Books in the Studies in the English Renaissance series

Worldmaking Spenser reexamines the role of Spenser's work in English history and highlights the richness and complexity of his understanding of place. The authors define Spenser as the maker of poetic worlds, of the Elizabethan world, and of the modern world.

The book's glossary of Jungian terms, written for literary critics and theologians rather than clinicians, is exceptionally detailed and insightful. Beyond enriching our understanding of Jung and Milton, Driscoll's discussion contributes to theodicy, to process theology, and to the study of myths and archetypes in literature.

Milton's poems invariably depict the decisive instant in a story, a moment of crisis that takes place just before the action undergoes a dramatic change of course.

Aemilia Lanyer was a Londoner of Jewish-Italian descent and the mistress of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Chamberlain. By using Lanyer to look at the larger issues of women writers working within a patriarchal system, the authors go beyond the explication of Lanyer's writing to address the dynamics of canonization and the construction of literary history.

The literary influence of alchemy and hermeticism in the work of most medieval and early modern authors has been overlooked. The use of alchemy to suggest spiritual growth and change, purification, regeneration, and millenarian ideas reflected important new emphases in alchemical, medical, and occultist writing.

The facts of John Milton's life are well documented, but what of the person Milton -- the man whose poetic and prose works have been deeply influential and are still the subject of opposing readings?

Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673), led a dramatic life that brought her into contact with kings, queens, and the leading thinkers of her day.