Date of Award
Spring 1933
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
English
Abstract
In choosing the subject of this paper, I was aware that some excellent work had already been done in the investigation of literary patronage and authors' livelihood in England. However, as I shall indicate presently, none of this work was especially devoted to the period of Charles I and of Cromwell. Dr. Samuel Moore had a written a number of special studies of literary patronage in medieval times, such as his Patrons of Letters in Norfolk and Suffolk, c.1450 (1912 and 1913), as well as his article entitled General Aspects of Literary Patronage in the Middle Ages (1913). Dr. K. J. Holzknecht had made a study of this same period in his Literary Patronage in the Middle Ages (1923). Miss Phoebe Sheavyn had included a treatment of patronage and the livelihood of authors in her book called The Literary Profession in the Elizabethan Age (1909). Concerning the period following the Restoration M. Beljame had written Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre, 1660-1744 (1883 and 1897), a work which naturally has considerable to do with the matter of authors' living and patronage. Two recent books by Dr. A.S. Collins had brought the research in this subject up to the year 1832. His Authorship in the Days of Johnson (1929) discusses "the relation between author, patron, publisher, and public" from 1726 to 1780; and The Profession of Letters (1929) is a similar study for the years 1780 to 1832. Robert Graves had also written an eight-page general article entitles Patronage of the English Poets (1928) which, of course, is so brief that it need hardly be considered here. Since I found that no special attention had been given to literary patronage and the livelihood of authors under Charles I and Cromwell, I thought it important to fill that gap with a detailed study of the subject. It is true that Miss Sheavyn's work occasionally treats an author whose life extends into the reign of charles I. That was inevitable. There are many writers, however, whose most significant works fall within the period which I have chosen, and to whom neither Miss Sheavyn nor M. Beljame has given special consideration. It is these writers whom I wish to discuss.