Poetry and the Realm of Politics: Shakespeare to DrydenThis is a major study of the relation between poetry and politcs in sixteenth and seventeenth century English literature, focusing in particular on the works of Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson, Milton, and Dryden. Howard Erskine-Hill argues that the major tradition of political allusion is not, as has often been argued, that of the political allegory of Dryden's Absalom and Architophel, and other overtly political poems, but rather a more shifting and less systematic practice, often involving equivocal or multiple reference. Drawing on the revisionist trend in recent historiography, and taking issue with recent New Historicist criticism, the book offers new and thought-provoking readings of familiar texts. For example, Shakespeare's Histories, far from endorsing a conservative Tudor myth, are shown to examine and reject divine-right kingship in favour of a political vision of what the succession crisis of the 1590s required. A forgotten political aspect of Hamlet is restored and an anti-Cromwellian strain is identified in Milton's Paradise Lost. Again and again, Professor Erskine-Hill is able to show how some of the most powerful works of the period, works which in the past have been read for their aesthetic achievement and generalized wisdom, in fact contain a political component crucial to our understanding of the poem. |
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Page 171
... Milton's career ) and each , towards the end of his life , survived a change of state , Milton the revolution of 1660 , Dryden that of 1688 , in which almost all his political hopes were dashed . Each poet was engaged to a fragile ...
... Milton's career ) and each , towards the end of his life , survived a change of state , Milton the revolution of 1660 , Dryden that of 1688 , in which almost all his political hopes were dashed . Each poet was engaged to a fragile ...
Page 173
... Milton's praise of Cromwell is of course panegyric : praise is there to recognize and keep favour but also to instruct and warn . Recounting Cromwell's military achievements and concluding that God is ' unmistakably at your side ' Milton ...
... Milton's praise of Cromwell is of course panegyric : praise is there to recognize and keep favour but also to instruct and warn . Recounting Cromwell's military achievements and concluding that God is ' unmistakably at your side ' Milton ...
Page 198
... Milton's experience during the civil wars , commonwealth , and protectorate contributed to the salient developments in Paradise Lost . But how far did Milton wish or expect his readers to be reminded of recent history , and in what ways ...
... Milton's experience during the civil wars , commonwealth , and protectorate contributed to the salient developments in Paradise Lost . But how far did Milton wish or expect his readers to be reminded of recent history , and in what ways ...
Contents
List of Illustrations བ | 11 |
Introduction I | 11 |
The First Tetralogy and King John | 46 |
Copyright | |
9 other sections not shown
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