King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria

All of these paintings were executed by the great Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck between 1632, when he was appointed Principal Painter to Charles I, and 1635.

Lady Mary Wroth

Frontispiece to Lady Mary Wroth's The Countesse of Mountgomeries Urania (London, 1621). For the full text on EEBO, click here.

Aemilia Lanyer

I'm very excited to be working on Aemilia Lanyer today!
Here's a link to one of the British Library's copies of Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (London, 1611)
We'll talk about it.

Editing Project Prospectus

A few words on the Editing Project Prospectus, which is due next week. 

The prospectus should be 2 pages long. It's worth 5% of your final grade. The function of the prospectus--like any prospectus, including the kind scholars send to publishers to try to secure contracts--is to explain what project is being undertaken and why it is worthwhile. In your case, this will entail describing the document you are editing—its title, authorship (if known), date, theme, tone or style, rhetorical characteristics, political orientation—and why it is important or illuminating in the broader context of revolutionary England. Accordingly, preparing the Editing Project Prospectus involves careful thinking, planning, and a substantial first wave of research. 

I suggest an opening paragraph that gives a factual and material description of the text you are editing (title, authorship, date, form, etc), another paragraph or two sketching out the relevant historical and cultural context in which it was composed, and a final paragraph or two describing how your particular text contributes to or otherwise takes part in that context. If done properly, you will have completed a significant portion of the research for the Introduction to your Edition Project in completing your Prospectus.

Please don't hesitate to be in touch with me if you have any questions about this assignment.

Wednesday: Donne's "Holy Sonnets"

Hello, all! Nice going today. I want to start class on Wednesday with a general discussion of the following two-part question, so please come prepared (I may actually go around the room and get a response from each of you):

* What, according to you, is the central issue or question being struggled with in Donne's Holy Sonnets? Is this struggle strictly religious/spiritual?

We'll then look at some individual poems as case studies. Please come to class armed with a sonnet that you find particularly compelling. With 15 people in the room, we obviously won't be able to get to everyone--indeed, we'll probably only get through a few poems--but I like the idea of having you guys provide the raw material this time around.

Towards the end of the class session I will elicit from you some broad, final comments on Donne's poetry, so I think it will also be useful for you to Think Big about Donne over the next couple days. Consider questions such:
-- In what ways is Donne's voice and imagination singular? That is, what does he seem to be doing that other writers aren't?
-- In what ways, on the other hand, is Donne very much of his time, part of his culture?
-- What does Donne teach us about the relationship between religion and eroticism or imagination and faith?

See you guys on Wednesday! Happy thinking!

Garrett Sullivan at UNT

Don't forget to come to this! It's going to be cool.

Jonson: "Inviting a Friend to Supper" and "To Penshurst"

 Sir Philip Sidney at Penshurst (miniature by Isaac Oliver)

I realize that some of you won't see this before we meet for class. That's fine--hopefully some of you will. I really just want to get some thoughts down. As I re-read these two wonderful poems, I'm struck by the fact that they seem to have some core attributes, some essential imaginative and functional qualities, in common with the epistolary epigrams we were working with on Monday. (Do you agree?)

At the same time, it's probably easier to talk about what's different about these two poems. I'm going to resist being overdetermined and making specific claims on that front right now, but I will say that there seems to me to be some new conceptual keywords that have become important, which weren't terribly important on Monday. These include "place," "hospitality," "environment," "practice," and "nature/culture." You may be thinking of others, too--if so, I'd love to hear about them. At any rate, mull this over.

One more thing. In each of these poems, the last line contains a single word that strikes me as difficult, multifaceted, and very consequential to the poem overall. Here they are:

"Inviting a Friend to Supper": "liberty"

"To Penshurst": "dwells"

Let's make sure we talk about those words at some point today.

Ben Jonson

View The Workes of Benjamin Jonson (London, 1616) on EEBO here.


Also, check out the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson Blog here.

We have the actual 7-volume Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson (2012), the most up-to-date scholarly resource for Jonson scholarship, in the library. Make sure you head over there at some point and peruse it.

The Jacobean Court

 James I, from 1616 "Workes" frontispiece

 James I and Family

 Queen Anna

 Princess Elizabeth and Frederick the Elector Palatine

 Prince Henry

King Charles I

Early Stuart Libels

As promised. Enjoy!
http://www.earlystuartlibels.net/htdocs/index.html

Essential Resources for Primary Historical Research

The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC)

Early English Books Online (EEBO)

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (DNB)

Calendars of State Papers

Acts of the Privy Council of England

Please note: the ESTC, the Calendars of State Papers, and the Acts of the Privy Council are freely accessible on the web. EEBO and the DNB, on the other hand, are expensive, subscription-only databases, which, luckily, our library has acquired. This means that in the case of EEBO and the DNB, these links will only work if you're on campus. If you're accessing them from somewhere else, you'll have to call them up through the "Databases" section of the UNT Library website and sign in.

The UNT Medieval and Renaissance Colloquium

Friday, September 20, 2013, 3:30 p.m. (ENV 115)

“‘One that so willingly lay her legges open’:  Seated Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I”

Catherine Loomis (Associate Professor, English and Women’s Studies, University of New Orleans)

Tuesday, October 8, 2013, 4:00 p.m. (AUD 103)

“Where Moths Break in and Eat: Rhetorical Anxiety in Old English Riddle 47”

Thomas Tutt (Lecturer, English, University of Texas at Arlington)

Thursday, November 21, 2013

THE FALL MRC LECTURE:

Garrett Sullivan (Professor, English, Pennsylvania State University)

Details TBA

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