The Oxford Handbook of English Prose 1500-1640
Edited by Andrew Hadfield
Abstract
The Oxford Handbook of English Prose 1550–1640 offers an 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.
Keywords:
early modern English prose writing,
jestbooks,
newsbooks,
popular romance,
classics,
scientific writing,
travel writing,
diaries,
witchcraft,
rhetorical treaties
Bibliographic Information
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- Print Publication Date:
- Jun 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199580682
- Published online:
- Aug 2013
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199580682.001.0001
Editor
Andrew Hadfield,
editor
Andrew Hadfield is Professor of English at the University of Sussex, Visiting Professor at the University of Granada, and Founding Director of the Centre for Early Modern Studies at Sussex. He is the author of a number of works on early modern literature, including Shakespeare and Republicanism (Cambridge University Press, 2005; paperback, 2008); Literature, Travel and Colonialism in the English Renaissance, 1540–1625 (Oxford University Press, 1998; paperback, 2007); Spenser's Irish Experience: Wilde Fruyt and Salvage Soyl (Oxford University Press, 1997); and Literature, Politics and National Identity: Reformation to Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 1994). He has also edited, with Matthew Dimmock, Religions of the Book: Co-existence and Conflict, 1400–1660 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); with Raymond Gillespie, The Oxford History of the Irish Book, Vol. III: The Irish Book in English, 1550–1800 (Oxford University Press, 2006); and with Paul Hammond, Shakespeare and Renaissance Europe (Cengage, Arden Critical Companions, 2004); and Literature and Censorship in Renaissance England (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001). He was editor of Renaissance Studies (2006–11) and is a regular reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement.
