Reading Popular Romance in Early Modern England / / Lori Humphrey Newcomb.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Columbia University Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Newcomb, Lori Humphrey,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Columbia University Press, , [2001]; ©2001
• Year of Publication: 2001
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (288 p.)

With the expansion of the publishing industry between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, reading for pleasure became possible for an increasing number of people, not just the wealthy and educated. The growth of the book trade produced, alongside elite literature, a parallel popular literature. Lori Humphrey Newcomb examines the proliferation of romances in early modern England, as well as their vilification by elite writers. Using as her case study Robert Greene's Pandosto (1585), an Elizabethan prose romance that inspired Shakespeare's late play, The Winter's Tale, she shows that the two forms of literature influenced each other profoundly. Because Shakespeare's works are considered timeless literary achievements, critics have distanced his plays from his romantic sources—a separation that until now has gone unquestioned. Newcomb undermines this assumption, providing a fascinating account of an early bestseller's incarnations over 250 years of literary history.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Note on References -- Figures -- Introduction -- 1. “Growne so ordinarie” -- 2. Social Things -- 3. Material Alteration -- 4. The Romance of Service -- Epilogue -- Appendix A: Pandosto Prose Versions -- Appendix B: Pandosto Verse Versions -- Notes -- Index