This book will constitute an original intervention into longstanding but insistently relevant debates around the significance of notions of 'performativity' to the critical analysis of early modern drama.

In particular, the book aims to:

• show how the investigation of performativity can enable readings of Shakespeare and Jonson that challenge the dominant methodological frameworks within which those plays have come to be read;

• demonstrate that the thought of performativity does not come to rest in the simplicity of...

What does university study of English Literature involve today? How should students read literary texts? Answers to these questions have substantially changed and developed over recent decades, often in response to advances in literary theory.
In the light of this and other recent developments, the Edinburgh Introduction provides a new, updated guide for students beginning their study of literature today. Recent developments in theory are explained throughout, but they are not the only focus of attention. Instead, the emphasis is on clear, pragmatic explanation of critical practices, and...

At the heart of this book is a previously unpublished account of Ben Jonson's celebrated walk from London to Edinburgh in the summer of 1618. This unique firsthand narrative provides us with an insight into where Jonson went, whom he met, and what he did on the way. James Loxley, Anna Groundwater and Julie Sanders present a clear, readable and fully annotated edition of the text. An introduction and a series of contextual essays shed further light on topics including the evidence of provenance and authorship, Jonson's contacts throughout Britain, his celebrity status, and the relationships...