2025/10/01 by Rebecca Bailey · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Environmental Science · #Literature: history, themes, analysis #Financial Crisis of the 21st Century #Sustainable Development and Policies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/bch.2026.10060
openalex publication_date 2025/10/01 · openalex created_date 2026/03/26 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
This article explores the third edition of William Habington (1605-1654)’s lyric poems, Castara (1640). This final edition of Castara— originally published in 1634 as a series of love poems to his wife, Lucy Herbert—was transformed by a prose sketch of ‘A Holy Man’ and twenty-two devotional poems. The article draws on Habington’s recusant roots and his engagement with French, Counter-Reformation Catholicism emanating from Queen Henrietta Maria’s court circle, and argues for an early modern Catholic poetics. It explores why these poems were published in 1640 and argues that this edition of Castara , by one of the ablest Catholics of his generation, offers a unique glimpse into, and understanding of, English Catholicism at the volatile political moment prior to the outbreak of the English Civil War.