Robert Penn Warren-Cleanth Brooks Award

The Unrepentant Renaissance: From Petrarch to Shakespeare to Milton

The Unrepentant Renaissance: From Petrarch to Shakespeare to Milton

Authors

Richard Strier

Files

Description

(from the publishers site)

Who during the Renaissance could have dissented from the values of reason and restraint, patience and humility, rejection of the worldly and the physical? These widely articulated values were part of the inherited Christian tradition and were reinforced by key elements in the Renaissance, especially the revival of Stoicism and Platonism. This book is devoted to those who did dissent from them. Richard Strier reveals that many long-recognized major texts did question the most traditional values and uncovers a Renaissance far more bumptious and affirmative than much recent scholarship has allowed. The Unrepentant Renaissance counters the prevalent view of the period as dominated by the regulation of bodies and passions, aiming to reclaim the Renaissance as an era happily churning with surprising, worldly, and self-assertive energies. Reviving the perspective of Jacob Burckhardt and Nietzsche, Strier provides fresh and uninhibited readings of texts by Petrarch, More, Shakespeare, Ignatius Loyola, Montaigne, Descartes, and Milton. Strier’s lively argument will stir debate throughout the field of Renaissance studies.

ISBN

9780226777535

Publication Date

2011

Disciplines

American Literature | Arts and Humanities | Critical and Cultural Studies | Nonfiction | Poetry

Comments

2011 Winner

The Unrepentant Renaissance: From Petrarch to Shakespeare to Milton

Share

COinS