The kindred vitality of Tudor arts and letters. says David Evett, is often obscured because scholars write as art or literary historians rather than seek an idiom common to both fields. Furhter, they tend to regard the Tudor period not in its own right but only in the context of the great renascence of culture and creativity then sweeping the European continent. In a departure form these critical traditions. Evett examines the arts from a variety of postmodern perspectives. Avoiding excessive theorizing, he supplies a wealth of concrete examples and analogies, including examinations of more than a dozen major pictures, buildings, and works of literature. Tudor artist and writers were influenced by their counterparts on the Continent but never blindly followed Europe's lead. As Evett discusses the English versions of the Renaissance, Mannerist, and Baroque movements, he shows how their ideals were tempered by the voices and visions of the Traditional aesthetic that persisted in England throughout the sexteenth century, and of the Grotesque and Demotic styles. He goes on to describe how and why Tudor artists and writers began to find alternatives to the system of courtly patronage and new ways to express themselves. The connections Evett explores range from the direct to the inferential - from the treatment in two or more media of the same subject to the relationships between architectural and literary structure. Whether relating changes in the Layout of Tudor country houses to changes in narrative and dramatic organization, or emblematic prose to trends in book design, Evett looks at the unique and unconventional by contrasting them with the familiar. This approach permits a view of Tudor art and literature in their entirety: their producers and consumers, their ideals and practices, and the social atmosphere in which they flourished.