Profesionalizace literární kultury - Alžbětinská poetika jako součást komplexu renesančního vědění – Kastnerová Martina (2016)

Among the many changes that society in Elizabethan England underwent was the new role of the "professional poet" – the author of the book compares him to figures in today's pop culture: they are generally well-known, associated with decent earnings, but not always with a good reputation. One of them, playwright Ben Jonson, sarcastically remarks: The poet is the one /.../ poor wretch who must live by poetry. – These "wretches," however, had colorful fates and roles: they were poets and theorists, courtiers, politicians, and by promoting and cultivating the "popular language," they strengthened national cultural autonomy not only in relation to the previously untouchable authority of the classics of antiquity but also against contemporary "competition" on the European continent. Not only William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, but also their less famous contemporaries Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and George Puttenham co-created and embodied the ideal of the time with their works and fates – or also challenged it... Reading about them still brings nearly adventurous insights today.