Literature and Culture in Early Modern London

by Lawrence Manley

Overview

In the two hundred years from 1475 London was transformed from a medieval commune into a metropolis of half a million people, a capital city, and a leading European trading center. Lawrence Manley provides a comprehensive account of the changing image and influence of London through its literature, including lyrics, ballads, jests, plays, pageants, chronicles, and treatises; and he shows how the literature and culture of London contributed to the new structures of capitalism, the process of "behavioral urbanization," and the liberation of the individual through the city's concentrated power.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521021975
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/03/2005
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	620
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 9.02(h) x 1.38(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. The Invention of London: 1. The city and humanism; 2. London and the languages of Tudor complaint; Part II. Fictions of Settlement: 3. From matron to monster: London and the languages of urban description; 4. The emergence of a Tudor capital: Spenser's epic vision; 5. Scripts for the pageant: the ceremonies of London; Part III. Techniques of Settlement: 6. To be a man in print: pamphlet morals and urban ideology; 7. Essential difference: the projects of satire; 8. The uses of enchantment: Jacobean city comedy and romance; Part IV. The Dissemination of Urban Culture: 9. Metropolis: the creation of an august style; 10. In place of place: London and liberty in the puritan revolution.

Editorial Reviews

"Manley's book is hugely ambitious and correspondingly huge in size. It is thoughtful and often provocative...its readings are brilliantly instructive." American Historical Review

"...his [Manley's] book, documented with superbly chosen literary examples, should become important for advanced students of literary history." Choice

"Manley canvasses and analyzes an astonishing array of literary sources ...there is no doubt that students of social and cultural history, as well as literary history, will find this a work of many-faceted values." Albion

'Lawrence Manley's thoroughly researched and well-written book concerns the growth in size and importance of London during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries....Literature and Culture in Early Modern England is an informative and painstakingly researched book....the author does an excellent job of demonstrating how London, a city that grew from 35,000 people in 1501 to 500,000 in 1670, created a change and proliferation of English literature in the early modern period. Lawrence Manley's book will prove useful to scholars of literature and history." Sixteenth Century Journal

"The conscientious density of his scholarship makes it a choice between reading his book or half-a-dozen superficial ones." Studies in English Literature

"...overall a scholarly achievement wholly admirable in its scope, detail, clarity, and thoughtfulness." Anne Lancashire, Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England

From the Publisher