Thomas Lodge was the most versatile of the pioneering professional writers of the English Renaissance, experimenting in an astonishing variety of forms. His long, eventful, and well-documented life makes him one of the most individualized figures of his age, and yet also one of the most representative. This is the first-ever collection of Lodge scholarship. It comprises a selection of the best and most important biographical and critical work, ranging from 1932 to 2008 and including first-time English translations. Charles Whitney's discerning introduction discusses each article or book chapter in the context of Lodge scholarship and beyond, and is supplemented by a bibliography of additional material. This unique collection offers a distinctive vantage on both Lodge and many current topics in Renaissance and early modern studies such as humanism, republicanism, romance, intertextuality, plagiarism, gender, colonization, Shakespearean sources, the histories of print and of reading, authorship, and English Catholicism and religious conflict.

    Contents: Introduction; Catalogue of Authors; Additional Bibliography; Part I Biography: Thomas Lodge the man, Charles J. Sisson; Conclusion, Éliane Cuvelier [trans by Phillip John Usher]; Thomas Lodge (1558-September 1625), Charles Whitworth. Part II General Characterizations of Lodge's Achievement: Lodge, Richard Helgerson; The discontent of Elizabethan society, Éliane Cuvelier [trans by Phillip John Usher]; 'O vita! Misero longa, foelici brevi': Thomas Lodge's struggle for felicity, Arthur Kinney. Part III Romances: General Characterizations: Pastoral romance: Sidney and Lodge, and Nashe and the Elizabethan ’Realists’ Walter Davis; From Arden to America: Lodge's tragedies of infatuation, Katharine Wilson; 'Rosalynde' and Its Intertexts: Lyly's golden legacy: 'Rosalynde' and 'Pandosto', Nancy R. Lindheim; Wooing and winning in Arden: 'Rosalynde' and 'As You Like It', Charles Whitworth; Feigning female faining: Spenser, Lodge, Shakespeare and Rosalind, Clare R. Kinney; 'A note beyond your reach': prose romance’s rivalry with Elizabethan drama, Steve Mentz; 'Robin the Devil' and Shakespeare's 'King Lear:' Some romance sources for 'King Lear': Robert of Sicily and Robert the Devil, Donna B. Hamilton; A Margarite of America: Sea-knights and royal virgins: American gold and its discontents in Lodge's A Margarite of America (1596), Joan Pong Linton; 'Horror fiction of the 1590s' and 'Romance and revenge tragedy' from the 'Introduction' to 'A Margarite in America', Donald Beecher. Part IV Poetry: Lyrics: 'Poetic interludes' from 'Introduction' to 'Rosalind: Euphues' Golden Legacy Found After His Death in His Cell at Silexedra', Donald Beecher; 'Scillaes Metamorphosis' or 'Glaucus and Scilla': 'Glaucus and Scilla', William Keach; Imagining heterosexuality in the Epyllia, Jim Ellis; Lodge's Glaucus and Scilla and the conditions of Catholic authorship in Elizabethan England, R.W. Maslen. Part V Drama: The Wounds of Civil War: The choice of sources: evidence and ju

    Biography

    Charles C. Whitney is Professor of English, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA

    'One of the great boons of the collection of scholarship gathered in this volume is the breadth of topics it covers in its attempt to represent scholarship on Lodge. Whitney has done a great service for scholarship on Lodge, and for the criticism of nondramatic literature of the Renaissance.' Sixteenth Century Journal