graphic Satire and the Printed Image in Shakespeare’s London 41. Music and the Stage in the Time of Shakespeare Bibliography Index