Writing and society : literacy, print, and politics in Britain, 1590-1660 / Nigel Wheale.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

Machine generated contents note: 1. 'Paper I make my Friend and mind's true Glass': early modern literacy -- Christopher Marlowe's new sin -- Debating early modern literary culture -- 'Vale, soror, anima mea': reading the moment of writing -- 2. Status and literacy: the qualities of people -- From 'degree' to 'political arithmetic: mapping social hierarchy -- titled nobility: 'the Theatre of Hospitality' -- gentry: 'to be idle, and live upon the sweat of others' -- professions and major trades: 'minds ... more thoughtful and full of business' -- Yeomen: 'they that in times past made all France afraid' -- Craftsmen, tradesmen, copyholders: 'Of the fourth sort of men which do not rule' -- Apprentices and servants: 'Seeking service and place' -- Husbandmen, cottagers, labourers, vagrants: literacy at the margins of survival -- 3. 'Towardness': aptitude, gender and rank in early modern education -- Scripture for the boy who drives the plough -- From absey to grammar school -- 'Education is the bringing up of one, not to live alone, but amongst others, because company is our natural cognisance' -- 4. 'Mechanics in the Suburbs of Literature': printing and publishing 1590-1660 -- Printing in renaissance London -- Worshipful Company of Stationers -- 'Assignable productions of the brain': authorship and copyright -- 'Only for you, only to you': patronage, dedications, payment -- 'Let not one Brother oppress another. Do as you would be done unto': printing from revolution to Restoration -- 5. Censorship and state formation: heresy, sedition and the Celtic literary cultures -- 'Peace, plenty, love, truth, terror': defining early modern censorship -- Stationers' Company, overseer of the intellectual economy -- 'Ireland is but swordland': literary patronage, censorship and persecution in the Celtic cultures -- 6. 'Penny merriments, penny godlinesses': new writing for new readers

Writing and Society is a stunning exploration of the relationship between the growth in popular literacy and the development of new readerships and the authors addressing them. It is the first single volume to provide a year-by-year chronology of political events in relation to cultural production.This overview of debates in literary critical theory and historiography includes facsimile pages with commentary from the most influential books of the period. The author describes and analyses:* the development of literacy by status, gender and region in Britain* structures of p.

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