Writing and society : literacy, print, and politics in Britain, 1590-1660

Writing and Society is a stunning exploration of the relationship between the growth in popular literacy and the development of new readerships and the authors addressing them. It is the first single volume to provide a year-by-year chronology of political events in relation to cultural production.This overview of debates in literary critical theory and historiography includes facsimile pages with commentary from the most influential books of the period. The author describes and analyses:\* the development of literacy by status, gender and region in Britain\* structures of patronage and censorship\* the fundamental role of the publishing industry\* the relation between elite literary and popular cultures\* and the remarkable growth of female literacy and publication. BOOK COVER 1 HALF-TITLE 2 TITLE 3 COPYRIGHT 4 DEDICATION 5 CONTENTS 6 FIGURES 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 11 1 ‘PAPER I MAKE MY FRIEND AND MIND’S TRUE GLASS’ 13 Christopher Marlowe’s new sin 13 Debating early modern literary culture 21 ‘Vale, soror, anima mea’: reading the moment of writing 26 2 STATUS AND LITERACY 29 From ‘degree’ to ‘political arithmetic’: mapping social hierarchy 31 The titled nobility: ‘the Theatre of Hospitality’ 35 The gentry: ‘to be idle, and live upon the sweat of others’ 38 The professions and major trades: ‘minds...more thoughtful and full of business’ 41 Yeomen: ‘they that in times past made all France afraid’ 45 Craftsmen, tradesmen, copyholders: ‘Of the fourth sort of men which do not rule’ 46 Apprentices and servants: ‘Seeking service and place’ 51 Husbandmen, cottagers, labourers, vagrants: literacy at the margins of survival 51 3 ‘TOWARDNESS’ 54 Scripture for the boy who drives the plough 54 From absey to grammar school 57 ‘Education is the bringing up of one, not to live alone, but amongst others, because company is our natural cognisance’ 64 4 ‘MECHANICS IN THE SUBURBS OF LITERATURE’ 69 Printing in renaissance London 69 The Worshipful Company of Stationers 71 ‘Assignable productions of the brain’: authorship and copyright 74 ‘Only for you, only to you’: patronage, dedications, payment 76 ‘Let not one Brother oppress another. Do as you would be done unto’: printing from revolution to Restoration 78 5 CENSORSHIP AND STATE FORMATION 84 ‘Peace, plenty, love, truth, terror’: defining early modern censorship 84 The Stationers’ Company, overseer of the intellectual economy 88 ‘Ireland is but swordland’: literary patronage, censorship and persecution in the Celtic cultures 94 6 ‘PENNY MERRIMENTS, PENNY GODLINESSES’ 101 Literacy and social change: ‘More solid Things do not shew the complexion of the Times so well as Ballads and Libels’ 101 ‘To any Reader He or She, It makes no matter what they be’: John Taylor the Water Poet 104 The Praise of Hemp Seed: Taylor’s inversion of all values 111 The hydro-poet, sculler-scholar between cultures 117 7 ‘DRESSED UP WITH THE FLOWERS OF A LIBRARY’ 122 Mistress Hazzard’s revelation 122 Going astray among the Elizabethans: critical problems in early modern female literacy 128 Gendered behaviour in early modern society: conventions and realities 131 ‘How careful must you be, To be Your Self: Lady Anne Clifford’s Great Picture 133 8 ‘THE POWER OF SELF AT SUCH OVER-FLOWING TIMES’ 150 ‘I never read it in any book, nor received it from any mouth’: writing and revolt 1450–1650 150 ‘Mob’ (1691): ‘The common mass of people; the lower orders; the uncultured or illiterate as a class; the populace, the masses’ 153 9 A CONSTANT REGISTER OF PUBLIC FACTS 1589–1662 155 BIBLIOGRAPHY 168 FURTHER READING 169 1 ‘Paper I make my Friend and mind’s true Glass’ 169 2 Status and literacy 170 3 ‘Towardness’ 170 4 ‘Mechanics in the Suburbs of Literature’ 171 5 Censorship and state formation 171 6 ‘Penny merriments, penny godlinesses’ 173 7 ‘Dressed up with the flowers of a Library’ 173 NOTES 175 INDEX 201 Language & Literature Writing and Society is a stunning exploration of the relationship between the growth in popular literacy and the development of new readerships and the authors addressing them. It is the first single volume to provide a year-by-year chronology of political events in relation to cultural production. This overview of debates in literary critical theory and historiography includes facsimile pages with commentary from the most influential books of the period. The author describes and * the development of literacy by status, gender and region in Britain * structures of patronage and censorship * the fundamental role of the publishing industry * the relation between elite literary and popular cultures * and the remarkable growth of female literacy and publication. Writing and Society is a stunning exploration of the relationship between the growth in popular literacy and the development of new readerships and the authors addressing them. It is the first single volume to provide a year-by-year chronology of political events in relation to cultural production. This overview of debates in literary critical theory and historiography includes facsimile pages with commentary from the most influential books of the period. The author describes and analyses:* the development of literacy by status, gender and region in Britain* structures of p Wheale (English studies, Anglia Polytechnic U.) describes the growth in popular literacy during the early modern period, connecting the development of new readerships with the authors and works which addressed them. Includes a chronology of political events in relation to cultural production. Exploring the relationship between the growth in popular literacy and the development of new readerships and the authors addressing them, this text provides a year-by-year chronology of political events in relation to cultural production