Skip to main content

The Politics of Mirth

Jonson, Herrick, Milton, Marvell, and the Defense of Old Holiday Pastimes

4th Edition

"Leah Marcus’s The Politics of Mirth: Jonson, Herrick, Milton, Marvell, and the Defense of Old Holiday Pastimes is a fascinating study of why James and Charles promoted some types of rural sport and festival and of how certain literary texts participated in promoting or critiquing royal policy. . . . Marcus provocatively links texts not often studied in conjunction with one another, and she provides strong and detailed readings of those texts."—Jean E. Howard

330 pages | 2 halftones | 5-7/8 x 9 | © 1989

Literature and Literary Criticism: British and Irish Literature

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
I. Introduction: The Politics of Mirth
II. Pastimes and the Purging of Theater: Ben Jonson’s Love Restored and Bartholomew Fair
III. The Court Restored to the Country: The Vision of Delight, Christmas His Masque, and The Devil Is an Ass
IV. Pleasure and Virtue Reconciled: Jonson’s Celebration of the Book of Sports, 11618 and 1633
V. Churchman among the Maypoles: Herrick and the Hesperides
VI. Milton’s Anti-Laudian Masque
VII. Pastimes without a Court: Richard Lovelace and Andrew Marvell
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index

Be the first to know

Get the latest updates on new releases, special offers, and media highlights when you subscribe to our email lists!

Sign up here for updates about the Press