Cock, Emily  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5690-8198
2015.
'Nonsence is rebellion?': John Taylor's Nonsence upon Sence, or Sence, upon Nonsence (1651-1654) and the English Civil War.
Ceræ: An Australasian Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
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Abstract
This article examines the political content of John Taylor’s Nonsence upon Sence, or Sence, upon Nonsence: Chuse you either, or neither (1651–1654), challenging the customary dismissal of this poem as light‑hearted nonsense verse. Taylor was a staunch Royalist who had openly criticised the divisions of the English Civil War and the proliferation of religious separatists. I argue that Nonsence continues this project under a mask of playful ambiguity. The literary disorder created in this text, which Taylor calls ‘nonsence’, is made to mirror the social, religious and political fragmentation of post-war London, as sentences and words are broken down and rearranged in unfamiliar and disturbing ways. The article serves not only as a stylistic assessment of Taylor’s political satire, but also to historicise his engagement with nonsense and place within that literary tradition.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > History, Archaeology and Religion |
| Publisher: | University of Western Australia |
| ISSN: | 2204-146X |
| Funders: | Bill Cowan Fellowship |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 21 November 2017 |
| Last Modified: | 14 May 2023 04:08 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/105615 |
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