Marvelous Possessions

Marvelous Possessions PDF Author: Stephen Greenblatt
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022652518X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
A masterwork of history and cultural studies, Marvelous Possessions is a brilliant meditation on the interconnected ways in which Europeans of the Age of Discovery represented non-European peoples and took possession of their lands, particularly in the New World. In a series of innovative readings of travel narratives, judicial documents, and official reports, Stephen Greenblatt shows that the experience of the marvelous, central to both art and philosophy, was manipulated by Columbus and others in the service of colonial appropriation. Much more than simply a collection of the odd and exotic, Marvelous Possessions is both a highly original extension of Greenblatt’s thinking on a subject that has permeated his career and a thrilling tale of wandering, kidnapping, and go-betweens—of daring improvisation, betrayal, and violence. Reaching back to the ancient Greeks, forward to the present, and, in his new preface, even to fantastical meetings between humans and aliens in movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Greenblatt would have us ask: How is it possible, in a time of disorientation, hatred of the other, and possessiveness, to keep the capacity for wonder—for tolerant recognition of cultural difference—from being poisoned?

Marvelous Possessions

Marvelous Possessions PDF Author: Stephen Greenblatt
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022652518X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book Here

Book Description
A masterwork of history and cultural studies, Marvelous Possessions is a brilliant meditation on the interconnected ways in which Europeans of the Age of Discovery represented non-European peoples and took possession of their lands, particularly in the New World. In a series of innovative readings of travel narratives, judicial documents, and official reports, Stephen Greenblatt shows that the experience of the marvelous, central to both art and philosophy, was manipulated by Columbus and others in the service of colonial appropriation. Much more than simply a collection of the odd and exotic, Marvelous Possessions is both a highly original extension of Greenblatt’s thinking on a subject that has permeated his career and a thrilling tale of wandering, kidnapping, and go-betweens—of daring improvisation, betrayal, and violence. Reaching back to the ancient Greeks, forward to the present, and, in his new preface, even to fantastical meetings between humans and aliens in movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Greenblatt would have us ask: How is it possible, in a time of disorientation, hatred of the other, and possessiveness, to keep the capacity for wonder—for tolerant recognition of cultural difference—from being poisoned?

Wonders, Marvels, and Monsters in Early Modern Culture

Wonders, Marvels, and Monsters in Early Modern Culture PDF Author: Peter G. Platt
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 9780874136784
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
""The marvelous follows us always" - or so the Italian philosopher Francesco Patrizi asserted in 1587. The essays in this book collectively make the case that this assertion could be an epigraph for the Renaissance. For Wonder was a concept absolutely central to the early modern period. Encompassing both inquiry and astonishment, "wonder" indeed followed the Renaissance everywhere - into redefinitions of the mind, the body, art, literature, the known world. Often called the age of discovery, the Renaissance should also be seen as the age of the marvelous." "However, defining just what la maraviglia would have meant for Patrizi and his age is no small task." "This volume, then, seeks to explore early modern views of wonder and the marvelous by revealing the complexity of la maraviglia in the Renaissance."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Textual Practice

Textual Practice PDF Author: Terence Hawkes
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415096553
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Since its launch in 1987, Textual Practice has established itself as Britain's leading journal of radical literary theory.

Lyric Wonder

Lyric Wonder PDF Author: James Biester
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801433139
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
James Biester sees the shift in late Elizabethan England toward a witty, rough, and obscure lyric style--metaphysical wit and strong lines--as a response to the heightened cultural prestige of wonder. That same prestige was demonstrated in the search for strange artifacts and animals to display in the wonder-cabinets of the period. By embracing the genres of satire and epigram, poets of the Elizabethan court risked their chances for political advancement, exposing themselves to the danger of being classified either as malcontents or as jesters who lacked the gravitas required of those in power. John Donne himself recognized both the risks and benefits of adopting the "admirable" style, as Biester shows in his close readings of the First and Fourth Satyres. Why did courtier-poets adopt such a dangerous form of self-representation? The answer, Biester maintains, lies in an extraordinary confluence of developments in both poetics and the interpenetrating spheres of the culture at large, which made the pursuit of wonder through style unusually attractive, even necessary. In a postfeudal but still aristocratic culture, he says, the ability to astound through language performed the validating function that was once supplied by the ability to fight. Combining the insights of the new historicism with traditional literary scholarship, Biester perceives the rise of metaphysical style as a social as well as aesthetic event.

Rhetoric

Rhetoric PDF Author: Wendy Olmsted
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470777214
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
This introduction to the art of rhetoric analyzes rhetorical concepts, problems, and methods and teaches practical inquiry through a series of classic rhetorical texts. An introduction to the art of rhetoric for those who are unacquainted with it and an argument about invention and tradition suitable for specialists Texts range from Cicero's De oratore and Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine to Jane Austen’s Persuasion and Stephen Greenblatt’s Marvellous Possessions Texts serve simultaneously as works of persuasion and considerations of how rhetoric works Engages readers in using rhetoric to deliberate about challenging issues.

Magritte's Marvelous Hat

Magritte's Marvelous Hat PDF Author: D.B. Johnson
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0547822448
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 43

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Book Description
"Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see." —Rene Magritte D.B. Johnson writes and illustrates the surreal story of famous surrealist painter Rene Magritte and his very mysterious (and mischievous!) hat. While the art reflects some of Magritte's own work, the text sets readers on a fun and accessible path to learning about the simpler concepts behind Mr. Magritte's work. This delightful picture book captures the playfulness and the wonderment of surrealist art.

The Dutch Trading Companies As Knowledge Networks

The Dutch Trading Companies As Knowledge Networks PDF Author: Siegfried Huigen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900418659X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
For more than a century, from about 1600 until the early eighteenth century, the Dutch dominated world trade. Via the Netherlands the far reaches of the world, both in the Atlantic and in the East, were connected. Dutch ships carried goods, but they also opened up opportunities for the exchange of knowledge. The commercial networks of the Dutch trading companies provided an infrastructure which was accessible to people with a scholarly interest in the exotic world. The present collection of essays brings together a number of studies about knowledge construction that depended on the Dutch trading networks. Contributors include: Paul Arblaster, Hans den Besten, Frans Blom, Britt Dams, Adrien Delmas, Alette Fleischer, Antje Flüchter, Michiel van Groesen, Henk de Groot, Julie Berger Hochstrasser, Grégoire Holtz, Siegfried Huigen, Elspeth Jajdelska, Maria-Theresia Leuker, Edwin van Meerkerk, Bruno Naarden, and Christina Skott.

Central Europe and the Non-European World in the Long 19th Century

Central Europe and the Non-European World in the Long 19th Century PDF Author: Markéta Křížová
Publisher: Frank & Timme GmbH
ISBN: 3732908674
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Central Europe and the Non-European World in the Long 19th Century explores various ways in which inhabitants of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy perceived and depicted the outside world during the era of European imperialism. Focusing particularly on the Czech Lands, Hungary, and Slovakia, with other nations as comparative examples, this collection shows how Central Europeans viewed other regions and their populations, from the Balkans and the Middle East to Africa, China, and America. Although the societies under Habsburg rule found themselves (with rare exceptions) outside the realm of colonialism, their inhabitants also engaged in colonial projects and benefited from these interactions. Rather than taking one “Central European” approach, the volume draws upon accounts not only by writers and travelers, but by painters, missionaries, and other observers, reflecting the diversity that characterized both the region itself and its views of non-Western cultures.

The Ruler in the Garden

The Ruler in the Garden PDF Author: Andreas Schönle
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039111138
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
This monograph examines the contributions of landscape design to authority and to organization of public life in imperial Russia. Analyzing how tsars and nobles inscribed their political aspirations in the gardens they designed or inhabited, this study maps out a distinct trajectory in the meaning of landscape design. Based partly on archival documents, it explores the reasons for Catherine the Great's keen interest in landscape design. It reconstructs Grigorii Potemkin's attempts to transform the Crimea physically and symbolically into the garden of the empire. And it reveals the centrality of the garden for noblemen such as Andrei Bolotov and Alexander Kurakin, who expressed their political philosophy and their anxieties about unstable social relations through landscaping. The book follows the destiny of western aesthetic categories, notably of the picturesque, as they are first adopted, then transformed, and ultimately rejected. It analyzes the historical role and mythological representations of the country estate, along with Leo Tolstoy's fraught commitment to Yasnaya Polyana and his critique of estate mythology in War and Peace. Finally, this study exposes how the current fashion for gardening in Russia, in particular among New Russians, alludes to imperial landscaping culture in order to justify a retreat from the public sphere.

Premodern Ecologies in the Modern Literary Imagination

Premodern Ecologies in the Modern Literary Imagination PDF Author: Vin Nardizzi
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487504144
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
Premodern Ecologies in the Modern Literary Imagination explores how the cognitive and physical landscapes in which scholars conduct research, write, and teach have shaped their understandings of medieval and Renaissance English literary "oecologies." The collection strives to practice what Ursula K. Heise calls "eco-cosmopolitanism," a method that imagines forms of local environmentalism as a defense against the interventions of open-market global networks. It also expands the idea's possibilities and identifies its limitations through critical studies of premodern texts, artefacts, and environmental history. The essays connect real environments and their imaginative (re)creations and affirm the urgency of reorienting humanity's responsiveness to, and responsibility for, the historical links between human and non-human existence. The discussion of ways in which meditation on scholarly place and time can deepen ecocritical work offers an innovative and engaging approach that will appeal to both ecocritics generally and to medieval and early modern scholars.