McIlwraith, Fraser; (2023) "The Colledge of Critickes": Literary Criticism and Dialogue in Renaissance England, c. 1550–1620. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis presents a revisionist account of a corpus of texts which, for over a century, have been grouped together and designated by scholarly convention as works of ‘English Renaissance literary criticism’. It argues that this approach has sometimes encouraged unhelpful assumptions to proliferate. Renaissance criticism, we are told, comprises a coherent corpus presenting a broadly consistent view regarding the form and function of literature – albeit a view which lags behind the innovative practice English writers demonstrated in composing poetry, drama, and imaginative prose fictions during the same period. Treating this argument with scepticism, the thesis explores the myriad works which make up the body of English Renaissance criticism. Far from presenting a unified school of thought, these texts pursue a plurality of divergent and occasionally self-serving ends; individual critical works emerge from highly particular contexts, and often seek to justify the new forms of writing which appear alongside them. Figuring criticism as a productive site of debate and innovation, this thesis argues for a new approach which attends to the diverse dialogues in which these texts are embedded, from their engagement with past authors and other critical works to their connection with the new writings to which they give rise. The thesis asks how these dialogues help to shape the role of criticism in the literary culture of Renaissance England. Part One establishes the distinctive methods of Renaissance criticism through two chapters on rhetorical treatises and poetic collections, respectively. These works present close reading as a form of critical dialogue which fosters the production of new texts. Part Two ventures three studies of individual authors, each of whom composes a critical work which stands in particularly close relation to their other writings: Philip Sidney; Samuel Daniel; and Ben Jonson. Sustained analysis, in each of these cases, helps to redraw the parameters of early modern criticism.

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