The English Baroque in Early Modern Literature

While the baroque remains a foundational concept for other European literary and aesthetic traditions, scholars have largely elided the word from British literary history. Instead of baroque, these critics prefer to use terms like metaphysical, Stuart, and Laudian—terms that emphasise England’s primacy rather than its relations with the world. In response to these Anglocentric approaches, The English Baroque in Early Modern Literature shows how the baroque offers a better way to appreciate the importance of transnational and multilingual relations to the development of English letters.