Passion's Triumph over Reason
Passion's Triumph over Reason

Author: Christopher Tilmouth

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2010-11-11

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0191615609

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Passion's Triumph over Reason presents a comprehensive survey of ideas of emotion, appetite, and self-control in English literature and moral thought of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In a narrative which draws on tragedy, epic poetry, and moral philosophy, Christopher Tilmouth explores how Renaissance writers transformed their understanding of the passions, re-evaluating emotion so as to make it an important constituent of ethical life rather than the enemy within which allegory had traditionally cast it as being. This interdisciplinary study departs from current emphases in intellectual history, arguing that literature should be explored alongside the moral rather than political thought of its time. The book also develops a new approach to understanding the relationship between literature and philosophy. Consciously or not, moral thinkers tend to ground their philosophising in certain images of human nature. Their work is premissed on imagined models of the mind and presumed estimates of man's moral potential. In other words, the thinking of philosophical authors (as much as that of literary ones) is shaped by the pre-rational assumptions of the 'moral imagination'. Because that is so, poets and dramatists in their turn, in speaking to this material, typically do more than just versify the abstract ideas of ethics. They reflect, directly and critically, upon those same core assumptions which are integral to the writings of their philosophical counterparts. Authors examined here include Aristotle, Augustine, Hobbes, and an array of lyric poets; but there are new readings, too, of The Faerie Queene and Paradise Lost, Hamlet and Julius Caesar, Dryden's 'Lucretius', and Etherege's Man of Mode. Tilmouth's study concludes with a revisionist interpretation of the works of the Earl of Rochester, presenting this libertine poet as a challenging, intellectually serious figure. Written in a lucid, accessible style, this book will appeal to a wide range of readers.

The Novel: An Alternative History, 1600-1800
The Novel: An Alternative History, 1600-1800

Author: Steven Moore

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2013-08-29

Total Pages: 548

ISBN-13: 1623567408

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Winner of the Christian Gauss Award for excellence in literary scholarship from the Phi Beta Kappa Society Having excavated the world's earliest novels in his previous book, literary historian Steven Moore explores in this sequel the remarkable flowering of the novel between the years 1600 and 1800-from Don Quixote to America's first big novel, an homage to Cervantes entitled Modern Chivalry. This is the period of such classic novels as Tom Jones, Candide, and Dangerous Liaisons, but beyond the dozen or so recognized classics there are hundreds of other interesting novels that appeared then, known only to specialists: Spanish picaresques, French heroic romances, massive Chinese novels, Japanese graphic novels, eccentric English novels, and the earliest American novels. These minor novels are not only interesting in their own right, but also provide the context needed to appreciate why the major novels were major breakthroughs. The novel experienced an explosive growth spurt during these centuries as novelists experimented with different forms and genres: epistolary novels, romances, Gothic thrillers, novels in verse, parodies, science fiction, episodic road trips, and family sagas, along with quirky, unclassifiable experiments in fiction that resemble contemporary, avant-garde works. As in his previous volume, Moore privileges the innovators and outriders, those who kept the novel novel. In the most comprehensive history of this period ever written, Moore examines over 400 novels from around the world in a lively style that is as entertaining as it is informative. Though written for a general audience, The Novel, An Alternative History also provides the scholarly apparatus required by the serious student of the period. This sequel, like its predecessor, is a “zestfully encyclopedic, avidly opinionated, and dazzlingly fresh history of the most 'elastic' of literary forms” (Booklist).

The Gothic Quest - A History of the Gothic Novel
The Gothic Quest - A History of the Gothic Novel

Author: Montague Summers

Publisher: Read Books Ltd

Published: 2016-09-22

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 1447499085

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“The Gothic Quest - A History of the Gothic Novel” is a 1938 treatise by Montague Summers on the subject of the Gothic novel, looking at its origins, evolution, and role in contemporary literature. Augustus Montague Summers (1880 – 1948) was an English clergyman and author most famous for his studies on vampires, witches and werewolves—all of which he believed to be very much real. He also wrote the first English translation of the infamous 15th-century witch hunter's manual, the “Malleus Maleficarum”, in 1928. Contents include: “The Romantic Feeling”, “Notes to Chapter I”, “The Publishers and the Circulating Libraries”, “Notes to Chapter II”, “Influences from Abroad”, “Notes to Chapter III”, “Historical Gothic”, “Notes to Chapters IV”, “Matthew Gregory Lewis”, etc. Other notable works by this author include: “A Popular History of Witchcraft” (1937), “Witchcraft and Black Magic” (1946), and “The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism” (1947). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.