The collection of English Renaissance narrative poems "A Mirror for Magistrates" has long been regarded as a mere repository of tales, significant largely because it was mined as a source of ideas by poets and dramatists, including Shakespeare. Paul Budra invites us to look again and see this text as an important literary document in its own right.

"A Mirror for Magistrates" brings together the voices of many authors whose tales encompass a variety of characters, from Brute, the mythical founder of Britain, to Elizabeth I. Budra situates the work in the cultural context of its...

Literary scholars face a new and often baffling reality in the classroom: students spend more time looking at glowing screens than reading printed text. The social lives of these students take place in cyberspace instead of the student pub. Their favorite narratives exist in video games, not books. How do teachers who grew up in a different world engage these students without watering down pedagogy? Clint Burnham and Paul Budra have assembled a group of specialists in visual poetry, graphic novels, digital humanities, role-playing games, television studies, and, yes, even the middle-brow...

Literary scholars face a new and often baffling reality in the classroom: students spend more time looking at glowing screens than reading printed text. The social lives of these students take place in cyberspace instead of the student pub. Their favorite narratives exist in video games, not books. How do teachers who grew up in a different world engage these students without watering down pedagogy? Clint Burnham and Paul Budra have assembled a group of specialists in visual poetry, graphic novels, digital humanities, role-playing games, television studies, and, yes, even the middle-brow...