Ovid and the Liberty of Speech in Shakespeare's England

Download or read book Ovid and the Liberty of Speech in Shakespeare's England written by Heather James and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-08 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The range of poetic invention that occurred in Renaissance English literature was vast, from the lyric eroticism of the late sixteenth century to the rise of libertinism in the late seventeenth century. Heather James argues that Ovid, as the poet-philosopher of literary innovation and free speech, was the galvanizing force behind this extraordinary level of poetic creativity. Moving beyond mere topicality, she identifies the ingenuity, novelty and audacity of the period's poetry as the political inverse of censorship culture. Considering Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Milton and Wharton among many others, the book explains how free speech was extended into the growing domain of English letters, and thereby presents a new model of the relationship between early modern poetry and political philosophy.