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Author: Gur Zak Publisher: ISBN: 9780494398869 Category : Languages : en Pages : 468
Book Description
The question of the nature and scope of Italian humanism, and particularly of humanist philosophy, has been an ongoing source of debate among historians. In this dissertation I explore the nature of humanist philosophy by complementing the traditional study of the "history of ideas" with that of the "history of practices." Concentrating on Petrarch's voluminous corpus of writing, I argue that Petrarch develops in his works a new ethical program, a new philosophy of self, at the centre of which is the assertion that "self" is above all a state of mind from which we are exiled and which we need to cultivate through constant practice, and particularly through the literary practice of writing (which is always intertwined with that of reading). In order to examine Petrarch's philosophy, therefore, this thesis focuses especially on his uses of writing as a spiritual exercise in his works, and the ways in which these uses both absorb and transform ancient and medieval traditions of writing. In Petrarch's vernacular poetry, I argue, writing serves mainly as a personal ritual and a meditative exercise that allows the poet to overcome his experience of fragmentation and exile by reviving and intensifying his desire. In the Latin works, in contrast, writing mostly serves as a vehicle for the cultivation of virtue and the eradication of desire, which is presented as the very source of the experience of exile. Nonetheless, the uses of writing in the Latin works, modeled mostly upon the example of Seneca, are in themselves persistently undermined by the "Ovidian" realization that writing is always tainted by desire, and is hence in itself part of the problem no less than the solution. This realization, in turn, also leads to the "Augustinian" backlash in Petrarch's works against secular writing in general. As a result, while this thesis argues that Petrarch's humanism is defined above all by his emphasis on care, his attempt to establish humanism as a form of secular spirituality, it also inevitably brings to the fore the tensions and contradictions that plagued his project from its onset.
Author: Francesco Petrarca Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674003462 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
Petrarch was the leading spirit in the Renaissance movement to revive literary Latin, the language of the Roman Empire, and Greco-Roman culture in general. My Secret Book reveals a remarkable self-awareness as he probes and evaluates the springs of his own morally dubious addictions to fame and love.
Author: Christopher S. Celenza Publisher: Reaktion Books ISBN: 1780238770 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 264
Book Description
An enlightening study of the contradictory character of this canonical fourteenth-century Italian poet. Born in Tuscany in 1304, Italian poet Francesco Petrarca is widely considered one of the fathers of the modern Italian language. Though his writings inspired the humanist movement and subsequently the Renaissance, Petrarch remains misunderstood. He was a man of contradictions—a Roman pagan devotee and a devout Christian, a lover of friendship and sociability, yet intensely private. In this biography, Christopher S. Celenza revisits Petrarch’s life and work for the first time in decades, considering how the scholar’s reputation and identity have changed since his death in 1374. He brings to light Petrarch’s unrequited love for his poetic muse, the anti-institutional attitude he developed as he sought a path to modernity by looking backward to antiquity, and his endless focus on himself. Drawing on both Petrarch’s Italian and Latin writings, this is a revealing portrait of a figure of paradoxes: a man of mystique, historical importance, and endless fascination. It is the only book on Petrarch suitable for students, general readers, and scholars alike.
Author: Susan Ingram Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1793611858 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 275
Book Description
This timely volume takes stock of the discipline of comparative literature and its theory and practice from a Canadian perspective. It engages with the most pressing critical issues at the intersection of comparative literature and other areas of inquiry in the context of scholarship, pedagogy and academic publishing: bilingualism and multilingualism, Indigeneity, multiple canons (literary and other), the relationship between print culture and other media, the development of information studies, concerted efforts in digitization, and the future of the production and dissemination of knowledge. The authors offer an analysis of the current state of Canadian comparative literature, with a dual focus on the issues of multilingualism in Canada’s sociopolitical and cultural context and Canada’s geographical location within the Americas. It also discusses ways in which contemporary technology is influencing the way that Canadian literature is taught, produced, and disseminated, and how this affects its readings.
Author: Rocco Rubini Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022680755X Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 357
Book Description
"Rocco Rubini studies the motives and literary forms in the making of a "tradition," not understood narrowly, as the conservative, stubborn preservation of received conventions, values, and institutions, but rather more generously and etymologically interpreted: as the deliberate effort on the part of writers to transmit a reformulated past across generations. Leveraging Italian thinkers from Petrarch to Gramsci, with stops at the most prominent humanists in between (including Giambattista Vico, Carlo Goldoni, Francesco De Sanctis, and Benedetto Croce), Rubini gives us an innovative lens through which to view an Italian intellectual tradition that is at once premodern and modern, a legacy that does not depend on a date or a single masterpiece, but instead requires the reader to parse an entire career of writings to uncover deeper, transhistorical continuities that span 600 years. Whether reading forward to the 1930s, or backward to the 14th century, Rubini elucidates the interplay of creation and reception underlying the enactment of tradition, the practice of retrieving and conserving, and the revivification of shared themes and intentions linking these thinkers across time"--
Author: Benjamin Boysen Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG ISBN: 3110691779 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 195
Book Description
Being exposed to the Nominalist expansion in early modernity, Petrarch and Shakespeare are highly preoccupied with a Nominalist dimension of language and representation. Against this background, the study shows how these Renaissance poets advanced a special notion of subjectivity and identity as rooted in negativity, otherness, and representation. The book thus argues for a new understanding of negative modes of subjectivity in Petrarch and Shakespeare. A new and sharpened understanding emerging from an interpretation of Francesco Petrarch’s notion of exile and of love in his great poetical cycle Rerum vulgarium fragmenta as well as a meticulous examination of the concept of nothingness in William Shakespeare’s works. Petrarch and Shakespeare poetically show how identity is alien and decentred – yet also free and expanding. In other words, these poets illustrate how subjectivity is constituted by heterogeneity. Moreover, pointing to other examples of this negative subjectivity in Renaissance philosophy and poetry, the study suggests that these models for subjectivity could be extended to other early modern writers.
Author: Stephen J. Milner Publisher: The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature ISBN: 0907570232 Category : Europe Languages : en Pages : 416
Author: Albert Russell Ascoli Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1316409287 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 294
Book Description
Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca, 1304–74), best known for his influential collection of Italian lyric poetry dedicated to his beloved Laura, was also a remarkable classical scholar, a deeply religious thinker and a philosopher of secular ethics. In this wide-ranging study, chapters by leading scholars view Petrarch's life through his works, from the epic Africa to the Letter to Posterity, from the Canzoniere to the vernacular epic Triumphi. Petrarch is revealed as the heir to the converging influences of classical cultural and medieval Christianity, but also to his great vernacular precursor, Dante, and his friend, collaborator and sly critic, Boccaccio. Particular attention is given to Petrach's profound influence on the Humanist movement and on the courtly cult of vernacular love poetry, while raising important questions as to the validity of the distinction between medieval and modern and what is lost in attempting to classify this elusive figure.
Author: Gur Zak
Author: Gur Zak
Author: Gur Zak
Author: Francesco Petrarca
Author: Christopher S. Celenza
Author: Susan Ingram
Author: Rocco Rubini
Author: Benjamin Boysen
Author: Stephen J. Milner
Author: Sorana Corneanu
Author: Albert Russell Ascoli