Early Seventeenth Century Verse Miscellany

<p>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.</p>