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Bad Poetry? New Perspectives on the Value of Sixteenth-Century Literature
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Edited by:
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With contributions by:
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2025
About this book
An examination of the messy, often contradictory processes of poetic production and reception. The volume offers an invitation to read widely, question deeply and think critically.
In the wake of C. S. Lewis's still-contested taxonomy of 'drab' and 'golden' poetic ages, this volume rethinks the critical and aesthetic stakes of bad poetry in early modern England-not to dismiss it, but to ask what it meant, how it functioned, and why it mattered.
Revisiting poets like Arthur Gorges, Walter Ralegh, Thomas Lodge, and Thomas Churchyard, contributors interrogate the literary marketplace, aesthetic judgment, and evolving generic conventions between 1520 and 1609. Through close readings of works by Spenser, Shakespeare, Skelton, and others-alongside notorious outliers like Richard Stanyhurst-the collection considers poetic failure as both historical artifact and interpretive opportunity. From the clumsy excess of hexameters to the ideological weight of neo-Latin verse, from scribal emendations of Mother Hubberds Tale to the uncertain metrical charge of the lengthy fourteener, these essays reveal how poets and readers alike navigated shifting ideas of taste, style, and literary value.
Grounded in close reading, textual scholarship, and formal analysis, this collection offers a model of sustained, comparative literary criticism that is both theoretically engaged and deeply historicised. It foregrounds the interpretive value of stylistic awkwardness and aesthetic resistance while charting the long afterlives of poetic judgment from Lewis to the present.
In the wake of C. S. Lewis's still-contested taxonomy of 'drab' and 'golden' poetic ages, this volume rethinks the critical and aesthetic stakes of bad poetry in early modern England-not to dismiss it, but to ask what it meant, how it functioned, and why it mattered.
Revisiting poets like Arthur Gorges, Walter Ralegh, Thomas Lodge, and Thomas Churchyard, contributors interrogate the literary marketplace, aesthetic judgment, and evolving generic conventions between 1520 and 1609. Through close readings of works by Spenser, Shakespeare, Skelton, and others-alongside notorious outliers like Richard Stanyhurst-the collection considers poetic failure as both historical artifact and interpretive opportunity. From the clumsy excess of hexameters to the ideological weight of neo-Latin verse, from scribal emendations of Mother Hubberds Tale to the uncertain metrical charge of the lengthy fourteener, these essays reveal how poets and readers alike navigated shifting ideas of taste, style, and literary value.
Grounded in close reading, textual scholarship, and formal analysis, this collection offers a model of sustained, comparative literary criticism that is both theoretically engaged and deeply historicised. It foregrounds the interpretive value of stylistic awkwardness and aesthetic resistance while charting the long afterlives of poetic judgment from Lewis to the present.
Author / Editor information
Contributor: Richard Danson Brown
RICHARD DANSON BROWN is Professor of English Literature at The Open University
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Contributor: Andrew Hadfield
ANDREW HADFIELD is Professor of English at the University of Sussex
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Contributor: Andrew Hadfield
ANDREW HADFIELD is Professor of English at the University of Sussex
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Contributor: Andrew McRae
ANDREW MCRAE is Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Exeter.
Topics
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Frontmatter
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CONTENTS
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FIGURES
vii -
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
xi -
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ABBREVIATIONS
xii -
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INTRODUCTION: GOOD AND BAD POETRY IN THE AGE OF THE TUDORS
1 -
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Chapter One BETWEEN DRAB AND GOLDEN: GORGES, RALEGH, C. S. LEWIS AND ‘EVALUATIVE CRITICISM’
23 -
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Chapter Two SUB-SHAKESPEAREAN? THE POETRY OF THOMAS LODGE
43 -
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Chapter Three ‘THWICK THWACK THUNDRING’: ON STANYHURST’S ‘UNCOOTH’ THUNDER; OR, HOW BAD IS ONOMATOPOEIA?
61 -
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Chapter Four BREWING, BARTERING, AND BRICKING IT DOWN: STYLE AND VALUE IN SKELTON’S THE TUNNYNG OF ELYNOUR RUMMYNGE
82 -
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Chapter Five LINEAL LONGUEURS: TASTE AND EVALUATION IN ELIZABETHAN LONG-LINE FORMS
110 -
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Chapter Six FROM DRAB TO WORSE: SPENSER AND THE BADNESS OF NEO-LATIN VERSE
131 -
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Chapter Seven THOMAS CHURCHYARD AND THE WORTHINES OF WALES: POET, NATION AND AUTHORITY IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND
151 -
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Chapter Eight METAPHORS AND HEXAMETERS IN THE NASHE-HARVEY QUARREL
169 -
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Chapter Nine BAD POETRY? ‘ILE STABBE YE!’: POPULARITY, OBSCURITY, AND THE SIXAINS OF SAMUEL ROWLANDS
189 -
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Chapter Ten DE-BASING THE STYLE: EARLY READERS’ REVISIONS OF MOTHER HUBBERDS TALE
210 -
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Chapter Eleven A SIMPLE MISHAP AND A BORING TOURNAMENT IN THE FAERIE QUEENE
232 -
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AFTERWORD
251 -
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
258 -
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INDEX
278
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
November 25, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9781805438830
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781805438830
Keywords for this book
Sixteenth-Century Literature; Early Modern England; Poetic Production; Literary Marketplace; Aesthetic Judgment; Generic Conventions; Poetic Failure; Hexameters; Neo-Latin Verse; Mother Hubberds Tale; Fourteener; Comparative Literary Criticism
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
