ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the diverse spectrum of remembrance practices at work within early modern England. It demonstrates, the arts of remembrance were tangible, legible and visible everywhere in the early modern surrounds. The book focuses on Textual Rites', and commences with Thomas Rist's essay investigating the poetic materials' of George Herbert. It examines comic strategies for the representation of Purgatory and its erstwhile inhabitants, Andrew Gordon traces the negotiation of orthodox and popular beliefs about the dead. Robert Tittler examines an art which flourished as a form of commemoration well beyond the aristocracy in the wake of dwindling opportunities for remembrance in a sacred setting. Rory Loughnane's contribution uses the material construction of Webster's dumb-show in The Duchess of Malfi to explore the practice of remembrance as representation' that provoked such theological controversy in the period.
