"Leah Marcus's "The Politics of Mirth: Jonson, Herrick, Milton, Marvell, and the Defense of Old Holiday Pastimes" is a fascinating study of why James and Charles promoted some types of rural sport and festival and of how certain literary texts participated in promoting or critiquing royal policy. . . . Marcus provocatively links texts not often studied in conjunction with one another, and she provides strong and detailed readings of those texts." Jean E. Howard"

This long-awaited and masterfully edited volume contains nearly all of the writings of Queen Elizabeth I: the clumsy letters of childhood, the early speeches of a fledgling queen, and the prayers and poetry of the monarch's later years. The first collection of its kind, "Elizabeth I" reveals brilliance on two counts: that of the Queen, a dazzling writer and a leading intellect of the English Renaissance, and that of the editors, whose copious annotations make the book not only essential to scholars but accessible to general readers as well.
"This collection shines a light onto the...

Did Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew ever stay untamed? Many readers and students do not recognize the extent to which modern standard editions of Shakespeare, Milton, Marlowe and other Renaissance authors have been filtered through 18th-century and Victorian sensibilities. This volume reveals the array of possibilities opened up by unediting these texts. It shows how much the texts of early modern authors have altered and rigidified over time. It also demonstrates how modern interpretations and performances of such works can be injected with new energy by a recognition of the...

"Sources and Contexts" includes, in its entirety, Shakespeare's primary source for the play--Thomas Lodge's popular prose romance Rosalynde (1590). Reading Shakespeare's play with (and against) Lodge's romance reveals striking similarities and fascinating differences, both large and small. An array of other readings focuses on the central areas of gender and ecology and includes works by Michel de Montaigne, Sir Thomas More, Thomas Bastard, George Gascoygne, and William Prynne A rich "Criticism" section includes twenty-one commentaries onAs You Like It spanning four centuries....