Prosody and Purpose in the English Renaissance

O. B. Hardison Jr. was the director of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. He taught at the University of North Carolina, Princeton University, and the University of Tennessee. Among his books are Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages (awarded the Haskins Medal by the Mediaeval Society of America); The Enduring Monument; Aristotle's Poetics: A Translation and Commentary; The Forms of Imagination; and The Quest for Imagination.

• PrefacePart I. ContextsChapter 1. Prosody and Purpose Chapter 2. Ars Metrica Chapter 3. Rude and Beggerly Ryming: The Romance TraditionChapter 4. A Question of Language: Italy and the Shaping of Renaissance Prosodic TheoryChapter 5. Notes of Instruction Part II. PerformancesChapter 6. A Straunge Metre Worthy To Be Embraced Chapter 7. Jasper Heywood's Fourteeners Chapter 8. Gorboduc and Dramatic Blank Verse, with a Note on ComedyChapter 9. Heroic Experiments Chapter 10. Speech and Verse in Later Elizabethan Drama Chapter 11. True Musical DelightNotesIndex

Two large points that emerge are the importance of 'construction' and, perhaps more surprisingly, 'the dominance of syllabic concepts of prosody.' Hardison concludes that the English verse of this period 'is best understood in terms of this tradition.' He has written a learned, interesting, and civilized book.—Studies in English Literature