This series provides accessible yet provocative introductions to a wide range of literatures. The volumes will initiate and deepen the reader's understanding of key literary movements, periods and genres, and consider debates that inform the past, present and future of literary study. Resources such as glossaries of key terms and details of archives and internet sites are also provided, making each volume a comprehensive critical guide.
Renaissance Literature
Siobhan Keenan
This guide opens with an overview of the contexts in which English Renaissance literature was produced, and a discussion of its contemporary and subsequent critical reception. The following chapters survey Renaissance drama, poetry and prose and provide illustrative case studies of key texts as well as a guide to further reading. The final chapter summarises significant developments in English Renaissance literary culture, and discusses the future direction of Renaissance literary scholarship.
Key Features
* Detailed readings of Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Milton's 'Lycidas', Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, Shakespeare's Sonnets, Venus and Adonis and Hamlet, Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Jonson's The Alchemist, Lanyer's 'The Description of Cookham', Bacon's Essays, Donne's sermons, Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller and Wroth's The Countess of Montgomery's Urania
* A broad overview of Renaissance literature and its contexts
* An accessible introduction to Renaissance literary criticism, including past and present debates about the Renaissance 'canon'
* A variety of study aids, including end-of-chapter summaries of key points, a glossary of literary and historical terms, a chronology, advice on essay writing, sample essay questions and plans, and a guide to further reading and electronic research resources.
Siobhan Keenan is a Senior Lecturer in English at De Montfort University, Leicester.

Siobhan Keenan is a Senior Lecturer in English at De Montfort University, Leicester. She has published a number of essays on Renaissance theatre, and is the author of Travelling Players in Shakespeare's England (Palgrave, 2002), which was short-listed for the Theatre Society Book Prize 2002. She is currently editing an anonymous Caroline play for the Malone Society; and has research interests in Shakespeare, Renaissance literature, and early modern women's writing.

Series Preface; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; About this Book; Chronology' Introduction; The Historical Context; The Critical Context; Chapter 1 Drama; The Professional Stage; Private and Occasional Drama; Attitudes to Drama; Comedy; Tragedy
History; Romance & Tragicomedy; Court Masques; Chapter 2 Poetry; Pastoral Verse; The Epic; The Epyllion; The Sonnet Sequence; The Lyric; The Country-House Poem; Chapter 3 Prose; Non-Fiction; Fiction; The Essay; Sermons and Devotions; Romances; Conclusion; Student Resources; Essay Writing Advice; Sample Essay Questions and Plans; Glossary
Guide to Further Reading; Index