Contributors to this volume examine the question of transmission and of the educational procedures in16th- and 17th-century England by emphasizing deviant practices that questioned, reassessed or even challenged pre-established cultural norms and traditions. Chapters analyse how the interrelated processes of initiation, transmission and transgression operated at the heart of early modern culture, and how poets and playwrights appropriated these cultural processes in their works.

Part 1 Theories and Philosophies of Transmission: Ship of Fools: Foucault and the Shakespeareans. Shakespeare's paradoxes of excellence. Shakespeare and the atomist heritage. Part 2 Initiation Practices: Hilliard and Sidney's 'rule of the eye'. Mercurial apprentices in city comedies. The courtesan and her mother in Middleton's A Mad World, my Masters. Rumour and second-hand knowledge in Much Ado About Nothing. Part 3 Political and Spiritual Issues: Marlowe's political balancing act: religion and translatio imperii in Doctor Faustus (B). Magic, manipulation and misrule in Doctor Faustus and Measure for Measure. Shakespeare and the violation of sanctuary. Limited being: revising Hamlet in The Revenger's Tragedy. Part 4 Transgressions of Gender and Genre: Cephalus and Procris: the transmission of a myth in early modern England. Out-Oviding Ovid in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis. From intertextual to gender transgression in Middleton's The Witch. 'Transversing' and 'transprosing': the case of George Villiers's The Rehearsal (1671). Romeo and Juliet in Brazil: Grupo Galpao's Romeu e Julieta. Afterword: 'Love's transgression'.

Sophie Chiari is Professor of Early Modern Literature at Blaise Pascal University, Clermont-Ferrand (CERHAC, French National Centre for Scientific Research).