Introduction

pre-text: Thomas Llodge, Rosalynde

part one

William Shakespeare, As You Like It

(Edited by David Bevington)

part two

Cultural Contexts

1. Pastoral and Rural Life: Court and Country

Pastoral Conventions

Theocritus, From The XXI Idyllion

Virgil, From The First Eclogue

Edmund Spenser, From The Shepheardes Calender

Edmund Spenser, From The Faerie Queene

Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and Sir Walter Raleigh (?), The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd

Lady Mary Wroth, From Pamphilia to Amphilanthus

Pastoral Critique

William Vaughan, From The Golden Grove

Sir Thomas More, From Utopia

Michael Drayton, From Poly-Olbion

Sir Thomas Elyot, From The Book Named the Governor

Vincentio Saviolo, From Vincentio Saviolo His Practice in Two Books

John Earle, From Microcosmography

Thomas Starkey, From A Dialogue between Pole and Lupset

J. A., From An Apology for a Younger Brother

Robin Hood and the Greenwood

John Major, From A History of Greater Britain

Richard Grafton, From A Chronicle at Large

Robin Hood and The Ballad of Allin of Dale

From A Famous Battle between Robin Hood and Maid Marian

Rural Life

John Manwood, From A Treatise and Discourse of the Laws of theForest

James I, From A Proclamation against Unlawful Hunting

George Gascoigne, From The Noble Art of Venery or Hunting

John Fitzherbert, From The Booke of Husbandry and Leonard Mascall, From The First Book of Cattle

2. Love, Sex, and Marriage

The Celebration of Marriage

An Homily of the State of Matrimony

Edmund Spenser, From Epithalamion

Irregular Marriages

Thomas Beard, From The Theatre of God’s Judgments

John Stockwood, From A Bartholomew Fairing

From Extracts from the Act Books of the Archdeacons of Nottingham

Ambivalence about Marriage

Henry Peacham, From Minerva Britanna, an emblem of Matrimonium

George Whetstone, From An Heptameron of Civil Discourses

Samuel Rowlands, From The Bride

Languages of Love

Sir Thomas Wyatt, Sonnet, The Lover Describes His Being Stricken with Sight of His Love

Lady Mary Wroth, Sonnet from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 130

Ovid, "In Bed with Corinna"

Valentine Hamdultun, A Merry New Jig; or, the Pleasant Wooing betwixt Kit and Peg

Valentine Hamdultun, A Pleasant New Song between Two Young Lovers That Lasted Not Long; or, the Second Part

Lovers Who Write on Trees

Ludovico Ariosto, From Orlando Furioso

Lady Mary Wroth, From The Countess of Mountgomeries Urania

The Renaissance Ganymede

Henry Peacham, From Minerva Britanna, an emblem of Ganymede

Christopher Marlowe, From The Tragedie of Dido

Richard Barnfield, From The Affectionate Shepherd

Richard Barnfield, From Cynthia

Cross-Dressing and Female Homoeroticism

John Rainolds, From Th’Overthrow of Stage-Plays

William Prynne, From Histrio-Mastix

John Lyly, From Gallatea

Constantia Fowler, Letter to Herbert Aston

3. Calling Fools into a Circle

Fools and Folly: Types and Paradoxes

Sebastian Brant, From Stultifera Navis . . . The Ship of Fools

Richard Tarlton, From Tarlton’s Jests

Robert Armin, From A Nest of Ninnies

Thomas Trevelyon, From Fooles, or Foolishnesse

Desiderius Erasmus, From Praise of Folly

"Disordered Assemblies": Court Records from Chester

François Rabelais, From Gargantua and Pantagruel

Strange Capers: Love Folly and Its Cure

Ovid, From Ovidius Naso His Remedie of Love

Robert Burton, From The Anatomy of Melancholy

Writing and Righting Love Folly in Letters

From Cupid’s Messenger

Dorothy Osborne, Letter to Sir William Temple

Dangerous Games: Railing Satire and Censorship

John Marston, From The Scourge of Villainy

John Weever, From The Whipping of the Satyre

From Hole v. White: A Lawsuit for Libel in Wells

Giovanni Boccaccio, From The Decameron

4. The Civilizing Process

Birth, Gentility, and Grace

Baldassare Castiglione, From The Courtyer

Richard Brathwaite, From The English Gentlewoman

William Harrison, From The Description and Chronicles of England

Rude and Civil Manners

Desiderius Erasmus, From A Little Book of Good Manners for Children

Baldassare Castiglione, From The Courtyer

Nicholas Breton, From The Court and Country

Formal Schooling: Boys to Men

Richard Mulcaster, From Positions

John Brinsley, From Ludus Literarius, or the Grammar School

Debating Female Education

Richard Mulcaster, From Positions

Giovanni Bruto, From The Necessary, Fit, and Convenient Education of a Young Gentlewoman

Informal Schooling: Travel and Observation

Michel de Montaigne, From Essays Written in French by Michael Lord of Montaigne

Sir William Cornwallis, From Essays

Civil Tongues and the Art of Conversation

Giovanni della Casa, From Galateo

George Puttenham, From The Art of English Poesie

Desiderius Erasmus, From On Copia of Words and Ideas

"Wit, Whither Wilt?" Jest Books and Comic Courtship

From A Banquet of Jests

From An Anonymous Commonplace Book

Anthony Copley, From Wits, Fits and Fancies

bibliography

index