Selected Essays on George Gascoigne

Description

This collection of essays situates George Gascoigne in context as the pre-eminent writer of the early part of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. His ceaseless experimentation was hugely influential on those later Elizabethans - including Spenser, Sidney and Shakespeare - who represent the great flowering of the English literary renaissance. Gascoigne rarely returned to a genre, writing prose fiction, blank verse, plays, sonnets, narrative verse, courtly entertainments, satire and many other literary forms, and the later Elizabethans were fully aware of his significance. These essays are organised into three main sections: influences upon Gascoigne, such as Skelton; Gascoigne’s influence on others, including Spenser; and finally a reassessment of his critical neglect and the story behind his marginalised status in the English literary canon. As only the second multi-authored essay collection on Gascoigne, this book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of this important and often misunderstood writer. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Acknowledgements Short Titles Foreword Notes on Contributors Introduction I: Influences on Gascoigne Gascoigne, Piccolomini, and the demilitarisation of the Siege of Troy ‘Ficta sub imagine texta’: John Skelton and George Gascoigne George Gascoigne and Female Complaint II: Gascoigne’s Influence on Elizabethan Literature: Gascoigne and Drama Gascoigne’s Poses and Supposes ‘Certain decayed men’: Gascoigne’s Catholic Maske Gascoigne and Poetry ‘To leave remembrance of my name’: Gascoigne’s Problematical Legacy to Spenser Gascoigne’s Lute, Gascoigne’s Sparrow, and Gascoigne’s Goodnight: imitatio and the ‘verie sweete notes adapted’ Gascoigne, Miscellaneity, and Aesthetic Satisfaction Gascoigne the soldier-poet: Rhetoric, representation, and reality Gascoigne and Prose Fiction ‘Pretty conceits as pleased her peevish fantasy’: The ‘Manling’ Secretary in The Adventures of Master F.J. Not Forgetting Frances: ‘Adventures’ in Elizabethan Fiction III: Gascoigne’s Critical Reputation ‘The very chefe of our late rymers’: George Gascoigne and Literary Fam Select Bibliography Index