Time's Purpled Masquers: Stars and the Afterlife in Renaissance English Literature - Hardcover

...the book (modestly termed 'no more than an essay') is a major work, stunningly learned in art history, wonderfully subtle in literary analysis, and truly communal, drawing on a rich array of recent secondary work. (The Review of English Studies)

Alastair Fowler's fascinating study explores the extraordinary prominence of astronomical imagery in Renaissance literature. Although the stars were important astrologically, this is at best a partial explanation for the popularity of such imagery, and the impact of astronomical discoveries (particularly their implications for stellification, or translation to the stars) is also an important factor. Seventeenth-century culture was both religious and materialistic and the literature of the period shows a great variety of negotiated reconciliations of the two.