Generosity and the Limits of Authority: Shakespeare, Herbert, Milton - Couverture rigide

Flesch, William

 
9780801426421: Generosity and the Limits of Authority: Shakespeare, Herbert, Milton
Couverture rigide
ISBN 10 : 0801426421 ISBN 13 : 9780801426421
Editeur : Cornell University Press, 1992

Synopsis

Generosity is an ambiguous quality, William Flesch observes; while receiving gifts is pleasant, gift-giving both displays the wealth and strength of the giver and places the receiver under an obligation. In provocative new readings of Shakespeare, Herbert, and Milton, Flesch illuminates the personal authority that is bound inextricably with acts of generosity.

Drawing on the work of such theorists as Mauss, Blanchot, Bourdieu, Wittgenstein, Bloom, Cavell, and Greenblatt, Flesch maintains that the literary power of Shakespeare, Herbert, and Milton is at its most intense when they are exploring the limits of generosity. He considers how in Herbert's Temple divine assurance of the possibility of redemption is put into question and how the poet approaches such a gift with the ambivalence of a beneficiary. In his readings of Shakespeare's Richard II, Henry IV, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and the sonnets, Flesch examines the perspective of the benefactor―including Shakespeare himself―who confronts the decline of his capacity to give. Turning to Milton's Paradise Lost, Flesch identifies two opposing ways of understanding generosity―Satan's, on the one hand, and Adam and Eve's, on the other - and elaborates the different conceptions of poetry to which these understandings give rise.

Scholars of Shakespeare and of Renaissance culture, Miltonists, literary theorists, and others interested in the relationship between philosophy and literature will want to read this insightful and challenging book.

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À propos de l?auteur

William Flesch is Associate Professor of English at Brandeis University.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
Cornell University Press
Date d'édition
1992
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
0801426421
ISBN 13 
9780801426421
Reliure
Relié
Nombre de pages
296
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible