Defending Literature in Early Modern England: Renaissance Literary Theory in Social Context (Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture, Series Number 37)

Why was literature so often defended and defined in early modern England in terms of its ability to provide the Horatian ideal of both profit and pleasure? This book, first published in 2000, analyses Renaissance literary theory in the context of social transformations of the period, focusing on conflicting ideas about gentility that emerged as the English aristocracy evolved from a feudal warrior class to a civil elite. Through close readings centered on works by Thomas Elyot, Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser, Matz argues that literature attempted to mediate a complex set of contradictory social expectations. His original study engages with important theoretical work such as Pierre Bourdieu's and offers a substantial critique of New Historicist theory. It challenges recent accounts of the power of Renaissance authorship, emphasizing the uncertain status of literature during this time of cultural change, and sheds light on why and how canonical works became canonical. Robert Matz analyzes the defense of literature in Renaissance England in the context of social transformations of the period, particularly those affecting the aristocracy as it evolved from a feudal warrior class to a civil elite. Through close readings centered on works by Thomas Elyot, Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser, Matz argues that literature attempted to mediate a complex set of contradictory social expectations. His original study engages with important theoretical work such as Pierre Bourdieu's and offers a substantial critique of New Historicist theory. Robert Matz analyzes the defense of literature in Renaissance England in the context of social transformations particularly affecting the aristocracy. Alongside revisionary accounts of the work of Elyot, Sidney and Spenser, this original study engages with important theoretical work such as Pierre Bourdieu's and offers a substantial critique of New Historicist theory Why was poetry so frequently defended in the English Renaissance on the grounds of its "profitable pleasure," its ability, as Philip Sidney perhaps most famously puts it, to "delight and teach; and delight, to move men to take that goodness in hand, which without delight they would fly as from a stranger"? This study analyses Renaissance literary theory in the context of social transformations of the period