Time's Purpled Masquers: Stars and the Afterlife in Renaissance English Literature

by Alastair Fowler

Alastair Fowler's fascinating study explores the extraordinary prominence of astronomical imagery in Renaissance literature. He describes the forgotten Renaissance beliefs about stellification, an afterlife in the stars through metamorphosis into stellar or angelic substance. The new astronomy of Copernicus and Brahe, far from working against religious beliefs, encouraged hopes of access to the uncorrupted spheres. Fowler's many-faceted book scrutinizes these ideas--both sacred and scientific--as they manifested in literature, masques, architecture, and the pursuit of fame.

180 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Alastair David Shaw Fowler CBE FBA (b. 1930) is a Scottish literary critic and editor, an authority on Edmund Spenser, Renaissance literature, genre theory, and numerology. Fowler was educated at the University of Edinburgh, M.A. (1952). He was subsequently awarded an M.A. (1955), D.Phil. (1957) and D.Litt. (1962) from Oxford. As a graduate student at Oxford, Fowler studied with C.S. Lewis, and later edited Lewis's Spenser's Images of Life.

Fowler was junior research fellow at Queen's College, Oxford (1955 - 59). He also taught at Swansea (1959 - 61), and Brasenose College, Oxford (1962 - 71). He was Regius Professor of literature at the University of Edinburgh (1972 - 84) and also taught intermittently at universities in the United States, including Columbia (1964) and the University of Virginia (1969, 1979, 1985–98).

Fowler is known for his editorial work. His edition of John Milton's Paradise Lost, part of the Longman poets series, has some of the most scholarly and detailed notes on the poem and is widely cited by Milton scholars.