Description: In this new study, Donna B. Hamilton offers a major revisionist reading of the works of Anthony Munday, one of the most prolific authors of his time. Hamilton reinterprets Munday as a writer who began his career writing on behalf of the Catholic cause and subsequently negotiated for several decades the difficult terrain of an ever-changing Catholic-Protestant cultural, religious, and political landscape.
Review Quotes: Donna Hamilton's meticulously researched study, making full use of the latest historical work on post-Reformation Catholicism, transforms the familiar landmarks of Elizabethan literary history. Munday's endlessly varied strategies of indirection in pushing beyond the official limits of political discourse will make us think again about the ideological stances of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. David Norbrook, Merton Professor of English Literature, University of Oxford Hamilton's significant and timely study of Munday rescues from oblivion a range of literary and polemical works that were widely known in their own day but until now have received little critical attention. Her insightful and provocative analysis offers a convincing new interpretation of Munday's writings, showing how under the guise of an orthodox Protestant, Munday discreetly promoted a dissident Catholic agenda in his writings while maintaining unswerving loyalty to the English crown. Arguing that in early modern England religious identities and political affiliations were complexly interwoven, Hamilton helps us to understand how writers could express religious dissent while remaining within the mainstream of the literary-political culture. Christopher Highley, Professor of English, The Ohio State University 'Donna Hamilton offers a major revisionist reading of the works of Anthony Munday, one of the most prolific authors of this time...' De Vere Society Newsletter '... Hamilton's detailed and compelling scrutiny... invaluable study...' TLS 'This is a very learned book about the life and work of a writer who managed to work both sides of the Catholic/Protestant conflict in a very bloody period in English history...Recommended.' Choice 'This book performs two valuable tasks, which sometimes pull in different directions. On the one hand, it serves as a comprehensive guide to Munday's copious and under-researched output [...] On the other, it uses the figure of Munday to ask question