First, I show that developments (or a perceived lack of development) in library organization, access, and use appeared in literary texts, which often depicted literary libraries in response to these developments. “Circulating Knowledges” advances its argument on several fronts.

Revising these narratives, this dissertation brings together a large corpus, including works by Thomas More, John Lyly, Edmund Spenser, Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, and Margaret Cavendish, to illustrate how literary depictions of England’s fledgling libraries shaped their creation and development, while the practices of these inchoate libraries in turn influenced literary texts. Many literary critics -citing Thomas Bodley’s notorious distaste for “stage plaies”-have typically reduced institutional libraries to elitist boogeymen hostile to popular or vernacular literature. The history of English Renaissance libraries has generally been analyzed from the viewpoints of religious history and historiography, seen by scholars as a story of Protestant librarians attempting to preserve (or invent) a history of Protestant England. “Circulating Knowledges: Literature and the Idea of the Library in Renaissance England” pairs literary texts and libraries to illustrate how literary creation and library building in England from 1500 to 1700 were deeply invested in one another. 2021 Theses Doctoral Circulating Knowledges: Literature and the Idea of the Library in Renaissance England

Renaine circulation