The age of Elizabeth in the age of Johnson
By: Jack Lynch.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2003
Place of publication: Cambridge, U.K; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 224
Subjects: English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc.; Literature and history -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century.; Historiography -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century.; Renaissance -- England -- Historiography.; Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.); Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth, 1558-1603 -- Historiography.; Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 18th century.
Description: "In The Age of Elizabeth in the Age of Johnson, Jack Lynch explores eighteenth-century British conceptions of the Renaissance, and the historical, intellectual, and cultural uses to which the past was put. Scholars, editors, historians, religious thinkers, linguists, and literary critics of the period all defined themselves in relation to "the last age" or "the age of Elizabeth." Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thinkers reworked older historical schemes to suit their own needs, turning to the age of Petrarch and Poliziano, Erasmus and Scaliger, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Queen Elizabeth to define their culture in contrast to the preceding age.

They derived a powerful sense of modernity from the comparison, which proved essential to the constitution of a national character. This interdisciplinary study will be of interest to cultural as well as literary historians of the eighteenth century."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 198-218) and index.