Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 articles from January 1997

Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 archives from January 1997

Gascoigne's poses. (George Gascoigne)
January 1, 1997... Since the publication of Richard Helgerson's The Elizabethan Prodigals it has become customary to regard George Gascoigne's writings as episodes in a career modeled on the parable of the prodigal son. In 1573 he published a volume of literary...

Redcrosse's 'springing well' of scriptural faith.
January 1, 1997... Few scenes in book 1 of The Faerie Queene are as puzzling - or as crucial to understanding the source of Redcrosse knight's spiritual strength - as the paired "falls" that refresh and renew him during the climactic battle of canto 11. Whatever...

Monstrous conceptions and Lodge's 'Robin the Devil.' (Thomas Lodge)
January 1, 1997... Readers of Thomas Lodge's work have attempted to account in various ways for the grimly pessimistic universe portrayed in the tales that followed the golden brilliance of Rosalynde.(1) Lodge's odd propensity for violent tales that seem to revel...

Exhibiting class and displaying the body in Sidney's 'Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.' (Sir Philip Sidney)
January 1, 1997... New historicism and cultural materialism, swinging away from the primarily formalist approach of new criticism, have in the last decade brought to the attention of the profession the social embeddedness of texts. Contexts for understanding the...

On the value of 'Lycidas.'
January 1, 1997... Lycidas is one of the most widely and highly valued poems ever written. Critics have called it "the high-water mark of English Poesy and of [John] Milton's own production,"(1) considered it "probably the most perfect piece of pure literature in...

The reference to John Milton's 'Tetrachordon' in 'De Doctrina Christiana.'
January 1, 1997... In the current debate regarding Milton's authorship of De Doctrina Christiana, one piece of objective evidence seems irrefutably to support proponents of Milton's authorship. This is, of course, the well-known remark in Liber I, Caput X, about...

Ham's vicious race: slavery and John Milton.
January 1, 1997... In 1550, Charles V took the unprecedented step of suspending all of Spain's ongoing conquests in the New World until the justice of these wars could be established. To this end he summoned a council of theologians, canon lawyers, and jurists to...