The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Culture in Early Modern England

The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Culture in Early Modern England is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary examination of current research on popular culture in the early modern era. For the first time a detailed yet wide-ranging consideration of the breadth and scope of early modern popular culture in England is collected in one volume, highlighting the interplay of 'low' and 'high' modes of cultural production (while also questioning the validity of such terminology). The authors examine how popular culture impacted upon people's everyday lives during the period, helping to define how individuals and groups experienced the world. Issues as disparate as popular reading cultures, games, food and drink, time, textiles, religious belief and superstition, and the function of festivals and rituals are discussed. This research companion will be an essential resource for scholars and students of early modern history and culture.

Andrew Hadfield is Professor of English and co-Director of the Centre for Early Modern Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. Matthew Dimmock is Professor in English and co-Director of the Centre for Early Modern Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. Abigail Shinn is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Leeds, UK.

Introduction: Thinking About Popular Culture In Early Modern England; I: Key Issues; 1: Recovering Speech Acts; 2: Youth Culture; 3: Festivals; 4: Popular Reading and Writing; 5: Visual Culture; 6: Myth and Legend; 7: Religious Belief; II: Everyday Life; 8: Courtship, Sex and Marriage; 9: Food and Drink; 10: Work; 11: Gendered Labour; 12: Crime; 13: Popular Xenophobia; 14: Games; 15: Cultures of Mending; III: The Experience of the World; 16: Politics; 17: Riot and Rebellion; 18: Time; 19: Property; 20: Popular Medicine; 21: Superstition and Witchcraft; 22: Military Culture; 23: London and Urban Popular Culture