The early modern period in Britain was defined by tremendous upheaval - the upending of monarchy, the unsettling of church doctrine, and the pursuit of a new method of inquiry based on an inductive experimental model. Political Turmoil: Early Modern Literature in Transition, 1623–1660 offers an innovative and ambitious re-appraisal of seventeenth-century British literature and history. Each of the contributors attempts to address the 'how' and 'why' of aesthetic change by focusing on political and cultural transformations. Instead of forging a grand narrative of continuity, the contributors attempt to piece together the often complex web of factors and events that contributed to developments in literary form and matter - as well as the social and religious changes that literature sometimes helped to occasion. These twenty chapters, reading across traditional periodization, demonstrate that early modern literary works - when they were conceived, as they were created, and after they circulated - were, above all, involved in various types of transitions.

‘Political Turmoil is remarkable for its engagement with multiple discourses. Its thoughtfully arranged chapters … are uniformly well-written, occasionally revelatory, and very much in conversation across the volume. This book will prove accessible to advanced undergraduates, yet useful to both generalists and experts in early modern literature. It should be on the shelves of every academic library and considered for any graduate or advanced undergraduate course in early modern literature.’

Wendy Furman-Adams Source: Modern Philology