‘The richly nuanced evocation of historical context make the essays collected in this volume simply irreplaceable.’
—David Lee Miller,University of South Carolina

‘This subtly witty, beautifully written scholarship ranges widely across current topics: the transnational turn in literary-cultural studies, particularly the French-English-Latin dynamic; religious Reformation/counter-Reformation; and a brilliantly resonant Spenser. A must-own.’
—A. E. B. Coldiron, Krafft University Professor Emerita, Florida State University

Poetic fire: an introduction by Ayesha Ramachandran, Susan Felch, and Susannah Monta

Part I: Spenser
1 Spenser’s chivalric restoration: from Bateman’s Travayled Pylgrime to the Redcrosse Knight
2 Foreign policy in Fairyland: Henry IV and Spenser’s Burbon
3 The thirsty deer and the Lord of Life: some contexts for Amoretti 67–70

Part II: The Psalms and the psalmist
4 Evil tongues at the court of Saul: the Renaissance David as a slandered courtier
5 Musical strains: Marot’s double role as psalmist and courtier
6 King David as a ‘right poet’: Sidney and the psalmist
7 The countess of Pembroke’s Ruins of Rome

Part III: Imagining gender
8 Male lesbian voices: Ronsard, Tyard, and Donne play Sappho
9 Family grief: mourning and gender in Marguerite de Navarre’s Les Prisons

Part IV: Italy, France, England
10 Translatio lupae: Du Bellay’s Roman whore goes north
11 Housing chessmen and bagging bishops: space and desire in Colonna, ‘Rabelais’, and Middleton’s Game at Chess
12 Imperfect pearls from France: Ronsard’s conceits meet Donne’s
Anne Lake Prescott and Roger Kuin

Afterword: Anne as co-author and editor
The joy of partnership
Roger Kuin
Anne as editor: a small florilegium
William Oram

Bibliography of works by Anne Lake Prescott
Index