Criticism and Compliment: The Politics of Literature in the England of Charles ICriticism and Compliment examines the poems, plays and masques of the three figures who succeeded Ben Jonson as authors of court entertainments in the England of Charles I. The courtly literature of Caroline England has been dismissed by critics and characterised by historians as propaganda for Charles I's absolutism penned by sycophantic hirelings. Kevin Sharpe questions the assumptions on which these evaluations have been based. Challenging the traditional argument for a polarity between court and country cultures in early Stuart England, he re-reads the plays, poems and masques as primary documents of political attitudes articulated at court. Far from being confined to a decade or a party, the courtly literature of the 1630s is relocated within the broader humanist tradition of counsel. Through the language of love - a language, it is argued, that was part of the discourse of politics in Caroline England - the court poets criticised fundamental premises of the King's political ideology, and counselled traditional and moderate modes of government. |
Contents
Culture and politics court and country assumptions and problems questions and suggestions | 1 |
Sir William Davenant and the drama of love and passion | 54 |
Thomas Carew and the poetry of love and nature | 109 |
Aurelian Townshend and the poetry of natural innocence | 152 |
The Caroline court masque | 179 |
265 | |
303 | |
Other editions - View all
Criticism and Compliment: The Politics of Literature in the England of Charles I Kevin Sharpe No preview available - 1987 |
Common terms and phrases
Albion's Triumph antimasque appetite argued audience Aurelian Townshend authority beauty Ben Jonson Britannia Triumphans Brown Carew's poetry Caroline court Caroline masque Caroline Stage Cavalier Drama celebration Chambers Chloridia Coelum Britannicum counsel court masque courtiers courtly criticism culture debate Dunlap Earl Elegie England English entertainment ethical and political example expression G.N. from Wrest Gondibert Harbage harmony Henrietta Maria honour human Ibid ideal images Inigo Jones innocence Jacobean Jacobean and Caroline Jonson king and queen king's kingship language lines literary literature London Lovers Luminalia man's marriage masquers mistress Momus monarch moral nature nature's Orgel and Strong parliament passion performed Platonic love playwrights poet praise presented Prince puritan reality Renaissance royal rule Salmacida Spolia Scene sense Shepherd's Paradise Shorter Poems society soul Stephen Orgel Suckling suggest Tempe Restored Temple of Love texts theatre Thomas Carew Triumph of Peace verse virtue virtuous