The Oxford History of Classical Reception (OHCREL) is designed to offer a comprehensive investigation of the numerous and diverse ways in which literary texts of the classical world have stimulated responses and refashioning by English writers. Covering the full range of English literature from the early Middle Ages to the present day, OHCREL both synthesizes existing scholarship and presents cutting-edge new research, employing an international team of expert contributors for each of the five volumes. OHCREL endeavours to interrogate, rather than inertly reiterate, conventional assumptions about literary 'periods', the processes of canon-formation, and the relations between literary and non-literary discourse. It conceives of 'reception' as a complex process of dialogic exchange and, rather than offering large cultural generalizations, it engages in close critical analysis of literary texts. It explores in detail the ways in which English writers' engagement with classical literature casts as much light on the classical originals as it does on the English writers' own cultural context. This second volume, and third to appear in the series, covers the years 1558-1660, and explores the reception of the ancient genres and authors in English Renaissance literature, engaging with the major, and many of the minor, writers of the period, including Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, and Jonson. Separate chapters examine the Renaissance institutions and contexts which shape the reception of antiquity, and an annotated bibliography provides substantial material for further reading.

The Oxford History of Classical Reception (OHCREL) is designed to offer a comprehensive investigation of the numerous and diverse ways in which literary texts of the classical world have stimulated responses and refashioning by English writers. Covering the full range of English literature from the early Middle Ages to the present day, OHCREL both synthesizes existing scholarship and presents cutting-edge new research, employing an international team of expert contributors for each of the five volumes. OHCREL endeavours to interrogate, rather than inertly reiterate, conventional assumptions about literary 'periods', the processes of canon-formation, and the relations between literary and non-literary discourse. It conceives of 'reception' as a complex process of dialogic exchange and, rather than offering large cultural generalizations, it engages in close critical analysis of literary texts. It explores in detail the ways in which English writers' engagement with classical literature casts as much light on the classical originals as it does on the English writers' own cultural context. This second volume covers the years 1558-1660, and explores the reception of the ancient genres and authors in English Renaissance literature, engaging with the major, and many of the minor, writers of the period, including Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, and Jonson. Separate chapters examine the Renaissance institutions and contexts which shape the reception of antiquity, and an annotated bibliography provides substantial material for further reading.

The ancient Greek romances of Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus were widely imitated by early modern writers such as Miguel de Cervantes, Philip Sidney, and Mary Wroth. Like their Greek models, Renaissance romances used ekphrasis, or verbal descriptions of visual representation, as a tool for characterization. The Emblematics of the Self shows how the women, foreigners, and non-Christians of these tales reveal their identities and desires in their responses to the ‘verbal pictures’ of romance. Elizabeth B. Bearden illuminates how ‘verbal pictures’ enliven characterization in English, Spanish, and Neolatin romances from 1552 to 1621. She notes the capacity for change among characters — such as cross-dressed Amazons, shepherdish princesses, and white Mauritanians — who traverse transnational cultural and aesthetic environments. Engaging and rigorous, The Emblematics of the Self breaks new ground in understanding hegemonic and cosmopolitan European conceptions of the ‘other,’ as well as new possibilities for early modern identities, in an increasingly global Renaissance.

In exploring links between the early modern English theatre and France, Richard Hillman focuses on Shakespeare’s deployment of genres whose dominant Italian models and affinities might seem to leave little scope for French ones. The author draws on specific and unsuspected points of contact, whilst also pointing out a broad tendency by the dramatist, to draw on French material, both dramatic and non-dramatic, to inflect comic forms in potentially tragic directions. The resulting internal tensions are evident from the earliest comedies to the latest tragicomedies (or ‘romances’). While its many original readings will interest specialists and students of Shakespeare, this book will have broader appeal: it contributes significantly, from an unfamiliar angle, to the contemporary discourse concerned with early modern English culture within the European context. At the same time, it is accessible to a wide range of readers, with translations provided for all non-English citations.

Reading Material in Early Modern England rediscovers the practices and representations of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English readers. By telling their stories and insisting upon their variety, Brayman Hackel displaces both the singular 'ideal' reader of literacy theory and the elite male reader of literacy history.