I think Bill's question is great for discussion, but I wish it could be
refined it into two parts. One is the question about what books will
provide general literary context for particular 16th-17th C authors for
the purpose of a qualifying exam (i.e., doctoral oral), since Bill noted
that our list did this service for the general history books more
recently.
The other question I hope he is raising is what books nowadays are
considered the sine qua non for being in touch with our necessarily
historicized part of the discipline of English.
To offer two examples, I'd suggest Jane Hedley's _Power in Verse_ for the
first question defined above, as well as David Hawkes' _Idols of the
Market Place_ and Agnew's _The Market and the Theater_.
For the second question, I'd suggest Edgar Wind, _Pagan Mysteries in the
Renaissance_ and would second Harry Berger's nomination of Basil Willey,
although I would also think Joseph Mazzeo's _Renaissance and Revolution_
equally important. But are students being alerted to Seznec, Panofsky,
and the like? To switch to more recent folk, how about Shuger on the
Bible or, take your pick, on rhetoric or on language? Arthur's Kinney's
book is a contender on rhetoric, surely.
renaissance and Revolution
On Tue, 30 Nov 2004, William Oram wrote:
> A friend of a friend is taking her orals in English Renaissance
> literature and asked me what there was in the way of good period
> background writing on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that would
> enable her to put together the individual authors she has studied. In
> part this would concern literature and in part history. The history
> texts got discussed a couple of weeks ago, but what general discussions
> of the literature and its contexts would people recommend?
>
>
>
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