Authorship and authority The writings of James VI and I [Paperback]

James VI of Scotland and I of England participated in the burgeoning literary culture of the Renaissance, not only as a monarch and patron, but as an author in his own right, publishing extensively in a number of different genres over four decades. As the first monograph devoted to James as an author, this book offers a fresh perspective on his reigns in Scotland and England, and also on the inter-relationship of authorship and authority, literature and politics in the Renaissance.

Beginning with the poetry he wrote in Scotland in the 1580s, it moves through a wide range of his writings, including scriptural exegeses, political, social and theological treatises and printed speeches, concluding with his manuscript poetry of the early 1620s. The book combines extensive primary research into the preparation, material form and circulation of these varied writings, with theoretically informed consideration of the relationship between authors, texts and readers. The discussion thus explores James's responses to, and interventions in, a range of literary, political and religious debates, and reveals the development of his aims and concerns as an author.

Introduction: Reading James VI and I

1. Constructing the Writer-King: the early poetry

2. The word of God and the word of the King: the early scriptural exegeses

3. Print, authority, interpretation: the major prose works

4. Monumentalising the royal author: The Workes (1616)

5. The late poetry and the deconstruction of authority

Afterword

Bibliography

Index

Rickard's book is welcome and long overdue a book that deserves attention from both literary scholars and historians

This is a timely and valuable contribution to Jacobean literary scholarship which deserves to be widely read

an illuminating and much welcome study, which will prove indispensable to future students of the literary production of this most mysterious oflc¼