Andrew Hadfield
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199233656
- eISBN:
- 9780191696626
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199233656.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter explores a small sample of dramatic works to provide some sense of the manifold uses to which English Renaissance dramatists put the locations in which they chose to stage their plays. ...
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This chapter explores a small sample of dramatic works to provide some sense of the manifold uses to which English Renaissance dramatists put the locations in which they chose to stage their plays. It highlights four plays. First, it discusses Christopher Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris because it is one of only two plays which deal directly with the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day, an event which was a defining moment in English Protestant consciousness, and which produced the horrified fear that similar apocalyptic violence could easily explode in England if measures were not taken to prevent it. Second, it outlines the multiple contexts of Othello, a play which represents the ideal republic of Venice as the last bastion of European civilization pitted against the lure and danger of the barbarous and exotic Orient, but which can also be read as an allegory of contemporary England struggling against the dangers of savage Ireland. Third, it shows that The Tempest—a text which has been subject to a heated battle between those who insist on the relevance of the play's colonial context and those who seek to deny any such relationship—can best be read as an attempt to negotiate between the question of European and colonial forms of government. Finally, the chapter argues that John Fletcher's The Island Princess represents Portuguese colonialism in order to discuss the issues confronting contemporary English colonists.Less
This chapter explores a small sample of dramatic works to provide some sense of the manifold uses to which English Renaissance dramatists put the locations in which they chose to stage their plays. It highlights four plays. First, it discusses Christopher Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris because it is one of only two plays which deal directly with the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day, an event which was a defining moment in English Protestant consciousness, and which produced the horrified fear that similar apocalyptic violence could easily explode in England if measures were not taken to prevent it. Second, it outlines the multiple contexts of Othello, a play which represents the ideal republic of Venice as the last bastion of European civilization pitted against the lure and danger of the barbarous and exotic Orient, but which can also be read as an allegory of contemporary England struggling against the dangers of savage Ireland. Third, it shows that The Tempest—a text which has been subject to a heated battle between those who insist on the relevance of the play's colonial context and those who seek to deny any such relationship—can best be read as an attempt to negotiate between the question of European and colonial forms of government. Finally, the chapter argues that John Fletcher's The Island Princess represents Portuguese colonialism in order to discuss the issues confronting contemporary English colonists.
Gary Day
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748615636
- eISBN:
- 9780748652099
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748615636.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter addresses the development of English Renaissance criticism. The development of the language is greatly indebted to William Tyndale's translation of the Bible. Protestantism's main ...
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This chapter addresses the development of English Renaissance criticism. The development of the language is greatly indebted to William Tyndale's translation of the Bible. Protestantism's main contribution in literary criticism is the idea that readers should decide for themselves what a work means. A brief examination of the relation between feudalism and capitalism is then presented. The chapter also explores how politics shaped the character of criticism. There is a synergy between ideals of English and ideals of art. The political attempt to control the vernacular was countered by economic developments. The rise of Protestantism and the invention of the printing press both undermined the traditional hierarchy of reading. In the medieval world, tradition was largely a principle of continuity, the expression of a universal culture. If criticism was to defend poetry it had to develop an idiom capable of conveying its unique, as well as its universal, qualities.Less
This chapter addresses the development of English Renaissance criticism. The development of the language is greatly indebted to William Tyndale's translation of the Bible. Protestantism's main contribution in literary criticism is the idea that readers should decide for themselves what a work means. A brief examination of the relation between feudalism and capitalism is then presented. The chapter also explores how politics shaped the character of criticism. There is a synergy between ideals of English and ideals of art. The political attempt to control the vernacular was countered by economic developments. The rise of Protestantism and the invention of the printing press both undermined the traditional hierarchy of reading. In the medieval world, tradition was largely a principle of continuity, the expression of a universal culture. If criticism was to defend poetry it had to develop an idiom capable of conveying its unique, as well as its universal, qualities.
Andrew Hadfield
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198183457
- eISBN:
- 9780191674044
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183457.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book argues that Edmund Spenser's perception and fragmented representation of Ireland shadows the whole narrative of his major work, The Faerie Queene, traditionally regarded as one of the ...
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This book argues that Edmund Spenser's perception and fragmented representation of Ireland shadows the whole narrative of his major work, The Faerie Queene, traditionally regarded as one of the finest achievements of the English Renaissance. The poem has often been read in specifically English contexts but, as the author argues, demands to be read in terms of England's expanding colonial hegemony within the British Isles and the ensuing fear that such national ambition would actually lead to the destruction of England's post-Reformation legacy. Spenser should be seen less as an English writer and more as a new English writer in Ireland, his prose and poetry expressing the hopes and fears of his class. Where A View of the Present State of Ireland attempts to provide a violent political solution to England's Irish problem, The Faerie Queene exposes the apocalyptic fear that there may be no solution at all. The book contains an analysis of Spenser's life on the Munster plantation, readings of the political rhetoric and antiquarian discourse of A View of the Present State of Ireland, and three chapters that argue the case that the apparently Anglocentric allegory of The Faerie Queene reveals a land gradually, but clearly, transformed into its Irish other. Spenser emerges from this study as a writer whose experience in Ireland rendered him implacably opposed to the vacillations of his English monarch.Less
This book argues that Edmund Spenser's perception and fragmented representation of Ireland shadows the whole narrative of his major work, The Faerie Queene, traditionally regarded as one of the finest achievements of the English Renaissance. The poem has often been read in specifically English contexts but, as the author argues, demands to be read in terms of England's expanding colonial hegemony within the British Isles and the ensuing fear that such national ambition would actually lead to the destruction of England's post-Reformation legacy. Spenser should be seen less as an English writer and more as a new English writer in Ireland, his prose and poetry expressing the hopes and fears of his class. Where A View of the Present State of Ireland attempts to provide a violent political solution to England's Irish problem, The Faerie Queene exposes the apocalyptic fear that there may be no solution at all. The book contains an analysis of Spenser's life on the Munster plantation, readings of the political rhetoric and antiquarian discourse of A View of the Present State of Ireland, and three chapters that argue the case that the apparently Anglocentric allegory of The Faerie Queene reveals a land gradually, but clearly, transformed into its Irish other. Spenser emerges from this study as a writer whose experience in Ireland rendered him implacably opposed to the vacillations of his English monarch.
H. R. Woudhuysen
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263242
- eISBN:
- 9780191734014
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263242.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This lecture discusses the foundations of Shakespeare's text, starting with a summary of the current views of the texts of his plays and how they should be edited. It then discusses the recent work ...
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This lecture discusses the foundations of Shakespeare's text, starting with a summary of the current views of the texts of his plays and how they should be edited. It then discusses the recent work on the attribution of plays and poems to Shakespeare. The lecture addresses some of the assumptions about the status and significance of English Renaissance play texts and the handling of certain typographic features. It also looks at the considerations of the implications of supposing that Shakespeare revised his own works. A critical account of several recent editorial views of those who advocate ‘unediting’ is also presented.Less
This lecture discusses the foundations of Shakespeare's text, starting with a summary of the current views of the texts of his plays and how they should be edited. It then discusses the recent work on the attribution of plays and poems to Shakespeare. The lecture addresses some of the assumptions about the status and significance of English Renaissance play texts and the handling of certain typographic features. It also looks at the considerations of the implications of supposing that Shakespeare revised his own works. A critical account of several recent editorial views of those who advocate ‘unediting’ is also presented.
John Lee
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198185048
- eISBN:
- 9780191674433
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198185048.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This book offers a new approach to the discussion of English Renaissance literary subjectivity. Dissatisfied with much New Historicist and Cultural Materialistic criticism, it attempts to trace the ...
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This book offers a new approach to the discussion of English Renaissance literary subjectivity. Dissatisfied with much New Historicist and Cultural Materialistic criticism, it attempts to trace the history of the controversies of self. William Hazlitt emerges as a pioneering figure in a tradition of literary criticism, which this book tries to advance. Drawing on the personal construct theory of George A. Kelly, and on the moral theory of Alasdair MacIntyre, the textual ways are traced by which ‘that within’ Hamlet is constructed. In an argument that challenges some of the founding propositions of New Historicist and Cultural Materialist practice, the Prince is seen to have a self-constituting, as opposed to a self-fashioning, sense of self. This sense of self is neither essentialist nor transhistorical; using the work of Charles Taylor, the play is seen to be exploring a Montaignesque, as opposed to Cartesian, notion of subjectivity. The controversies of self are, in fact, an issue within Shakespeare's play; and if the notion of Folio and Quarto Princes is allowed, it may even be at issue within the play. Hamlet debates our debate.Less
This book offers a new approach to the discussion of English Renaissance literary subjectivity. Dissatisfied with much New Historicist and Cultural Materialistic criticism, it attempts to trace the history of the controversies of self. William Hazlitt emerges as a pioneering figure in a tradition of literary criticism, which this book tries to advance. Drawing on the personal construct theory of George A. Kelly, and on the moral theory of Alasdair MacIntyre, the textual ways are traced by which ‘that within’ Hamlet is constructed. In an argument that challenges some of the founding propositions of New Historicist and Cultural Materialist practice, the Prince is seen to have a self-constituting, as opposed to a self-fashioning, sense of self. This sense of self is neither essentialist nor transhistorical; using the work of Charles Taylor, the play is seen to be exploring a Montaignesque, as opposed to Cartesian, notion of subjectivity. The controversies of self are, in fact, an issue within Shakespeare's play; and if the notion of Folio and Quarto Princes is allowed, it may even be at issue within the play. Hamlet debates our debate.
Andrew Hadfield
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199233656
- eISBN:
- 9780191696626
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199233656.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
What was the purpose of representing foreign lands for writers in the English Renaissance? This book argues that writers often used their works as vehicles to reflect on the state of contemporary ...
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What was the purpose of representing foreign lands for writers in the English Renaissance? This book argues that writers often used their works as vehicles to reflect on the state of contemporary English politics, particularly their own lack of representation in public institutions. Sometimes such analyses took the form of displaced allegories, whereby writers contrasted the advantages enjoyed, or disadvantages suffered, by foreign subjects with the political conditions of Tudor and Stuart England. Elsewhere, more often in explicitly colonial writings, authors meditated on the problems of government when faced with the possibly violent creation of a new society. If Venice was commonly held up as a beacon of republican liberty which England would do well to imitate, the fear of tyrannical Catholic Spain was ever present—inspiring and haunting much of the colonial literature from 1580 onwards. This book examines fictional and non-fictional writings, illustrating both the close connections between the two made by early modern readers and the problems involved in the usual assumption that we can make sense of the past with the categories available to us. The book explores representations of Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Far East, selecting pertinent examples rather than attempting to embrace a total coverage. It also offers fresh readings of Shakespeare, Marlowe, More, Lyly, Hakluyt, Harriot, Nashe, and others.Less
What was the purpose of representing foreign lands for writers in the English Renaissance? This book argues that writers often used their works as vehicles to reflect on the state of contemporary English politics, particularly their own lack of representation in public institutions. Sometimes such analyses took the form of displaced allegories, whereby writers contrasted the advantages enjoyed, or disadvantages suffered, by foreign subjects with the political conditions of Tudor and Stuart England. Elsewhere, more often in explicitly colonial writings, authors meditated on the problems of government when faced with the possibly violent creation of a new society. If Venice was commonly held up as a beacon of republican liberty which England would do well to imitate, the fear of tyrannical Catholic Spain was ever present—inspiring and haunting much of the colonial literature from 1580 onwards. This book examines fictional and non-fictional writings, illustrating both the close connections between the two made by early modern readers and the problems involved in the usual assumption that we can make sense of the past with the categories available to us. The book explores representations of Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Far East, selecting pertinent examples rather than attempting to embrace a total coverage. It also offers fresh readings of Shakespeare, Marlowe, More, Lyly, Hakluyt, Harriot, Nashe, and others.
Martin Wiggins
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112280
- eISBN:
- 9780191670749
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112280.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Torture and murder are the sort of dirty jobs that rich and powerful men have always considered beneath them. In sixteenth and seventeenth-century English drama, they often employed others to take ...
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Torture and murder are the sort of dirty jobs that rich and powerful men have always considered beneath them. In sixteenth and seventeenth-century English drama, they often employed others to take care of that side of the business of being a villain. Such characters developed from being minor but memorable Elizabethan bit-parts into key figures in some of the greatest Jacobean tragedies: The White Devil, The Duchess of Malfi, and The Changeling. This book shows how assassins, embroiled though they are in violence and intrigue, often served to address issues of political and moral concern in the period, such as the dangers of tyranny, or the corrupting power of money. The book's scope is broad, covering the entire corpus of English Renaissance drama, and it offers detailed critical consideration of many plays, including several that are here studied in depth for the first time. Throughout, the achievement of major dramatists is placed in the context of other writers' use of similar material, illuminating the ways in which they create their own distinctive and disturbing effects by using playgoers' prior experience of the character.Less
Torture and murder are the sort of dirty jobs that rich and powerful men have always considered beneath them. In sixteenth and seventeenth-century English drama, they often employed others to take care of that side of the business of being a villain. Such characters developed from being minor but memorable Elizabethan bit-parts into key figures in some of the greatest Jacobean tragedies: The White Devil, The Duchess of Malfi, and The Changeling. This book shows how assassins, embroiled though they are in violence and intrigue, often served to address issues of political and moral concern in the period, such as the dangers of tyranny, or the corrupting power of money. The book's scope is broad, covering the entire corpus of English Renaissance drama, and it offers detailed critical consideration of many plays, including several that are here studied in depth for the first time. Throughout, the achievement of major dramatists is placed in the context of other writers' use of similar material, illuminating the ways in which they create their own distinctive and disturbing effects by using playgoers' prior experience of the character.
Jenny C. Mann
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801449659
- eISBN:
- 9780801464102
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449659.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
A central feature of English Renaissance humanism was its reverence for classical Latin as the one true form of eloquent expression. Yet sixteenth-century writers increasingly came to believe that ...
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A central feature of English Renaissance humanism was its reverence for classical Latin as the one true form of eloquent expression. Yet sixteenth-century writers increasingly came to believe that England needed an equally distinguished vernacular language to serve its burgeoning national community. Thus, one of the main cultural projects of Renaissance rhetoricians was that of producing a “common” vernacular eloquence, mindful of its classical origins yet self-consciously English in character. The process of vernacularization began during Henry VIII's reign and continued, with fits and starts, late into the seventeenth century. This book examines the archive of vernacular rhetorical guides produced in England between 1500 and 1700. Writers of these guides drew upon classical training as they translated Greek and Latin figures of speech into an everyday English that could serve the ends of literary and national invention. In the process, however, they confronted aspects of rhetoric that run counter to its civilizing impulse. Working across a range of genres, the book demonstrates the effects of this tension between classical rhetoric and English outlawry in works by Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, Philip Sidney, Ben Jonson, and Margaret Cavendish. In so doing it reveals the political stakes of the vernacular rhetorical project in the age of Shakespeare.Less
A central feature of English Renaissance humanism was its reverence for classical Latin as the one true form of eloquent expression. Yet sixteenth-century writers increasingly came to believe that England needed an equally distinguished vernacular language to serve its burgeoning national community. Thus, one of the main cultural projects of Renaissance rhetoricians was that of producing a “common” vernacular eloquence, mindful of its classical origins yet self-consciously English in character. The process of vernacularization began during Henry VIII's reign and continued, with fits and starts, late into the seventeenth century. This book examines the archive of vernacular rhetorical guides produced in England between 1500 and 1700. Writers of these guides drew upon classical training as they translated Greek and Latin figures of speech into an everyday English that could serve the ends of literary and national invention. In the process, however, they confronted aspects of rhetoric that run counter to its civilizing impulse. Working across a range of genres, the book demonstrates the effects of this tension between classical rhetoric and English outlawry in works by Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, Philip Sidney, Ben Jonson, and Margaret Cavendish. In so doing it reveals the political stakes of the vernacular rhetorical project in the age of Shakespeare.
Martin Wiggins
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112280
- eISBN:
- 9780191670749
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112280.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
The assassin, suborned to do another villain's murders, is one of the most recurrent minor figures in plays written during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I. Evidently, murder plots ...
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The assassin, suborned to do another villain's murders, is one of the most recurrent minor figures in plays written during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I. Evidently, murder plots of this type remained useful to playwrights and interesting to playgoers throughout a long period. The assassin belongs to a side of English Renaissance drama that we do not now find congenial: its violence and intrigue. The popular reputation of Jacobean tragedy today places it alongside Grand Guignol and ‘splatter’ movies, unpleasant entertainments catering for abnormal tastes. One of this book's contentions is that most stage assassins do not kill simply because they are told to, and that their motives are often the centre of their appeal and interest. In part, this interest is akin to that claimed for stage violence by recent critics who have attempted to rehabilitate that aspect of English Renaissance drama.Less
The assassin, suborned to do another villain's murders, is one of the most recurrent minor figures in plays written during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I. Evidently, murder plots of this type remained useful to playwrights and interesting to playgoers throughout a long period. The assassin belongs to a side of English Renaissance drama that we do not now find congenial: its violence and intrigue. The popular reputation of Jacobean tragedy today places it alongside Grand Guignol and ‘splatter’ movies, unpleasant entertainments catering for abnormal tastes. One of this book's contentions is that most stage assassins do not kill simply because they are told to, and that their motives are often the centre of their appeal and interest. In part, this interest is akin to that claimed for stage violence by recent critics who have attempted to rehabilitate that aspect of English Renaissance drama.
H. R. Woudhuysen
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198129660
- eISBN:
- 9780191671821
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198129660.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This is the first modern study of the production and circulation of manuscripts during the English Renaissance. The book examines the relationship between manuscript and print, looks at people who ...
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This is the first modern study of the production and circulation of manuscripts during the English Renaissance. The book examines the relationship between manuscript and print, looks at people who lived by their pens, and surveys authorial and scribal manuscripts, paying particular attention to the copying of verse, plays, and scholarly works by hand. It investigates the professional production of manuscripts for sale by scribes such as Ralph Crane and Richard Robinson. The second part of the book examines Sir Philip Sydney's works in the context of research conducted for this book, discussing all of Sidney's important manuscripts, and seeking to assess his part in the circulation of his works and his role in the promotion of a scribal culture. A detailed examination of the manuscripts and early prints of his poems, his Arcadias, and of Astrophil and Stella shed new light on their composition, evolution, and dissemination, as well as on Sidney's friends and admirers.Less
This is the first modern study of the production and circulation of manuscripts during the English Renaissance. The book examines the relationship between manuscript and print, looks at people who lived by their pens, and surveys authorial and scribal manuscripts, paying particular attention to the copying of verse, plays, and scholarly works by hand. It investigates the professional production of manuscripts for sale by scribes such as Ralph Crane and Richard Robinson. The second part of the book examines Sir Philip Sydney's works in the context of research conducted for this book, discussing all of Sidney's important manuscripts, and seeking to assess his part in the circulation of his works and his role in the promotion of a scribal culture. A detailed examination of the manuscripts and early prints of his poems, his Arcadias, and of Astrophil and Stella shed new light on their composition, evolution, and dissemination, as well as on Sidney's friends and admirers.
Hester Lees-Jeffries
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199230785
- eISBN:
- 9780191696473
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199230785.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book is about one of the most important features of early modern gardens: the fountain. It is also a detailed study of works by Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and Ben Jonson, and of an ...
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This book is about one of the most important features of early modern gardens: the fountain. It is also a detailed study of works by Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and Ben Jonson, and of an influential Italian romance, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Fountains were ‘strong points’ in the iconography and structure of gardens, symbolically loaded and interpretatively dense, soliciting the most active engagement possible from those who encountered them. This book is not a simple motif study of fountains in English Renaissance literature: it is, rather, an investigation of how each might work; of how literary fountains both inform and are informed by real fountains in early modern literature and culture. While its main focus remains the literature of the late 16th century, the book recognises that intertextuality and influence can be material as well as literary. It demonstrates that the ‘missing piece’ needed to make sense of a passage in a play, a poem, or a prose romance could be a fountain, a conduit, a well, or a reflecting pool, in general or even in a specific, known garden; it also considers portraits, textiles, jewellery, and other artefacts depicting fountains. Early modern English gardens and fountains are almost all lost, but to approach them through literary texts and objects is often to recover them in new ways. This book offers a new model for the exploration of the interconnectedness of texts, images, objects, and landscapes in early modern literature and culture.Less
This book is about one of the most important features of early modern gardens: the fountain. It is also a detailed study of works by Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and Ben Jonson, and of an influential Italian romance, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Fountains were ‘strong points’ in the iconography and structure of gardens, symbolically loaded and interpretatively dense, soliciting the most active engagement possible from those who encountered them. This book is not a simple motif study of fountains in English Renaissance literature: it is, rather, an investigation of how each might work; of how literary fountains both inform and are informed by real fountains in early modern literature and culture. While its main focus remains the literature of the late 16th century, the book recognises that intertextuality and influence can be material as well as literary. It demonstrates that the ‘missing piece’ needed to make sense of a passage in a play, a poem, or a prose romance could be a fountain, a conduit, a well, or a reflecting pool, in general or even in a specific, known garden; it also considers portraits, textiles, jewellery, and other artefacts depicting fountains. Early modern English gardens and fountains are almost all lost, but to approach them through literary texts and objects is often to recover them in new ways. This book offers a new model for the exploration of the interconnectedness of texts, images, objects, and landscapes in early modern literature and culture.
Anna-Maria Hartmann
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- March 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198807704
- eISBN:
- 9780191845529
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198807704.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Ancient Religions
Mythographies were books that collected, explained, and interpreted myth-related material. Extremely popular during the Renaissance, these works appealed to a wide range of readers. While the ...
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Mythographies were books that collected, explained, and interpreted myth-related material. Extremely popular during the Renaissance, these works appealed to a wide range of readers. While the European mythographies of the sixteenth century have been utilized by scholars, the short, early English mythographies, written from 1577 to 1647, have puzzled critics. The first generation of English mythographers did not, as has been suggested, try to compete with their Italian predecessors. Instead, they made mythographies into rhetorical instruments designed to intervene in topical debates outside the world of classical learning. Because English mythographers brought mythology to bear on a variety of contemporary issues, they unfold a lively and historically well-defined picture of the roles myth was made to play in early modern England. Exploring these mythographies can contribute to previous insights into myth in the Renaissance offered by studies of iconography, literary history, allegory, and myth theory.Less
Mythographies were books that collected, explained, and interpreted myth-related material. Extremely popular during the Renaissance, these works appealed to a wide range of readers. While the European mythographies of the sixteenth century have been utilized by scholars, the short, early English mythographies, written from 1577 to 1647, have puzzled critics. The first generation of English mythographers did not, as has been suggested, try to compete with their Italian predecessors. Instead, they made mythographies into rhetorical instruments designed to intervene in topical debates outside the world of classical learning. Because English mythographers brought mythology to bear on a variety of contemporary issues, they unfold a lively and historically well-defined picture of the roles myth was made to play in early modern England. Exploring these mythographies can contribute to previous insights into myth in the Renaissance offered by studies of iconography, literary history, allegory, and myth theory.
Emma Sutton
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748637874
- eISBN:
- 9780748695270
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748637874.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
Chapter 5 concentrates on questions of national identity and nationalism, exploring music’s role in the (de)construction of English identity in Orlando, Between the Acts and The Years. It takes as ...
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Chapter 5 concentrates on questions of national identity and nationalism, exploring music’s role in the (de)construction of English identity in Orlando, Between the Acts and The Years. It takes as its focal points the early music and folk music revivals, and philo- and anti-Semitic narratives about music. The chapter considers Woolf’s work in the context of nationalist writing about music by the ideologues of the English Musical Renaissance, suggests that Woolf was hostile to the national and ethnic ‘purity’ advocated in these accounts. Concluding with a close reading of the Siegfried scene in The Years, it also proposes that here and elsewhere in her work Woolf uses music to critique anti-Semitism and embed philo-Semitic sympathies.Less
Chapter 5 concentrates on questions of national identity and nationalism, exploring music’s role in the (de)construction of English identity in Orlando, Between the Acts and The Years. It takes as its focal points the early music and folk music revivals, and philo- and anti-Semitic narratives about music. The chapter considers Woolf’s work in the context of nationalist writing about music by the ideologues of the English Musical Renaissance, suggests that Woolf was hostile to the national and ethnic ‘purity’ advocated in these accounts. Concluding with a close reading of the Siegfried scene in The Years, it also proposes that here and elsewhere in her work Woolf uses music to critique anti-Semitism and embed philo-Semitic sympathies.
Heather Hirschfeld
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801452741
- eISBN:
- 9780801470639
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801452741.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This introductory chapter begins by looking at how Othello's predicament represents the instance of a conceptual and affective dilemma—a problem of satisfaction—central to the language, plots, and ...
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This introductory chapter begins by looking at how Othello's predicament represents the instance of a conceptual and affective dilemma—a problem of satisfaction—central to the language, plots, and characters of the early modern theater. It investigates the sources of this dilemma in Reformation doctrine, its place in early modern structures of thought and feeling, and its imaginative representation on the English Renaissance stage. The chapter traces both the historical specificity and significance of the term “satisfaction” during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Such a notion is neglected by modern scholars who treat satisfaction as the transparent terminus of the category of desire. However, satisfaction's conceptual vigor gave it discursive purchase across multiple sociocultural vocabularies, including those associated with revenge, finance, and marriage.Less
This introductory chapter begins by looking at how Othello's predicament represents the instance of a conceptual and affective dilemma—a problem of satisfaction—central to the language, plots, and characters of the early modern theater. It investigates the sources of this dilemma in Reformation doctrine, its place in early modern structures of thought and feeling, and its imaginative representation on the English Renaissance stage. The chapter traces both the historical specificity and significance of the term “satisfaction” during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Such a notion is neglected by modern scholars who treat satisfaction as the transparent terminus of the category of desire. However, satisfaction's conceptual vigor gave it discursive purchase across multiple sociocultural vocabularies, including those associated with revenge, finance, and marriage.
Drew Daniel
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823251278
- eISBN:
- 9780823252701
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823251278.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book considers melancholy as an “assemblage,” as a network of dynamic, interpretive relationships between persons, bodies, texts, spaces, structures, and things. In doing so, it parts ways with ...
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This book considers melancholy as an “assemblage,” as a network of dynamic, interpretive relationships between persons, bodies, texts, spaces, structures, and things. In doing so, it parts ways with past interpretations of melancholy. Tilting the English Renaissance against the present moment, the book argues that the basic disciplinary tension between medicine and philosophy persists within contemporary debates about emotional embodiment. To make this case, the book binds together the paintings of Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver, the drama of William Shakespeare, the prose of Robert Burton, and the poetry of John Milton. Crossing borders and periods, the book combines recent theories that have—until now—been regarded as incongruous by their respective advocates. Asking fundamental questions about how the experience of emotion produces community, the book will be of interest to scholars of early modern literature, psychoanalysis, the affective turn, and continental philosophy.Less
This book considers melancholy as an “assemblage,” as a network of dynamic, interpretive relationships between persons, bodies, texts, spaces, structures, and things. In doing so, it parts ways with past interpretations of melancholy. Tilting the English Renaissance against the present moment, the book argues that the basic disciplinary tension between medicine and philosophy persists within contemporary debates about emotional embodiment. To make this case, the book binds together the paintings of Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver, the drama of William Shakespeare, the prose of Robert Burton, and the poetry of John Milton. Crossing borders and periods, the book combines recent theories that have—until now—been regarded as incongruous by their respective advocates. Asking fundamental questions about how the experience of emotion produces community, the book will be of interest to scholars of early modern literature, psychoanalysis, the affective turn, and continental philosophy.
Anna-Maria Hartmann
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- March 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198807704
- eISBN:
- 9780191845529
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198807704.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Ancient Religions
Greco-Roman mythology and its reception are at the heart of the European Renaissance, and mythographies—texts that collected and explained ancient myths—were considered indispensable companions to ...
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Greco-Roman mythology and its reception are at the heart of the European Renaissance, and mythographies—texts that collected and explained ancient myths—were considered indispensable companions to any reader of literature. Despite the importance of this genre, English mythographies have not gained sustained critical attention, because they have been wrongly considered mere copies of their European counterparts. This monograph studies the English mythographies written between 1577 and 1647 by Stephen Batman, Abraham Fraunce, Francis Bacon, Henry Reynolds, and Alexander Ross. By placing their texts into a wider, European context, it reveals the unique English take on the genre. The book unfolds the role myth played in the wider English Renaissance culture (religious conflicts, literary life, natural philosophy, poetics, and Civil War politics) and shows, for the first time, the considerable explanatory value it holds for the study of English Renaissance literature. Finally, this book is a contribution to the history of myth philosophy. It reveals how early modern England answered a question we still find fascinating today: what is myth?Less
Greco-Roman mythology and its reception are at the heart of the European Renaissance, and mythographies—texts that collected and explained ancient myths—were considered indispensable companions to any reader of literature. Despite the importance of this genre, English mythographies have not gained sustained critical attention, because they have been wrongly considered mere copies of their European counterparts. This monograph studies the English mythographies written between 1577 and 1647 by Stephen Batman, Abraham Fraunce, Francis Bacon, Henry Reynolds, and Alexander Ross. By placing their texts into a wider, European context, it reveals the unique English take on the genre. The book unfolds the role myth played in the wider English Renaissance culture (religious conflicts, literary life, natural philosophy, poetics, and Civil War politics) and shows, for the first time, the considerable explanatory value it holds for the study of English Renaissance literature. Finally, this book is a contribution to the history of myth philosophy. It reveals how early modern England answered a question we still find fascinating today: what is myth?
Nina Levine and David Lee Miller
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823230303
- eISBN:
- 9780823241071
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823230303.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Berger's articles in the field of English Renaissance literature have always had substantial influence among specialists, but the reappearance of these essays, often revised or amplified, in ...
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Berger's articles in the field of English Renaissance literature have always had substantial influence among specialists, but the reappearance of these essays, often revised or amplified, in collections from university presses offers an occasion to reassess Berger's place in the volatile history of critical theory and practice in the second half of the twentieth century. The restless energy driving this enterprise has been so prolific that Berger's career keeps outstripping the reassessments. Acknowledging the subject's vigorous resistance to valediction, the editors nonetheless hope to play catch-up with the twenty essays collected in this volume, written not just “in honor of” Harry Berger but about him, as teacher and as critic.Less
Berger's articles in the field of English Renaissance literature have always had substantial influence among specialists, but the reappearance of these essays, often revised or amplified, in collections from university presses offers an occasion to reassess Berger's place in the volatile history of critical theory and practice in the second half of the twentieth century. The restless energy driving this enterprise has been so prolific that Berger's career keeps outstripping the reassessments. Acknowledging the subject's vigorous resistance to valediction, the editors nonetheless hope to play catch-up with the twenty essays collected in this volume, written not just “in honor of” Harry Berger but about him, as teacher and as critic.
Jeffrey Knapp
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190634063
- eISBN:
- 9780190634094
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190634063.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
Most commentators on mass entertainment restrict the phenomenon to the machine age. The introduction to Pleasing Everyone broadens our conception of mass entertainment by arguing that it should be ...
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Most commentators on mass entertainment restrict the phenomenon to the machine age. The introduction to Pleasing Everyone broadens our conception of mass entertainment by arguing that it should be defined in relation to the audience for whom it is intended rather than to the technologies for its production and distribution. To support this claim, the introduction closely compares Renaissance English drama to Golden Age Hollywood cinema in order to show how profoundly the drama no less than the cinema was shaped by the demand to please a mass audience.Less
Most commentators on mass entertainment restrict the phenomenon to the machine age. The introduction to Pleasing Everyone broadens our conception of mass entertainment by arguing that it should be defined in relation to the audience for whom it is intended rather than to the technologies for its production and distribution. To support this claim, the introduction closely compares Renaissance English drama to Golden Age Hollywood cinema in order to show how profoundly the drama no less than the cinema was shaped by the demand to please a mass audience.
Brett Foster
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198778783
- eISBN:
- 9780191823961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198778783.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter explores the significance of Christian humanism as an intentional cultural development, which led to some of the most remarkable poetry in the Western tradition. It deals with three ...
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This chapter explores the significance of Christian humanism as an intentional cultural development, which led to some of the most remarkable poetry in the Western tradition. It deals with three characteristic aspects of Renaissance humanism— syncretism, imitation, and collaboration—that show us how they, as Christian poets, engaged culture and thought about education, before reflecting on what Christian humanism might mean for us today. It thus provides an engaging social and historical context for the English Renaissance, and its lively literary, theological, and philosophical analysis of Renaissance poetry helps establish one of the main themes in this book, namely that Renaissance humanism—far from being an arrogant declaration of independence from God—should be understood as a vibrant celebration of the very roots of the Christian intellectual tradition.Less
This chapter explores the significance of Christian humanism as an intentional cultural development, which led to some of the most remarkable poetry in the Western tradition. It deals with three characteristic aspects of Renaissance humanism— syncretism, imitation, and collaboration—that show us how they, as Christian poets, engaged culture and thought about education, before reflecting on what Christian humanism might mean for us today. It thus provides an engaging social and historical context for the English Renaissance, and its lively literary, theological, and philosophical analysis of Renaissance poetry helps establish one of the main themes in this book, namely that Renaissance humanism—far from being an arrogant declaration of independence from God—should be understood as a vibrant celebration of the very roots of the Christian intellectual tradition.
Andreas Höfele
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199567645
- eISBN:
- 9780191731075
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199567645.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
The book argues that powerful exchanges between stage, stake and scaffold – the theatre, the beargarden and the spectacle of public execution – crucially informed Shakespeare’s explorations into the ...
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The book argues that powerful exchanges between stage, stake and scaffold – the theatre, the beargarden and the spectacle of public execution – crucially informed Shakespeare’s explorations into the construction and workings of ‘the human’ as a psychological, ethical and political category. The theatre's family resemblance to animal baiting and the spectacle of capital punishment, with which it shares the same basic performance space – a theatre-in-the-round – bred potential for a transfer of images and meanings. The staging of any one of these performances was always framed by an awareness of the other two, whose presence was never quite erased and indeed was often emphatically foregrounded. Situating Shakespearean drama within its material environment, the book explores how this spill-over affects the way Shakespeare models his human characters and his understanding of ‘human character’ in general. His dramatis personae are infused with a degree of animality that a later Cartesian anthropology would categorically deny. Readings based on this later anthropology tend to reduce Shakespeare’s teeming animal references to markers of moral, social and ontological difference, ‘beast’ being everything ‘man’ is not or ought not to be. This book proposes that Shakespearean notions of humanity rely just as much on inclusion as on exclusion of the animal, more generally of a whole range of nonhuman creatures. Humans and animals face each other across the species divide, but the divide proves highly permeable.Less
The book argues that powerful exchanges between stage, stake and scaffold – the theatre, the beargarden and the spectacle of public execution – crucially informed Shakespeare’s explorations into the construction and workings of ‘the human’ as a psychological, ethical and political category. The theatre's family resemblance to animal baiting and the spectacle of capital punishment, with which it shares the same basic performance space – a theatre-in-the-round – bred potential for a transfer of images and meanings. The staging of any one of these performances was always framed by an awareness of the other two, whose presence was never quite erased and indeed was often emphatically foregrounded. Situating Shakespearean drama within its material environment, the book explores how this spill-over affects the way Shakespeare models his human characters and his understanding of ‘human character’ in general. His dramatis personae are infused with a degree of animality that a later Cartesian anthropology would categorically deny. Readings based on this later anthropology tend to reduce Shakespeare’s teeming animal references to markers of moral, social and ontological difference, ‘beast’ being everything ‘man’ is not or ought not to be. This book proposes that Shakespearean notions of humanity rely just as much on inclusion as on exclusion of the animal, more generally of a whole range of nonhuman creatures. Humans and animals face each other across the species divide, but the divide proves highly permeable.
