'[A] marvellously original, densely researched study of the English republican imagination.' Tom Paulin, The Independent

Presents a collection of five dramatic works originally published when English was nominally a Republic. The five texts, three of which have been edited for the first time, include The Tragedy of that Famous Roman Orator Marcus Tullius Cicero (Anonymous), Cupid and Death by James Shirley; and William Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes, The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru, and The History of Sir Francis Drake. In her introductory piece, editor Janet Clare (English, University College, Dublin, UK) argues that theater forced into a novel state of opposition did more than survive in reduced form; it adapted, offered oblique critiques of Caroline policies, and revealed complex and shifting alliances. Distributed by Palgrave. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

The essays in this collection explore a number of significant questions regarding the terms 'radical' and 'radicalism' in early modern English contexts. They investigate whether we can speak of a radical tradition, and whether radicalism was a local, national or transnational phenomenon. In so doing this volume examines the exchange of ideas and texts in the history of supposedly radical events, ideologies and movements (or moments). Once at the cutting edge of academic debate radicalism had, until very recently, fallen prey to historiographical trends as scholars increasingly turned their attention to more mainstream experiences or reactionary forces. While acknowledging the importance of those perspectives, Varieties of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century English radicalism in context offers a reconsideration of the place of radicalism within the early modern period. It sets out to examine the subject in original and exciting ways by adopting distinctively new and broader perspectives. Among the crucial issues addressed are problems of definition and how meanings can evolve; context; print culture; language and interpretative techniques; literary forms and rhetorical strategies that conveyed, or deliberately disguised, subversive meanings; and the existence of a single, continuous English radical tradition. Taken together the essays in this collection offer a timely reassessment of the subject, reflecting the latest research on the theme of seventeenth-century English radicalism as well as offering some indications of the phenomenon's transnational contexts. Indeed, there is a sense here of the complexity and variety of the subject although much work still remains to be done on radicals and radicalism - both in early modern England and especially beyond.

Between 1640 and 1660, England, Scotland, and Ireland faced civil war, invasion, religious radicalism, parliamentary rule, and the restoration of the monarchy. Carla Gardina Pestana offers a sweeping history that systematically connects these cataclysmic events and the development of the infant plantations from Newfoundland to Surinam. By 1660, the English Atlantic emerged as religiously polarized, economically interconnected, socially exploitative, and ideologically anxious about its liberties. War increased both the proportion of unfree laborers and ethnic diversity in the settlements. Neglected by London, the colonies quickly developed trade networks, especially from seafaring New England, and entered the slave trade. Barbadian planters in particular moved decisively toward slavery as their premier labor system, leading the way toward its adoption elsewhere. When by the 1650s the governing authorities tried to impose their vision of an integrated empire, the colonists claimed the rights of freeborn English men, making a bid for liberties that had enormous implications for the rise in both involuntary servitude and slavery. Changes at home politicized religion in the Atlantic world and introduced witchcraft prosecutions. Pestana presents a compelling case for rethinking our assumptions about empire and colonialism and offers an invaluable look at the creation of the English Atlantic world.

Writing and the English Renaissance is a collection of essays exploring the full creative richness of Renaissance culture during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As well as considering major literary figures such as Spenser, Marlowe, Donne and Milton, lesser known - especially women - writers are also examined. Radical writing and popular culture are considered as well. The scope of the study not only extends the parameters for debate in Renaissance studies, but also adopts a radical interdisciplinary approach, bridging the gap between literary, historical, cultural and women's studies, leading to a much fuller picture of life in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The authors discussed are placed in their full historical and literary context, with an extensive selection of original documentation included in the text - for example, from The Book of Common Prayer or the Homilies to contextualize the writing under discussion. This distinctive approach, combined with a detailed chronology of the period and bibliography, embracing both canonical and non-canonical writers, makes this volume a unique reference resource and course reader for Renaissance studies.

This volume is the first attempt to assess the impact of both humanism and Protestantism on the education offered to a wide range of adolescents in the hundreds of grammar schools operating in England between the Reformation and the Enlightenment. By placing that education in the context of Lutheran, Calvinist and Jesuit education abroad, it offers an overview of the uses to which Latin and Greek were put in English schools, and identifies the strategies devised by clergy and laity in England for coping with the tensions between classical studies and Protestant doctrine. It also offers a reassessment of the role of the 'godly' in English education, and demonstrates the many ways in which a classical education came to be combined with close support for the English Crown and established church. One of the major sources used is the school textbooks which were incorporated into the 'English Stock' set up by leading members of the Stationers' Company of London and reproduced in hundreds of thousands of copies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although the core of classical education remained essentially the same for two centuries, there was a growing gulf between the methods by which classics were taught in elite institutions such as Winchester and Westminster and in the many town and country grammar schools in which translations or bilingual versions of many classical texts were given to weaker students. The success of these new translations probably encouraged editors and publishers to offer those adults who had received little or no classical education new versions of works by Aesop, Cicero, Ovid, Virgil, Seneca and Caesar. This fascination with ancient Greece and Rome left its mark not only on the lifestyle and literary tastes of the educated elite, but also reinforced the strongly moralistic outlook of many of the English laity who equated virtue and good works with pleasing God and meriting salvation.

The first study to systematically trace the impact of theatre on the emerging public of the early modern period.