Search Results for literary

... authoritative text par excellence ) should be implemented. There are striking parallels and intersections between scholastic literary theory and the “originalist” theory of constitutional interpretation; they share a common language of intentionalism, along with difficulties of interpretation...

...Eleanor Johnson This essay argues that Chaucer’s much- unloved “Monk’s Tale,” rather than being a failure or misfire on Chaucer’s part, actually constitutes a high- water mark of the bold and experimental literary theory that characterizes much of Chaucer’s later career. In this case, the Monk...

... than of preeminent status gained as a reward for past literary work. Further, the poem's version of literary and artistic tradition requires that poetry must take its place alongside other forms of artistic representation to form a full and complex account of history. Skelton here reconceptualizes...

... sufficiency and to echoing Aristotle on magnanimity. Milton’s thinking on the virtues and their acquisition is eclectic. This essay traces the effect on Milton’s thinking of the gravitational pull of the literary in two senses: Milton’s conception of himself as inspired author and his attraction...

...David Schalkwyk Posing the unusual question of what Shakespeare's speech might be in relation to the texts that go under the name “William Shakespeare,” this essay puts to the question a number of assumptions in literary theory about character, subjectivity, genre, the place of the author...

... ancient epic. A decade later, however, Vegio was alluding to Virgil’s poetry irreverently in distichs and epigrams, regarding Virgil’s example as justification for poetic frivolity. The vogue for such poetic trifles sparked controversy between Vegio and his literary associates over poetic decorum...

...James Simpson Almost every interpretative university discipline in or adjacent to the Humanities makes routine, unproblematic appeal to intention as an interpretative move. By proscribing intentionalism as an instrument of interpretation, Literary Criticism is the outlier among adjacent and not so...

... during the period, a material history of reading intersects with a less material history of interpretation. Evidence from early bibles and their users of all sorts—known biblical scholars, literary figures, or anonymous readers—sheds light on how readers confronted the changing problems of interpretation...

...Jean Balsamo The editorial process of a book's production—far from a minor material detail in its formation or an anecdotal event of publishing history—constitutes a meaningful aspect of its elaboration as a literary work, as significant as the author's biography. Indeed, book history...

...Shannon Gayk; Evelyn Reynolds This special issue considers how depictions of premodern catastrophe—environmental, social, political—shape and are shaped by literary form. The issue's introduction explores what form has to do with catastrophe and offers a case study of how form moves in a Middle...

...Caitlin Mahaffy This article investigates two literary works from the premodern era: Mandeville's Travels (composed between 1357 and 1371) and Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World (1666) , both of which depict hybrid creatures as natural rather than monstrously unnatural. These two texts...

... exegetics remains (as Lee Patterson said) the “great unfinished business” of medieval literary studies. This essay argues for the rejection of Robertsonianism as an inadequately historicist approach to the medieval Bible, and, by focusing on formal details of the biblical manuscripts evoked in Geoffrey...

... of intrigue against the English polity. Pleasant notes itself was a defense of pre–Civil War literary values (where Ben Jonson is regarded as the English Cervantes) and of pre–Civil War and Civil War Oxford (during which time the university was the royalist headquarters), which is presented as a picaresque...

...Erika T. Lin This essay models a method for unearthing performance traces in texts that seem on the surface to be strictly literary. Centering on Thomas Dekker's The Raven's Almanac , a compilation of stories akin to those in early modern jest books, it analyzes a bawdy tale about a friar...

... influence on literary history. [email protected] Copyright © 2022 by Duke University Press 2022 early modern English lyric poetry clerical profession priest poets church structure prosopography Except in rare cases, writing poetry has never been a particularly remunerative pursuit. Most...

... examinations of medieval versions of human redemption (literary, theological, and devotional) before turning to the political and ethical consequences of Calvin's reformation of these versions of God as played out in the Cromwellian regime of the mid-seventeenth century. Finally, the essay explores...

...Jason Crawford Early modern English literary culture was thick with tales of divine judgment. Texts ranging from true-crime pamphlets to Thomas Beard's vast collection The Theatre of God's Judgements (1597) promised to disclose God's work in history, and they found signs of that work in stories...