This book presents a fresh view of crucial processes of change, offering through an interdisciplinary analysis, fresh insights into both the history and literature of the land in early modern England. In the period 1500 to 1660 the practices and values of rural England were exposed to unprecedented challenges. Within this context a wide variety of commentators examined and debated the changing conditions, a process documented in the pages of sermons, pamphlets, satiric verse and drama, husbandry and surveying manuals, chorographical tracts, and rural poetry. The book argues that important movements revised assumptions about agrarian England, and shaped bold new appreciations of rural life. While Tudor moralists responded to social crises by asserting ideals of rural stability and community, by the seventeenth century a discourse of improvement promoted divergent notions of thrift and property.
Format:
CONTRIBUTORS: Andrew McRae
EAN: 9780521453790
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
PAGES:
WEIGHT: 526 g
HEIGHT: 223 cm
PUBLISHED BY: Cambridge University Press
DATE PUBLISHED: 1996-02-23
CITY:
GENRE: HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / General
WIDTH: 144 cm
SPINE:
Book Themes:
England, English, c 1500 onwards to present day, 18th century, c 1700 to c 1799, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, Literary studies: general, European history
"...a recent entry in this notable field, and, while nothing can replace acquaintace with primary texts, it may be recommended as an excellent place to start." Studies in English Literature, "The work is characterized by an admirably thorough and ingenuous reading across several genres of printed works." The Sixteenth Century Journal, "God Speed the Plough is an innovative and important testimony to the value of interdisciplinary work, which incontestably succeeds in its object of demonstrating "the role of literature as an agent of social change"." Lorna Hutson, "In his emphasis on generic particularity on the social and ideological entailments of certain ways of writing, McRae provides a more valuable example of what the new interdisciplinarity can do: not erase difference in a world of homogenized idea, but rather reveal differences, how they have been constructed, and why they matter." Richard Helgerson, University of California, "God Speed the Plough is an innovative and important testimony to the value of interdisciplinary work, which incontestably succeeds in its object of demonstrating 'the role of literture as an agent of social change'." JLS
