Author: Anna-Maria Hartmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198807708
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
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, largely because they have been wrongly considered mere copies of their European counterparts. This volume focuses on the English mythographies written between 1577 and 1647 by Stephen Batman, Abraham Fraunce, Francis Bacon, Henry Reynolds, and Alexander Ross: it places their texts into a wider, European context to reveal their unique English take on the genre and also unfolds the significant role myth played in the broader culture of the period, influencing not only literary life, natural philosophy and poetics, but also religious conflicts and Civil War politics. In doing so it demonstrates, for the first time, the considerable explanatory value classical mythology holds for the study of the English Renaissance and its literary culture in particular, and how early modern England answered a question we still find fascinating today: what is myth?
English Mythography in Its European Context, 1500-1650
Author: Anna-Maria Hartmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198807708
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
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, largely because they have been wrongly considered mere copies of their European counterparts. This volume focuses on the English mythographies written between 1577 and 1647 by Stephen Batman, Abraham Fraunce, Francis Bacon, Henry Reynolds, and Alexander Ross: it places their texts into a wider, European context to reveal their unique English take on the genre and also unfolds the significant role myth played in the broader culture of the period, influencing not only literary life, natural philosophy and poetics, but also religious conflicts and Civil War politics. In doing so it demonstrates, for the first time, the considerable explanatory value classical mythology holds for the study of the English Renaissance and its literary culture in particular, and how early modern England answered a question we still find fascinating today: what is myth?
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198807708
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
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, largely because they have been wrongly considered mere copies of their European counterparts. This volume focuses on the English mythographies written between 1577 and 1647 by Stephen Batman, Abraham Fraunce, Francis Bacon, Henry Reynolds, and Alexander Ross: it places their texts into a wider, European context to reveal their unique English take on the genre and also unfolds the significant role myth played in the broader culture of the period, influencing not only literary life, natural philosophy and poetics, but also religious conflicts and Civil War politics. In doing so it demonstrates, for the first time, the considerable explanatory value classical mythology holds for the study of the English Renaissance and its literary culture in particular, and how early modern England answered a question we still find fascinating today: what is myth?
English Mythography in Its European Context, 1500 - 1650
Author: Anna-Maria Hartmann
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191845529
Category : FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
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, largely because they have been wrongly considered mere copies of their European counterparts. This volume focuses on the English mythographies written between 1577 and 1647 by Stephen Batman, Abraham Fraunce, Francis Bacon, Henry Reynolds, and Alexander Ross: it places their texts into a wider, European context to reveal their unique English take on the genre and also unfolds the significant role myth played in the broader culture of the period, influencing not only literary life, natural philosophy and poetics, but also religious conflicts and Civil War politics. In doing so it demonstrates, for the first time, the considerable explanatory value classical mythology holds for the study of the English Renaissance and its literary culture in particular, and how early modern England answered a question we still find fascinating today: what is myth?
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191845529
Category : FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
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, largely because they have been wrongly considered mere copies of their European counterparts. This volume focuses on the English mythographies written between 1577 and 1647 by Stephen Batman, Abraham Fraunce, Francis Bacon, Henry Reynolds, and Alexander Ross: it places their texts into a wider, European context to reveal their unique English take on the genre and also unfolds the significant role myth played in the broader culture of the period, influencing not only literary life, natural philosophy and poetics, but also religious conflicts and Civil War politics. In doing so it demonstrates, for the first time, the considerable explanatory value classical mythology holds for the study of the English Renaissance and its literary culture in particular, and how early modern England answered a question we still find fascinating today: what is myth?
Journal of Early Modern Studies, Volume 10, issue 1 (Spring 2021)
Author: Vlad ALEXANDRESCU
Publisher: Zeta Books
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 139
Book Description
ARTICLES: Patrick BRISSEY, Reasons for the Method in Descartes’ Discours Abstract: In the practical philosophy of the Discours de la Méthode, before the theoretical metaphysics of Part Four and the Meditationes, Descartes gives us an inductive argument that his method, the procedure and cognitive psychology, is veracious at its inception. His evidence, akin to his Scholastic predecessors, is God, a maximally perfect being, established an ontological foundation for knowledge such that reason and nature are isomorphic. Further, the method, he tells us, is a functional definition of human reason; that is, like other rationalists during this period, he holds the structure of reason maps onto the world. The evidence for this thesis is given in what I call the groundwork to Descartes’ philosophical system, essentially the first half of the Discours, where, through a series of examples in the preamble of Part Two, he, step-by-step, ascends from the perfection of artifacts through the imposition of reason (the Architect Example) to the perfection of a constituent’s use of her cognitive faculties (the Wise-Lawgiver Example), to God perfecting and ordering reality (the Divine Artificer Example). Finally, he descends, establishing the structure of human reason, which undergirds and entails the procedure of the method (the Laws of Sparta Example). Hanoch BEN-YAMI, Word, Sign and Representation in Descartes Abstract: In the first chapter of his The World, Descartes compares light to words and discusses signs and ideas. This made scholars read into that passage our views of language as a representational medium and consider it Descartes’ model for representation in perception. I show, by contrast, that Descartes does not ascribe there any representational role to language; that to be a sign is for him to have a kind of causal role; and that he is concerned there only with the cause’s lack of resemblance to its effect, not with the representation’s lack of resemblance to what it represents. I support this interpretation by comparisons with other places in Descartes’ corpus and with earlier authors, Descartes’ likely sources. This interpretation may shed light both on Descartes’ understanding of the functioning of language and on the development of his theory of representation in perception. Osvaldo OTTAVIANI, The Young Leibniz and the Ontological Argument: from Rejection to Reconsideration Abstract: Leibniz considered the Cartesian version of the ontological argument not as an inconsistent proof but only as an incomplete one: it requires a preliminary proof of possibility to show that the concept of ‘the most perfect being’ involves no contradiction. Leibniz raised this objection to Descartes’s proof already in 1676, then repeated it throughout his entire life. Before 1676, however, he suggested a more substantial objection to the Cartesian argument. I take into account a text written around 1671-72, in which Leibniz considers the Cartesian proof as a paralogism and a petition of principle. I argue that this criticism is modelled on Gassendi’s objections to the Cartesian proof, and that Leibniz’s early rejection of the ontological argument has to be understood in the general context of his early philosophy, which was inspired by nominalist authors, such as Hobbes and Gassendi. Then, I take into account the reconsideration of the ontological argument in a series of texts of 1678, showing how Leibniz implicitly replies to the kind of criticism to the argument he himself shared in his earlier works. Joseph ANDERSON, The ‘Necessity’ of Leibniz’ Rejection of Necessitarianism Abstract: In the Theodicy, Leibniz defends the justice of God from two impious conceptions of God—a God who makes arbitrary choices and a God who doesn’t make choices at all. Many interpret Leibniz as navigating these dangers by positing a kind of non-Spinozistic necessitarianism. I examine passages from the Theodicy which reject not only blind (Spinozistic) necessitarianism but necessitarianism altogether. Leibniz thinks blind necessitarianism is dangerous due to the conception of God it entails and the implications for morality. Non-Spinozistic necessitarianism avoids many of these criticisms. Leibniz finds that even necessary actions should receive certain rewards and punishments as long as they necessarily lead to a change in future behavior. But Leibniz rejects even non-Spinozistic necessitarianism on the grounds that it is inconsistent with punitive justice. Whether Leibniz successfully avoids necessitarianism, it ought to be clear that he sees his own position as significantly distinct from necessitarianism and not just Spinozism. REVIEW ARTICLE: Dana JALOBEANU, Big Books, Small Books, Readers, Riddles and Contexts: The Story of English Mythography [Anna-Maria Hartmann, English Mythography and its European Context. 1500-1650, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, x + 283 pp.] CORPUS REVIEW: Andrea SANGIACOMO, Raluca TANASESCU, Silvia DONKER, Hugo HOGENBIRK: Expanding the Corpus of Early Modern Natural Philosophy: Initial results and a review of available sources BOOK REVIEWS Diego LUCCI Ruth Boeker, Locke on Persons and Personal Identity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Michael DECKARD Stefano Marino and Pietro Terzi (eds.), Kant’s ‘Critique of Aesthetic Judgment’ in the 20th Century: A Companion to its Main Interpretations, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021. Doina RUSU Jennifer M. Rampling, The Experimental Fire. Inventing English Alchemy 1300-1700, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2020.
Publisher: Zeta Books
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 139
Book Description
ARTICLES: Patrick BRISSEY, Reasons for the Method in Descartes’ Discours Abstract: In the practical philosophy of the Discours de la Méthode, before the theoretical metaphysics of Part Four and the Meditationes, Descartes gives us an inductive argument that his method, the procedure and cognitive psychology, is veracious at its inception. His evidence, akin to his Scholastic predecessors, is God, a maximally perfect being, established an ontological foundation for knowledge such that reason and nature are isomorphic. Further, the method, he tells us, is a functional definition of human reason; that is, like other rationalists during this period, he holds the structure of reason maps onto the world. The evidence for this thesis is given in what I call the groundwork to Descartes’ philosophical system, essentially the first half of the Discours, where, through a series of examples in the preamble of Part Two, he, step-by-step, ascends from the perfection of artifacts through the imposition of reason (the Architect Example) to the perfection of a constituent’s use of her cognitive faculties (the Wise-Lawgiver Example), to God perfecting and ordering reality (the Divine Artificer Example). Finally, he descends, establishing the structure of human reason, which undergirds and entails the procedure of the method (the Laws of Sparta Example). Hanoch BEN-YAMI, Word, Sign and Representation in Descartes Abstract: In the first chapter of his The World, Descartes compares light to words and discusses signs and ideas. This made scholars read into that passage our views of language as a representational medium and consider it Descartes’ model for representation in perception. I show, by contrast, that Descartes does not ascribe there any representational role to language; that to be a sign is for him to have a kind of causal role; and that he is concerned there only with the cause’s lack of resemblance to its effect, not with the representation’s lack of resemblance to what it represents. I support this interpretation by comparisons with other places in Descartes’ corpus and with earlier authors, Descartes’ likely sources. This interpretation may shed light both on Descartes’ understanding of the functioning of language and on the development of his theory of representation in perception. Osvaldo OTTAVIANI, The Young Leibniz and the Ontological Argument: from Rejection to Reconsideration Abstract: Leibniz considered the Cartesian version of the ontological argument not as an inconsistent proof but only as an incomplete one: it requires a preliminary proof of possibility to show that the concept of ‘the most perfect being’ involves no contradiction. Leibniz raised this objection to Descartes’s proof already in 1676, then repeated it throughout his entire life. Before 1676, however, he suggested a more substantial objection to the Cartesian argument. I take into account a text written around 1671-72, in which Leibniz considers the Cartesian proof as a paralogism and a petition of principle. I argue that this criticism is modelled on Gassendi’s objections to the Cartesian proof, and that Leibniz’s early rejection of the ontological argument has to be understood in the general context of his early philosophy, which was inspired by nominalist authors, such as Hobbes and Gassendi. Then, I take into account the reconsideration of the ontological argument in a series of texts of 1678, showing how Leibniz implicitly replies to the kind of criticism to the argument he himself shared in his earlier works. Joseph ANDERSON, The ‘Necessity’ of Leibniz’ Rejection of Necessitarianism Abstract: In the Theodicy, Leibniz defends the justice of God from two impious conceptions of God—a God who makes arbitrary choices and a God who doesn’t make choices at all. Many interpret Leibniz as navigating these dangers by positing a kind of non-Spinozistic necessitarianism. I examine passages from the Theodicy which reject not only blind (Spinozistic) necessitarianism but necessitarianism altogether. Leibniz thinks blind necessitarianism is dangerous due to the conception of God it entails and the implications for morality. Non-Spinozistic necessitarianism avoids many of these criticisms. Leibniz finds that even necessary actions should receive certain rewards and punishments as long as they necessarily lead to a change in future behavior. But Leibniz rejects even non-Spinozistic necessitarianism on the grounds that it is inconsistent with punitive justice. Whether Leibniz successfully avoids necessitarianism, it ought to be clear that he sees his own position as significantly distinct from necessitarianism and not just Spinozism. REVIEW ARTICLE: Dana JALOBEANU, Big Books, Small Books, Readers, Riddles and Contexts: The Story of English Mythography [Anna-Maria Hartmann, English Mythography and its European Context. 1500-1650, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, x + 283 pp.] CORPUS REVIEW: Andrea SANGIACOMO, Raluca TANASESCU, Silvia DONKER, Hugo HOGENBIRK: Expanding the Corpus of Early Modern Natural Philosophy: Initial results and a review of available sources BOOK REVIEWS Diego LUCCI Ruth Boeker, Locke on Persons and Personal Identity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Michael DECKARD Stefano Marino and Pietro Terzi (eds.), Kant’s ‘Critique of Aesthetic Judgment’ in the 20th Century: A Companion to its Main Interpretations, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021. Doina RUSU Jennifer M. Rampling, The Experimental Fire. Inventing English Alchemy 1300-1700, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2020.
Shakespeare’s Classical Mythology: A Dictionary
Author: Janice Valls-Russell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135012589X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 497
Book Description
Why does Bassanio compare himself to Jason? What is Hecuba to Hamlet? Is the mechanicals' staging of the Pyramus and Thisbe story funny or sad? This dictionary elucidates Shakespeare's use of mythological references in an early modern context, while bringing them to life for today's audiences and readers, at a time of renewed critical interest in the reception of the classics and fascination with classical mythology in popular culture. It is also a precious tool for practitioners who may not always know quite what to make of mythological references. Mythological figures, creatures, places and stories crowd Shakespeare's plays and poems, featuring as allusions, poetic analogies, inset shows, scene settings and characters or plots in their own right. Most of these references were familiar to Shakespeare's spectators and readers, who knew them from the writings of Ovid, Virgil and other classical authors, or indirectly through translations, commentaries, ballads and iconography. This dictionary illustrates how, far from being isolated, a mythological reference may resonate with the poetics of the text and its structure, cast light on characters and contexts, and may therefore be worth exploring onstage in a variety of ways. The 200 headings correspond to words and names actually used by Shakespeare: individual figures (Dido, Venus, Hercules), categories (Amazons, Centaurs, nymphs, satyrs), places (Colchos, Troy). Medium and longer entries also cover early modern usage and critical analysis in a cross-disciplinary approach that includes reception, textual, performance, gender and political studies.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135012589X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 497
Book Description
Why does Bassanio compare himself to Jason? What is Hecuba to Hamlet? Is the mechanicals' staging of the Pyramus and Thisbe story funny or sad? This dictionary elucidates Shakespeare's use of mythological references in an early modern context, while bringing them to life for today's audiences and readers, at a time of renewed critical interest in the reception of the classics and fascination with classical mythology in popular culture. It is also a precious tool for practitioners who may not always know quite what to make of mythological references. Mythological figures, creatures, places and stories crowd Shakespeare's plays and poems, featuring as allusions, poetic analogies, inset shows, scene settings and characters or plots in their own right. Most of these references were familiar to Shakespeare's spectators and readers, who knew them from the writings of Ovid, Virgil and other classical authors, or indirectly through translations, commentaries, ballads and iconography. This dictionary illustrates how, far from being isolated, a mythological reference may resonate with the poetics of the text and its structure, cast light on characters and contexts, and may therefore be worth exploring onstage in a variety of ways. The 200 headings correspond to words and names actually used by Shakespeare: individual figures (Dido, Venus, Hercules), categories (Amazons, Centaurs, nymphs, satyrs), places (Colchos, Troy). Medium and longer entries also cover early modern usage and critical analysis in a cross-disciplinary approach that includes reception, textual, performance, gender and political studies.
The Oxford Francis Bacon XIX
Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198939264
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
This volume belongs to the new critical edition of the complete works of Francis Bacon (1561-1626). The edition presents the works in broadly chronological order and in accordance with the principles of modern textual scholarship. This volume comprises the first critical edition since the nineteenth century of New Atlantis, Bacon's posthumously published semi-utopian fable of reformed knowledge. New Atlantis is set on an imaginary island whose central institution--Salomon's House--is a fictional embodiment of the kind of research institute Bacon dreamed of founding in order to pursue his vast project, the Instauratio magna, and one which generates works that both expand knowledge and benefit humankind. This edition establishes an authoritative text based on fresh collation of multiple copies of the 1626 edition in close comparison with the 1628 edition. Thorough bibliographical analysis of the 1626 copy-text elucidates the book's passage through the printing house. David Colclough's detailed Introduction sets New Atlantis in the contexts of Bacon's works and of contemporary models of information-gathering and -management, including Iberian examples in the Old and New Worlds. An extensive commentary examines Bacon's sources, traces analogues across his works (especially with Sylva sylvarum, alongside which New Atlantis was originally printed), provides context and background, glosses obsolete or unusual terms, and considers critical interpretations of the text.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198939264
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
This volume belongs to the new critical edition of the complete works of Francis Bacon (1561-1626). The edition presents the works in broadly chronological order and in accordance with the principles of modern textual scholarship. This volume comprises the first critical edition since the nineteenth century of New Atlantis, Bacon's posthumously published semi-utopian fable of reformed knowledge. New Atlantis is set on an imaginary island whose central institution--Salomon's House--is a fictional embodiment of the kind of research institute Bacon dreamed of founding in order to pursue his vast project, the Instauratio magna, and one which generates works that both expand knowledge and benefit humankind. This edition establishes an authoritative text based on fresh collation of multiple copies of the 1626 edition in close comparison with the 1628 edition. Thorough bibliographical analysis of the 1626 copy-text elucidates the book's passage through the printing house. David Colclough's detailed Introduction sets New Atlantis in the contexts of Bacon's works and of contemporary models of information-gathering and -management, including Iberian examples in the Old and New Worlds. An extensive commentary examines Bacon's sources, traces analogues across his works (especially with Sylva sylvarum, alongside which New Atlantis was originally printed), provides context and background, glosses obsolete or unusual terms, and considers critical interpretations of the text.
Martianus Capella in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance
Author: Katie Reid
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004685324
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
In this book, Katie Reid argues that the fifth-century author Martianus Capella was a significant influence in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. His poetic encyclopaedia, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, was a source for writing on the liberal arts, allegory and classical mythology from 1300 to 1650. In fact, writers of this period had much more in common with Martianus Capella than they did with older ancients like Homer and Virgil. As such, we must reshape our understanding of late medieval and Renaissance encounters with the classical world by exploring their roots in Late Antiquity.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004685324
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
In this book, Katie Reid argues that the fifth-century author Martianus Capella was a significant influence in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. His poetic encyclopaedia, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, was a source for writing on the liberal arts, allegory and classical mythology from 1300 to 1650. In fact, writers of this period had much more in common with Martianus Capella than they did with older ancients like Homer and Virgil. As such, we must reshape our understanding of late medieval and Renaissance encounters with the classical world by exploring their roots in Late Antiquity.
Return of the Gods
Author: Owen Ware
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197763960
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
"Why is mythology of vital importance for the romantics? What role does mythology play in their philosophical and literary work? And what common sources of influence inspired these writers across Britain and Germany at the turn of the nineteenth century? In this wide-ranging study, Owen Ware argues that the romantics turn to mythology for its potential to transform how we see ourselves, others, and the world. Engaging with authors such as Schiller, Blake, Schlegel, Coleridge, Novalis, and Shelley, Ware shows why they believe that neither perception nor reason alone can sustain a vision of the unity of all things. A new mode of cognition is necessary, they claim, one that revives the poetic origin of mythology and reveals our own mythmaking powers. The first study devoted to the rise of mythology in the British and German traditions, Ware's book investigates the romantics' practices of reinterpreting old myths and inventing new ones. Their shared aim is nothing less than to elevate the human imagination to higher stages of self-development in which philosophy and poetry, as well as intellect and imagination, form an integrated whole. Far from calling us to return to the past, the romantics' work on mythology points us to a future where we can live in harmony with the personal, social, and natural worlds we inhabit. Combining intellectual history with philosophical analysis and literary criticism, Return of the Gods offers a bold reflection on why mythology mattered for the romantics-and why it still matters today"--
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197763960
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
"Why is mythology of vital importance for the romantics? What role does mythology play in their philosophical and literary work? And what common sources of influence inspired these writers across Britain and Germany at the turn of the nineteenth century? In this wide-ranging study, Owen Ware argues that the romantics turn to mythology for its potential to transform how we see ourselves, others, and the world. Engaging with authors such as Schiller, Blake, Schlegel, Coleridge, Novalis, and Shelley, Ware shows why they believe that neither perception nor reason alone can sustain a vision of the unity of all things. A new mode of cognition is necessary, they claim, one that revives the poetic origin of mythology and reveals our own mythmaking powers. The first study devoted to the rise of mythology in the British and German traditions, Ware's book investigates the romantics' practices of reinterpreting old myths and inventing new ones. Their shared aim is nothing less than to elevate the human imagination to higher stages of self-development in which philosophy and poetry, as well as intellect and imagination, form an integrated whole. Far from calling us to return to the past, the romantics' work on mythology points us to a future where we can live in harmony with the personal, social, and natural worlds we inhabit. Combining intellectual history with philosophical analysis and literary criticism, Return of the Gods offers a bold reflection on why mythology mattered for the romantics-and why it still matters today"--
Eleusis and Enlightenment
Author: Ferdinand Saumarez Smith
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004692304
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
The age of Enlightenment – the so-called age of reason – was also, paradoxically, the age of the Eleusinian mysteries. By attempting to reveal Demeter's secret cult, British, French, and German thinkers and freemasons of the eighteenth century revealed more than they bargained for: the pagan origins of Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the afterlife, and through the mythical gift of law and agriculture to Eleusis an alternative narrative of the origins of civilisation to that found in the Bible.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004692304
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
The age of Enlightenment – the so-called age of reason – was also, paradoxically, the age of the Eleusinian mysteries. By attempting to reveal Demeter's secret cult, British, French, and German thinkers and freemasons of the eighteenth century revealed more than they bargained for: the pagan origins of Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the afterlife, and through the mythical gift of law and agriculture to Eleusis an alternative narrative of the origins of civilisation to that found in the Bible.
How the Classics Made Shakespeare
Author: Jonathan Bate
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691161607
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 378
Book Description
From one of our most eminent and accessible literary critics, a groundbreaking account of how the Greek and Roman classics forged Shakespeare’s imagination Ben Jonson famously accused Shakespeare of having “small Latin and less Greek.” But he was exaggerating. Shakespeare was steeped in the classics. Shaped by his grammar school education in Roman literature, history, and rhetoric, he moved to London, a city that modeled itself on ancient Rome. He worked in a theatrical profession that had inherited the conventions and forms of classical drama, and he read deeply in Ovid, Virgil, and Seneca. In a book of extraordinary range, acclaimed literary critic and biographer Jonathan Bate, one of the world’s leading authorities on Shakespeare, offers groundbreaking insights into how, perhaps more than any other influence, the classics made Shakespeare the writer he became. Revealing in new depth the influence of Cicero and Horace on Shakespeare and finding new links between him and classical traditions, ranging from myths and magic to monuments and politics, Bate offers striking new readings of a wide array of the plays and poems. At the heart of the book is an argument that Shakespeare’s supreme valuation of the force of imagination was honed by the classical tradition and designed as a defense of poetry and theater in a hostile world of emergent Puritanism. Rounded off with a fascinating account of how Shakespeare became our modern classic and has ended up playing much the same role for us as the Greek and Roman classics did for him, How the Classics Made Shakespeare combines stylistic brilliance, accessibility, and scholarship, demonstrating why Jonathan Bate is one of our most eminent and readable literary critics.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691161607
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 378
Book Description
From one of our most eminent and accessible literary critics, a groundbreaking account of how the Greek and Roman classics forged Shakespeare’s imagination Ben Jonson famously accused Shakespeare of having “small Latin and less Greek.” But he was exaggerating. Shakespeare was steeped in the classics. Shaped by his grammar school education in Roman literature, history, and rhetoric, he moved to London, a city that modeled itself on ancient Rome. He worked in a theatrical profession that had inherited the conventions and forms of classical drama, and he read deeply in Ovid, Virgil, and Seneca. In a book of extraordinary range, acclaimed literary critic and biographer Jonathan Bate, one of the world’s leading authorities on Shakespeare, offers groundbreaking insights into how, perhaps more than any other influence, the classics made Shakespeare the writer he became. Revealing in new depth the influence of Cicero and Horace on Shakespeare and finding new links between him and classical traditions, ranging from myths and magic to monuments and politics, Bate offers striking new readings of a wide array of the plays and poems. At the heart of the book is an argument that Shakespeare’s supreme valuation of the force of imagination was honed by the classical tradition and designed as a defense of poetry and theater in a hostile world of emergent Puritanism. Rounded off with a fascinating account of how Shakespeare became our modern classic and has ended up playing much the same role for us as the Greek and Roman classics did for him, How the Classics Made Shakespeare combines stylistic brilliance, accessibility, and scholarship, demonstrating why Jonathan Bate is one of our most eminent and readable literary critics.
The Lithic Imagination from More to Milton
Author: Tiffany Jo Werth
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198903987
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 449
Book Description
The Lithic Imagination from More to Miltonexplores how stones, rocks, and the broader mineral realm play a vital role in early modern England's religious and cultural systems, a rolethat, in turn, informs the period's poetic and visual imagination.The scale ofthe human lifespan and the gyre-like turns of England's long Reformation provide a conceptual framework for the various stony textual and visual archives this book studies.Thetexts and images participate in specifically English histories (literary, artistic, political,religious) although Continental influences are frequently in dialogue.The religious orbitencompasses the Christian rivalry with Jewish culture, touches on Christianity'stension with Islam, but most intently centers on the antagonism between Catholic and varians ofProtestant andReformed belief. The volume features canonical writers such as Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne, Wroth, Herbert, Milton, and Pulter, but puts them in company with lesser-known religiouspolemicists, alchemists, anatomists, painters, mothers, and stonemasons.Accordingly,the multimediaarchive includes drama, lyric, and prose as well as biblical illustrations, tapestries, church furniture, paintings, anatomicaldrawings, and statues.The lithic too is capaciously construed as a continuum of rocky as well as mineral forms ranging from bodily encrustations like the kidney and bezoarstone, to salt, iron, limestone, marble, flint, and silicon.The assemblage of materialsbears witness to aspirational imperial fantasies and looming colonial conquests; it engages in both syncretism andsupersession; upholds and subverts gender hierarchies; limns the race-making category of hue with desire; and supports, and sometimes thwarts,elitist ideologies of an elect, chosen people.All come together via the storied pathways of stoneas densely material and as a foundation for the abstract imaginary along the scala naturae.Across the lithic-human fold, stone promises, fascinates, betrays. As alpha and omega, stone can herald salvation or it can threaten with damnation.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198903987
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 449
Book Description
The Lithic Imagination from More to Miltonexplores how stones, rocks, and the broader mineral realm play a vital role in early modern England's religious and cultural systems, a rolethat, in turn, informs the period's poetic and visual imagination.The scale ofthe human lifespan and the gyre-like turns of England's long Reformation provide a conceptual framework for the various stony textual and visual archives this book studies.Thetexts and images participate in specifically English histories (literary, artistic, political,religious) although Continental influences are frequently in dialogue.The religious orbitencompasses the Christian rivalry with Jewish culture, touches on Christianity'stension with Islam, but most intently centers on the antagonism between Catholic and varians ofProtestant andReformed belief. The volume features canonical writers such as Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne, Wroth, Herbert, Milton, and Pulter, but puts them in company with lesser-known religiouspolemicists, alchemists, anatomists, painters, mothers, and stonemasons.Accordingly,the multimediaarchive includes drama, lyric, and prose as well as biblical illustrations, tapestries, church furniture, paintings, anatomicaldrawings, and statues.The lithic too is capaciously construed as a continuum of rocky as well as mineral forms ranging from bodily encrustations like the kidney and bezoarstone, to salt, iron, limestone, marble, flint, and silicon.The assemblage of materialsbears witness to aspirational imperial fantasies and looming colonial conquests; it engages in both syncretism andsupersession; upholds and subverts gender hierarchies; limns the race-making category of hue with desire; and supports, and sometimes thwarts,elitist ideologies of an elect, chosen people.All come together via the storied pathways of stoneas densely material and as a foundation for the abstract imaginary along the scala naturae.Across the lithic-human fold, stone promises, fascinates, betrays. As alpha and omega, stone can herald salvation or it can threaten with damnation.