scholarly journals The Reputation of Edward II, 1305–1697

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kit Heyam
Keyword(s):  
Romantic Relationships ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Cultural Impact ◽  
The Past ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
Sexual Transgression ◽  
Political Pamphlets

During his lifetime and the four centuries following his death, King Edward II (1307-1327) acquired a reputation for having engaged in sexual and romantic relationships with his male favourites, and having been murdered by penetration with a red-hot spit. This book provides the first account of how this reputation developed, providing new insights into the processes and priorities that shaped narratives of sexual transgression in medieval and early modern England. In doing so, it analyses the changing vocabulary of sexual transgression in English, Latin and French; the conditions that created space for sympathetic depictions of same-sex love; and the use of medieval history in early modern political polemic. It also focuses, in particular, on the cultural impact of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II (c.1591-92). Through such close readings of poetry and drama, alongside chronicle accounts and political pamphlets, it demonstrates that Edward’s medieval and early modern afterlife was significantly shaped by the influence of literary texts and techniques. A ‘literary transformation’ of historiographical methodology is, it argues, an apposite response to the factors that shaped medieval and early modern narratives of the past.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kit Heyam
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Medieval History ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
Sexual Transgression ◽  
History Of ◽  
Insight Into

This introduction discusses the reputation of King Edward II (1307–1327) in medieval and early modern England, and the implications of this reputation beyond its immediate relevance to scholars of Edward II’s reign and afterlife: as a case study for the history of sex and the changing vocabulary of sexual transgression; as a source of positive depictions of love between men; as a paradigmatic exemplum for discussions of favouritism and deposition, and thereby a case study providing insight into the early modern use of medieval history; as a means of developing our understanding of literary texts such as Marlowe’s Edward II; and as a process that illuminates the literary nature of medieval and early modern historical narratives.

Shakespeare's Representation of Weather, Climate and Environment

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Chiari
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Romeo And Juliet ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
As You Like It ◽  
Ability To Act

While ecocritical approaches to literary texts receive more and more attention, climate-related issues remain fairly neglected, particularly in the field of Shakespeare studies. This monograph explores the importance of weather and changing skies in early modern England while acknowledging the fact that traditional representations and religious beliefs still fashioned people’s relations to meteorological phenomena. At the same time, a growing number of literati stood against determinism and defended free will, thereby insisting on man’s ability to act upon celestial forces. Yet, in doing so, they began to give precedence to a counter-intuitive approach to Nature. Sophie Chiari argues that Shakespeare reconciles the scholarly views of his time with more popular ideas rooted in superstition and that he promotes a sensitive, pragmatic understanding of climatic events. She pays particular attention to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, Othello, King Lear, Anthony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest. Taking into account the influence of classical thought, each of the book’s seven chapters emphasises specific issues (e.g. cataclysmic disorders, the dog days’ influence, freezing temperatures, threatening storms) and considers the way climatic events were presented on stage and how they came to shape the production and reception of Shakespeare’s drama.

Reviews: The Logic of History: Putting Postmodernism in Perspective, on the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and its Aftermath, Modernism and the Ideology of History: Literature, Politics, and the Past, Postmodernism in History: Fear or Freedom?, Quoting Shakespeare: Form and Culture in Early Modern Drama, Early Modern Civil Discourses, ‘A moving Rhetoricke’: Gender and Silence in Early Modern England, Society and Culture in Early Modern England, the English Radical Imagination: Culture, Religion and Revolution, 1630–1660, An Age of Wonders: Prodigies, Politics and Providence in England, 1657–1727, Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires, and Delectable Goods, Antiquaries: The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth-Century Britain, the French Revolution and the London Stage, 1789–1805, Nationalism, Imperialism and Identity in Late Victorian Culture, Modernism, Male Friendship and the First World War, Bloody Good: Chivalry, Sacrifice, and the Great War, Manliness and the Boy's Story Paper in Britain: A Cultural History, 1855–1940McCullaghC. Behan, The Logic of History: Putting Postmodernism in Perspective , Routledge, 2004, pp. viii + 212, £18.99 pbBreisachE., On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and its Aftermath , University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. vii + 236, $16.00 pb.WilliamsL. Blakeney, Modernism and the Ideology of History: Literature, Politics, and the Past , Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 265, £40.SouthgateBeverley, Postmodernism in History: Fear or Freedom? Routledge, 2003, pp. xi + 211, £55, £16.99 pb.BrusterDouglas, Quoting Shakespeare: Form and Culture in Early Modern Drama , University of Nebraska Press, 2001, pp. 288, £35.50.RichardsJennifer (ed.), Early Modern Civil Discourses , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 206, $65.00.LuckyjChristina, ‘A moving Rhetoricke‘: Gender and Silence in Early Modern England , Manchester University Press, 2002, pp. viii + 198, £40.CressyDavid, Society and Culture in Early Modern England , Variorum Collected Studies Series, Ashgate, 2003, pp. xii + 344, £57.50.McDowellNicholas, The English Radical Imagination: Culture, Religion and Revolution, 1630–1660 , Clarendon Press, 2003, pp. x + 219, £45.BurnsWilliam E., An Age of Wonders: Prodigies, Politics and Providence in England, 1657–1727 , Manchester University Press, 2002, pp. 218, £45.BergMaxine and EgerElizabeth (eds), Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires, and Delectable Goods , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. xii + 259, 41 plates, £55.SweetRosemary, Antiquaries: The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth-Century Britain , Hambledon & London, 2004, pp. xxi + 473, £25.TaylorGeorge, The French Revolution and the London Stage, 1789–1805 , Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. x + 263, £45.AttridgeSteve, Nationalism, Imperialism and Identity in Late Victorian Culture , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 229, £45.ColeSarah, Modernism, Male Friendship and the First World War , Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 297, £40FrantzenAllen J., Bloody Good: Chivalry, Sacrifice, and the Great War , University of Chicago Press, 2004, pp. 335, £24.50.BoydKelly, Manliness and the Boy's Story Paper in Britain: A Cultural History, 1855–1940 , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. x + 273, £60.

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-100
Author(s):  
Christopher Parker ◽  
David Watson ◽  
Alan Armstrong ◽  
Ben Lowe ◽  
Carrie Hintz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Modern Drama ◽  
Victorian Culture ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
The Past ◽  
The First World War

Playing the Past: Approaches to English Historical Drama, 1385–1600. By Benjamin Griffin. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 2001; pp. xiii + 193. $70 cloth.

2004 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-309
Author(s):  
Paulette Marty
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
History Plays ◽  
Historical Drama ◽  
The Past ◽  
Dramatic Structure ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
History Play

Benjamin Griffin takes an innovative approach to studying the history-play genre in early modern England. Rather than comparing history plays to their chronicle sources or interrogating their political implications, Griffin studies their relationships with other early modern English dramas, contextualizing them for “those who wish . . . to understand the history play by way of the history of plays” (xiii). He seeks to identify the genre's distinct characteristics by selecting a relatively broad spectrum of plays and examining their dramatic structure, their historical content, and their audiences' relationship to the subject matter.

CONSUMPTION AND CONSUMERISM IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 549-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
SARA PENNELL
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Past ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches

Consumption studies have arguably transformed the study of early modern cultural history in the past three decades, with the championing of previously neglected sources, application of interdisciplinary approaches, and exploration of the mentalities of acquisition, ownership, and use. But does the accumulation of writing about consuming and consumption in this period amount to much more than the historical equivalent of window-shopping? It is argued here that greater attention to the consumers as much as the consumed, to the motivations for consuming rather than the act of consumption alone, offers a way out of the explanatory cul-de-sac reached by over-indulgence in the early modern ‘world of goods’.

Whose Saint Crispins Day Is It?: Shoemaking, Holiday Making, and the Politics of Memory in Early Modern England

2001 ◽  
Vol 54 (4-Part2) ◽  
pp. 1467-1494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison A. Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
English Politics

This article demonstrates an early modern association between the trade of shoemaking and the act of altering the festal calendar. It traces this link through a series of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literary texts including Thomas Deloney's Gentle Craft, Thomas Dekker's Shoemaker's Holiday, and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and — most notably — Henry V. The article argues that the depictions of cobblers making holidays resonated with the early modern English politics of ritual observance, and its concluding discussion of the Saint Crispin's Day speech in Henry V shows how the play imagines king and cobblers vying for control of England's commemorative practice.

The ‘land–family bond’ in East Sussex, c. 1580–1770

2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID R. CLARKE
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Demographic Context ◽  
Over Time

This article contributes to debates over the ‘land–family bond’ in Early Modern England, in which social historians have engaged periodically during the past decade. It examines the work of Jane Whittle, Govind Sreenivasen and Alan Macfarlane and adds new archival evidence from my own study of three East Sussex villages, circa 1580–1770. Its focus is on the factors that influenced the land–family bond over time. It argues that a more nuanced understanding of individual tenant behaviour during this period cannot be reached without also charting the social, economic and demographic context in which such behaviour operated.

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