Catholicism, Controversy and the English Literary Imagination, 1558-1660

Literature & Fiction

Shell, Alison

British & Irish

Cambridge University Press

Catholicism, Controversy and the English Literary Imagination, 1558–1660

The Catholic contribution to English literary culture has been widely neglected or misunderstood. This book sets out to rehabilitate a wide range of Catholic imaginative writing, while exposing the role of anti-Catholicism as an imaginative stimulus to mainstream writers in Tudor and Stuart England. It discusses canonical figures such as Sidney, Spenser, Webster and Middleton alongside many lesser-known writers. Alison Shell explores the Catholic rhetoric of loyalism and apostasy, and the stimulus given to the Catholic literary imagination by the persecution and exile so many of these writers suffered.

After the Reformation, England's Catholics were marginalised and excluded from using printed media for propagandist ends. Instead, they turned to oral media, such as ballads and stories, to plead their case and maintain contact with their community. Building on the growing interest in Catholic literature which has developed in early modern studies, Alison Shell examines the relationship between Catholicism and oral culture from the mid-sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In order to recover the textual traces of this minority culture, she expands canonical boundaries, looking at anecdotes, spells and popular verse alongside more conventionally literary material. In her archival research she uncovers many important manuscript sources. This book is an important contribution to the rediscovery of the writings and culture of the Catholic community and will be of great interest to scholars of early modern literature, history and theology.

Oral Culture and Catholicism in Early Modern England

The Catholic contribution to English literary culture has been widely neglected or misunderstood. This book sets out to rehabilitate a wide range of Catholic imaginative writing, while exposing the role of anti-Catholicism as an imaginative stimulus to mainstream writers in Tudor and Stuart England. It discusses canonical figures such as Sidney, Spenser, Webster and Middleton alongside many lesser-known writers. Alison Shell explores the Catholic rhetoric of loyalism and apostasy, and the stimulus given to the Catholic literary imagination by the persecution and exile so many of these writers suffered.

After the Reformation, England's Catholics were marginalised and excluded from using printed media for propagandist ends. Instead, they turned to oral media, such as ballads and stories, to plead their case and maintain contact with their community. Building on the growing interest in Catholic literature which has developed in early modern studies, Alison Shell examines the relationship between Catholicism and oral culture from the mid-sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In order to recover the textual traces of this minority culture, she expands canonical boundaries, looking at anecdotes, spells and popular verse alongside more conventionally literary material. In her archival research she uncovers many important manuscript sources. This book is an important contribution to the rediscovery of the writings and culture of the Catholic community and will be of great interest to scholars of early modern literature, history and theology.

<div>Sir John Soane (1753-1837) was a highly literary architect, who appears to have valued Shakespeare for the architectural pictures he conjured up, and also as a moral teacher. He had a deep knowledge of Shakespeare's work, quoting (and misquoting) it often, notably in his Royal Academy lectures. His fascination with Shakespeare is evident both in his library and in the Shakespearian references throughout his house-museum, the most obvious being the Shakespeare Recess, a shrine to the bard on the staircase. The four essays in this volume look at the influence of Shakespeare on Soane's architecture, against the wider background of the 18th-century Shakespearean revival; at Soane as a "bardolator" and bibliophile and at contemporary performance and theater-going, with a particular focus on the plays seen by Soane and his wife Eliza. The essays are illustrated by a number of illustrations in full color, the majority drawn from Soane's own collection. This book was published to coincide with an exhibition with the same title shown at Sir John Soane's Museum as part of the nationwide commemoration of the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare in 2016.</div>

The Cloud-Capped Towers: Shakespeare in Soane’s Architectural Imagination

Sands, Frances

Leary, Emmeline

Coane, Stephanie

Dramas & Plays

Pimpernel Press

This book sets Shakespeare in the religious context of his times, presenting a balanced, up-to-date account of current biographical and critical debates, and addressing the fascinating, under-studied topic of how Shakespeare's writing was perceived by literary contemporaries, whose priorities were more obviously religious than his own. It advances new readings of several plays, including Hamlet, King Lear and The Winter's Tale, and draws on under-exploited contemporary analogues, ranging from conversion narratives, books of devotion and polemical pamphlets to manuscript drama and emblems.  This study describes a writer whose language is saturated in religious discourse but whose invariable practice is to subordinate religious matter to the aesthetic demands of the work. For Shakespeare, as for few of his contemporaries, the Judaeo-Christian story is something less than a master narrative.

Shakespeare and Religion (Arden Critical Companions)

History & Criticism

The Arden Shakespeare

This book sets Shakespeare in the religious context of his times, presenting a balanced, up-to-date account of current biographical and critical debates, and addressing the fascinating, under-studied topic of how Shakespeare's writing was perceived by literary contemporaries - both Catholic and Protestant - whose priorities were more obviously religious than his own. It advances new readings of several plays, especially Hamlet, King Lear and The Winter's Tale; these draw in many cases on new and under-exploited contemporary analogues, ranging from conversion narratives, books of devotion and polemical pamphlets to manuscript drama and emblems. 
Shakespeare's writing has been seen both as profoundly religious, giving everyday human life a sacramental quality, and as profoundly secular, foreshadowing the kind of humanism that sees no necessity for God. This study attempts to reconcile these two points of view, describing a writer whose language is saturated in religious discourse and whose dramaturgy is highly attentive to religious precedent, but whose invariable practice is to subordinate religious matter to the particular aesthetic demands of the work in hand. For Shakespeare, as for few of his contemporaries, the Judaeo-Christian story is something less than a master narrative.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Shell, Alison. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Shell, Alison

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Shell, Alison. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Catholicism, Controversy and the English Literary Imagination, 1558-1660

Catholicism, Controversy and the English Literary Imagination, 1558–1660

Oral Culture and Catholicism in Early Modern England

Catholicism, Controversy and the English Literary Imagination, 1558–1660

Oral Culture and Catholicism in Early Modern England

The Cloud-Capped Towers: Shakespeare in Soane’s Architectural Imagination

Shakespeare and Religion (Arden Critical Companions)

Shakespeare and Religion (Arden Critical Companions)