Early Modern English Literature

When we engage with the writings of Shakespeare and hiscontemporaries, we encounter a culture radically unfamiliar to usat the start of the twenty-first century. The past is a foreigncountry, and so too are many of its texts. This readable andprovocative book seeks to enhance our understanding of early modernliterature by recovering the contexts in which it was originallyproduced and consumed.

Taking us back to the courts, theatres and marketplaces of earlymodern England, Jason Scott-Warren reveals the varied ways in whichliterary texts dovetailed with everyday experience, unlocking thedistinctive social practices, economic structures and modes ofbehaviour that gave them meaning. He shows how the periods mostbeguiling writings were conditioned by long-forgotten notions ofknowledge, nationhood, sexuality and personal identity. Bringing ananthropologists eye to his materials, he offers richly detailed newreadings of works from within and beyond the canon, covering a spanthat stretches from Erasmus and More to Milton and Behn.

Resisting any notion of the period as merely transitional a stagingpost on the road leading from the medieval to the modern worldScott-Warren reveals the distinctiveness of its literary culture, and equips the reader for fresh encounters with its extraordinarytextual legacy. Any undergraduate student of the period will findit an essential guide, while scholars will find its fresh approachinvigorating.