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The 366 lyrics of Petrarch's Canzoniere exert a unique influence in literary history. From the mid-fifteenth century to the early seventeenth, the poems are imitated in every major language of western Europe, and for a time they provide Renaissance Europe with an almost exclusive sense of what love poetry should be. In this stimulating look at the international phenomenon of Petrarch's poetry, Gordon Braden focuses on materials in languages other than English--Italian, French, and Spanish, with brief citations from Croatian and Cypriot Greek, among others. Braden closely examines Petrarch's theme of love for an impossible object of desire, a theme that captivated and inspired across centurie...
This book surveys English love poetry, primarily, though not exclusively, sonnets and sonnet sequences that show the influence of Petrarch, from the early sixteenth century to the publication of Mary Wroth's Pamphilia to Amphilanthus in 1621. It incorporates a range of new scholarship and thinking into narrative history, with a focus on particular poets including Thomas Wyatt, George Gascoigne, Philip Sidney, Fulke Greville, Samuel Daniel, Wroth, Walter Ralegh, and Shakespeare, as well as particularly notable poems such as "They flee from me", "Gascoigne's Woodmanship", and "The Ocean's Love to Cynthia". The self-absorption of Petrarchan lyricism is brought into a more populous environment and is linked to the ambitious and intense world of the English court, within which many of these poets lived and worked. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the Petrarchan theme of love for a powerful but distant woman was literalized in the politics of the realm, in ways that the queen herself recognized and exploited. A final chapter offers a new model for the implied narrative of Shakespeare's sonnets.
The most comprehensive collection of essays on Renaissance poetry on the market Covering the period 1520–1680, A Companion to Renaissance Poetry offers 46 essays which present an in-depth account of the context, production, and interpretation of early modern British poetry. It provides students with a deep appreciation for, and sensitivity toward, the ways in which poets of the period understood and fashioned a distinctly vernacular voice, while engaging them with some of the debates and departures that are currently animating the discipline. A Companion to Renaissance Poetry analyzes the historical, cultural, political, and religious background of the time, addressing issues such as educa...
Translation has played a vital part in the history of literature throughout the English-speaking world. Offering for the first time a comprehensive view of this phenomenon, this pioneering five-volume work casts a vivid new light on the history of English literature. Incorporating critical discussion of translations, it explores the changing nature and function of translation and the social and intellectual milieu of the translators.
Graham shows how plainness functions not only as a literary style, but also as a mode of political and religious rhetoric that reflects powerful historical currents.
Why were sonnet sequences popular in Renaissance England? In this study, Christopher Warley suggests that sonneteers created a vocabulary to describe, and to invent, new forms of social distinction before an explicit language of social class existed. The tensions inherent in the genre - between lyric and narrative, between sonnet and sequence - offered writers a means of reconceptualizing the relation between individuals and society, a way to try to come to grips with the broad social transformations taking place at the end of the sixteenth century. By stressing the struggle over social classification, the book revises studies that have tied the influence of sonnet sequences to either courtly love or to Renaissance individualism. Drawing on Marxist aesthetic theory, it offers detailed examinations of sequences by Lok, Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton. It will be valuable to readers interested in Renaissance and genre studies, and post-Marxist theories of class.
“From its founding, Rice University has been an institution devoted to making a strong impact on the world,” according to current president David Leebron. Nestled near Houston’s cultural heart, Rice University is characterized by seriousness of purpose as well as by such quirky traditions as the MOB (Marching Owl Band). In Rice University: One Hundred Years in Pictures, more than 300 photographs tell the story of a century of student life, a world-famous faculty, and news-making events. Distinguished by its dignified architecture and stately grounds, respected for its intellectual depth and international reputation, and loved by its alumni for the community fostered by residential coll...
Charting developments in public rhetoric and political writing from the Elizabethan period through the Restoration, John Staines here explores the political consequences of the emotions generated by the image of Mary Queen of Scots, tragic woman and queen. This study identifies two basic literary traditions of her tragedy: one conservative, sentimental, and royalist, the other radical, skeptical, and republican.
The Oxford History of Classical Reception (OHCREL) is designed to offer a comprehensive investigation of the numerous and diverse ways in which literary texts of the classical world have stimulated responses and refashioning by English writers. Covering the full range of English literature from the early Middle Ages to the present day, OHCREL both synthesizes existing scholarship and presents cutting-edge new research, employing an international team of expert contributors for each of the five volumes. OHCREL endeavours to interrogate, rather than inertly reiterate, conventional assumptions about literary 'periods', the processes of canon-formation, and the relations between literary and non...