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The Oxford History of Classical Reception (OHCREL) is designed to offer a comprehensive investigation of the numerous and diverse ways in which literary texts of the classical world have stimulated responses and refashioning by English writers. Covering the full range of English literature from the early Middle Ages to the present day, OHCREL both synthesizes existing scholarship and presents cutting-edge new research, employing an international team of expert contributors for each of the five v...

The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan is the most extensive volume of original essays ever published on the seventeenth-century Nonconformist preacher and writer, John Bunyan. Its thirty-eight chapters examine Bunyan's life and works, their religious and historical contexts, and the critical reception of his writings, in particular his allegorical narrative, The Pilgrim's Progress. Interdisciplinary and comprehensive, it provides unparalleled scope and expertise, ranging from literary theory to rel...

The Female Baroque in Early Modern English Literary Culture is a contribution to the revival of early modern women's writings and cultural production in English that began in the 1980s. Its originality is twofold: it links women's writing in English with the wider context of Baroque culture, and it introduces the issue of gender into discussion of the Baroque. The title comes from Julia Kristeva's study of Teresa of Avila, that 'the secrets of Baroque civilization are female'. The book is built...

This is the third volume of a detailed play-by-play catalogue of drama written by English, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish authors during the 110 years between the English Reformation to the English Revolution. The catalogue covers every known play, extant and lost, including some which have never before been identified. It is based on a new, complete, and systematic survey of the whole of this body of work, and is presented in chronological order. Each entry contains comprehensive information abou...

One of the major political figures of his time, Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) served in the court of Elizabeth I and ultimately became Lord Chancellor under James I in 1617. A scholar, wit, lawyer and statesman, he wrote widely on politics, philosophy and science - declaring early in his career that 'I have taken all knowledge as my province'. In this, his most famous work, he considers a diverse range of subjects, such as death and marriage, ambition and atheism, in prose that is vibrant and ri...

In this volume, Kathleen Jeffs draws on first-hand experience of the Royal Shakespeare Company's rehearsal room for the 2004-05 Spanish Golden Age season to put forth a collaborative model for translating, rehearsing, and performing Spanish Golden Age drama. Building on the RSC season, the volume offers methodologies for translation and communication that can feed the creative processes of actors and directors, while maintaining an ethos of fidelity with regards to the original texts. It argues...

Love Three is a study of a seventeenth-century devotional poem by George Herbert; an essay on eroticizing power; and a memory palace of sexual experiences, fantasies, preferences, and limits-with Herbert's poem as the key. It is unlike anything you have ever read-a deep, attentive reading of a text and a broad analysis (personal, historical, philosophical) of humanity's most enduring theme.

Salonnieres, Furies, and Fairies is a study of the works of two of the most prolific seventeenth-century women writers, Madeleine de Scudery and Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy. Analyzing their use of the novel, the chronicle, and the fairy tale, Duggan examines how Scudery and d'Aulnoy responded to and participated in the changes of their society, but from different generational and ideological positions. As both Scudery and d'Aulnoy wrote from within the context of the salon, this study also takes in...

Despite the persistence and popularity of addressing the theme of eating in Paradise Lost, the tradition of Adam and Eve's sin as one of gluttony-and the evidence for Milton's adaptation of this tradition-has been either unnoticed or suppressed. Emily Stelzer provides the first book-length work on the philosophical significance of gluttony in this poem, arguing that a complex understanding of gluttony and of ideal, grateful, and gracious eating informs the content of Milton's writing. Working wi...

Although Ben Jonson's association with architecture is well known, comparatively little research has been devoted to the influence of architectural thinking on his literary work. This book sets out to explore the possibilities suggested by such an interrelationship. Using annotated architectural volumes surviving from Jonson's library as well as his published works, Anthony Johnson surveys the evidence for Jonson's knowledge of, and theoretical agreement with, the architectural principles enunci...

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is best known for his natural philosophical and mathematical works. Yet he devoted ample time to the study of ancient chronology, resulting in the posthumously published The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728). Here, Newton attempted to show how the antiquity of Greece, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and other Mediterranean nations could be reinterpreted to fit the timespan allowed for by Scripture. As the hundreds of books from his library and the thousands of manusc...

For Jacobean society, witchcraft was a potent and very real force, an area of sharp controversy in which King James I himself participated and a phenomenon that attracted many dramatists and writers. The three plays in this volume reflect the variety of belief in witches and practice of witchcraft in the Jacobean period. Jacobean understanding of witchcraft is illuminated by the close study of these contrasting texts in relation to each other, and to other contemporary works: "The Masque of Quee...

Literature and Party Politics at the Accession of Queen Anne is the first detailed study of the final Stuart succession crisis. It demonstrates for the first time the centrality of debates about royal succession to the literature and political culture of the early eighteenth century. Using previously neglected, misunderstood, and newly discovered material, Joseph Hone shows that arguments about Anne's right to the throne were crucial to the construction of nascent party political identities. Lit...

In 1654, Anna Trapnel - a Baptist, Fifth Monarchist, millenarian, and visionary from London - fell into a trance during which she prophesied passionately and at length against Oliver Cromwell and his government. The prophecies attracted widespread public attention, and resulted in an invitation to travel to Cornwall. Her Report and Plea, republished here for the first time, is a lively and engaging firsthand account of the visit, which concluded in her arrest, a court hearing, and imprisonment....