Why study Renaissance literature? Reading Class through Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton examines six canonical Renaissance works to show that reading literature also means reading class. Warley demonstrates that careful reading offers the best way to understand social relations and in doing so he offers a detailed historical argument about what class means in the seventeenth century. Drawing on a wide range of critics, from Erich Auerbach to Jacques Rancière, from Cleanth Brooks to Theodor Adorno, and from Raymond Williams to Jacques Derrida, the book implicitly defends literary criticism. It reaffirms six Renaissance poems and plays, including poems by Donne, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and Milton's Paradise Lost, as the sophisticated and moving works of art that generations of readers have loved. These accessible interpretations also offer exciting new directions for the roles of art and criticism in the contemporary, post-industrial world.

'… sensitive and magisterial at the same time, braided with past scholarship and yet original, it gives me a shiver when I absorb Warley’s unselfconscious claims for the power of literature.'

Roland Greene Source: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900

'Working through this superb monograph, one has the impression of being in the classroom before a deeply skilled teacher of literary history and criticism. Chapter by chapter Warley does what such teachers do best: he leads us with efficiency and grace to what is central in a selection of texts … the book’s intellectual demands and critical insights are consistently illuminating.'

Jeffrey Todd Knight Source: Modern Language Quarterly

'I am full of admiration for the project of this highly intelligent book. Warley reads class in the fabric of the texts, not outside them or in parallel, nonfictional genres. The works themselves are bearers of history and participate in the definitions and redefinitions that both mark and make change … This is in every respect a book to reckon with.'

Catherine Belsey Source: Renaissance Quarterly

'How do I love this project? Let me count the ways … Warley has produced an important book, one well worth thinking about, whatever your theoretical or critical investments.'

Crystal Bartolovitch Source: Shakespeare Studies

'Warley provides a rare example of how rich and challenging the language of class can be in renaissance texts.'

Joel Swann Source: Studies in Theatre and Performance