The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature (review)

Reviews 209 Parergon 21.2 (2004) Loewenstein, David and Janet Mueller, The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002; hardback; pp. xi, 1038; RRP £140; ISBN 0521631564. This is one of those perennially useful compendia that no serious student of the Early Modern period can do without. It features a stellar cast of contributors: Stephen Zwicker, Nigel Smith, Thomas Corns, and Graham Parry amongst others who will be familiar to many readers. Indeed the list of contributors itself comprises a useful and thorough guide to those who are providing the impetus and direction for Early Modern studies. Harold Love provides the only Antipodean presence. The book is divided into five sections: four of these are historically organised groupings covering literary culture from the Tudor era to the Restoration. A brief introduction emphasises that the volume’s contributors break down rigid distinctions or major/minor genres and do not relegate texts by Levellers, for instance, to background material. The first section is thematic and in this the distribution and circulation of manuscripts and books is examined in six diverse essays that together provide a stimulating overview of a period in which a Babel of texts was unleashed (I am thinking here of James Holstun’s Pamphlet Wars: Prose in the English Revolution of 1992). The Cambridge History itself aims to add to the cornucopia of seventeenthcentury scholarship by including marginal figures, such as Anna Trapnel ignored in previous large-scale literary histories such as those produced by Douglas Bush. Nigel Smith in his Poetry and Revolution has already done much to remedy deficits in our appreciation of the marginal poetry of the era and The Cambridge History follows current theoretical thinking in its consideration of material that is not in the narrow sense a ‘literary’ text. As a result, the reader will not find separate essays on figures such as Ben Jonson, but instead may choose to be immersed in the literary culture of the metropolis by Lawrence Manley or that of the household by Helen Wilcox. The undergraduate looking for explication of difficult texts or a guide to the turbulent history of the period may be disappointed, but anyone who has already navigated a little way into the Early Modern period will find many more avenues of inquiry to follow. Many of the essays will lead readers to the books from which contributions have been formed. Joshua Scodel’s rhyming and drinking Cavaliers, for instance, can also be found in his Excess and the Mean in Early Modern Literature. To aid this process, the select bibliography (primary and secondary texts) is impressive 210 Reviews Parergon 21.2 (2004) and there is also a chronological outline of events and texts. This section groups the publications of the more prolific figures together, in an unusual but ultimately serviceable format. If there is any criticism that can be made of a volume which will set a standard for the future, it is the absence of any consideration of the influence of continental literatures. But then since the work of Mario Praz, so many decades ago, no-one seems willing to tackle the Spanish and Italian antecedents of much courtly and Cavalier verse. Another omission is the relationship of much of the poetry of the era to the fine arts and especially music. In both urban and rural settings music continued to be enjoyed during the Interregnum and provided an aural context for the production, reception and transmission of many texts that lose much of their character and meaning when read just as words on paper. Nevertheless, The Cambridge History of Early Modern Literature remains a thorough and indispensable guide to the era through the lens of the best literary and historical scholarship of the new millennium. Dosia Reichardt Department of English James Cook University Lowe, K. J. P., Nuns’ Chronicles and Convent Culture in Renaissance and CounterReformation Italy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003; hardback; pp. xvi, 437; 42 b/w illustrations; RRP £60, US$90; ISBN 0521621917. In this handsomely produced and richly illustrated book, K.J.P. Lowe brings together the fruits of her research over the last 15 years on nuns’ chronicles...