Society and History in English Renaissance Verse

The study of literature and the study of history have conventionally occupied different academic arenas. Professor Martines sets out to heal this breach in this book by alerting historians to the potential of poetry as a key to understanding the social world of the English Renaissance. Arguing that one of the voices heard in poetry is that of social experience, the author paves the way for a coming together of the disciplines of history and literature in a new, historicist literary criticism. Arguing that literature can never be fully appreciated in an "aesthetic" vacuum, Professor Martines displays the numerous vital ways in which Renaissance social history inform the literature of the period and how that writing can be read as a valuable social document. The book should be of interest to students and scholars of English literature, history and Renaissance studies.