The Destruction of Jerusalem in Early Modern English Literature

This book provides a fresh perspective on texts by Marlowe, Nashe, Shakespeare, Dekker and Milton by situating them within their historical and theological context. Its interdisciplinary and broad appeal will interest researchers and upper-level students of early modern literature and theatre, religious studies, intellectual history, Jewish studies and biblical studies.

This book explores the fall of Jerusalem and restores to its rightful place one of the key explanatory tropes of early modern English culture. Showing the importance of Jerusalem's destruction in sermons, ballads, puppet shows and provincial drama of the period, Beatrice Groves brings a new perspective to works by canonical authors such as Marlowe, Nashe, Shakespeare, Dekker and Milton. The volume also offers a historically compelling and wide-ranging account of major shifts in cultural attitudes towards Judaism by situating texts in their wider cultural and theological context. Groves examines the continuities and differences between medieval and early modern theatre, London as an imagined community and the way that narratives about Jerusalem and Judaism informed notions of English identity in the wake of the Reformation. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this volume will interest researchers and upper-level students of early modern literature, religious studies and theatre.