Abstract
Recent research into early Stuart politics and literature has focused attention on a neglected body of poetry. A considerable volume of licentious poems on individuals and political events, known to contemporaries as ‘libels’, were at this time circulated anonymously, and transcribed into commonplace books and verse miscellanies. Given that open political comment was prevented by laws of censorship, libels represent some of the period's most incisive political writing. Working within the best traditions of satire, these poems not only respond to political tensions, but also give definition to emergent confrontations in the state. This article takes two approaches to early Stuart libels. Firstly, it surveys recent scholarship, and situates these poems in relation to both literary and political history. Secondly, it focuses on one piece (reproduced, in full, at the end of this article), and examines some of the ways in which the resources of satire informed new modes of political critique.
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