English Literature

Thus James's stories--particularly his later ones--show a marked disregard for any kind of conventional plotting. Many stories are oddly shaped, containing large sections of description only related to the plot by proximity, and others, like the confusing "Two Doctors," do not bother with ...

This essay address the problem of action in William Godwin's writing, comparing his characterization of the ethical decision in An Enquiry concerning Political Justice with his much more uneasy rendering of it in Caleb Williams. The novel, coming between the two editions of Political Justice, seems to change Godwin's mind about the possibility of a clear-cut definition of action. Whereas the work of political philosophy allows the description of moral ideas leading to ethical action, the form of the novel as narrative, which requires examples of enacted decisions, stresses the necessity of the radically unknowable in the decision.

The term ‘Romanticism’ takes on different associations when we consider its geographical extent. This chapter thinks about national configurations of space and time. Scotland was at once a modern producer of literature in the period and a way of imagining an ancient Romance past for modern culture. Scotland reinvents northern spaces, such as the Highlands or the Borders, as literary ones that signify this doubled temporality. Taking as key examples the poetry and novels of James Macpherson, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, and James Hogg, the chapter explores how the legal, economic, and political changes in Scotland’s history after the 1707 Act of Union are translated into centres of literary production that revived the ‘primitive’ past for contemporary consumption. This doubled temporality in turn gives rise to ironic doubling of voice or Gothic tropes in Scottish writing of the period.

That Skelton was in one sense or another a "court poet" has been the cornerstone of most accounts of his life and work. 1 But quite what that term implies is not always immediately clear. As what follows will suggest, the early modern court was a complex and amorphous phenomenon: a mansion of many rooms. Consequently the notion of "court" or "courtly" poetry needs to be treated with care if it is to be of value for an understanding of Skelton's career. This chapter will examine Skelton's engagements with the royal court, both in his poetry and during his career as a writer and scholar, as he gained and lost royal favour and the place close to the centre of political affairs that such favour brought with it. In the small space available here it will not be possible to offer detailed readings of all the relevant texts, but it should be possible to offer suggestions for future research and reflections upon the "courtly" context of the poet's work. We will begin, however, with a brief account of the early Tudor court itself, which demonstrates the need for caution and clarity when discussing even such seemingly uncontentious questions as what were the limits of the court?, who had a place there?, and who could claim to influence its culture?

This chapter focuses on the drama of the late medieval and early Renaissance periods, the time when the religious mystery cycles and the secular morality plays and interludes held sway. This was the period before the building of the professional theaters (the first of which opened in the suburbs of London in the 1560s), during which rather than people "going to the theater," "theater" in the form of plays performed by touring players or members of the local community "came" to people. This drama was thus essentially localized and was designed to fulfill a range of social functions as well as to entertain. It might instruct and confirm its audiences (and actors) in the principles of their religious faith; criticize moral failings such as greed, pride, lust, or overambition; or protest against social injustices such as poverty or political or economic oppression. 1 Because these plays contained such material and dealt with characters that were often personified sins, virtues, or human attributes such as ignorance or understanding, critics have often dismissed them as crudely didactic, socially and intellectually conservative, and lacking the sophistication of later drama. But this is misleading. Many of the plays were experimental and socially progressive. This chapter considers one such play, Henry Medwall's Fulgens and Lucres. As I will suggest, it is both dramatically innovative, playing with its audience's expectations about what constitutes a dramatic performance, and politically sophisticated, dealing with an issue of great sensitivity in an open-ended, accommodating way that neither condemns nor insists upon social change, but allows for a degree of accommodation between social classes. In order to appreciate the distinctive qualities of the play, however, we need to consider it in the context of its original performance. To do so, let us eavesdrop on a curious conversation.

The lurid story of the fall of Anne Boleyn, her trial and condemnation on charges of multiple (and in one case incestuous) adultery, has been used to support many different interpretations of the political and religious history of the reign of Henry VIII. This article argues that the fate of the queen and those accused with her was not the result of wider factional battles or a cynical sacrifice, either to appease a jaded king or enable a shift in religious or diplomatic policy. Nor was it a case of justice catching up with a libidinous woman who was guilty as charged. In fact Anne's fall was far swifter and more dramatic than previous accounts have suggested, the result essentially of just two days of hectic activity at court and their aftermath. Anne fell, it is argued here, not as a result of what she did, but of what she said during the May Day weekend of 1536, in a series of incautious conversations with the men who were to be tried and executed with her.