The Seventeenth Century Handbook provides the undergraduate with a succinct account of the century s events, along with an exploration of the ways the literature reflected and helped shape the history of the time. * Provides a coherent narrative of the entire century of literary history as well as an easy-to-use guide to the principal literary works and figures * Offers an exploration of the ways the literature reflected and helped shape the history of the time * Describes the continuities as well as the radical changes in this century of civil war and reformation * Combines a central narrative account of texts and contexts with a selection of brief essays on key texts and topics * Includes an alphabetical selection of capsule descriptions of important writers