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Book Cover
E-book
Author Woodcock, Matthew, 1973- author.

Title Thomas Churchyard : pen, sword, and ego / Matthew Woodcock
Edition First edition
Published Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2016

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Description 1 online resource (xvi, 358 pages) : illustrations, maps
Contents Cover; Thomas Churchyard: Pen, Sword, and Ego; Copyright; Dedication; Acknowledgements; Contents; List of Maps and Illustrations; MAPS; FIGURES; Abbreviations; Introduction: 'Saye that I live'; 1: Origins (to 1543); 2: Roistering and Writing (1542-1543); 3: The School of War (1542-1547); 4: Scotland and Ireland (1547-1551); 5: To Speak in Print (1551); 6: Attack and Defence (1551-1556); 7: Mars and Mercury (1557-1560); 8: Plying the Pen about the Court (1560-1567); 9: With Princes and Beggars (1567-1568); 10: Embattled on Many Fronts (1569-1572); 11: Presentations (1572-1574)
PrintedSECONDARY SOURCES; Printed; Unpublished; Index
Summary Soldier, courtier, author, entertainer, and amateur spy, Thomas Churchyard (c.1529-1604) saw action in most of the principal Tudor theatres of war, was a servant to five monarchs, and had a literary career spanning over half a century during which time he produced over fifty different works in a variety of forms and genres. Churchyard's struggles to subsist as an author and soldier provides an unrivalled opportunity to examine the self-promotional strategies employed by an individual who attempts to make a living from both writing and fighting, and who experiments throughout his life with ways in which the arts of the pen and sword may be reconciled and aligned. Drawing on extensive archival and literary sources, Matthew Woodcock reconstructs the extraordinary life of a figure well-known yet long neglected in early modern literary studies. In the first ever book-length biography of Churchyard, Woodcock reveals the author to be a resourceful and innovative writer whose long literary career plays an important part in the history of professional authorship in sixteenth-century England. This book also situates Churchyard alongside contemporary soldier-authors such as Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, George Gascoigne, and Sir Philip Sidney, and it makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the relationship between literature and the military in the early modern period. Churchyard's writings drew heavily upon his own experiences at court and in the wars and the author never tired of drawing attention to the struggles he endured throughout his life. Consequently, this study addresses the wider methodological question of how we should construct the biography of an individual who was consistently preoccupied with telling his own story
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 317-345) and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Churchyard, Thomas, 1520?-1604.
SUBJECT Churchyard, Thomas, 1520?-1604 fast
Subject Poets, English -- 16th century -- Biography
Soldiers -- England -- Biography
Poets, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Biography
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- General.
HISTORY -- Europe -- Western.
Courts and courtiers
Poets, English
Soldiers
SUBJECT Great Britain -- Court and courtiers -- History -- 16th century
Great Britain -- History, Military -- 1485-1603. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85056837
Subject England
Great Britain
Genre/Form Electronic books
collective biographies.
Biographies
History
Military history
Biographies.
Biographies.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780191764974
0191764973
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