The Early Seventeenth Century Verse Miscellany

Directions and Re-Directions

Cedric C. Brown

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040395165
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism History & Theory
• Index: Literature

A deeply researched study of the social transmission and adaptation of poetry texts originating in pre-Civil War England, traced through the seventeenth century and sometimes beyond. Both manuscript and printed miscellanies are used, as well as other forms of publication, and case studies unusually span elite, popular and provincial audiences. As far as possible, texts are placed according to their original contexts and functions ("Directions") then followed through various answerings, parodies, co-optings and social, commercial and political adaptations ("Re-directions"). Case studies choose examples which have not been fully researched, so that a large amount of new material is presented from poets writing in a variety of environments. Results are sometimes startling and often amusing, giving a vivid sense of how poems were read and used in material exchange and providing a picture of literary activity far removed from what traditional, canonical literary history has often assumed.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Why “directed” and “re-directed” texts?
• 2 Songs: Performances, provocations, and opportunistic responses
• 3 William Browne writes death, and networks in Oxford
• 4 William Browne's later friendships and opportunities; re-directions in a new reign
• 5 The courtier poet Aurelian Townshend treads on eggshells; young Katherine Philips understands
• 6 The development of Strode's performative identity
• 7 The popular Strode: Three stories of direction and re-direction
• 8 Pastoral pictures, topographies, and working under Laud
• 9 Leonard Wheatcroft, Derbyshire artisan, church clerk, in dialogue with Thomas Randolph and the gentry
• 10 Final words: Challenges and delights
• Appendix 1: William Strode and Elizabeth Lucy/Ferrers/Cromwell – a quiet friendship to discover?
• Appendix 2: Merton College and the scribe of Folger MS V. a. 345
• Appendix 3: Harley MS 6931, Devon politics, and the socio-religious complexities of poetry collecting in 1630s Christ Church
• Index