Introduction vii

2. The edition: aims and methods

After centuries of historical and literary scholarship throughout which libels received relatively little attention, over the past twenty years they have finally begun to gain the attention they deserve. In the field of political history, post-revisionist scholars have focused valuably on the role of public opinion, while others have reassessed the significance of individual reputations and particular court scandals. Moreover, some historians have accepted a need to adopt different interpretative strategies when reading pamphlets and ballads, compared to those required for more direct or explicit documents (e.g. Sharpe 5). In literary studies, meanwhile, there are signs that the enthusiasm for history that propelled the new historicism and cultural materialism is increasingly now being married to a heightened appreciation of archival research and historical method. Significantly, a number of new “historical” editions of early Stuart poetry have highlighted the complex politics of manuscript culture, while important critical studies have properly situated libels within narratives of cultural and political upheaval (e.g. Ralegh, Poems; G. Hammond 41-66; McRae, Literature; Marotti 75-133; Norbrook 50-58).

This edition is a product of these movements, since it brings into the public domain the findings of two parallel research projects: one in the field of political history, the other in that of literary studies. Its collection of approximately 350 poems surpasses all existing sources for the study of libels, and includes roughly 200 that have never before been published. Its breadth of coverage and its editorial apparatus are intended to establish a foundation for further research, in a field which raises so many problems and unanswered questions. The presentation of the poems, and the explanatory notes, are also intended to make this material accessible to a wider range of readers.

a) parameters

The edition encompasses poems directly relating to English political identities and issues, which were produced for and circulated within manuscript culture. This includes anything that contemporaries would have identified as a libel, while also incorporating a number of pieces that directly respond to libels, and others that function more in the manner of satiric commentary. But it is unashamedly biased towards expressions of dissent, and hitherto unheard voices. While critics might argue that canonical poets such as Donne and Jonson wrote politically sensitive verse, there is little reason to include their work in an edition of libels; and while poets of print culture such as Drayton and George Wither unquestionably forged new models of political poetry, they consistently defined their work against that of anonymous libellers.1 These parameters create a particular kind of miscellany-more than commonly focused and thorough in its selections-yet one which retains the basic experience of encountering a contemporary collection of manuscript poetry.