A Companion to Tudor Literature

William Shakespeare is the author who most commonly springs to mind when describing Tudor literature, but the Bard has a dedicated Blackwell Companion all to himself and does not feature in this collection of scholarly essays. Instead, the Companion to Tudor Literature examines the cultural changes and scientific discoveries which influenced writing over nearly 120 years of the Tudor reign, from the accession of Henry VII (1485) to the death of Elizabeth I (1603).

The Tudor age was a time of political and religious instability, but also of technological and cultural advancement. Henry VIII traded Rome for Ann Boleyn (and...