Anne E. Monius
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195139990
- eISBN:
- 9780199834501
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195139992.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This chapters and the next turn to the eleventh‐century Vīracōliyam and its commentary, both of which construct a technology or theoretical vision of a multilingual literary culture that is claimed ...
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This chapters and the next turn to the eleventh‐century Vīracōliyam and its commentary, both of which construct a technology or theoretical vision of a multilingual literary culture that is claimed for Buddhism. It is argued in this chapter that the Vīracōliyam self‐consciously combines Tamil and Sanskrit grammar and poetic theory in unprecedented ways, for the first time formalizing a relationship between two literary languages that had existed side by side for many centuries. In raising Tamil to the level of a translocal prestige language of learning, the Vīracōliyam traces the origin of this Tamil‐Sanskrit literary language to the teachings of a great Buddha‐to‐be, Avalokiteśvara, thereby carving out a place for Buddhism in the Tamil religious and literary landscape of competing sectarian communities. Named for its heroic royal Cōla (also Chola) dynasty patron, the Vīracōliyam, like the Maṇimēkalai before it, also participates in wider currents within the Buddhist literary world, as South Indian Theravāda monks writing in Pāli in the tenth to the twelfth centuries increasingly identify themselves and the monasteries in which they write as tied to a ‘Coḷiya’ order.Less
This chapters and the next turn to the eleventh‐century Vīracōliyam and its commentary, both of which construct a technology or theoretical vision of a multilingual literary culture that is claimed for Buddhism. It is argued in this chapter that the Vīracōliyam self‐consciously combines Tamil and Sanskrit grammar and poetic theory in unprecedented ways, for the first time formalizing a relationship between two literary languages that had existed side by side for many centuries. In raising Tamil to the level of a translocal prestige language of learning, the Vīracōliyam traces the origin of this Tamil‐Sanskrit literary language to the teachings of a great Buddha‐to‐be, Avalokiteśvara, thereby carving out a place for Buddhism in the Tamil religious and literary landscape of competing sectarian communities. Named for its heroic royal Cōla (also Chola) dynasty patron, the Vīracōliyam, like the Maṇimēkalai before it, also participates in wider currents within the Buddhist literary world, as South Indian Theravāda monks writing in Pāli in the tenth to the twelfth centuries increasingly identify themselves and the monasteries in which they write as tied to a ‘Coḷiya’ order.
William A. Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195176407
- eISBN:
- 9780199775545
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195176407.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter examines the Letters of Pliny the Younger to understand better both the ways in which Pliny constructs a reading community and the particularities of that community. Pliny’s construction ...
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This chapter examines the Letters of Pliny the Younger to understand better both the ways in which Pliny constructs a reading community and the particularities of that community. Pliny’s construction of literary culture is found to have a broad basis in regular, balanced ideals of daily regimen. Also explored is the relationship between Pliny’s deliberate highlighting of the institution of recitation and the reading community he seeks to construct, as well as other aspects of Pliny’s construction of community around literary ideals.Less
This chapter examines the Letters of Pliny the Younger to understand better both the ways in which Pliny constructs a reading community and the particularities of that community. Pliny’s construction of literary culture is found to have a broad basis in regular, balanced ideals of daily regimen. Also explored is the relationship between Pliny’s deliberate highlighting of the institution of recitation and the reading community he seeks to construct, as well as other aspects of Pliny’s construction of community around literary ideals.
Hugh Grady
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198183228
- eISBN:
- 9780191673962
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183228.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies, Criticism/Theory
This is a major study of the history of Shakespeare criticism in the modern era. Every epoch recreates its classic icons — and for literary culture none is more central nor more protean than ...
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This is a major study of the history of Shakespeare criticism in the modern era. Every epoch recreates its classic icons — and for literary culture none is more central nor more protean than Shakespeare. Even though finding the authentic Shakespeare has been a goal of scholarship since the 18th century, he has always been constructed as a contemporary author. This book charts the construction of Shakespeare as a 20th-century Modernist text by redirecting ‘new historicist’ methods to an investigation of the social roots of contemporary Shakespeare criticism itself. Beginning with the formation of professionalism as an ideology in the Victorian age, this book describes the widespread attempts to save the values of the culturalist tradition, in reformulated ‘Modernist’ guise, from the threat of professionalist positivism in modernized universities. The tension between professionalism and culturalism gave rise to the Modernist Shakespeare of G. Wilson Knight, E. M. W. Tillyard, and American and British New Critics, and still conditions the postmodernist Shakespearean criticism of contemporary feminists, deconstructors, and ‘new historicists’.Less
This is a major study of the history of Shakespeare criticism in the modern era. Every epoch recreates its classic icons — and for literary culture none is more central nor more protean than Shakespeare. Even though finding the authentic Shakespeare has been a goal of scholarship since the 18th century, he has always been constructed as a contemporary author. This book charts the construction of Shakespeare as a 20th-century Modernist text by redirecting ‘new historicist’ methods to an investigation of the social roots of contemporary Shakespeare criticism itself. Beginning with the formation of professionalism as an ideology in the Victorian age, this book describes the widespread attempts to save the values of the culturalist tradition, in reformulated ‘Modernist’ guise, from the threat of professionalist positivism in modernized universities. The tension between professionalism and culturalism gave rise to the Modernist Shakespeare of G. Wilson Knight, E. M. W. Tillyard, and American and British New Critics, and still conditions the postmodernist Shakespearean criticism of contemporary feminists, deconstructors, and ‘new historicists’.
Anne E. Monius
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195139990
- eISBN:
- 9780199834501
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195139992.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
The nature of the Maṇimēkalai's textual or reading community is considered through an examination of the narrative as a literary work produced in the context of a diverse and multilingual South ...
More
The nature of the Maṇimēkalai's textual or reading community is considered through an examination of the narrative as a literary work produced in the context of a diverse and multilingual South Indian literary culture. Through careful reading of the intertextual allusions in the Maṇimēkalai, particularly in relation to the principal themes of an earlier Tamil narrative from which the Buddhist text borrows its central characters and settings, a picture begins to emerge of a textual community of literary connoisseurs who are multilingual, well versed in world views and the literature of various religious communities, and thoroughly engaged in the project of articulating religious identity in a literary and religious landscape of extreme diversity through the medium of ornately sophisticated poetry. The Maṇimēkalai's free appropriation and translation into Tamil of Buddhist narratives and philosophical concepts found in earlier Pāli and Sanskrit transregional sources provides a glimpse of the processes of transmission of a tradition for which no other record exists. In a literary‐cultural context that includes the vehemently anti‐Buddhist invective of the earliest Hindu poet‐saints, such easy switching from transliterated Sanskrit to translated Pāli in the Maṇimēkalai bespeaks a moment in Tamil literary history when language choice did not entail the same cultural, political, or religious allegiance that it would assume by the time of the eleventh‐century Vīracōliyam.Less
The nature of the Maṇimēkalai's textual or reading community is considered through an examination of the narrative as a literary work produced in the context of a diverse and multilingual South Indian literary culture. Through careful reading of the intertextual allusions in the Maṇimēkalai, particularly in relation to the principal themes of an earlier Tamil narrative from which the Buddhist text borrows its central characters and settings, a picture begins to emerge of a textual community of literary connoisseurs who are multilingual, well versed in world views and the literature of various religious communities, and thoroughly engaged in the project of articulating religious identity in a literary and religious landscape of extreme diversity through the medium of ornately sophisticated poetry. The Maṇimēkalai's free appropriation and translation into Tamil of Buddhist narratives and philosophical concepts found in earlier Pāli and Sanskrit transregional sources provides a glimpse of the processes of transmission of a tradition for which no other record exists. In a literary‐cultural context that includes the vehemently anti‐Buddhist invective of the earliest Hindu poet‐saints, such easy switching from transliterated Sanskrit to translated Pāli in the Maṇimēkalai bespeaks a moment in Tamil literary history when language choice did not entail the same cultural, political, or religious allegiance that it would assume by the time of the eleventh‐century Vīracōliyam.
Anne E. Monius
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195139990
- eISBN:
- 9780199834501
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195139992.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
The community of Buddhists imagined within the narrative world of the Maṇimēkalai itself is considered – a community whose locus is not the geographical region of Tamil‐speaking southern India in the ...
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The community of Buddhists imagined within the narrative world of the Maṇimēkalai itself is considered – a community whose locus is not the geographical region of Tamil‐speaking southern India in the narrative present, as might be expected, but rather that of all India and the far‐flung reaches of South‐east Asia in the era of the future Buddha's earthly birth. Focusing on the central role played by the begging bowl that never empties if used in service to the poor, it is argued that the bowl itself signals the coming of the future Buddha and embodies those moral values that will enable the Maṇimēkalai's audience to participate in that glorious community to come. Attention to the central locations of the narrative similarly reveals the text's expansive vision of Buddhist community that involves not only the subcontinent but also an island kingdom somewhere in South‐east Asia. Through reference to other Buddhist literature of this early medieval period, it is argued that the Maṇimēkalai participates in larger Asian patterns of redrawing the Buddhist world, relocating its centers away from the cities of northern India associated with Gautama Buddha and toward new foci of Buddhist activity in South India, Sri Lanka, China, and South‐east Asia.Less
The community of Buddhists imagined within the narrative world of the Maṇimēkalai itself is considered – a community whose locus is not the geographical region of Tamil‐speaking southern India in the narrative present, as might be expected, but rather that of all India and the far‐flung reaches of South‐east Asia in the era of the future Buddha's earthly birth. Focusing on the central role played by the begging bowl that never empties if used in service to the poor, it is argued that the bowl itself signals the coming of the future Buddha and embodies those moral values that will enable the Maṇimēkalai's audience to participate in that glorious community to come. Attention to the central locations of the narrative similarly reveals the text's expansive vision of Buddhist community that involves not only the subcontinent but also an island kingdom somewhere in South‐east Asia. Through reference to other Buddhist literature of this early medieval period, it is argued that the Maṇimēkalai participates in larger Asian patterns of redrawing the Buddhist world, relocating its centers away from the cities of northern India associated with Gautama Buddha and toward new foci of Buddhist activity in South India, Sri Lanka, China, and South‐east Asia.
Wilson McLeod
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199247226
- eISBN:
- 9780191714610
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199247226.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History
One of the most basic problems complicating the study of relations between Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Ireland in the late medieval period is the dearth of surviving Gaelic writings from Scotland, ...
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One of the most basic problems complicating the study of relations between Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Ireland in the late medieval period is the dearth of surviving Gaelic writings from Scotland, especially writings of a literary nature. This scarcity of source material is a major obstacle to the study and interpretation of cultural outlooks; but at the same time the very fact of this lack is an important issue in itself, demanding explanation. This chapter examines the dynamics of literary and intellectual culture in Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Ireland, and marks out the nature of their interaction.Less
One of the most basic problems complicating the study of relations between Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Ireland in the late medieval period is the dearth of surviving Gaelic writings from Scotland, especially writings of a literary nature. This scarcity of source material is a major obstacle to the study and interpretation of cultural outlooks; but at the same time the very fact of this lack is an important issue in itself, demanding explanation. This chapter examines the dynamics of literary and intellectual culture in Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Ireland, and marks out the nature of their interaction.
Anne E. Monius
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195139990
- eISBN:
- 9780199834501
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195139992.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
The modern religious landscape of Tamil‐speaking South India is dominated by the Hindu tradition, but as this introduction to the book explains, non‐Hindu religious communities played a significant ...
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The modern religious landscape of Tamil‐speaking South India is dominated by the Hindu tradition, but as this introduction to the book explains, non‐Hindu religious communities played a significant role in shaping the religious history of the region. There are still minority populations of Muslims, Christians, and Jains, but the literary and historical record of the region tells a far more complex story, and includes Jains, Ajivikas, and Buddhists. There has been a recent study on the Tamil‐speaking Jains, but relatively little study of the Buddhists, who are little understood because of the scarcity of remnants of Tamil‐speaking Buddhist culture; this fragmentary Buddhist record is examined. The introduction goes on to discuss the two extant Buddhist texts in Tamil that are complete – the Maṇimēkalai, and the Vīracōliyam, which are the subject of the book, and provide, in very different ways, compelling evidence for the existence of Tamil‐speaking Buddhists in the region. The literary culture that they represent is used to reach an understanding of the (religious) Buddhist communities of the times.Less
The modern religious landscape of Tamil‐speaking South India is dominated by the Hindu tradition, but as this introduction to the book explains, non‐Hindu religious communities played a significant role in shaping the religious history of the region. There are still minority populations of Muslims, Christians, and Jains, but the literary and historical record of the region tells a far more complex story, and includes Jains, Ajivikas, and Buddhists. There has been a recent study on the Tamil‐speaking Jains, but relatively little study of the Buddhists, who are little understood because of the scarcity of remnants of Tamil‐speaking Buddhist culture; this fragmentary Buddhist record is examined. The introduction goes on to discuss the two extant Buddhist texts in Tamil that are complete – the Maṇimēkalai, and the Vīracōliyam, which are the subject of the book, and provide, in very different ways, compelling evidence for the existence of Tamil‐speaking Buddhists in the region. The literary culture that they represent is used to reach an understanding of the (religious) Buddhist communities of the times.
Anne E. Monius
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195139990
- eISBN:
- 9780199834501
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195139992.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
The commentary on the Vīracōliyam discussed here (which really constitutes a text in its own right) brings together fragments of a considerable corpus of Buddhist narrative and devotional poetry in ...
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The commentary on the Vīracōliyam discussed here (which really constitutes a text in its own right) brings together fragments of a considerable corpus of Buddhist narrative and devotional poetry in Tamil, of which nothing else remains. Expanding on the Vīracōliyam's project by substantiating the language of the Buddha‐to‐be with Tamil literary examples, the commentary envisions a community of readers who share a profound devotion to the Buddha and a moral vision of human kindness and self‐sacrificing compassion for the welfare of others. In drawing from texts that are not explicitly Buddhist for many of his moral illustrations, the commentator clearly envisions Buddhism as one among many sectarian communities in Tamil‐speaking literary culture; in quoting so broadly, he both locates and subtly reworks common intersectarian concerns and claims a part of the literary corpus in Tamil for Buddhism. In its failure to cite the Maṇimēkalai even once, the commentary further suggests that despite their common language and common geographical origin, the Maṇimēkalai and the Vīracōliyam did not belong to a single community of Tamil‐speaking Buddhists. Rather, each envisions and enacts a textual community unique to its own cultural and historical location, with each text revealing a distinct moment in the way Tamil‐speaking Buddhist communities represented and imagined themselves in diverse religious and linguistic landscapes.Less
The commentary on the Vīracōliyam discussed here (which really constitutes a text in its own right) brings together fragments of a considerable corpus of Buddhist narrative and devotional poetry in Tamil, of which nothing else remains. Expanding on the Vīracōliyam's project by substantiating the language of the Buddha‐to‐be with Tamil literary examples, the commentary envisions a community of readers who share a profound devotion to the Buddha and a moral vision of human kindness and self‐sacrificing compassion for the welfare of others. In drawing from texts that are not explicitly Buddhist for many of his moral illustrations, the commentator clearly envisions Buddhism as one among many sectarian communities in Tamil‐speaking literary culture; in quoting so broadly, he both locates and subtly reworks common intersectarian concerns and claims a part of the literary corpus in Tamil for Buddhism. In its failure to cite the Maṇimēkalai even once, the commentary further suggests that despite their common language and common geographical origin, the Maṇimēkalai and the Vīracōliyam did not belong to a single community of Tamil‐speaking Buddhists. Rather, each envisions and enacts a textual community unique to its own cultural and historical location, with each text revealing a distinct moment in the way Tamil‐speaking Buddhist communities represented and imagined themselves in diverse religious and linguistic landscapes.
Abigail Williams
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199255207
- eISBN:
- 9780191719837
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255207.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter returns to the wider connections between literary and political culture in the period. It shows that far from being the penniless hacks described in contemporary Tory satire, many Whig ...
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This chapter returns to the wider connections between literary and political culture in the period. It shows that far from being the penniless hacks described in contemporary Tory satire, many Whig poets were the beneficiaries of a sophisticated system of patronage. An examination of the nature of this patronage reveals the economic and political networks behind Whig verse, and demonstrates the important ideological commitment to the systematic promotion of a Whig literary culture. The intention behind the extensive support of Whig poetry in this period was not just to secure the services of political propagandists, but to support a distinctively Whiggish cultural arena. The new Whig elite would become the guardians of a revitalized artistic culture, whose grandeur would reflect their authority and largesse, and the modern writer would play a vital part in the remodelling of cultural, political, and social spheres in the early 18th century.Less
This chapter returns to the wider connections between literary and political culture in the period. It shows that far from being the penniless hacks described in contemporary Tory satire, many Whig poets were the beneficiaries of a sophisticated system of patronage. An examination of the nature of this patronage reveals the economic and political networks behind Whig verse, and demonstrates the important ideological commitment to the systematic promotion of a Whig literary culture. The intention behind the extensive support of Whig poetry in this period was not just to secure the services of political propagandists, but to support a distinctively Whiggish cultural arena. The new Whig elite would become the guardians of a revitalized artistic culture, whose grandeur would reflect their authority and largesse, and the modern writer would play a vital part in the remodelling of cultural, political, and social spheres in the early 18th century.
Thomas N. Corns
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128830
- eISBN:
- 9780191671715
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128830.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This book studies the relationship between literature and the political crises of the English Civil War. It explores the ways in which the literary culture of the period changed and survived in ...
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This book studies the relationship between literature and the political crises of the English Civil War. It explores the ways in which the literary culture of the period changed and survived in radically shifting circumstances and conditions of extreme adversity, and examines the ways in which old forms developed and new forms emerged to articulate new ideologies and to respond to triumphs and disasters. Included in the book's discussion of a wide range of authors and texts are examinations of the Cavalier love poetry of Herrick and Lovelace, Herrick's religious verse, the polemical strategies of Eikon Basilike, and the complexities of Cowley's political verse. The book also provides an important new account of Marvell's political instability, while the prose of Lilburne, Winstanley, and the Ranters is the subject of a long and sustained account which focuses on their sometimes exhilarating attempts to find an idiom for ideologies which previously had been unexpressed in English political life. Through the whole study runs a detailed engagement with Milton's political prose, and the book ends with a consideration of the impact of the Civil War and related events on the English literary tradition, specifically on Rochester, Bunyan, and the later writing of Milton.Less
This book studies the relationship between literature and the political crises of the English Civil War. It explores the ways in which the literary culture of the period changed and survived in radically shifting circumstances and conditions of extreme adversity, and examines the ways in which old forms developed and new forms emerged to articulate new ideologies and to respond to triumphs and disasters. Included in the book's discussion of a wide range of authors and texts are examinations of the Cavalier love poetry of Herrick and Lovelace, Herrick's religious verse, the polemical strategies of Eikon Basilike, and the complexities of Cowley's political verse. The book also provides an important new account of Marvell's political instability, while the prose of Lilburne, Winstanley, and the Ranters is the subject of a long and sustained account which focuses on their sometimes exhilarating attempts to find an idiom for ideologies which previously had been unexpressed in English political life. Through the whole study runs a detailed engagement with Milton's political prose, and the book ends with a consideration of the impact of the Civil War and related events on the English literary tradition, specifically on Rochester, Bunyan, and the later writing of Milton.
William A. Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195176407
- eISBN:
- 9780199775545
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195176407.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
Tacitus and Pliny were fellow orators of distinction with apparently close connections between their communities. Tacitus’s Dialogus purports to show us the inner workings and debates of a tight ...
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Tacitus and Pliny were fellow orators of distinction with apparently close connections between their communities. Tacitus’s Dialogus purports to show us the inner workings and debates of a tight literary community, set dramatically in AD 75 but reflecting at least in part the community in which Pliny and Tacitus engaged. This chapter explores the ways in which, in the Dialogus, Tacitus explores the question of the connection between literary culture, elite society, and politics, particularly as it relates to the traditional Roman pursuit of gloria.Less
Tacitus and Pliny were fellow orators of distinction with apparently close connections between their communities. Tacitus’s Dialogus purports to show us the inner workings and debates of a tight literary community, set dramatically in AD 75 but reflecting at least in part the community in which Pliny and Tacitus engaged. This chapter explores the ways in which, in the Dialogus, Tacitus explores the question of the connection between literary culture, elite society, and politics, particularly as it relates to the traditional Roman pursuit of gloria.
Ellen Wiles
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231173285
- eISBN:
- 9780231539296
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231173285.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Asian Politics
This introductory chapter gives an overview of this book; explains my methodology and ethnographic approach; describes my impressions of Yangon, my reasons for going to Myanmar, and my initial ...
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This introductory chapter gives an overview of this book; explains my methodology and ethnographic approach; describes my impressions of Yangon, my reasons for going to Myanmar, and my initial experiences and encounters with Burmese literary writers; and situates these writers and their literary work by providing a contextual overview of the political, social, legal, cultural and literary history during the repressive censorship era.Less
This introductory chapter gives an overview of this book; explains my methodology and ethnographic approach; describes my impressions of Yangon, my reasons for going to Myanmar, and my initial experiences and encounters with Burmese literary writers; and situates these writers and their literary work by providing a contextual overview of the political, social, legal, cultural and literary history during the repressive censorship era.
Brian Cummings
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198187356
- eISBN:
- 9780191674709
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198187356.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
It is stated that the Reformation promised literal truth. In this, it has been judged either a providential success or a historic failure. The historical events now known as the Reformation are bound ...
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It is stated that the Reformation promised literal truth. In this, it has been judged either a providential success or a historic failure. The historical events now known as the Reformation are bound up at every level with acts of literature both spoken and written, with the interpretation of language, and with the practice of literary culture. To apprehend the wider significance of literary culture to early modern religion it is necessary to look no further than Luther. Grammar creates a less easily detectable undertow of meaning. Theology and humanism are uncomfortable bedfellows rather than sworn enemies. If Luther's religious language seems alien, his sense of alienation from that very language should not. And if one characteristic of sixteenth-century linguistic usage is a lurch into insatiable violence against itself, another is an endless aspiration to escape from itself, to reach out for grace. It may be that in this act of hopeless faith it finds its own redemption.Less
It is stated that the Reformation promised literal truth. In this, it has been judged either a providential success or a historic failure. The historical events now known as the Reformation are bound up at every level with acts of literature both spoken and written, with the interpretation of language, and with the practice of literary culture. To apprehend the wider significance of literary culture to early modern religion it is necessary to look no further than Luther. Grammar creates a less easily detectable undertow of meaning. Theology and humanism are uncomfortable bedfellows rather than sworn enemies. If Luther's religious language seems alien, his sense of alienation from that very language should not. And if one characteristic of sixteenth-century linguistic usage is a lurch into insatiable violence against itself, another is an endless aspiration to escape from itself, to reach out for grace. It may be that in this act of hopeless faith it finds its own redemption.
Susan E. Whyman
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199532445
- eISBN:
- 9780191714535
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199532445.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter contrasts Jane Johnson's quiet reading and writing with the fast-paced public literary culture of her children — Robert and Barbara — and the patroness of their Bath poetry salon, Anna ...
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This chapter contrasts Jane Johnson's quiet reading and writing with the fast-paced public literary culture of her children — Robert and Barbara — and the patroness of their Bath poetry salon, Anna Miller. Changes in literary practices over the century, from the growth of epistolary fiction to the era of sensibility by the 1790s, are revealed through writings and reading records of Jane Johnson's children. It is suggested that the travelogue, methods of literary criticism, and the language of sentiment were influenced and shaped by letters. As sites of unsupervised reading, independent opinions, and cultural desires, letters had a political impact. Epistolary literacy thus provided a base for a free and active electorate at a time when political participation was still limited.Less
This chapter contrasts Jane Johnson's quiet reading and writing with the fast-paced public literary culture of her children — Robert and Barbara — and the patroness of their Bath poetry salon, Anna Miller. Changes in literary practices over the century, from the growth of epistolary fiction to the era of sensibility by the 1790s, are revealed through writings and reading records of Jane Johnson's children. It is suggested that the travelogue, methods of literary criticism, and the language of sentiment were influenced and shaped by letters. As sites of unsupervised reading, independent opinions, and cultural desires, letters had a political impact. Epistolary literacy thus provided a base for a free and active electorate at a time when political participation was still limited.
Tarek El-Ariss
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691181936
- eISBN:
- 9780691184913
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691181936.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter analyzes the works of Rajaa Alsanea (b. 1981) and Khaled Alkhamissi (b. 1962) as the fiction of the leaking subject who wants to reveal it all, mimicking e-mails about the private life ...
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This chapter analyzes the works of Rajaa Alsanea (b. 1981) and Khaled Alkhamissi (b. 1962) as the fiction of the leaking subject who wants to reveal it all, mimicking e-mails about the private life of individuals turned characters and recording and circulating scenes of abuse and violation on the street through novelistic scenes. It argues that the author, who is traditionally understood as the function of discourse in Foucault or as the object of sacrifice in Barthes, emerges in this new fiction as the scandalous function of the leak that recodes the novel as medium. It explores how literature is reimagined and reaffirmed in instances of greed, exhibitionism, confrontation, and hacking that affectively grab and move readers, marking the emergence of a new literary culture and aesthetics tied to the bestseller and the pursuit of fame.Less
This chapter analyzes the works of Rajaa Alsanea (b. 1981) and Khaled Alkhamissi (b. 1962) as the fiction of the leaking subject who wants to reveal it all, mimicking e-mails about the private life of individuals turned characters and recording and circulating scenes of abuse and violation on the street through novelistic scenes. It argues that the author, who is traditionally understood as the function of discourse in Foucault or as the object of sacrifice in Barthes, emerges in this new fiction as the scandalous function of the leak that recodes the novel as medium. It explores how literature is reimagined and reaffirmed in instances of greed, exhibitionism, confrontation, and hacking that affectively grab and move readers, marking the emergence of a new literary culture and aesthetics tied to the bestseller and the pursuit of fame.
Jesse Zuba
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691164472
- eISBN:
- 9781400873791
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691164472.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
“We have many poets of the First Book,” the poet and critic Louis Simpson remarked in 1957, describing a sense that the debut poetry collection not only launched the contemporary poetic career but ...
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“We have many poets of the First Book,” the poet and critic Louis Simpson remarked in 1957, describing a sense that the debut poetry collection not only launched the contemporary poetic career but also had come to define it. Surveying American poetry over the past hundred years, this book explores the emergence of the poetic debut as a unique literary production with its own tradition, conventions, and dynamic role in the literary market. Through new readings of ranging from Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore to John Ashbery and Louise Glück, the book illuminates the importance of the first book in twentieth-century American literary culture, which involved complex struggles for legitimacy on the part of poets, critics, and publishers alike. The book investigates poets' diverse responses to the question of how to launch a career in an increasingly professionalized literary scene that threatened the authenticity of the poetic calling. It shows how modernist debuts evoke markedly idiosyncratic paths, while postwar first books evoke trajectories that balance professional imperatives with traditional literary ideals. Debut titles ranging from Simpson's The Arrivistes to Ken Chen's Juvenilia stress the strikingly pervasive theme of beginning, accommodating a new demand for career development even as it distances the poets from that demand. Combining literary analysis with cultural history, this book will interest scholars and students of twentieth-century literature as well as readers and writers of poetry.Less
“We have many poets of the First Book,” the poet and critic Louis Simpson remarked in 1957, describing a sense that the debut poetry collection not only launched the contemporary poetic career but also had come to define it. Surveying American poetry over the past hundred years, this book explores the emergence of the poetic debut as a unique literary production with its own tradition, conventions, and dynamic role in the literary market. Through new readings of ranging from Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore to John Ashbery and Louise Glück, the book illuminates the importance of the first book in twentieth-century American literary culture, which involved complex struggles for legitimacy on the part of poets, critics, and publishers alike. The book investigates poets' diverse responses to the question of how to launch a career in an increasingly professionalized literary scene that threatened the authenticity of the poetic calling. It shows how modernist debuts evoke markedly idiosyncratic paths, while postwar first books evoke trajectories that balance professional imperatives with traditional literary ideals. Debut titles ranging from Simpson's The Arrivistes to Ken Chen's Juvenilia stress the strikingly pervasive theme of beginning, accommodating a new demand for career development even as it distances the poets from that demand. Combining literary analysis with cultural history, this book will interest scholars and students of twentieth-century literature as well as readers and writers of poetry.
Abigail Williams
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199255207
- eISBN:
- 9780191719837
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255207.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
Although the Whig parliamentary party secured a political hegemony in the first half of the 18th century, the poets that shared these politics are marginal figures. This book offers a fresh ...
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Although the Whig parliamentary party secured a political hegemony in the first half of the 18th century, the poets that shared these politics are marginal figures. This book offers a fresh perspective on the literary culture of the period, arguing that many long-neglected Whig poets — frequently derided as hacks and dunces by prominent writers such as Pope and Dryden — actually enjoyed considerable success and acclaim in their own time. Authors such as Joseph Addison, John Dennis, and Thomas Tickell saw themselves and were seen as part of an ambitious project to remodel and reform English literary culture, alongside the contemporary transformations of political and social life in post-Revolution England. They and other Whig writers responded to the imaginative challenges of contemporary public life with enthusiasm and confidence, convinced that the political liberties established by the Revolution offered the opportunity to create a new native literary culture that was distinctively Whiggish. Their elevated poetry celebrating the political and military achievements of William III's Britain was funded and distributed through substantial patronage from the Whig aristocracy, who collaborated with Whig publishers such as Jacob Tonson to produce prestigious editions of poems that were promoted as a new English literature to rival that of classical Greece and Rome. This study offers an account of this literary tradition and examines contemporary reactions to the Whig poets, probing the relationship between political and literary evaluation that has so influenced the formation of the early 18th-century poetic canon.Less
Although the Whig parliamentary party secured a political hegemony in the first half of the 18th century, the poets that shared these politics are marginal figures. This book offers a fresh perspective on the literary culture of the period, arguing that many long-neglected Whig poets — frequently derided as hacks and dunces by prominent writers such as Pope and Dryden — actually enjoyed considerable success and acclaim in their own time. Authors such as Joseph Addison, John Dennis, and Thomas Tickell saw themselves and were seen as part of an ambitious project to remodel and reform English literary culture, alongside the contemporary transformations of political and social life in post-Revolution England. They and other Whig writers responded to the imaginative challenges of contemporary public life with enthusiasm and confidence, convinced that the political liberties established by the Revolution offered the opportunity to create a new native literary culture that was distinctively Whiggish. Their elevated poetry celebrating the political and military achievements of William III's Britain was funded and distributed through substantial patronage from the Whig aristocracy, who collaborated with Whig publishers such as Jacob Tonson to produce prestigious editions of poems that were promoted as a new English literature to rival that of classical Greece and Rome. This study offers an account of this literary tradition and examines contemporary reactions to the Whig poets, probing the relationship between political and literary evaluation that has so influenced the formation of the early 18th-century poetic canon.
Brian Cummings
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198187356
- eISBN:
- 9780191674709
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198187356.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
Histories of the Reformation, beginning with those of the reformers, have often pictured a revolution of the word. The status, dissemination, and interpretation of the Bible are central to the ...
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Histories of the Reformation, beginning with those of the reformers, have often pictured a revolution of the word. The status, dissemination, and interpretation of the Bible are central to the historiography of the Reformation. The grammatical culture from medieval times to the Renaissance is discussed. Grammar in the sixteenth century was undergoing a cultural revolution. Controversy often consisted not in new theory but in a new visibility of tensions that had been present in grammatical theory for upwards of a thousand years. These tensions included the relation between grammar and logic, or between linguistic and literary theory on the one hand and theology and biblical interpretation on the other. Montaigne exposes to scepticism the cardinal doctrine of the reformers, the word alone of sola scriptura. Montaigne places Luther at the centre of what he sees as the sixteenth-century crisis in language. A discussion on the textuality of the ninety-five theses and on Luther's 1520 pamphlets and More's responsio is provided. The chapter then addresses the question: What lies beyond language? Luther, in apprehending the gift of grace, finds it first in that other primal given of life: the gift of language.Less
Histories of the Reformation, beginning with those of the reformers, have often pictured a revolution of the word. The status, dissemination, and interpretation of the Bible are central to the historiography of the Reformation. The grammatical culture from medieval times to the Renaissance is discussed. Grammar in the sixteenth century was undergoing a cultural revolution. Controversy often consisted not in new theory but in a new visibility of tensions that had been present in grammatical theory for upwards of a thousand years. These tensions included the relation between grammar and logic, or between linguistic and literary theory on the one hand and theology and biblical interpretation on the other. Montaigne exposes to scepticism the cardinal doctrine of the reformers, the word alone of sola scriptura. Montaigne places Luther at the centre of what he sees as the sixteenth-century crisis in language. A discussion on the textuality of the ninety-five theses and on Luther's 1520 pamphlets and More's responsio is provided. The chapter then addresses the question: What lies beyond language? Luther, in apprehending the gift of grace, finds it first in that other primal given of life: the gift of language.
Anne E. Monius
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195139990
- eISBN:
- 9780199834501
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195139992.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
The intimate connection between religion and literature has become a commonplace assumption in the study of Christianity and Western culture, but in the study of South Asian religions, relatively ...
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The intimate connection between religion and literature has become a commonplace assumption in the study of Christianity and Western culture, but in the study of South Asian religions, relatively little attention has been paid to the relationship. This study argues that, in early medieval South India, it was in the literary arena that religious ideals and values were publicly contested. While Tamil‐speaking South India is today celebrated for its preservation of Hindu tradition, non‐Hindu religious communities have played a significant role in shaping the religious history of the region. Among the least understood of such non‐Hindu contributions is that of the Buddhists, who are little understood because of the scarcity of remnants of Tamil‐speaking Buddhist culture. However, the two extant Buddhist texts in Tamil that are complete – a sixth‐century poetic narrative known as the Maṇimēkalai, and an eleventh‐century treatise on grammar and poetics, the Vīracōliyam – reveal a wealth of information about their textual communities and their vision of Buddhist life in a diverse and competitive religious milieu. The Maṇimēkalai, although belonging to a pan‐Indian tradition, both embodies and envisions a Buddhist community that is explicitly made local or ‘Tamil’. Four centuries later, the Vīracōliyam envisions a substantially different Buddhist world, reflecting significant transformations in the literary and religious climate of the Tamil‐speaking region. By focusing on these texts, the author sheds light on the role of literature and literary culture in the information, articulation, and evolution of religious identity and community.Less
The intimate connection between religion and literature has become a commonplace assumption in the study of Christianity and Western culture, but in the study of South Asian religions, relatively little attention has been paid to the relationship. This study argues that, in early medieval South India, it was in the literary arena that religious ideals and values were publicly contested. While Tamil‐speaking South India is today celebrated for its preservation of Hindu tradition, non‐Hindu religious communities have played a significant role in shaping the religious history of the region. Among the least understood of such non‐Hindu contributions is that of the Buddhists, who are little understood because of the scarcity of remnants of Tamil‐speaking Buddhist culture. However, the two extant Buddhist texts in Tamil that are complete – a sixth‐century poetic narrative known as the Maṇimēkalai, and an eleventh‐century treatise on grammar and poetics, the Vīracōliyam – reveal a wealth of information about their textual communities and their vision of Buddhist life in a diverse and competitive religious milieu. The Maṇimēkalai, although belonging to a pan‐Indian tradition, both embodies and envisions a Buddhist community that is explicitly made local or ‘Tamil’. Four centuries later, the Vīracōliyam envisions a substantially different Buddhist world, reflecting significant transformations in the literary and religious climate of the Tamil‐speaking region. By focusing on these texts, the author sheds light on the role of literature and literary culture in the information, articulation, and evolution of religious identity and community.
Jack Zipes
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691153384
- eISBN:
- 9781400841820
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691153384.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
If there is one genre that has captured the imagination of people in all walks of life throughout the world, it is the fairy tale. Yet we still have great difficulty understanding how it originated, ...
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If there is one genre that has captured the imagination of people in all walks of life throughout the world, it is the fairy tale. Yet we still have great difficulty understanding how it originated, evolved, and spread—or why so many people cannot resist its appeal, no matter how it changes or what form it takes. This book presents a provocative new theory about why fairy tales were created and retold—and why they became such an indelible and infinitely adaptable part of cultures around the world. Drawing on cognitive science, evolutionary theory, anthropology, psychology, literary theory, and other fields, the book presents a nuanced argument about how fairy tales originated in ancient oral cultures, how they evolved through the rise of literary culture and print, and how, in our own time, they continue to change through their adaptation in an ever-growing variety of media. In making its case, the book considers a wide range of fascinating examples, including fairy tales told, collected, and written by women in the nineteenth century; Catherine Breillat's film adaptation of Perrault's “Bluebeard”; and contemporary fairy-tale drawings, paintings, sculptures, and photographs that critique canonical print versions. While we may never be able to fully explain fairy tales, this book provides a powerful theory of how and why they evolved—and why we still use them to make meaning of our lives.Less
If there is one genre that has captured the imagination of people in all walks of life throughout the world, it is the fairy tale. Yet we still have great difficulty understanding how it originated, evolved, and spread—or why so many people cannot resist its appeal, no matter how it changes or what form it takes. This book presents a provocative new theory about why fairy tales were created and retold—and why they became such an indelible and infinitely adaptable part of cultures around the world. Drawing on cognitive science, evolutionary theory, anthropology, psychology, literary theory, and other fields, the book presents a nuanced argument about how fairy tales originated in ancient oral cultures, how they evolved through the rise of literary culture and print, and how, in our own time, they continue to change through their adaptation in an ever-growing variety of media. In making its case, the book considers a wide range of fascinating examples, including fairy tales told, collected, and written by women in the nineteenth century; Catherine Breillat's film adaptation of Perrault's “Bluebeard”; and contemporary fairy-tale drawings, paintings, sculptures, and photographs that critique canonical print versions. While we may never be able to fully explain fairy tales, this book provides a powerful theory of how and why they evolved—and why we still use them to make meaning of our lives.
