Overview

Becoming a father was the main way that an individual in the English Renaissance could be treated as a full member of the community. Yet patriarchal identity was by no means as secure as is often assumed: when poets invoke the idea of paternity in love poetry and other forms, they are therefore invoking all the anxieties that a culture with contradictory notions of sexuality imposed. This study takes these anxieties seriously, arguing that writers such as Sidney and Spenser deployed images of childbirth to harmonize public and private spheres, to develop a full sense of selfhood in their verse, and even to come to new accommodations between the sexes. Shakespeare, Donne and Jonson, in turn, saw the appeal of the older poets' aims, but resisted their more radical implications. The result is a fiercely personal yet publicly-committed poetry that wouldn't be seen again until the time of the Romantics.

Full Product Details

9780511761089

Table of Contents

Reviews

Review of the hardback: 'Enlightening.' The Times Literary Supplement 'MacFaul's argument is neat and controlled.' Notes and Queries

Review of the hardback: 'Enlightening.' The Times Literary Supplement 'MacFaul's argument is neat and controlled.' Notes and Queries On the whole, the book's analysis remains grounded in vigorous close readings of the numerous poems that use images of fatherhood, 'conceit', fruitfulness, childbirth, and posterity. -KATHRYN R. MCPHERSON,Utah Valley University

Author Information

Tom MacFaul is Lecturer in English at Merton College, University of Oxford. He is the author of Male Friendship in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (Cambridge, 2007) and many articles on Renaissance poetry and drama.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available