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This study examines the image of the poet in early modern plays from 1558–1660, drawing on rarely discussed dramatic material by figures such as Shirley and Brome. It investigates how playwrights depict poets as working professionals and as socially ambivalent figures shaped by patronage, rivalry and shifting literary values. Through close attention to prologues, staged representations and mythological allusions, it highlights the poet’s unstable position between mastery of a quasi-divine art and accusations of parasitism in a culture preoccupied with imitation and theft. By situating these portrayals within early modern society, aesthetics and readerships, the book offers new insight into poetic identity, social distinction and literary authority, enriching research in early modern drama, poetics and cultural history.
Price: £85.00
Pages: 352
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Series: Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies
Publication Date:
15 December 2026
ISBN: 9781526189844
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
Guillaume Coatalen is a Professor of Early Modern Literature at the University of Versailles Saint Quentin
Introduction
1 The poet in the prologue: Finding one’s voice
2 The poet’s trade: A profession?
3 The poet’s reputation: Beggar or vates?
4 The poet’s readings: Digestion and theft
5 The poet’s style: Testing rules
6 Sonnet-mongers on the early modern English stage
7 The mythological poet on stage: From Arion’s ‘sugred notes’ to ‘Apollo’s chamberpot’
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