William T. Rossiter – författare

How has Europe shaped British literature and culture - and vice versa - since the Middle Ages? This volume offers nuanced answers to this question. From the High Renaissance to haute cuisine, from the Republic of Letters to the European Union, from the Black Death to Brexit -- the reader gains insights into the main geographical zones of influence, shared intellectual movements, indicative modes of cultural transfer and more recent conflicts that have left their mark on the British-European relationship. The story that emerges from this long history of cultural interactions is much more complex than its most recent political episode might suggest. This volume offers indispensable contexts to the manifold and longstanding connections between British and European literature and culture. This book suggests that, however the political landscape develops, we will do well to bear this exceptionally rich history in mind.

A detailed examination of the relationship between the discourses and practices of authority and diplomacy in the late medieval and early modern periods, Authority and Diplomacy from Dante to Shakespeare interrogates the persistent duality of the roles of author and ambassador. The volume approaches its subject from a literary-historical perspective, drawing upon late medieval and early modern ideas and discourses of diplomacy and authority, and examining how they are manifested within different forms of writing: drama, poetry, diplomatic correspondence, peace treaties, and household accounts. Contributors focus on major literary figures from different cultures, including Dante, Petrarch, and Tasso from Italy; and from England, Chaucer, Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare. In addition, the book moves between and across literary-historical periods, tracing the development of concepts and discourses of authority and diplomacy from the late medieval to the early modern period. Taken together, these essays forge a broader argument for the centrality of diplomacy and diplomatic concepts in the literature and culture of late medieval and early modern England, and for the importance of diplomacy in current studies of English literature before 1603.