Poetry of Kissing in Early Modern Europe (eBook)

From the Catullan Revival to Secundus, Shakespeare and the English Cavaliers

Alex Wong (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2017
368 Seiten
Boydell & Brewer (Verlag)
978-1-78744-030-2 (ISBN)

Infos

The "e;kissing-poem"e; genre was wide-spread in Renaissance literature; this book surveys its form and development.There is a great deal of kissing in Renaissance poetry, but modern critics do not generally recognise (as early readers did) that the literary conventions of the kiss were closely related to a fully-formed, lively and popular genre of Neo-Latin "e;kissing-poems"e;. Beginning with the imitation of Catullus in fifteenth-century Italy, this specialised form was securely established in the next century by the Dutch poet Janus Secundus, whose elegant Basia ("e;Kisses"e;) were an extraordinary international success. Secundus stimulated a long-lived tradition of Latin and vernacular "e;kisses"e;, willfully repetitious and yet meticulously varied, which can tell us much about humanist poetics. This book offers a critical account of the Renaissance kiss-poem, using an abundance of vivid and often racy examples, many of them drawn from authors who are all but forgotten today. It shows that the genre had a sophisticated rationale and clear but flexible conventions. These include habits of irony, mood and structure that proved widely influential, and some slippery, self-conscious ways of dealing with masculine sexuality. Presenting new readings of English writers including Sidney, Shakespeare and Donne, the study also reminds us how important Neo-Latin writing was to the literary culture of early modern Britain. A number of well known texts are thus placed in a context unfamiliar to most modern scholars, in order to show how deftly their kisses engage with an international tradition of humanist poetry. Alex Wong is currently a Research Fellow in English literature at St John's College, University of Cambridge.

Inhalt

The Rise and Fall of a Genre
A Thousand Kisses
Erotic Transformation
Sexual and Generic Tensions
The Soul in the Kiss: A Theme and its Variations
The Kiss-Poem in the British Isles
Sophistication of the English Kiss
Conclusion
Select Bibliography

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 16.6.2017
• Reihe/Serie: Studies in Renaissance Literature
• Reihe/Serie: Studies in Renaissance Literature
• Verlagsort: Woodbridge
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Essays / Feuilleton
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Schlagworte: Classical Reception • Cultural History • donne • Early Modern Europe • English literature • European Renaissance • Gender • Humanist • Literary criticism • Literary History • Masculinity • neo-Latin • Renaissance Poetry • Sexuality • Shakespeare • Women in Literature
• ISBN-10: 1-78744-030-3 / 1787440303
• ISBN-13: 978-1-78744-030-2 / 9781787440302