The 'Shepheard's Nation'
Jacobean Spenserians and Early Stuart Political Culture 1612-25
Published on 9. March 2000
Book
Hardback
280 pages
978-0-19-818638-0 (ISBN)
Description
This is a study of a group of Jacobean Spenserian poets, William Browne, George Wither, and Christopher Brooke, and of the ways in which these writers represented themselves as a distinctive oppositional community in the years 1612 to 1625. This Spenserian community had its social basis in the culture of early modern London and was given physical expression through the practice of collaboration and an innovative use of print. Yet, it was also an 'imagined community' expressed through fictions that drew on common literary and political traditions. The result was a type of literary commonwealth that claimed the authority to engage in public debate on issues of politics and culture. By drawing attention to the relationships between writers and the traditions and environments that enable textual communities, this book provides a new perspective for studying early modern culture.
Reviews / Votes
A thoroughly researched and critically rewarding reinvestigation of the politics of textual collaboration in the early decades of the seventeenth century. * Years Work in English Studies. * This is very much a book for scholars already immersed in the nuances and crosscurrents of mid- and late Jacobean literary culture ... much of value in the way specific social and literary lineages are traced. * Sixteenth Century Journal * O'Callaghan should be commended for weighing in on some major theoretical issues - competing conceptions of nationalism, literary communities, and the emergence of a public sphere - by way of under-studied texts by writers not named Shakespeare or Jonson. * Sixteenth Century Journal * The 'Shepheard's Nation' is an important contribution to our understanding of Jacobean literature and politics. Michelle O'Callaghan writes lucidly and carefully, and her book is genuinely interdisciplinary, dealing authoritatively with politcal history and theory and with the development of print culture, as well as with literary works. * Andrew Hadfield, Times Literary Supplement *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Oxford University Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
535 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-818638-0 (9780198186380)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Senior Lecturer, English Department, Nene University College, Northampton
Content
Introduction ; The 'shepheard's nation': William Browne, The Shepheard's Pipe (1614) and George Wither, The Shepherd's Hunting (1615) ; Tyranny, Parliament, and the 'Country': Christopher Brooke's The Ghost of Richard the Third (1614) ; 'Thus deare Britannia will I sing of thee': William Browne, Britannia's Pastorals ; George Wither, Citizen Prophet ; The 'Evill Time': Spenserian Community in the 1620s ; Conclusion ; Appendices ; Bibliography ; Index