1st Edition
The Crisis of 1614 and The Addled Parliament Literary and Historical Perspectives
This title was first published in 2003. The aim of The Crisis of 1614 and The Addled Parliament is to bring literary historians together with constitutional and state historians to reflect on the political and ideological upheavals of Britain in 1614 from various perspectives. In the aftermath of new historicism and 'revisionist' Stuart historiography the time seems right for the detailed study of highly specific historical moments and localities, and 1614 seemed particularly in need of renewed attention because few traditional historians have seriously addressed the constitutional crisis of the ill-fated parliament of that year. Literary historians, too, seemed to have failed to bring this significant political moment into focus, despite the fact that there were many literary interventions in contemporary debates of the period. The volume investigates a number of key issues of this decisive political watershed - and examines not only the disastrous parliament, but also wider problems connected to commerce and economics and the freedom of political debate.
'This volume of essays makes significant contributions to our knowledge of the Addled Parliament,and will be read with interest by all those who work in the field of Jacobean history and Jacobean literature...' Parliaments, Estates and Representation 'This important collection of essays [...] demonstrates the rich return that can be gained from an intensive and multi-faceted exploration of the literary and historical developments of a single year in early Stuart England... All in all, this is a most valuable and pioneering volume, containing essays of a consistently high standard. It is important not only for the light that it sheds on early Stuart England in general and on 1614 in particular, but also for the many-sided, inter-disciplinary approach that it adopts. Such an approach is highly fruitful and stimulating, and deserves to be emulated for other specific historical moments in this period.' The Seventeenth Century 'All told, this is an excellent collection of sharply focused, concise, and interesting essays, firmly putting into context a heretofore only partially understood event.' Sixteenth Century Journal
