Table Of ContentJACOBEAN POETRY AND PROSE
INSIGHTS
General Editor: Clive Bloom, Lecturer in English and Coordinator
of American Studies, Middlesex Polytechnic
Editorial Board: Clive Bloom, Brian Docherty, Jane Gibb, Keith
Shand
Insights brings to academics, students and general readers the
very best contemporary criticism on neglected literary and cultural
areas. It consists of anthologies, each containing original
contributions by advanced scholars and experts. Each contribution
concentrates on a study of a particular work, author or genre in its
artistic, historical and cultural context.
Published titles
Clive Bloom, Brian Docherty, Jane Gibb and Keith Shand (editors)
NINETEENTH-CENTURY SUSPENSE: From Poe to Conan Doyle
Clive Bloom (editor)
JACOBEAN POETRY AND PROSE: Rhetoric, Representation and
the Popular Imagination
Gary Day and Clive Bloom (editors)
PERSPECTIVES ON PORNOGRAPHY: Sexuality in Film and
Literature
Brian Docherty (editor)
AMERICAN CRIME FICTION: Studies in the Genre
Jeffrey Walsh and James Aulich (editors)
VIETNAM IMAGES: WAR AND REPRESENTATION
Further titles in preparation
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Jacobean Poetry and
Prose
Rhetoric, Representation and the
Popular Imagination
Edited by
Clive Bloom
M
MACMILLAN
PRESS
©the Editorial Board, Lumiere (Co-operative) Press Ltd 1988
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988 978-0-333-44394-1
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First published 1988
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
Typeset by Wessex Typesetters
(Division of The Eastern Press Ltd)
Frome, Somerset
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Jacobean poetry and prose: rhetoric,
representation and the popular imagination.
-(Insights).
1. English literature-Early modem,
1500-1700-History and criticism
I. Bloom, Clive II. Series
820'. 9 PR421
ISBN 978-0-333-46538-7 ISBN 978-1-349-19590-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-19590-9
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements vii
Notes on the Contributors viii
1 Introduction: Authority, Text and the Jacobean
Mind 1
Clive Bloom
2 Open and Closed Books: a Semiotic Approach to
the History of Elizabethan and Jacobean Popular
Romance 8
John Simons
3 Nashe, Rhetoric and Satire 25
Neil Rhodes
4 The Luck of the English 44
Valerie Pitt
5 The Borders and their Ballads 57
Stephen Knight
6 The Poetry of John Donne: Literature, History
and Ideology 78
William Zunder
7 Donne's Masculine Persuasive Force 96
Helen Carr
8 'In Love with Curious Words': Signification and
Sexuality in English Petrarchism 119
Malcolm Evans
9 The White Devil and the Fair Woman with a Black
Soul 151
Sylvia Freedman
v
vi Contents
10 A King and No King: Monarchy and Royalty as
Discourse in Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama 164
Robert Giddings
11 Masques and Murderers: Dramatic Method and
Ideology in Revenge Tragedy and the Court
Masque 194
Darryll Grantley
12 All about Eve: Woman in Paradise Lost 213
John Simons
Select Bibliography compiled by Mary Shakeshaft 226
Index 231
Preface and
Acknowledgements
This volume presents eleven essays on the Jacobean period,
plus an Introduction. Each essay combines, in a clear and
understandable way, contemporary literary theory and sound
practical criticism. Subjects covered include the poetry of John
Donne, the theology and impact of the Book of Common Prayer,
the politics of Jacobean theatre, the works of Thomas Nashe, the
popular fictions and ballads of the period and the theory and
practice of poetic production and artistic ideology. The book
combines a comprehensive range of literary approaches (Marxist,
feminist, post-structuralist) in order to investigate selected aspects
of the richly diverse culture of the early seventeenth century. Also
included is a select bibliography for further reading.
Thanks are due to Brian Docherty for his vigilance and support,
to Bob Lee, Darryll Grantley and John Simons for last-minute aid,
and to Graham Eyre for his expert advice.
C. B.
vii
Notes on the Contributors
Clive Bloom is Coordinator of American Studies at Middlesex
Polytechnic. He is General Editor of the Insights series and the
author of books on literary criticism, Romanticism and popular
culture.
Helen Carr has taught at the University of Essex and at Thames
Polytechnic. She is an editor of the feminist arts magazine Women's
Review and has published articles on American and English
literature.
Malcolm Evans teaches at the Polytechnic of North London. He is
the author of Signifying Nothing: Truth's True Contents in Shakespeare's
Texts and a contributor to Alternative Shakespeares.
Sylvia Freedman is a practising solicitor, and the author of Poor
Penelope: Lady Penelope Rich, an Elizabethan Woman and the play The
Voyage Home about Virginia Woolf.
Robert Giddings is the editor of two forthcoming volumes in the
Insights series, Literature and Imperialism and Literature and the
Media.
Darryll Grantley lectures at the University of Kent on English and
American literature. He has written several articles on the
medieval and Renaissance periods.
Stephen Knight is the Robert Wallace Chair of English at the
University of Melbourne, Australia. His many publications include
work on medieval literature, Chaucer and crime fiction.
Valerie Pitt recently retired as head of Humanities at Thames
Polytechnic. She has written on a variety of subjects and is a lay
member of the Synod of the Church of England.
Neil Rhodes lectures at St Andrew's University, Scotland. He is
the author of Elizabethan Grotesque and editor of John Donne:
viii
Notes on the Contributors ix
Selected Prose and is currently working on a book about eloquence
in Renaissance literature.
Mary Shakeshaft is a Principal Lecturer in English at Middlesex
Polytechnic. Her research interests cover Shakespeare, Renaissance
poetry, religious poetry and children's literature.
John Simons is currently Lecturer in English Literature at King
Alfred's College, Winchester. Having recently finished an edition
of Henry Porter's Two Angry Women of Abingdon in collaboration
with M. Jardine, he is now working on a book about Shakespeare
and Milton.
William Zunder is a Renaissance specialist at Hull University. He
has published The Poetry of John Donne and is completing a study
of Marlowe.
