Overview
The Oxford Handbook of English Prose 1500-1640 is the only current overview of early modern English prose writing. The aim of the volume is to make prose more visible as a subject and as a mode of writing. It covers a vast range of material vital for the understanding of the period: from jestbooks, newsbooks, and popular romance to the translation of the classics and the pioneering collections of scientific writing and travel writing; from diaries, tracts on witchcraft, and domestic conduct books to rhetorical treatises designed for a courtly audience; from little known works such as William Baldwin's Beware the Cat, probably the first novel in English, to The Bible, The Book of Common Prayer and Richard Hooker's eloquent statement of Anglican belief, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. The work not only deals with the range and variety of the substance and types of English prose, but also analyses the forms and styles of writing adopted in the early modern period, ranging from the Euphuistic nature of prose fiction inaugurated by John Lyly's mannered novel, to the aggressive polemic of the Marprelate controversy; from the scatological humour of comic writing to the careful modulations of the most significant sermons of the age; and from the pithy and concise English essays of Francis Bacon to the ornate and meandering style of John Florio's translation of Montaigne's famous collection. Each essay provides an overview as well as comment on key passages, and a select guide to further reading.
Full Product Details
Author: Andrew Hadfield (Professor of English, University of Sussex)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 17.10cm
, Height: 4.00cm
, Length: 24.50cm
Weight: 1.304kg
ISBN: 9780198778349
ISBN 10: 0198778341
Pages: 768
Publication Date: 18 August 2016
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Undergraduate
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
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Reviews
This is a sturdy tome, expansive and comprehensive given the period it covers is one of no little interest. There is a 46 page bibliography as befits the width of the subject matter and a twelve page index. Without doubt an academic tome, it will sit well on any academic, public or specialist library's shelves and should be expected to meet a good cross-section of borrowers' needs. * Stuart Bentley, Reference Reviews * This volume presents a landmark contribution to our understanding of early modern prose and its multitude of themes, subjects and authors ... a scholarly triumph. * Patrick J. Murray, Journal of the Northern Renaissance * Fascinating ... Across a multitude of genres - romances, sermons, domestic manuals, news pamphlets, jest books, and a plethora of othersacontributors chart the tensions between theory and practice, private reading and public performance, ephemera and established traditions. Beyond the sections on genres, there are essays for individual authors, including Gascoigne, Robert Greene, Lyly, and Thomas Nashe, as well as Sidney and Wroth ... By gathering such a distinguished and talented group, Hadfield has shown how much more we could do, as a collective field, as prose returns to the fore. * Studies in English Literature *
`Fascinating ... Across a multitude of genres - romances, sermons, domestic manuals, news pamphlets, jest books, and a plethora of othersâcontributors chart the tensions between theory and practice, private reading and public performance, ephemera and established traditions. Beyond the sections on genres, there are essays for individual authors, including Gascoigne, Robert Greene, Lyly, and Thomas Nashe, as well as Sidney and Wroth ... By gathering such a distinguished and talented group, Hadfield has shown how much more we could do, as a collective field, as prose returns to the fore.' Studies in English Literature `This volume presents a landmark contribution to our understanding of early modern prose and its multitude of themes, subjects and authors ... a scholarly triumph.' Patrick J. Murray, Journal of the Northern Renaissance `This is a sturdy tome, expansive and comprehensive given the period it covers is one of no little interest. There is a 46 page bibliography as befits the width of the subject matter and a twelve page index. Without doubt an academic tome, it will sit well on any academic, public or specialist library's shelves and should be expected to meet a good cross-section of borrowers' needs.' Stuart Bentley, Reference Reviews
Fascinating ... Across a multitude of genres - romances, sermons, domestic manuals, news pamphlets, jest books, and a plethora of othersacontributors chart the tensions between theory and practice, private reading and public performance, ephemera and established traditions. Beyond the sections on genres, there are essays for individual authors, including Gascoigne, Robert Greene, Lyly, and Thomas Nashe, as well as Sidney and Wroth ... By gathering such a distinguished and talented group, Hadfield has shown how much more we could do, as a collective field, as prose returns to the fore. Studies in English Literature This volume presents a landmark contribution to our understanding of early modern prose and its multitude of themes, subjects and authors ... a scholarly triumph. Patrick J. Murray, Journal of the Northern Renaissance This is a sturdy tome, expansive and comprehensive given the period it covers is one of no little interest. There is a 46 page bibliography as befits the width of the subject matter and a twelve page index. Without doubt an academic tome, it will sit well on any academic, public or specialist library's shelves and should be expected to meet a good cross-section of borrowers' needs. Stuart Bentley, Reference Reviews
Author Information
Andrew Hadfield is Professor of English at the University of Sussex and visiting Professor at the University of Granada. He is the author of a number of works on early modern literature, including Shakespeare and Republicanism (Cambridge University Press, 2005); Literature, Travel and Colonialism in the English Renaissance, 1540-1625 (Oxford University Press, 1998); Sand Literature, Politics and National Identity: Reformation to Renaissance (Cambridge, 1994). He has also edited, with Matthew Dimmock, Religions of the Book: Co-existence and Conflict, 1400-1660 (Palgrave, 2008); with Raymond Gillespie, The Oxford History of the Irish Book, Vol. III: The Irish Book in English, 1550-1800 (Oxford, 2006); with Paul Hammond, Shakespeare and Renaissance Europe (Cengage, Arden Critical Companions, 2004); and Literature and Censorship in Renaissance England (Palgrave, 2001). He is a regular reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement.
