Fulke Greville and the Culture of the English Renaissance
Russ Leo, Katrin Röder, and Freya Sierhuis
Abstract
This book intends to provide a comprehensive reappraisal of the work of the Renaissance poet and politician Sir Fulke Greville, whose political career stretched from the heyday of the Elizabethan age into the Stuart period. While Greville’s literary achievements have traditionally been overshadowed by those of his more famous friend Sir Philip Sidney, his oeuvre comprises a highly diverse range of works of striking force and originality, comprising a sonnet sequence, a biography of Sir Philip Sidney, a series of philosophical treatises, and two closet dramas set in the Ottoman Empire. The essa ... More
This book intends to provide a comprehensive reappraisal of the work of the Renaissance poet and politician Sir Fulke Greville, whose political career stretched from the heyday of the Elizabethan age into the Stuart period. While Greville’s literary achievements have traditionally been overshadowed by those of his more famous friend Sir Philip Sidney, his oeuvre comprises a highly diverse range of works of striking force and originality, comprising a sonnet sequence, a biography of Sir Philip Sidney, a series of philosophical treatises, and two closet dramas set in the Ottoman Empire. The essays gathered in this volume investigate the intersections between poetics, poetic form, and political and religious thought in Greville’s work, arguing how they participate in all of the most important debates of the post-Reformation period, such as the nature of grace and the status of evil; the exercise of sovereignty and scope and limits of political power; and the nature of civil and religious idolatry. They examine Greville’s career as a courtier and patron, and foreground both his own concerns with the posthumous life of authors and their works, and his continuing importance during the Interregnum and Restoration periods.
Keywords:
Renaissance,
Greville,
Fulke,
Sidney,
Philip,
poetics,
sonnet,
Reformation,
political thought—early modern,
religion—early modern,
Ottoman Empire,
politicians—early modern
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2018 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198823445 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2019 |
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198823445.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Russ Leo, editor
Assistant Professor, Princeton University
Katrin Röder, editor
Lecturer in English Literature and Culture, University of Potsdam
Freya Sierhuis, editor
Senior Lecturer, Department of English, University of York
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