Solitude and Speechlessness: Renaissance Writing and Reading in Isolation

Andrew Mattison

Published by University of Toronto Press 2019

Solitude and Speechlessness

Renaissance Writing and Reading in Isolation

Andrew Mattison

https://doi.org/10.3138/9781487519322

Overview
Contents

About this book

Solitude and Speechlessness argues that experiences of isolation are inherent to the writing and reading of Renaissance literature, and finds parallels and meaning in the lives of solitary figures including poets, ascetics, and hermits.

Author / Editor information

Mattison Andrew :

Andrew Mattison teaches in the English Department at the University of Toledo.

Reviews

Anna Welch, State Library Victoria:

"In our current global experience of isolation, Mattison’s book has special resonance. Among many achievements, it reminds us of the virtue of being ambitious readers, challenging ourselves to wander from familiar paths."

Joshua Easterling, Murray State University:

"In his remarkable study, Andrew Mattison offers a fascinating examination of the various and self-conscious forms of literary withdrawal within sixteenth and seventeenth-century English writings, and of the implications that such a poetics of isolation have for the writing of literary history."

Elena Brizio, Georgetown University:

"Solitude and Speechlessness is a book that scholars of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English poetry will appreciate for its detailed, precise, and accurate analysis of canonical works. It provides a re-reading of such works through a peculiar lens: the pursuit, or fear, of the sense of isolation that allows us to find, but also lose, ourselves."

Gordon Braden, Department of English, University of Virginia:

"Solitude and Speechlessness is a serious, sophisticated, and well-informed discussion of a series of English poets from the late-sixteenth to the late-seventeenth-century, centered on the relations between authorial self-consciousness and literary history."

Grant Williams, Department of English, Carleton University:

"Written in lively and engaging prose, Solitude and Speechlessness returns readers to the problematic of the literary text through a new and exciting lens, reminding us of the hermeneutic humility and epistemological uncertainty that we should exercise when entering into this strange yet rewarding period of literary history."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction: Writing in Solitude Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Lyric Futures: Hidden Ambitions in the Sidney-Pembroke Circle Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	20
2. Nameless Orphans: Ambitious Poetry in an Age of Modesty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
3. The Peril of Understanding: Forms of Obscurity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	69
4. The Lure of Solitude: Melancholy and Eremitism as Literary Dispositions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	100
5. The Naked Sense of Retirement: Cowley, Marvell, Traherne Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	132
6. Literary History in Isolation: Bacon, Hofmannsthal, and Historical Memory Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
Conclusion: Reading in Solitude Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	196
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253

Language: English
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Audience: College/higher education;Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 272
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 2
- Other: 2 b&w illustrations
Keywords: authorship; obscurity; melancholy; Aemilia Lanyer; John Donne; Shakespeare; Andrew Marvell; Thomas Traherne; Francis Bacon; solitude; isolation; Sidney-Pembroke Circle; poets; ascetics; hermits

eBook

Published: July 11, 2019
ISBN: 9781487519322