Petrarch's Humanism and the Care of the Self

Petrarch's Humanism and the Care of the Self PDF Author: Gur Zak
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521114675
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
In this book, Gur Zak examines two central issues in Petrarch's works - his humanist philosophy and his concept of the self.

Petrarch's Humanism and the Care of the Self

Petrarch's Humanism and the Care of the Self PDF Author: Gur Zak
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521114675
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
In this book, Gur Zak examines two central issues in Petrarch's works - his humanist philosophy and his concept of the self.

Writing from Exile

Writing from Exile PDF Author: Gur Zak
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780494398869
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
The question of the nature and scope of Italian humanism, and particularly of humanist philosophy, has been an ongoing source of debate among historians. In this dissertation I explore the nature of humanist philosophy by complementing the traditional study of the "history of ideas" with that of the "history of practices." Concentrating on Petrarch's voluminous corpus of writing, I argue that Petrarch develops in his works a new ethical program, a new philosophy of self, at the centre of which is the assertion that "self" is above all a state of mind from which we are exiled and which we need to cultivate through constant practice, and particularly through the literary practice of writing (which is always intertwined with that of reading). In order to examine Petrarch's philosophy, therefore, this thesis focuses especially on his uses of writing as a spiritual exercise in his works, and the ways in which these uses both absorb and transform ancient and medieval traditions of writing. In Petrarch's vernacular poetry, I argue, writing serves mainly as a personal ritual and a meditative exercise that allows the poet to overcome his experience of fragmentation and exile by reviving and intensifying his desire. In the Latin works, in contrast, writing mostly serves as a vehicle for the cultivation of virtue and the eradication of desire, which is presented as the very source of the experience of exile. Nonetheless, the uses of writing in the Latin works, modeled mostly upon the example of Seneca, are in themselves persistently undermined by the "Ovidian" realization that writing is always tainted by desire, and is hence in itself part of the problem no less than the solution. This realization, in turn, also leads to the "Augustinian" backlash in Petrarch's works against secular writing in general. As a result, while this thesis argues that Petrarch's humanism is defined above all by his emphasis on care, his attempt to establish humanism as a form of secular spirituality, it also inevitably brings to the fore the tensions and contradictions that plagued his project from its onset.

Rereading the Renaissance

Rereading the Renaissance PDF Author: Carol E. Quillen
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472107353
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Rereading the Renaissance - a study of Petrarch's uses of Augustine - uses methods drawn from history and literary criticism to establish a framework for exploring Petrarch's humanism. Carol Everhart Quillen argues that the essential role of Augustine's words and authority in the expression of Petrarch's humanism is best grasped through a study of the complex textual practices exemplified in the writings of both men. She also maintains that Petrarch's appropriation of Augustine's words is only intelligible in light of his struggle to legitimate his cultural ideals in the face of compelling opposition. Finally, Quillen shows how Petrarch's uses of Augustine can simultaneously uphold his humanist ideals and challenge the legitimacy of the assumptions on which those ideals were founded.

Petrarch's Humanist Writing and Carthusian Monasticism

Petrarch's Humanist Writing and Carthusian Monasticism PDF Author: Demetrio S. Yocum
Publisher: Brepols Pub
ISBN: 9782503544199
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Of the long line of renowned and anti-scholastic intellectuals who were attracted to Carthusian circles, Petrarch was undoubtedly the first. By revealing the Carthusian imprint on Petrarch's thought as well as elements of Carthusian spirituality present in his texts, this book argues that Carthusianism was an essential component of Petrarch's Christian humanism and hermeneutics of the self.

My Secret Book

My Secret Book PDF Author: Francesco Petrarca
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674003462
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Petrarch was the leading spirit in the Renaissance movement to revive literary Latin, the language of the Roman Empire, and Greco-Roman culture in general. My Secret Book reveals a remarkable self-awareness as he probes and evaluates the springs of his own morally dubious addictions to fame and love.

The Worlds of Petrarch

The Worlds of Petrarch PDF Author: Giuseppe Mazzotta
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822313960
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
At the center of Petrarch's vision, announcing a new way of seeing the world, was the individual, a sense of the self that would one day become the center of modernity as well. This self, however, seemed to be fragmented in Petrarch's work, divided among the worlds of philosophy, faith, and love of the classics, politics, art, and religion, of Italy, France, Greece, and Rome. In recent decades scholars have explored each of these worlds in depth. In this work, Giuseppe Mazzotta shows for the first time how all these fragmentary explorations relate to each other, how these separate worlds are part of a common vision. Written in a clear and passionate style, The Worlds of Petrarch takes us into the politics of culture, the poetic imagination, into history and ethics, art and music, rhetoric and theology. With this encyclopedic strategy, Mazzotta is able to demonstrate that the self for Petrarch is not a unified whole but a unity of parts, and, at the same time, that culture emerges not from a consensus but from a conflict of ideas produced by opposition and dark passion. These conflicts, intrinsic to Petrarch's style of thought, lead Mazzotta to a powerful rethinking of the concepts of "fragments" and "unity" and, finally, to a new understanding of the relationship between them. Essential to students of Medieval and Renaissance literature, this book will engage anyone interested in the development of modernity as it has evolved in culture and is understood today.

Boccaccio and the Invention of Italian Literature

Boccaccio and the Invention of Italian Literature PDF Author: Martin Eisner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107513081
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Giovanni Boccaccio played a pivotal role in the extraordinary emergence of the Italian literary tradition in the fourteenth century, not only as author of the Decameron, but also as scribe of Dante, Petrarch and Cavalcanti. Using a single codex written entirely in Boccaccio's hand, Martin Eisner brings together material philology and literary history to reveal the multiple ways Boccaccio authorizes this vernacular literary tradition. Each chapter offers a novel interpretation of Boccaccio as a biographer, storyteller, editor and scribe, who constructs arguments, composes narratives, compiles texts and manipulates material forms to legitimize and advance a vernacular literary canon. Situating these philological activities in the context of Boccaccio's broader reflections on poetry in the Decameron and the Genealogy of the Gentile Gods, the book produces a new portrait of Boccaccio that integrates his vernacular and Latin works, while also providing a new context for understanding his fictions.

The Life of Solitude

The Life of Solitude PDF Author: Francesco Petrarca
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description


Posterity

Posterity PDF Author: Rocco Rubini
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022680755X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
"Rocco Rubini studies the motives and literary forms in the making of a "tradition," not understood narrowly, as the conservative, stubborn preservation of received conventions, values, and institutions, but rather more generously and etymologically interpreted: as the deliberate effort on the part of writers to transmit a reformulated past across generations. Leveraging Italian thinkers from Petrarch to Gramsci, with stops at the most prominent humanists in between (including Giambattista Vico, Carlo Goldoni, Francesco De Sanctis, and Benedetto Croce), Rubini gives us an innovative lens through which to view an Italian intellectual tradition that is at once premodern and modern, a legacy that does not depend on a date or a single masterpiece, but instead requires the reader to parse an entire career of writings to uncover deeper, transhistorical continuities that span 600 years. Whether reading forward to the 1930s, or backward to the 14th century, Rubini elucidates the interplay of creation and reception underlying the enactment of tradition, the practice of retrieving and conserving, and the revivification of shared themes and intentions linking these thinkers across time"--

Comparative Literature in Canada

Comparative Literature in Canada PDF Author: Susan Ingram
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793611858
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
This timely volume takes stock of the discipline of comparative literature and its theory and practice from a Canadian perspective. It engages with the most pressing critical issues at the intersection of comparative literature and other areas of inquiry in the context of scholarship, pedagogy and academic publishing: bilingualism and multilingualism, Indigeneity, multiple canons (literary and other), the relationship between print culture and other media, the development of information studies, concerted efforts in digitization, and the future of the production and dissemination of knowledge. The authors offer an analysis of the current state of Canadian comparative literature, with a dual focus on the issues of multilingualism in Canada’s sociopolitical and cultural context and Canada’s geographical location within the Americas. It also discusses ways in which contemporary technology is influencing the way that Canadian literature is taught, produced, and disseminated, and how this affects its readings.