The Unrepentant Renaissance

by Strier, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780226777511
• ISBN10: 0226777510
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-12-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

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 Renaissancecounters 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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: Back to Burckhardt (Plus the Reformations)	p. 1
In Defense of Passion and the Body
Against the Rule of Reason: Praise of Passion from Petrarch to Luther to Shakespeare to Herbert	p. 29
Against Judgment: Petrarch and Shakespeare at Sonnets	p. 59
Against Morality: From Richard III to Antony and Cleopatra	p. 98
Shakespearean Seduction	p. 125
Morality and the Happy Infant: The Case of Macbeth	p. 132
In Defense of Worldliness
Sanctifying the Bourgeoisie: The Cultural Work of The Comedy of Errors	p. 153
Appendix Sanctifying the Aristocracy: From Ignatius Loyola to François de Sales (and then to Donne and Herbert)	p. 187
In Defense of Pride
Self-Revelation and Self-Satisfaction in Montaigne and Descartes	p. 207
Milton against Humility	p. 248
Appendix: "Lordly Command?"	p. 283
Index	p. 295
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