Plague Writing in Early Modern England - Couverture rigide

Gilman, Ernest B.

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0226294099 ISBN 13 : 9780226294094

Editeur : University of Chicago Press, 2009

Synopsis

During the seventeenth century, England was beset by three epidemics of the bubonic plague, each outbreak claiming between a quarter and a third of the population of London and other urban centers. Surveying a wide range of responses to these epidemics--sermons, medical tracts, pious exhortations, satirical pamphlets, and political commentary--Plague Writing in Early Modern England brings to life the many and complex ways Londoners made sense of such unspeakable devastation.

Ernest B. Gilman argues that the plague writing of the period attempted unsuccessfully to rationalize the catastrophic and that its failure to account for the plague as an instrument of divine justice fundamentally threatened the core of Christian belief. Gilman also trains his critical eye on the works of Jonson, Donne, Pepys, and Defoe, which, he posits, can be more fully understood when put into the context of this century-long project to "write out" the plague. Ultimately, Plague Writing in Early Modern England is more than a compendium of artifacts of a bygone era; it holds up a distant mirror to reflect our own condition in the age of AIDS, super viruses, multidrug resistant tuberculosis, and the hovering threat of a global flu pandemic.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Ernest B. Gilman is professor of English at New York University. He is the author of three books, including Iconoclasm and Poetry in the English Reformation, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Chicago Press
• Date d'édition: 2009
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0226294099
• ISBN 13: 9780226294094
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 312
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible