This Concise Companion launches students into the study of English Renaissance literature through the central contexts that informed it. * Places the poetry within contexts such as: economics; religion; empire and exploration; education, humanism and rhetoric; censorship and patronage; royal marriage and succession; treason and rebellion; "others" in England; private lives; cosmology and the body; and life-writing. * Incorporates recent developments in the field, as well as work soon to be published. * Entices students to explore the subject further. * Provides new syntheses that will be of interest to scholars. * All the contributors are highly regarded scholars and teachers.