This chapter addresses one aspect of the political legacy of the Mirror. Gabriel Harvey appears confused, running together the titles of the Mirror for Magistrates and Gorboduc in a way that suggests that they are the same work. The two are of course separate texts. The first is the multi-authored compilation of didactic poetry about the falls of English kings, lords and pretenders to power between the reigns of Richard II and Edward IV. The second is Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton's Gorboduc, one of the earliest examples of classical tragedy and historical drama in English. Gorboduc replays an episode in ancient British history in which King Gorboduc divided the realm between his two sons, sparking a disastrous Civil War. In their appeal to foreign, mythological and fictional calamities, rather than to national history, the dramatists perhaps even enhanced the ability of their works to promote reflection and contemplation.

This chapter considers Roger North's Examen; Or, an Enquiry into the Credit and Veracity of a Pretended Compleat History. North's work borrows substantially from the secret history tradition, and its arguments betray not only a close adherence to the rhetorical principles of dialogic secret history, but also an overt concern with problems of generic categorization. North's reflections on his work's genre, the 'historical controversy', prompts him to explore the relationships between secret history, historical criticism, and formal historical narrative, and he positions his enquiry within contemporary historiographical debates and a broader political discourse. The massive, multi-authored Complete History of England was in many ways a logical target for North's critique. The History's preface flaunted its communal authorship as the badge of its public authority, making claims to omniscience on the basis of its masterful assemblage of different historical texts.

The revisions and alterations W. H. Auden made to the poems in 'Homage to Clio' have been minutely discussed. But there is little account of what the minor changes meant. The poets appearing in 'The Encounter-Clio' (Clio II) have no bylines; the editors do not mention Auden or his poem. There are illuminating accounts of the composition of 'Homage to Clio', and its relationship to Auden's philosophy (or favourite philosophers) of history. A description of 'Iscia: 1948-57', not only clarifies but moves, in locating all the 'history' poems on the island. The author was entranced to 'Homage to Clio' by its paradoxes such as the paradox of the Muse's perfect silence: the very idea of a history that is silent; that has 'nothing to say'. Clio II is not History, or about history, or about doing history. She is about Christian time.

This section contains the Hartly House, Calcutta novel,edited and annotated by Michael J. Franklin,Professor of English at Swansea University.

Fusing theories of citizenship, postcolonial studies, active reading, and queer theory, chapter 1 offers a starting point in exploring how reading is a powerful tool that can be mobilised in service of civic struggles for recognition, rights, and representation. Since the terms ‘queer’ and ‘citizenship’ may seem paradoxical, this chapter offers a brief history of citizenship theory, before moving on to consider how queer theory and citizenship studies can intersect to consolidate the idea of an ‘act of citizenship’. Finally, it explores the importance of postcolonial theory, active reading practices, and reader-response theory in constituting a civic subject in a participatory democracy, capable of engaging in radical acts of citizenship.

This chapter highlights the relationship between celebrity, sexual identity, and a star’s “authenticity” in gay celebrity autobiography. Authenticity is achieved in celebrity autobiographies when the reader perceives they are receiving personal information about a star or, ideally, that the star is participating in this revelation of private details. For gay celebrities, this personal information includes a recounting of the star’s coming out as gay. Coming out is performative and personal; it establishes intimacy with the reader and adheres to expectations for a celebrity’s media-mediated “revelation.” The coming-out story establishes the gay celebrity as vulnerable and relatable to gay readers and allows heterosexual readers to connect to gay subject matter through the revelatory nature of confession. The autobiographical form gives the celebrity control over the coming-out story as he “outs” himself, earmarking the “revelation” as the star “being himself” for his readers, giving them an exclusive that exists outside of the hollow construct of fame. Gay celebrity autobiography represents an inclusive visibility for both the writer and the reader even as the confessional space of the autobiography itself may also be an illusion in which truth and authenticity are queered through the form of the autobiography itself.

This chapter surveys the handful of extant biblical plays written or translated during the last quarter of the sixteenth century to offer an overview of this complex and generically diverse group of plays. The descriptions found on their title pages provide a snapshot of the multiplicity of their tone and identity, with some termed comedies, some tragedies, and others using the trope of the looking glass to gesture at the homiletic mode of the de casibus tradition. The chapter argues that these varied descriptions permit the modern reader a more nuanced understanding of the continuities between these biblical plays and the earlier models of liturgical drama from the pre-Reformation past, with George Peele’s David and Bethsabe (1590) as a case in point. The play draws on the tradition of King David as an exemplar of lust and treachery, but Peele offers a more complex account of David’s reign by including the rebellion of his son Absalon and the planned accession of his heir Solomon. The play scrutinises providential monarchy as a model of kingship and tackles other topical issues such as the responsibilities of the monarch to govern and receive advice.