Popular Culture of Shakespeare, Spenser and Jonson

Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA

• Acknowledgements 1. Producing Popular Cultures Part 1: Fairies, Old Wives Tales, and Hobbyhorses: Rising to (In)visibility 2. Taken by the Fairies 3. Old Wives’ Tales 4. Hobbyhorses and Fellow Travellers Part 2: William Shakespeare 5. A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Breeching the Binary 6. Merry Wives of Windsor: Domestic Nationalism and the Refuse of the Realm Part 3: Edmund Spenser 7. The Faerie Queene: Vanishing Fairies and Dissolving Courtiers Part 4: Ben Jonson 8. Oberon, The Fairy Prince (1611) and The Great Fairy Caper; The Sad Shepherd (c. 1637) and the Topography of the Devil’s Arse Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

' ... sheds new light on some of the most curious aspects of early modern literature. The book will fascinate anyone interested in early modern literature and/or English folk culture.' - British Theatre Guide" Lamb's study has been painstakingly researched...By providing a sense of the period's social complexity and class tensions she creates and provides an exciting revisitation of works that capture the thoughts and feelings of that time. This is a book that historians, students of popular culture, and literary scholars will find quite valuable and insightful." -- Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. XXXIX, No. 4, 2008