Literature and Culture in Early Modern London

In the two hundred years from 1475 London was transformed from a medieval commune into a metropolis of half a million people, a capital city and a major European trading centre. New possibilities emerged for cultural exchange and combination, social and political order, and literary expression. Integrating literary and historical analysis, and drawing on recent work in literary theory and cultural studies, Literature and Culture in Early Modern London provides a comprehensive account of the changing image and influence of London in lyrics, ballads, jests, epics, satires, plays, pageants, chronicles, treatises, sermons and official documents. Lawrence Manley shows how the literature and culture of London contributed to the new structures of capitalism, the process of ‘behaviour urbanisation’, and a paradoxical liberation of the individual through the city’s concentrated power.

• First ever comprehensive account of the literature of early modern London: an essential academic reference text • Massive work of scholarship by world expert on the literature and culture of early modern London • Sets the literature of early modern London in the context of recent work in historical, cultural, literary and theoretical research

Introduction; Part I. The Invention of London: 1. The city and humanism; 2. London and the languages of Tudor complaint; Part II. Fictions of Settlement: 3. From matron to monster: London and the languages of urban description; 4. The emergence of a Tudor capital: Spenser’s epic vision; 5. Scripts for the pageant: the ceremonies of London; Part III. Techniques of Settlement: 6. To be a man in print: pamphlet morals and urban ideology; 7. Essential difference: the projects of satire; 8. The uses of enchantment: Jacobean city comedy and romance; Part IV. The Dissemination of Urban Culture: 9. Metropolis: the creation of an august style; 10. In place of place: London and liberty in the puritan revolution.