Lying in Early Modern English Culture - From the Oath of Supremacy to the Oath of Allegiance

A major study of ideas of truth and falsehood in early modern England from the advent of the Reformation to the aftermath of the failed Gunpowder Plot.

List of contents

• Introduction: Being Economical with the Truth in Early Modern England


• Part One: Lying and the Culture of Oaths


• 1: The Oath of Supremacy


• 2: The Oath of Allegiance


• Part Two: Modes of Lying in Early Modern England


• 3: The Religious Culture of Lying


• 4: Rhetoric, Commonplacing, Poetics


• 5: Courtesy, Lying, and Politics


• 6: Testimony


• 7: Othello and the Culture of Lies between Conscience and Reputation

About the author

Andrew Hadfield is Professor of English at the University of Sussex and Visiting Professor at the University of Granada. He is the author of a number of studies of early modern literature and culture including Edmund Spenser: A Life (2012), which was awarded the Elizabeth Dietz Memorial Award; Shakespeare and Republicanism (2005), which was awarded the Roland H. Bainton Prize for Literature; John Donne: In the Shadow of Religion (2021); and Literature and Class from the Peasants' Revolt to the French Revolution (2021). He is currently editing the Complete Works of Thomas Nashe for OUP with Joseph Black, Jennifer Richards and Cathy Shrank.

Summary

A major study of ideas of truth and falsehood in early modern England from the advent of the Reformation to the aftermath of the failed Gunpowder Plot.

Additional text

it is impossible in the space of this review to give justice to the abundance of insights emerging from the author's masterful textual analysis [...] this book should be required reading for any historian or literary scholar interested in the epistemological and cultural significance of the relationship between truth and lying in any time period.

Product details

• Authors: Andrew Hadfield, Andrew (Professor of English Hadfield, Hadfield Andrew
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.09.2017
• EAN: 9780198789468
• ISBN: 978-0-19-878946-8
• No. of pages: 386
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; History, English, LITERARY CRITICISM / Shakespeare, LITERARY CRITICISM / Renaissance, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Religion, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / General, 17th century, c 1600 to c 1699, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800, 16th century, c 1500 to c 1599, Shakespeare Studies & Criticism, Literary studies: plays and playwrights, Relating to Shakespeare / Shakespearean