Literature, Satire and the Early Stuart State

Abstract

Andrew McRae examines the relation between literature and politics at a pivotal moment in English history. He argues that the most influential and incisive political satire in this period may be found in manuscript libels, scurrilous pamphlets and a range of other material written and circulated under the threat of censorship. These are the unauthorised texts of early Stuart England. From his analysis of these texts, McRae argues that satire, as the pre-eminent literary mode of discrimination and stigmatisation, helped people make sense of the confusing political conditions of the early Stuart era. It did so partly through personal attacks and partly also through sophisticated interventions into ongoing political and ideological debates. In such forms satire provided resources through which contemporary writers could define new models of political identity and construct new discourses of dissent. This book wil be of interest to political and literary historians alike.

The Spectre of Gondomar in the Wake of <I>A Game at Chess</I>

“…Most libels circulated in manuscript, but some were printed, as was the case here. 19 Conway describes it as a 'printed paper' ('el Papel Impresso', in the Spanish translation), which also makes it clear that the libel was probably in wide circulation -as well as 'legible' to the illiterate -and underscores Bruneau's complaint about the ease with which such texts appeared, and hence the difficulties in suppressing them. 20 the spectre of gondomar in the wake of a game at chess 443 was able to get hold of several, since he sent copies in his despatches to Philip, James, and Conway.…”

Railing Rhymes Revisited: Libels, Scandals, and Early Stuart Politics

“…the only pertinent form of satire'; distinctive 'forms of political interaction' -for instance, a court politics characterized by favorites and scandal -were conducive to the efflorescence of verse libeling. 20 This thesis has much to recommend it. Libel's generic features do fit certain political environments better than others; the sudden decrease in the volume of political verse libels after the death of the last early Stuart favorite in 1628 suggests that a shift in the structure of court politics had a powerful effect on the continued relevance of that particular form of political expression.…”

‘The best help God's people have’: Manuscript Culture and the Construction of Anti-Calvinist Communities in Seventeenth-Century England

“…Corbett was Wren's predecessor at Norwich, and, like Wren, was closely associated with Buckingham in the 1620s. 68 The ties that united the members of Andrewes's Cambridge circle did not only survive their patron's death, but also persisted through less auspicious political times. This is nowhere more apparent, perhaps, than in the rhetorical and material self-presentation of John Cosin's A Scholastical History of the Canon of the Holy Scriptvre.…”