Reimagining Constancy in the Literature of the English Civil Wars

Reimagining Constancy in the English Civil Wars reveals writers' reliance on conservative language during a radical period, using cases of familiar and understudied genres to justify opposing positions in controversies. It also highlights the importance of constancy in retaining and reimagining inherited formal structures and strategies, with women's writing and non-canonical texts highlighting cross-factional conservatism and international investment in the English Revolution.

Format: Hardback
Length: 280 pages
Publication date: 30 September 2024
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Reimagining Constancy in the English Civil Wars reveals the reliance of writers on conservative language during a period of radical change in English history. Through case studies of familiar genres such as the country house poem, love lyric, and epic, as well as understudied ones such as the emblem book and prose romance, the book demonstrates how the conservative language of constancy was employed to justify opposing positions in the most contentious debates of the time, including monarchical rule, ecclesiastical order, Catholicism, and England's relationship with the wider world. At the same time, writers like John Milton, Andrew Marvell, Hester Pulter, Percy Herbert, and others establish the virtues of constancy in literary tradition, as they use it to retain and reimagine inherited formal structures and strategies. This book thus highlights cross-factional conservatism and international investment in what scholars often refer to as the English Revolution, using women's writing and non-canonical texts to shed light on these aspects of the period.

Weight: 572g
Dimension: 240 x 160 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781399524766