Product Description

This is a one volume, up–to–date collection of more than fifty wide–ranging essays which will inspire and guide students of the Renaissance and provide course leaders with a substantial and helpful frame of reference.

• Provides new perspectives on established texts.
  
• Orientates the new student, while providing advanced students with current and new directions.
  
• Pioneered by leading scholars.
  
• Occupies a unique niche in Renaissance studies.
  
• Illustrated with 12 single–page black and white prints.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #415805 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 792 pages

Review
"The volume′s awesome range makes it a valuable preserve for scholars and an ambitious reference for students." Times Higher Education Supplement

"This impressive tome must certainly be the last word on English Renaissance literature and culture, at least for some considerable time to come." Reference Reviews

Times Higher Education Supplement
The volume's awesome range makes it a valuable preserve for scholars and an ambitious reference for students.

Reference Reviews
This impressive tome must certainly be the last word on English Renaissance literature and culture, at least for some considerable time to come.

Customer Reviews

This is an outstanding collection of essays.
Michael Hattaway has edited a fascinating book which will be a must for any serious scholar of this period. By his selection of essayists and topics he explores the notion of a renaissance and in the various chapters are offered provocative arguments for a re-naming of the period as an English reformation. Essays have been contributed by Patrick Collinson,Richard Harries,Germaine Greer,Robyn Bolam,Arthur Kinney and many more of the best modern scholars. Blackwells have published a beautiful book with seventeen pages of plates, some rarely seen before. This large work should be on the shelves of every English Literature department both here and abroad.

Superb, if a little eclectic
As a previous reviewer here has said, this is a superb collection of essays about the phenomenon called the English Renaissance for short-hand. Wide-ranging and up-to-date (pub.2000) this brings together a vast array of leading scholars on all aspects of 'culture'.

Sections cover Contexts & Perspectives (background to humanism, religion, philosphy, language, print culture, the court etc.); Genre; specific textual readings; and key issues and debates (identity, feminist approaches, sexuality, race, gender etc).

This dropped a star from me since the 'readings' seem very eclectic, rather as if the editor went with what he could get rather than selecting keys texts: so there are two essays, for example, on Mary Wroth, but nothing on Sidney, arguably far more central and also himself a huge influence on Wroth's 'Urania' (and not just because he's her uncle).

But this is a small criticism as overall this does a superb job of immersing the reader in the complicated and often contradictory world of the 'Renaissance'. Probably aimed at an undergraduate audience, this is also extremely useful to the more advanced student looking to either fill in specific gaps in their knowledge, or to help focus research. Each article, as in other Blackwell companions, has an extensive reading list which is extremely useful.

This is the kind of book that you can either read from cover to cover or simply dip into. And at close to 800 pages, it's superb value at this price. Well worth buying.