Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Modes and means of literary production, circulation and reception
- 2 The Tudor era from the Reformation to Elizabeth I
- 3 The era of Elizabeth and James VI
- 4 The earlier Stuart era
- 5 The Civil War and Commonwealth era
- 21 Literature and national identity
- 22 Literature and religion
- 23 Literature and London
- 24 Literature and the household
- 25 Alternative sites for literature
- 26 From Revolution to Restoration in English literary culture
- Chronological outline of historical events and texts in Britain, 1528–1674, with list of selected manuscripts
- Select bibliography (primary and secondary sources)
- Index
- References
23 - Literature and London
from 5 - The Civil War and Commonwealth era
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
By
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Modes and means of literary production, circulation and reception
- 2 The Tudor era from the Reformation to Elizabeth I
- 3 The era of Elizabeth and James VI
- 4 The earlier Stuart era
- 5 The Civil War and Commonwealth era
- 21 Literature and national identity
- 22 Literature and religion
- 23 Literature and London
- 24 Literature and the household
- 25 Alternative sites for literature
- 26 From Revolution to Restoration in English literary culture
- Chronological outline of historical events and texts in Britain, 1528–1674, with list of selected manuscripts
- Select bibliography (primary and secondary sources)
- Index
- References
Summary
London twas thou that didst thy Prince betray
And could thy sable vent no other way.
Fragment of anonymous elegy on Charles I,
Cardiff Central Library, ms 1.482, fo. 33vContexts and conditions
As Chapter 21 in this volume demonstrates, the civil crisis of the mid-century was one that embraced three kingdoms and a principality. It drew England into several armed conflicts with other west European states: most significantly, that other maritime and Protestant power, the United Provinces. Additionally, the literary consequences of the war of the three kingdoms, and the First Dutch War (1652–4), were felt in the English language used in the provinces, in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, in the Celtic language cultures of these places, and in Dutch literature.
London, however, was at the heart of the Civil War, and understanding its unique role is one of the keys to understanding the nature of the English Revolution and the literary innovations of these years. London was important not merely because it was the capital city of the nation, the major centre of population and of commerce. It was also near the places where government occurred and where the theatre of state played itself out. London’s peculiar urban culture gave the capital a life of its own. We might more accurately say, a set of lives, since in the twenty years of Civil War, revolution and experimentation with non-monarchical forms of government, various forces would emerge from London culture and have a decisive effect on the turn of events in the nation at large.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature , pp. 714 - 736Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
References
and (eds.), Political Culture and Cultural Politics in Early Modern England: Essays Presented to David Underdown, Manchester University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
, Neighbourhood and Society: A London Suburb in the Seventeenth Century, Cambridge University Press, 1987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London’s Overseas Traders, 1550–1653, Princeton University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
, A Second Fiery Flying Roule, London, 1649. Mod. edn of both in A Collection of Ranter Writings from the Seventeenth Century, ed. , London: Junction Books, 1983.Google Scholar
, ‘The Church in England, 1646–1660’, in (ed.), The Interregnum: The Quest for Settlement, 1646–1660, London, Macmillan, 1972.Google Scholar
(ed.), Poetry and Revolution: An Anthology of British Verse, 1625–60, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.Google Scholar
, Catalogue of the Pamphlets, Books, Newspapers, and Manuscripts Relating to the Civil War, the Commonwealth, and the Restoration, Collected by George Thomason, 1640–1661, 2 vols., London: William Clowes and Sons, 1908.Google Scholar
and (eds.), Londinopolis: Essays in the Cultural and Social History of Early Modern London, Manchester University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
, ‘“That Sober Liberty”: Marvell’s Cromwell in 1654’, in (ed.), The Golden and the Brazen World: Papers in Literature and History 1650–1800, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.Google Scholar
, The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making, University of Chicago Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, A Discourse Consisting of Motives for The Enlargement and Freedome of Trade ([23 April] 1645).
, Inventing a Republic: The Political Culture of the English Commonwealth, 1649–1653, Manchester University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
, Discourses of Martyrdom in English Literature 1563–1694, Cambridge University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
with , The Antichrist’s Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists and Players in Post-Reformation England, New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
, ‘Digger Writing and Rural Dissent in the English Revolution: Representing England as a Common Treasury’, in The Country and the City Revisited: England and the Politics of Culture, 1550–1850, ed. and (Cambridge University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
, Representing Revolution in Milton and his Contemporaries: Religion, Politics, and Polemics in Radical Puritanism, Cambridge University Press, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (eds.), Politics, Poetics, and Hermeneutics in Milton’s Prose, Cambridge University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
, ‘Edward Crouch (c. 1622–1676): A Poor Printer in Seventeenth-century London’, Journal of the Print History Society n.s. 1 (2000).Google Scholar
, Complete Prose Works of John Milton, ed. et al., 8 vols., New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953–82.Google Scholar
and , British Newspapers and Periodicals, 1641–1700: A Short-Title Catalogue of Serials Printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, and British America, New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1987.Google Scholar
, Writing the English Republic: Poetry, Rhetoric and Politics, 1627–1660, Cambridge University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
, Civil War and Restoration in the Three Stuart Kingdoms: The Career of Randal MacDonnell, Marquis of Antrim, 1609–1683 (Cambridge University Press, 1993).Google Scholar
, The Picture of the Counsel of State, 1649, in Freedom in Arms: A Selection of Leveller Writings, ed. , London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1975.Google Scholar
, Censorship and Interpretation: The Conditions of Writing and Reading in Early Modern England, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.Google Scholar
, ‘“Give Me the Sociable Pocket-Books … ”: Humphrey Moseley’s Serial Publication of Octavo Play Collections’, Publishing History 38 (1995).Google Scholar
, London and the Outbreak of the Puritan Revolution: City Government and National Politics, 1625–43, London: Oxford University Press, 1961.Google Scholar
, Secret Rites and Secret Writing: Royalist Literature, 1641–1660, Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
, Cavaliers, Clubs, and Literary Culture: Sir John Mennes, James Smith, and the Order of the Fancy, Cranbury, NJ, and London: Associated University Presses, 1994.Google Scholar
, The Invention of the Newspaper: English Newsbooks, 1641–1649, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.Google Scholar
, Literature and Revolution in England 1640–1660, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
, Perfection Proclaimed: Language and Literature in English Radical Religion, 1640–1660, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.Google Scholar
, L’immaginazione repubblicana: Sparta e Israele nel dibattito filosoficopolitico dell’etd di Cromwell (Florence: Le Lettere, 1991).Google Scholar
, The Cry of a Stone, [London:] 1654. Mod. edn, ed. , Tempe, AZ: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 2000.Google Scholar
, London and the Outbreak of the Puritan Revolution: City Government and National Politics, 1625–43 (Oxford University Press, 1961)Google Scholar
, Poems, &c., written upon several occasions, and to several persons, London: T. W. for H. Mosely, 1645. 7 edns by 1694. Mod. edn, Poems of Edmund Waller, ed. , 2 vols., London: Routledge, and New York: E. P. Dutton, 1904. Rpt, New York: Greenwood Press, 1968.Google Scholar
, Short Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America, and of English Books Printed in Other Countries, 1641–1700, 3 vols., 2nd edn, New York: , 1982–98.Google Scholar
, Drama and Politics in the English Civil War, Cambridge University Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, ‘Views from the Bridge: Revolution and Restoration in Seventeenth-Century York’, Past and Present 170 (February 2001) –51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Origins of Democratic Culture: Printing, Petitions and the Public Sphere in Early Modern England (Princeton University Press, 2000)Google Scholar