Full Description
Within the historical literary genre, stylistics is widely applicable but as yet under deployed. This book acts as a showcase for the range of analysis possible. Although the analytic focus within the genre has traditionally been on literary criticism, stylistics has much to offer. Bringing together text and context, Patricia Canning synthesizes stylistic models with literary theory and critical theory. The historical and contextual focus throughout the book is on religious, political and ideological issues that animated and defined Reformation England. Each chapter interrogates the dichotomous concept of 'word' and 'image' by considering the ways in which writers of this period deal with these contentious subjects in their dramatic and poetic works. 'Representation' is proposed not just as a matter of semiotics but of ideology.
Contents
1. Introduction: 'In the beginning was the Word'; 2. Early Modern Understanding of the Monarch as a Double Body; 3. Constructing Plausible Stories: ideology, conceptual integration theory and the politics of representation; 4. Macbeth, Murder, and the Linguistics of Agency: "A deed without a name"; 5. Metonymy in Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy and Webster's The White Devil: 'Bit Part' Actors; 6. Ekphrasis and The Word as Image in Early Modern Poetry: "Iconoclash". 7. Conclusion: the 'value' of the word; Bibliography; Index.
