Freedom and censorship in early modern English literature / edited by Sophie Chiari.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Chiari, Sophie, editor.

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

Series:

Routledge studies in Renaissance literature and culture; 48.

Routledge studies in Renaissance literature and culture ; 48

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

England.

Censorship--England--History--16th century.

Censorship.

Censorship--England--History--17th century.

English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700--Censorship.

English literature.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xii, 235 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Routledge, 2019.

Summary:

"Broadening the notion of censorship, this volume explores the transformative role played by early modern censors in the fashioning of a distinct English literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In early modern England, the Privy Council, the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Stationers' Company, and the Master of the Revels each dealt with their own prerogatives and implemented different forms of censorship, with the result that authors penning both plays and satires had to juggle with various authorities and unequal degrees of freedom from one sector to the other. Text and press control thus did not give way to systematic intervention but to particular responses adapted to specific texts in a specific time. If the restrictions imposed by regulation practices are duly acknowledged in this edited collection, the different contributors are also keen to enhance the positive impact of censorship on early modern literature. The most difficult task consists in finding the exact moment when the balance tips in favour of creativity, and the zone where, in matters of artistic freedom, the disadvantages outweigh the benefits. This is what the twelve chapters of the volume proceed to do. Thanks to a wide variety of examples, they show that, in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, regulations seldom prevented writers to make themselves heard, albeit through indirect channels. By contrast, in the 1630s, the increased supremacy of the Church seemed to tip the balance the other way"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

General introduction: to be seen and allowed: early modern regulation practices / Sophie Chiari

An incident in the history of English book burning / Edward Paleit

Satire, immoderation and the bishops: ban of 1599 / Per Sivefors

"I like not this": censorship, self-censorship and collaboration in early modern dramatic manuscripts / Janet Clare

The limits of a censor's authority: the case of the masters of the revels / Richard Dutton

Revisiting an old controversy: censorship in Doctor Faustus / Roy Eriksen

"An you talk in blank verse": the poetics of liberty in As you like it / Dympna Callaghan

The Malcontent's fool, censorship, and the construction of the subject / Pelin Dogan

"Let him speak no more": trust, censorship, and early modern anti-confession / Joseph Sterrett

What Florio did not translate: the return of the repressed in the English rendering of Montaigne's essays / Jonathan Pollock

Spenser's strategies of indirect representation in the Faerie Queene (1590) / Laetitia Sansonetti

(Self-)censorship in Lady Mary Wroth's the Countess of Montgomery's Urania (1621-1630) / Aurélie Griffin

"No cloudy stuff to puzzle the brain": "fair editing" and censorship in John Benson's edition of Shakespeare's poems (1640) / Line Cottegnies

Coda: early modern English censorship in European context / Roger Chartier.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-230) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

9781138366534

1138366536

OCLC:

1061863893

Publisher Number:

99981496889