Jane Rickard is a Senior Lecturer in Seventeenth-Century English Literature at the University of Leeds. She is the author of Authorship and Authority: The Writings of James VI and I (2007) and co-editor of Shakespeare's Book: Essays in Reading, Writing and Reception (2008).
Introduction: approaching the monarch; from Scotland to England: the
accession of a writer-king; Part I. James, Jonson and the Jacobean Court:
1. 'Best of kings' and 'best of poets'?: James, Jonson and constructing the
role of court poet; 2. The 'abortive and extemporal din': James, Jonson and
the discussion of state affairs; Part II. James, Donne and the Politics of
Religion in Jacobean England: 3. 'A conversation with your subjects':
power, language and kingship in Donne's early Jacobean works; 4. 'We are in
Deed and in name too, Men of Orders': Donne and the politics of preaching
for the King; Part III. James, Shakespeare and the Jacobean Theatre: 5.
'Let him but be testimonied in his own bringings-forth': Shakespeare, James
and constructing the King; Coda: appropriating the royal word in the 1620s
and beyond; Select bibliography; Index.
