- ホーム
- > 洋書
- > 英文書
- > Literary Criticism
Full Description
Dedicated to discussing writings of the European Renaissance that dissented from the dominant values of the period.
Who during the Renaissance could have dissented from the values of reason and restraint, patience and humility, rejection of the worldly and the physical? These widely articulated values were part of the inherited Christian tradition and were reinforced by key elements in the Renaissance, especially the revival of Stoicism and Platonism. This book is devoted to those who did dissent from them. Richard Strier reveals that many long-recognized major texts did question the most traditional values and belong to a Renaissance far more unconstrained and affirmative than much recent scholarship has allowed.
The Unrepentant Renaissance counters the prevalent view of the period as dominated by the regulation of bodies and passions; the book aims to reclaim the Renaissance as an era happily churning with surprising, worldly, and self-assertive energies. Reviving the perspective of Burckhardt and Nietzsche, Strier provides fresh and uninhibited readings of texts by Petrarch, Shakespeare (sonnets and plays), Loyola, Montaigne, Descartes, and Milton. Strier's lively argument, expressed in lucid prose, is meant to stir debate throughout the field of Renaissance studies.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Back to Burckhardt (Plus the Reformations)
PART 1 In Defense of Passion and the Body
1 Against the Rule of Reason: Praise of Passion from Petrarch to Luther to Shakespeare to Herbert
2 Against Judgment: Petrarch and Shakespeare at Sonnets
3 Against Morality: From Richard III to Antony and Cleopatra
APPENDIX 1 Shakespearean Seduction
APPENDIX 2 Morality and the Happy Infant: The Case of Macbeth
PART 2 In Defense of Worldliness
4 Sanctifying the Bourgeoisie: The Cultural Work of The Comedy of Errors
APPENDIX Sanctifying the Aristocracy: From Ignatius Loyola to François de Sales (and then to Donne and Herbert)
PART 3 In Defense of Pride
5 Self-Revelation and Self-Satisfaction in Montaigne and Descartes
6 Milton against Humility
APPENDIX "Lordly Command?"
Index
