First published in 1954, this title is a companion to The Anatomy of Poetry as a literary guide for the student reader. Writing that students generally find it more challenging to analyse a passage of prose than a piece of poetry, Marjorie Boulton takes a systematic approach to the technical elements of prose, considering form, vocabulary, rhythm and the application of historical context. With suggestions for further reading and practical, lucid advice, this reissue will be of particular value to students of English Literature in need of a constructive study aid.

It is impossible to appreciate poetry fully without some knowledge of the various aspects of poetic technique. First published in 1953, with a second edition in 1982, this title explains all the usual technical terms in an accessible manner. Marjorie Boulton shows that it is possible to approach a poem from a business-like perspective without losing enjoyment. This reissue will be of particular value to students as well as those with a general interest in the specifics of poetry.

The hardline, uncompromising theology preached by the English Church in the 16th and 17th Centuries had disturbing effects on the literature of the period. This study, originally published in 1983, assesses the importance of the prevailing religious climate to the work of several major writers, both in and out of sympathy with the contemporary protestantism. It is argued that the accepted view of the period as essentially 'Christian-Humanist' obscures the harsher aspects of a Calvinism which throws into relief the agonies of a writer like Donne, the acceptances of one like George Herbert. Many writers rejected more or less explicitly the Christian dogma, through the heroic assertion of human potential in Shakespearean and other dramatic characters, the nihilism of Marlowe, or the secular rationalism of Bacon and Hobbes. Milton is central to this complex weft of belief and rejection, piety and atheism, acceptance of predestination and determination to accept fate, that characterises the period. Finally, Sinfield shows how this protestantism disintegrated under the strain of internal contradictions and external pressures, and in the process helped to stimulate secularism. In this original and clearly written book, scholarship is deployed unobstrusively to place many major works in an unaccustomed and stimulating perspective.

Business and the businessman have had a fundamental place in American society since the inception of the nation. This tenet, the ‘gospel of wealth’, is a central concern in the novels of Theodore Dreiser and his contemporaries. First published in 1987, this study sets this group of writers in their historical context and shows how they elaborated the idea of wealth as an object of quasi-religious quest. What had previously been associated with disease and darkness, avarice and dishonour, now came to emblematise the virtues of thrift, prudence and diligence. The underlying argument is that the dominant group of a society legitimises its power through the appropriation of the vocabulary of religion, and the American business leaders were successful in doing this both in their own practice and through the more insidious medium of art. A detailed analysis, this reissue will be of particular value to students of American literature with an interest in the relationship between linguistic symbols and social order, and historical attitudes towards wealth in literature.

This title, first published in 1960, is intended primarily to increase the understanding of drama among those who do not have easy access to the live theatre and who, therefore, study plays mainly in print. The author’s emphasis is on Shakespeare, but most forms of drama receive some attention. A lucid and lively study of the techniques of plot, dialogue and characterization will help the reader to a deeper appreciated of the problems and successes of the dramatist.

This fascinating title, first published in 1922, presents a detailed overview of the life and works of Shakespeare. Alden first considers Shakespeare’s Elizabethan context, alongside exploring the Classical and Italian foundations, political theories, concepts and theatrical trends that influenced his works. Next, a comprehensive biography provides insight into Shakespeare’s probable education, relationships and contemporaries. The final sections are devoted to the genres into which Shakespeare’s works have been categorised, with full analyses of and backgrounds to the poems, histories, comedies and tragedies. An important study, this title will be of particular value to students in need of a comprehensive overview of Shakespeare’s life and works, as well as the more general inquisitive reader.

The comic grotesque is a powerful element in a great deal of Elizabethan literature, but one which has attracted scant critical attention. In this study, first published in 1980, Neil Rhodes examines the nature of the grotesque in late sixteenth-century culture, and shows the part it played in the development of new styles of comic prose and drama in Elizabethan England. In defining ‘grotesque’, the author considers the stylistic techniques of Rabelais and Aretino, as well as the graphic arts. He discusses the use of the grotesque in Elizabethan pamphlet literature and the early satirical journalists such as Nashe, and argues that their work in turn stimulated the growth of satirical drama at the end of the century. The second part of the book explains the importance of Nashe’s achievement for Shakespeare and Jonson, concluding that the linguistic resources of English Renaissance comedy are peculiarly – and perhaps uniquely – physical.