Excess and the Mean in Early Modern English Literature is popular PDF and ePub book, written by Joshua Scodel in 2009-02-09, it is a fantastic choice for those who relish reading online the Literary Criticism genre. Let's immerse ourselves in this engaging Literary Criticism book by exploring the summary and details provided below. Remember, Excess and the Mean in Early Modern English Literature can be Read Online from any device for your convenience.
Excess and the Mean in Early Modern English Literature Book PDF Summary
This book examines how English writers from the Elizabethan period to the Restoration transformed and contested the ancient ideal of the virtuous mean. As early modern authors learned at grammar school and university, Aristotle and other classical thinkers praised "golden means" balanced between extremes: courage, for example, as opposed to cowardice or recklessness. By uncovering the enormous variety of English responses to this ethical doctrine, Joshua Scodel revises our understanding of the vital interaction between classical thought and early modern literary culture. Scodel argues that English authors used the ancient schema of means and extremes in innovative and contentious ways hitherto ignored by scholars. Through close readings of diverse writers and genres, he shows that conflicting representations of means and extremes figured prominently in the emergence of a self-consciously modern English culture. Donne, for example, reshaped the classical mean to promote individual freedom, while Bacon held extremism necessary for human empowerment. Imagining a modern rival to ancient Rome, georgics from Spenser to Cowley exhorted England to embody the mean or lauded extreme paths to national greatness. Drinking poetry from Jonson to Rochester expressed opposing visions of convivial moderation and drunken excess, while erotic writing from Sidney to Dryden and Behn pitted extreme passion against the traditional mean of conjugal moderation. Challenging his predecessors in various genres, Milton celebrated golden means of restrained pleasure and self-respect. Throughout this groundbreaking study, Scodel suggests how early modern treatments of means and extremes resonate in present-day cultural debates.
Detail Book of Excess and the Mean in Early Modern English Literature PDF
- Author : Joshua Scodel
- Release : 09 February 2009
- Publisher : Princeton University Press
- ISBN : 9781400824939
- Genre : Literary Criticism
- Total Page : 375 pages
- Language : English
- PDF File Size : 16,5 Mb
If you're still pondering over how to secure a PDF or EPUB version of the book Excess and the Mean in Early Modern English Literature by Joshua Scodel, don't worry! All you have to do is click the 'Get Book' buttons below to kick off your Download or Read Online journey. Just a friendly reminder: we don't upload or host the files ourselves.