Ovid and the Liberty of Speech in Shakespeare's England

Addressing early modern scholars, classicists, historians, literary critics and scholars of imitation and adaptation of all levels, this book reveals how the work of Ovid, poet-philosopher of literary innovation and the liberty of speech, catalysed the extraordinary rise of new and audacious poetic forms during the English Renaissance.

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The range of poetic invention that occurred in Renaissance English literature was vast, from the lyric eroticism of the late sixteenth century to the rise of libertinism in the late seventeenth century. Heather James argues that Ovid, as the poet-philosopher of literary innovation and free speech, was the galvanizing force behind this extraordinary level of poetic creativity. Moving beyond mere topicality, she identifies the ingenuity, novelty and audacity of the period's poetry as the political inverse of censorship culture. Considering Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Milton and Wharton among many others, the book explains how free speech was extended into the growing domain of English letters, and thereby presents a new model of the relationship between early modern poetry and political philosophy.