English Mythography in its European Context, 1500-1650
Anna-Maria Hartmann
Reviews and Awards
Winner of the 2019 Roland H.Bainton Prize in Literature
"Hartmann's deeply researched and meticulously argued study — to which this short review cannot do justice — calls our attention to this understudied tradition and will be necessary reading for anyone interested in myth and mythography in early modern England." - Joseph Bowling, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Renaissance Quarterly
"Overall, this book is a strong contribution to reception studies and literary history and theory, both for scholarly contribution, useful at any level of scholarship and for its direct argumentative style which makes it highly accessible to undergraduates and beyond." - Kathleen Burt, Classical Journal Online
"This learned and insightful study analyses six key mythographies composed in Tudor and Stuart England [...] there is much of value in Hartmanns analysis of English mythographic writings, both for scholars of Renaissance literature and culture and for Classicists interested in the early modern reception of classical myth." - Jessica Wolfe, The Classical Review
"Hartmanns authoritative account of the English mythographers will be of lasting value to the field as a whole." - Daniel Moss, The Spenser Review
"This is an extremely detailed and well-researched book, exploring role of myths and their reception in Renaissance culture, in all senses of that word. This topic is absolutely fundamental, yet it has been significantly understudied. Hartmann's study of English mythography is thorough and exceedingly well contextualized. She situates English mythographers within a wider European context while also offering close readings of them that reveal their distinctively English perspective. Her style is clear and refreshingly free of jargon. The committee admired the relevance and applicability of this book to a wide range of fields covered by the Sixteenth Century." - Roland H. Bainton Prize Committee
"Hartmann's book makes an important contribution to scholarly arguments about religion and poetry in early modern England. In particular, much work on anti-poetic English discourse takes for granted oppositions between pagan and Christian poetry that closer attention to mythography complicates. English mythography is an exemplary work of fine-grained, close textual scholarship which will interest readers across disciplinary boundaries." - Raphael Magarik, University of California, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
"The book is richly informative, a pleasure to read, and much to be recommended." - Charles Eager, The Seventeenth Century
