Helen Wilcox – författare

This pioneering Handbook offers a comprehensive consideration of the dynamic relationship between English literature and religion in the early modern period. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the most turbulent times in the history of the British church and, perhaps as a result, produced some of the greatest devotional poetry, sermons, polemics, and epics of literature in English. The early-modern interaction of rhetoric and faith is addressed in thirty-nine chapters of original research, divided into five sections. The first analyses the changes within the church from the Reformation to the establishment of the Church of England, the phenomenon of puritanism and the rise of non-conformity. The second section discusses ten genres in which faith was explored, including poetry, prophecy, drama, sermons, satire, and autobiographical writings. The middle section focuses on selected individual authors, among them Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe, John Donne, Lucy Hutchinson, and John Milton. Since authors never write in isolation, the fourth section examines a range of communities in which writers interpreted their faith: lay and religious households, sectarian groups including the Quakers, clusters of religious exiles, Jewish and Islamic communities, and those who settled in the new world. Finally, the fifth section considers some key topics and debates in early modern religious literature, ranging from ideas of authority and the relationship of body and soul, to death, judgment, and eternity. The Handbook is framed by a succinct introduction, a chronology of religious and literary landmarks, a guide for new researchers in this field, and a full bibliography of primary and secondary texts relating to early modern English literature and religion.

This pioneering Handbook offers a comprehensive consideration of the dynamic relationship between English literature and religion in the early modern period. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the most turbulent times in the history of the British church - and, perhaps as a result, produced some of the greatest devotional poetry, sermons, polemics, and epics of literature in English. The early-modern interaction of rhetoric and faith is addressed in thirty-nine chapters of original research, divided into five sections. The first analyses the changes within the church from the Reformation to the establishment of the Church of England, the phenomenon of puritanism and the rise of non-conformity. The second section discusses ten genres in which faith was explored, including poetry, prophecy, drama, sermons, satire, and autobiographical writings. The middle section focuses on selected individual authors, among them Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe, John Donne, Lucy Hutchinson, and John Milton. Since authors never write in isolation, the fourth section examines a range of communities in which writers interpreted their faith: lay and religious households, sectarian groups including the Quakers, clusters of religious exiles, Jewish and Islamic communities, and those who settled in the new world. Finally, the fifth section considers some key topics and debates in early modern religious literature, ranging from ideas of authority and the relationship of body and soul, to death, judgment, and eternity. The Handbook is framed by a succinct introduction, a chronology of religious and literary landmarks, a guide for new researchers in this field, and a full bibliography of primary and secondary texts relating to early modern English literature and religion.

Twenty-two leading experts on early modern drama collaborate in this volumeto explore three closely interconnected research questions. To what extent didplaywrights represent dramatis personae in their entertainments as forming, orfailing to form, communal groupings? How far were theatrical productions likelyto weld, or separate, different communal groupings within their target audiences?And how might such bondings or oppositions among spectators have tallied withthe community-making or -breaking on stage? Chapters in Part One respond toone or more of these questions by reassessing general period trends in censorship,theatre attendance, forms of patronage, playwrights’ professional and linguisticnetworks, their use of music, and their handling of ethical controversies.In Part Two, responses arise from detailed re-examinations of particular playsby Shakespeare, Chapman, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Cary, Webster, Middleton,Massinger, Ford, and Shirley. Both Parts cover a full range of early-Stuarttheatre settings, from the public and popular to the more private circumstancesof hall playhouses, court masques, women’s drama, country-house theatricals,and school plays. And one overall finding is that, although playwrights frequentlystaged or alluded to communal conflict, they seldom exacerbated such divisivenesswithin their audience. Rather, they tended toward more tactful modes ofaddress (sometimes even acknowledging their own ideological uncertainties) sothat, at least for the duration of a play, their audiences could be a communitywithin which internal rifts were openly brought into dialogue.

During a period when writing was often the only form of self-expression for women, Her Own Life contains extracts from the autobiographical texts of twelve seventeenth-century women addressing a wide range of issues central to their lives.

George Herbert (1593-1633) is widely regarded as the greatest devotional poet in the English language. His volume of poems, The Temple, published posthumously in 1633, became one of the most widely read and influential collections of the seventeenth century. Almost 400 years after they were first published in Cambridge by the 'printers to the Universitie', in 2007 Cambridge University Press was pleased to present the definitive scholarly edition of Herbert's complete English poems, accompanied by extensive explanatory and textual apparatus. The text is meticulously annotated with historical, literary and biblical information, as well as the modern critical contexts which now illuminate the poems. In addition to the lively introduction and notes, this edition includes a glossary of key words, an index of biblical quotations, and the authentic texts of Herbert's work.

This is the first comprehensive introduction to the works and social contexts of women writers in early modern Britain, a period when it was considered unfeminine to write and yet women were the authors of many poems, translations, conduct books, autobiographies, plays, pamphlets and other texts. Drawing together the pioneering work of feminist literary critics and historians, this survey examines ways in which the idea of woman was constructed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and women's role in and access to literary culture. It also focuses on women writers and their output across the spectrum of genres from courtly romance to Quaker prophecy. A unique chronology offers a woman-centred perspective on historical and literary events, and there is a guide to further reading. Women and Literature in Britain, 1500-1700 explores the history of women's part in the development of literary culture, while revealing how paradoxical that history can be.

George Herbert (1593-1633) is widely regarded as the greatest devotional poet in the English language. His volume of poems, The Temple, published posthumously in 1633, became one of the most widely read and influential collections of the seventeenth century. Almost 400 years after they were first published in Cambridge by the 'printers to the Universitie', in 2007 Cambridge University Press was pleased to present the definitive scholarly edition of Herbert's complete English poems, accompanied by extensive explanatory and textual apparatus. The text is meticulously annotated with historical, literary and biblical information, as well as the modern critical contexts which now illuminate the poems. In addition to the lively introduction and notes, this edition includes a glossary of key words, an index of biblical quotations, and the authentic texts of Herbert's work.

George Herbert (1593-1633) is widely regarded as the greatest devotional poet in the English language. His profound influence can be seen in the lasting popularity of his verse. This selection of one hundred lyric poems by Herbert is designed for readers to enjoy the beauty, spirituality, accessibility and humanity of his best verse. Each poem uses the authoritative text from the acclaimed Cambridge edition of Herbert's poems, presenting them in their original spelling in a clear and elegant format. The selection includes such well-loved lyric verses as 'Love bade me welcome', 'Let all the world in ev'ry corner sing', 'I struck the board and cry'd, No more' and 'Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright'. A preface by Helen Wilcox, editor of the Cambridge edition, celebrates the key features of Herbert's poetry for a new generation of readers.

During a period when writing was often the only form of self-expression for women, Her Own Life contains extracts from the autobiographical texts of twelve seventeenth-century women addressing a wide range of issues central to their lives.

The concepts of trust and risk provide important insights into the social and cultural life of early modern England but remain relatively unexplored in early modern literary studies. This collection addresses that gap by exploring a wide range of literary genres and texts including comic drama, lyric verse, emblem books, ledgers, wills, polemical prose and religious epic. Contributors explore issues of personal trust through the faith and lies that characterize Shakespeare’s sonnets, Donne’s sermons and Milton’s Paradise Lost. Following the idea of trust and risk into community brings us to a discussion of The Merry Wives of Windsor, the spiritual trust of faith communities and the network of relationships that are traceable though surviving records of women’s wills. Following this progression outwards from the personal to the communal, the final essays in the collection consider the role of institutional trust, specifically the early modern obsession with credit in its various guises. The Merchant of Venice, Volpone and The Winter’s Tale act as illustrative examples of credit’s significance for understanding trust and risk in the early modern period. Taken together the range of texts and genres considered reveal new insights into early modern English literature and its socio-economic context.

The concepts of trust and risk provide important insights into the social and cultural life of early modern England but remain relatively unexplored in early modern literary studies. This collection addresses that gap by exploring a wide range of literary genres and texts including comic drama, lyric verse, emblem books, ledgers, wills, polemical prose and religious epic. Contributors explore issues of personal trust through the faith and lies that characterize Shakespeare’s sonnets, Donne’s sermons and Milton’s Paradise Lost. Following the idea of trust and risk into community brings us to a discussion of The Merry Wives of Windsor, the spiritual trust of faith communities and the network of relationships that are traceable though surviving records of women’s wills. Following this progression outwards from the personal to the communal, the final essays in the collection consider the role of institutional trust, specifically the early modern obsession with credit in its various guises. The Merchant of Venice, Volpone and The Winter’s Tale act as illustrative examples of credit’s significance for understanding trust and risk in the early modern period. Taken together the range of texts and genres considered reveal new insights into early modern English literature and its socio-economic context.

1611: Authority, Gender, and the Word in Early Modern England explores issues of authority, gender, and language within and across the variety of literary works produced in one of most landmark years in literary and cultural history. Represents an exploration of a year in the textual life of early modern EnglandJuxtaposes the variety and range of texts that were published, performed,   read, or heard in the same year, 1611Offers an account of the textual culture of the year 1611, the environment of language, and the ideas from which the Authorised Version of the English Bible emerged

Twenty-two leading experts on early modern drama collaborate in this volumeto explore three closely interconnected research questions. To what extent didplaywrights represent dramatis personae in their entertainments as forming, orfailing to form, communal groupings? How far were theatrical productions likelyto weld, or separate, different communal groupings within their target audiences?And how might such bondings or oppositions among spectators have tallied withthe community-making or -breaking on stage? Chapters in Part One respond toone or more of these questions by reassessing general period trends in censorship,theatre attendance, forms of patronage, playwrights’ professional and linguisticnetworks, their use of music, and their handling of ethical controversies.In Part Two, responses arise from detailed re-examinations of particular playsby Shakespeare, Chapman, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Cary, Webster, Middleton,Massinger, Ford, and Shirley. Both Parts cover a full range of early-Stuarttheatre settings, from the public and popular to the more private circumstancesof hall playhouses, court masques, women’s drama, country-house theatricals,and school plays. And one overall finding is that, although playwrights frequentlystaged or alluded to communal conflict, they seldom exacerbated such divisivenesswithin their audience. Rather, they tended toward more tactful modes ofaddress (sometimes even acknowledging their own ideological uncertainties) sothat, at least for the duration of a play, their audiences could be a communitywithin which internal rifts were openly brought into dialogue.

In All’s Well That Ends Well, Helen, a lowly ward, risks her life to satisfy her boundless love for Bertram, a count and ward to the King of France. Following him to Paris, she concocts an endangering plan to win the King of France’s favour and induce Bertram’s hand in marriage. In the comprehensive introduction to this new, fully-illustrated Arden edition, Suzanne Gossett takes a transformative look at the play’s critical and performance history by offering fresh perspectives on the conundrum of genre, sexuality and moral dilemmas with masculinity and the structures of family. The authoritative play text is amply annotated to clarify its language and allusions, and two appendices debate the play’s authorship and review its casting. Offering students and scholars alike a wealth of insight and new research, this edition maintains the rigorous standards of the Arden Shakespeare.