Includes bibliographical references (p. 332-344) and index.

Introduction -- A cultural overview -- Texts, writers and contexts. The sonnet and amatory verse: Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sidney and William Shakespeare; extended commentary: Sidney, Astrophil and Stella (1598); the Renaissance Epyllion: Thomas Lodge, William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe; extended commentary: Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis (1593); Pastoral to epic: Edmund Spenser, Andrew Marvell and John Milton; extended commentary: Spenser, The faerie queene (1590/6); Religious verse: Anne Locke, Mary Sidney and John Donne; extended commentary: Locke, A meditation (1560); Humanist prose and rhetoric: Thomas More, Philip Sidney, Thomas Wilson and George Puttenham; extended commentary: More, Utopia (1516); Life guides, social negotiation and conduct books: Baldassare Castiglione, Thomas Hoby and William Whately; extended commentary: Castiglione, The book of the courtier -- Critical theories and debates. City, court and country; The woman debate; exploration and new worlds; religious works and controversy -- References and resources -- Timeline -- Further reading.