Guilty Creatures : Renaissance Poetry and the Ethics of Authorship: Renaissance Poetry and the Ethics of AuthorshipIn this innovative and learned study, Dennis Kezar examines how Renaissance poets conceive the theme of killing as a specifically representational and interpretive form of violence. Closely reading both major poets and lesser known authors of the early modern period, Kezar explores the ethical self-consciousness and accountability that attend literary killing, paying particular attention to the ways in which this reflection indicates the poet's understanding of his audience. Among the many poems through which Kezar explores the concept of authorial guilt elicited by violent representation are Skelton's Phyllyp Sparowe, Spenser's Faerie Queene, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, the multi-authored Witch of Edmonton, and Milton's Samson Agonistes. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 49
Page 3
... social problem in its seductive distortion of truth . Early modern poetry , however , engages a Platonic critique that goes further — substituting for " imitation " a " representation " not merely deficient but capable of destroying its ...
... social problem in its seductive distortion of truth . Early modern poetry , however , engages a Platonic critique that goes further — substituting for " imitation " a " representation " not merely deficient but capable of destroying its ...
Page 4
... social relations . This study concerns a poetics of accountability — a poetics defined by its victims , and by the guilt attending their injury . Again and again , and in different genres , the poets and poems considered in the ...
... social relations . This study concerns a poetics of accountability — a poetics defined by its victims , and by the guilt attending their injury . Again and again , and in different genres , the poets and poems considered in the ...
Page 5
... social implications in this extravagant admission through our current sensitivity to a language charged with the violence of history , and through new technologies that continue to pro- duce new ethical questions as they alter the ...
... social implications in this extravagant admission through our current sensitivity to a language charged with the violence of history , and through new technologies that continue to pro- duce new ethical questions as they alter the ...
Page 6
... social texts and selecting cultural subjects . When viewed as an act of imposition , a forced transformation or reinscription of the social text , killing in fact has a poetics remarkably similar to killing in fiction . This poetics ...
... social texts and selecting cultural subjects . When viewed as an act of imposition , a forced transformation or reinscription of the social text , killing in fact has a poetics remarkably similar to killing in fiction . This poetics ...
Page 7
... social power of litera- ture involves " the ability to impose one's fictions upon the world , " 17 where are the contact points of this imposition , and how does such contact blur boundaries between fiction and world ? If to be imitated ...
... social power of litera- ture involves " the ability to impose one's fictions upon the world , " 17 where are the contact points of this imposition , and how does such contact blur boundaries between fiction and world ? If to be imitated ...
Contents
3 | |
John Skeltons Precedent | 17 |
Two Spenser and the Poetics of Indiscretion | 50 |
THREE The Properties of Shakespeares Globe | 86 |
FOUR The Witch of Edmonton and the Guilt of Possession | 114 |
SIX Guilt and the Constitution of Authorship in Henry V | 172 |
Common terms and phrases
actor ambiguous antitheatrical appears argument art of dying audience authorship Basilikē Ben Jonson Calidore Cambridge cannibals chapter Charles's Chorus Cinna claims conscience court criticism cultural Danites death defense Donne Donne's dramatic dramatist early modern elegiac elegy Elizabeth England English epitaph ethical fact Faerie Queene Funeral Elegy Goodcole Goodcole's Gosson's Greenblatt guilt Hamlet Henry interpretive Jane Jane's John John Donne John Milton John Skelton Jonson Julius Caesar killing poem king lines literary London lyric meditation Milton moriendi murder Orpheus Oxford performance Phyllyp Sparowe play play's playwright poem's poet poet's poetic poetry political praise prologue public theater question Ralegh readers reading Renaissance representation represents response reveals rhetoric Salve Samson Agonistes satire Sawyer scene seems self-consciousness Serena Shakespeare's shame Sir Walter Ralegh Skelton skepticism social Sonnet spectators Spenser's stage Stephen Greenblatt suggests textual theatrical tion University Press victim violence Witch of Edmonton witchcraft
Popular passages
Page 5 - I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors...