Contributed essays.

The last twenty-five years have seen exciting new developments in scholarly work on Lady Mary Wroth, whose Urania and Pamphilia to Amphilanthus constitute the first romance and the first sonnet sequence to be published by an Englishwoman. Wroth's writings enter into a suggestive and gendered dialogue with the lyric and narrative works of her uncle, Sir Philip Sidney, even as they carve out a place for her own literary experiments. This volume gathers together some of the most striking recent criticism addressing Wroth's oeuvre; many of its essays also discuss the intellectual and cultural contexts in which she wrote. The collection is prefaced by an extended editorial overview of scholarship in the field.

Elizabeth I of England, as a female monarch who did not heed counsel, particularly in the events surrounding the marriage proposal from the much younger Roman Catholic Duke of Alençon and Anjou (c 1579–1586), aroused anxiety and frustration in her Protestant male courtiers. Two of these, Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser, expressed their dissatisfaction about the “courteous cruell” queen in their literary works and letters. The relationship between the two men was also complex, united as they were in politics, arguing for a strong interventionist role for England in Europe, but divided in poetics. Sidney advocated a classical model for English vernacular poetry while Spenser favoured a homegrown English strain harking back to Chaucer and Skelton. Thoroughly researched and written in an accessible style with close readings of all the major works of Sidney and Spenser that are linked to Elizabeth I, along with a look at their correspondence, this book provides a new way of interweaving the narratives of history and literature, and will be of interest to the academician and the lay reader alike in its analysis of the workings of gender, desire, politics and poetics in the reign of Elizabeth I.

Presented in two volumes, this Ashgate Research Companion assesses the current state of scholarship on members of the Sidney family and their impact, as historical and/or literary figures in the period 1500-1700. Volume 2, Literature, begins with an exploration of the Sidneys' books and manuscripts and how they circulated, followed by an overview of the contributions of select family members in the genres of romance, drama, poetry, psalms, and prose. These essays outline major controversies and areas for further research, as well as conducting literary analysis.

Few families have contributed as much to English history and literature-indeed, to the arts generally-as the Sidney family. This two-volume Ashgate Research Companion assesses the current state of scholarship on family members and their impact, as historical and literary figures, in the period 1500-1700. Volume 1: Lives, begins with an overview of the Sidneys and politics, providing some links to court events, entertainments, literature, and patronage. The volume gives biographies to prominent high-profile Sidney women and men, as well as sections assessing the influence of the family in the areas of the English court, international politics, patronage, religion, public entertainment, the visual arts, and music. The focus of the second volume is the literary contributions of Sir Philip Sidney; Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; Lady Mary Wroth; Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester; and William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.

Becoming a father was the main way that an individual in the English Renaissance could be treated as a full member of the community. Yet patriarchal identity was by no means as secure as is often assumed: when poets invoke the idea of paternity in love poetry and other forms, they are therefore invoking all the anxieties that a culture with contradictory notions of sexuality imposed. This study takes these anxieties seriously, arguing that writers such as Sidney and Spenser deployed images of childbirth to harmonize public and private spheres, to develop a full sense of selfhood in their verse, and even to come to new accommodations between the sexes. Shakespeare, Donne and Jonson, in turn, saw the appeal of the older poets' aims, but resisted their more radical implications. The result is a fiercely personal yet publicly-committed poetry that wouldn't be seen again until the time of the Romantics.

Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, was renowned in her own time for her metrical translation of biblical Psalms, several original poems, translations from French and Italian, and her literary patronage. William Shakespeare used her Antonius as a source, Edmund Spenser celebrated her original poems, John Donne praised her Psalmes, and Lady Mary Wroth and Aemilia Lanyer depicted her as an exemplary poet. Arguably the first Englishwoman to be celebrated as a literary figure, she has also attracted considerable modern attention, including more than two hundred critical studies. This volume offers a brief introduction to her life and an extensive overview of the critical reception of her works, reprints some of the most essential and least accessible essays about her life and writings, and includes a full bibliography.