Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800 Books
The University of Chicago Press Shakespearean Territories
Book SynopsisA rising star in geography shows how Shakespeare’s plays can be understood through the concept of territory, which emerged in its modern form during Shakespeare’s life.Trade Review"Shakespearean Territories offers illuminating analyses of Shakespeare's works that are immersed in relevant scholarship on the colonial, geophysical, and corporeal aspects of territory. This is a fascinating textual analysis that builds upon the concept of territory with Elden's characteristic nuance and depth."--Garrett Sullivan, Penn State University "A work of meticulous scholarship, Shakespearean Territories teases out and explains a wide range of geographical themes present in Shakespeare's plays with finesse and profound interpretation. Beyond the specific insights he offers on territory and geography as refracted through Shakespeare's plays, Elden displays the substantial value of bridging literary and historical-geographical analysis."--Alexander Murphy, University of Oregon "Shakespearean Territories is a truly groundbreaking volume that enriches our reading of Shakespeare at the same time as it illuminates our understanding of the nature and history of territory. An insightful and engrossing work, Shakespearean Territories demonstrates Elden's unquestionable position as the most significant thinker of territory and the geographic working today--and in relation to the literary and dramatic no less than the political."--Jeff Malpas, University of Tasmania
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Fashioning Femininity and English Renaissance
Book SynopsisBy examining representations of women on stage and in the many printed materials aimed at them, Karen Newman shows how female subjectivityboth the construction of the gendered subject and the ideology of women's subjection to menwas fashioned in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Her emphasis is not on women so much as on the category of femininity as deployed in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Through the critical lens of poststructuralism, Newman reads anatomies, conduct and domesticity handbooks, sermons, homilies, ballads, and court cases to delineate the ideologies of femininity they represented and produced. Arguing that drama, as spectacle, provides a peculiarly useful locus for analyzing the management of femininity, Newman considers the culture of early modern London to reveal how female subjectivity was fashioned and staged in the plays of Shakespeare, Jonson, and others.
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press Shakespeare from the Margins Language Culture
Book SynopsisArguing that attention to Shakespearean wordplay reveals unexpected linkages, not only within and between plays but also between the plays and their contemporary culture, this book combines feminist and historical approaches with attention to the "matter" of language as well as of race and gender.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Edification from the Margins: Language, Culture, Context 1: Preposterous Estates, Preposterous Events: From Late to Early Shakespeare 2: The Bible and the Marketplace: The Comedy of Errors 3: "Rude Mechanicals": A Midsummer Night's Dream and Shakespearean Joinery 4: "Illegitimate Construction": Translation, Adultery, and Mechanical Reproduction in The Merry Wives of Windsor 5: "Conveyers Are You All": Translating, Conveying, Representing, and Seconding in the Histories and Hamlet 6: Dilation and Inflation: All's Well That Ends Well, Troilus and Cressida, and Shakespearean Increase 7: Othello and Hamlet: Spying, Discovery, Secret Faults Notes Index
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press A Rule for Children and Other Writings The Other
Book SynopsisThis work presents selections from the whole of Pascal's career as a writer, including her adolescent poetry and her pioneering treatise on the education of women.
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press The Limits of Party Congress and Lawmaking in a
Book SynopsisA study of the Elizabethan text, Holinshed's Chronicles - a history of England, Scotland and Ireland. Patterson argues that the chronicles should be read in their own right, as an important and inventive cultural history, rather than simply as source material for Shakespeare's plays.
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press Shakespeare and the Problem of Meaning
Book Synopsis
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the
Book SynopsisAmid the crowded streets of Chester, guild players portraying biblical characters performed on colorful mobile stages hoping to draw the attention of fellow townspeople. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, these Chester plays employed flamboyant live performance to adapt biblical narratives. But the original format of these fascinating performances remains cloudy, as surviving records of these plays are sparse, and the manuscripts were only written down a generation after they stopped. Revealing a vibrant set of social practices encoded in the Chester plays, Matthew Sergi provides a new methodology for reading them and a transformative look at medieval English drama. Carefully combing through the plays, Sergi seeks out cues in the dialogues that reveal information about the original staging, design, and acting. These practical cues, as he calls them, have gone largely unnoticed by drama scholars, who have focused on the ideology and historical contexts of these plays, rather tTrade Review“It’s not often that a scholarly book has the potential to transform and reorient the corner of the field that it addresses. Sergi’s Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the Chester Plays is one of those books. It will be recognized for its major interventions in early drama studies.” -- Theresa M Coletti, author of Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England“Sergi’s deeply erudite but also ebullient book on the Chester plays reminds us why we call such things ‘plays’ in the first place. Combining the expertise of a theater practitioner, a scholar, a performance theorist, a textual detective, and a close reader par excellence, Sergi deftly uncovers how much meaning and merriment is to be found in the ‘practical cues’ for action and spectacle in the Chester play texts and their archival contexts. Both playful and profound, this book overturns so much conventional wisdom that it should be required reading for anyone interested in premodern performance or who needs a convincing case for why they should be.” -- Christina M. Fitzgerald, editor of The York Corpus Christi Play: Selected Pageants"In Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the Chester Plays, Matthew Sergi provides a compelling account of what the Chester plays must have been in performance: a multivocal, hyperlocal, temporally layered, unrestrained expression of Cestrian life in all its vibrant disorder. In doing so, he models a transformative approach for engaging with early drama through a process of deductive reconstruction, built on the understanding that much more happens in the production of a play than what we find recorded in extant manuscripts." * Journal of British Studies *"Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the Chester Plays is a remarkably accomplished first book. Its prose is clear and vigorous; it is deeply knowledgeable about its material and persuasive in its reconstructions. It will be of interest to anyone who works on medieval drama, and indeed to anyone concerned with the history of theatrical possibility." * Speculum *
£87.40
The University of Chicago Press Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the
Book SynopsisTrade Review“It’s not often that a scholarly book has the potential to transform and reorient the corner of the field that it addresses. Sergi’s Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the Chester Plays is one of those books. It will be recognized for its major interventions in early drama studies.” -- Theresa M Coletti, author of Mary Magdalene and the Drama of Saints: Theater, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval England“Sergi’s deeply erudite but also ebullient book on the Chester plays reminds us why we call such things ‘plays’ in the first place. Combining the expertise of a theater practitioner, a scholar, a performance theorist, a textual detective, and a close reader par excellence, Sergi deftly uncovers how much meaning and merriment is to be found in the ‘practical cues’ for action and spectacle in the Chester play texts and their archival contexts. Both playful and profound, this book overturns so much conventional wisdom that it should be required reading for anyone interested in premodern performance or who needs a convincing case for why they should be.” -- Christina M. Fitzgerald, editor of The York Corpus Christi Play: Selected Pageants"In Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the Chester Plays, Matthew Sergi provides a compelling account of what the Chester plays must have been in performance: a multivocal, hyperlocal, temporally layered, unrestrained expression of Cestrian life in all its vibrant disorder. In doing so, he models a transformative approach for engaging with early drama through a process of deductive reconstruction, built on the understanding that much more happens in the production of a play than what we find recorded in extant manuscripts." * Journal of British Studies *"Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the Chester Plays is a remarkably accomplished first book. Its prose is clear and vigorous; it is deeply knowledgeable about its material and persuasive in its reconstructions. It will be of interest to anyone who works on medieval drama, and indeed to anyone concerned with the history of theatrical possibility." * Speculum *
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press From Mother and Daughter Poems Dialogues and
Book SynopsisAmong the best-known and prolific French women writers of the 16th century, Madeleine (1520 - 87) and Catherine (1542 - 87) des Roches were celebrated for their bold assertion of poetic authority for women in the realm of belles letters. This work contains selections from their celebrated oeuvre, suffused with an enduring feminist consciousness.
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Gender and Heroism in Early Modern English
Book SynopsisIn this text, Mary Beth Rose argues that from the late 16th century to the late 17th century, a passive, more female, but equally potent dimension of heroic identity began to dominate English culture.
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press Scanderbeide
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£85.00
The University of Chicago Press Sovereign Amity Figures of Friendship in
Book SynopsisRenaissance formulations of friendship typically cast the friend as another self and idealized a pair of friends as one soul in two bodies. This work puts the stress on the likeness of friends into context and offers a historical account of its place in English culture and politics.
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press The Enlightenment and the Book Scottish Authors
Book SynopsisOffers an understanding of the Enlightenment and the forgotten role of publishing during that period. This title seeks to remedy the common misperception that such classics as The Wealth of Nations and The Life of Samuel Johnson were made by their authors alone.Trade Review"A major achievement." - Times Literary Supplement "This is an exceptional piece of work. It is both an astonishing accumulation of informative detail and a multiplicity of lively interconnected narratives of authors, books, booksellers, printers and other subjects. It is a very useful reference book, with its nearly 150 pages of tables and bibliographies; it is also an engaging and stimulating read." - Antonia Forster, Review of English Studies "Discerningly illustrated, at once scholarly and accessible, this is an essential addition not only to eighteenth-century studies but also to the history of the book." - Atlantic.
£40.00
The University of Chicago Press This Is Enlightenment
Book SynopsisDebates about the nature of the Enlightenment date to the eighteenth century, when Immanuel Kant himself addressed the question, 'What is Enlightenment'? This book offers a paradigm-shifting answer to that query: Enlightenment is an event in the history of mediation. It establishes mediation as the condition of possibility for enlightenment.
£76.95
The University of Chicago Press The Acoustic World of Early Modern England
Book SynopsisIn this journey into the sound-worlds of Shakespeare's contemporaries, the text explores the physical aspects of human speech (ears, lungs, tongue) and the surrounding environment (buildings, landscape, climate), as well as social and political structures.
£34.20
The University of Chicago Press Montaigne in Motion
Book SynopsisA study of the Essais of Montaigne, whose deceptively plainspoken meditations have entranced readers and philosophers since their first publication.Trade Review"The most important contribution to Montaigne studies since Friedrich's work.... It will be the critical framework in which scholars will discuss Montaigne in the years to come." - Choice "Starobinski brings Montaigne to life by treating him as our contemporary and asking him modern questions." - Hudson Review "Reading Jean Starobinski's book, one experiences some of the same excitement and delight as when one reads Montaigne." - Natalie Zemon Davis, New York Review of Books"
£42.75
The University of Chicago Press The Plight of Feeling Sympathy and Dissent in the
Book SynopsisThis study shows that sentimental, melodramatic and gothic novels written in the wake of the American Revolution can be read as an emotional history of the early Republic, reflecting the hate, fear and grief which tormented the federalist era, and giving voice to a collective mourning process.
£30.40
The University of Chicago Press John Donne Body and Soul
Book SynopsisFor centuries readers have struggled to fuse the seemingly scattered pieces of John Donne's works into a complete image of the poet and priest. This book offers a way to read Donne as a writer who returned again and again to a single great subject, one that connected to his deepest intellectual and emotional concerns.Trade Review"Ramie Targoff achieves the rare feat of taking early modern theology seriously, and of explaining why it matters. Her book transforms how we think about Donne." - Helen Cooper, University of Cambridge"
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press Domestic Georgic
Book SynopsisInspired by Virgil's Georgics, this study conceptualizes Renaissance poetry as a domestic labor.Trade Review“This is a book of luminous intelligence. At once impeccably erudite and highly readable, textually focused and imaginatively wide-ranging, it opens up new ways of understanding not only the early modern texts that are central to Kadue’s argument, but any form of writing where labor is distributed, symbolically or literally, across a gender divide.” * Terence Cave, St John’s College, University of Oxford *“Kadue teaches her reader to pay attention to metaphors of pickling, maceration, sweeping, tinkering, mending; to quiet the din of warfare and the choir of resurrection, and listen to the burble of cookery and of the hungry body, in their daily rivalry with time. . . . Domestic Georgic will teach scholars and students alike to read in a different register, and its pages are lucid, lively, and shrewd, at once sophisticated and unpretentious.” * Jeff Dolven, Princeton University *“Where earlier feminist scholars have shown that women’s domestic labor facilitated men’s literary work, here Kadue argues that the method of men’s literary work itself drew on women’s domestic labor. Kadue shows how practices of pickling, fermenting, and preserving make up a surprising pantry of skilled literary techniques. This is work that gives us a recipe to reread the Renaissance.” * Katherine Ibbett, Trinity College, University of Oxford *"As Katie Kadue points out in Domestic Georgic: Labors of Preservation from Rabelais to Milton, a wonderful book on early modern writers and the kitchen arts, Eve’s independent forays into drying and preserving the fruits of Eden yield a counterintuitive understanding of perfection itself, not as a fixed state from which one must not swerve but as a dynamic process of trial, innocent error, and gradual improvement." -- Catherine Nicholson * New York Review of Books *"Kadue's analyses of Milton’s metaphors unveil a domestic analogy that has always coexisted with the grandeur of the imagined Miltonic library of vital books and discerning readers. This is one of the many local readings in Domestic Georgic that illuminate overlooked aspects of household work in familiar sixteenth- and seventeenth-century texts. Now that I see the link between the library and the kitchen storeroom in Milton’s tract, I cannot unsee it, and I experienced this delightful sensation many times while reading this book. Kadue’s style, casual but erudite, also makes this book an unusually engaging read." * Modern Language Quarterly *In an elegantly organized and beautifully written book of five chapters plus an introduction and conclusion, Kadue ranges confidently across time, terrain, and language, moving from Rabelais (in the mid-sixteenth century) to Milton in the mid- and late seventeenth century and concluding with a discussion of two poems by women, one eighteenth century and one twenty-first century. Balancing a sharp eye for detail against a robust overarching argument, she offers both new insights into familiar authors and works and a new rubric one might use to discuss other texts and authors as well. * Genre *"Katie Kadue’s book makes an important contribution, defining domestic georgic, and how selected authors from Rabelais to Milton labor to preserve a kind of poetic housekeeping or daily literary chores." * Renaissance and Reformation *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Private Labors of Public Men 1: Rabelais in a Pickle: Fixing Flux in Le Quart Livre 2: Spenser’s Secret Recipes: Life Support in The Faerie Queene 3: Correcting Montaigne: Agitation and Care in the Essais 4: Marvell in the Meantime: Preserving Patriarchy in Upon Appleton House 5: Milton’s Storehouses: Tempering Futures in Areopagitica, Paradise Lost, and Paradise Regain’d Conclusion: A Woman’s Work Is Never Done Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
£78.85
The University of Chicago Press The Dream of Absolutism
Book SynopsisThe Dream of Absolutism examines the political aesthetics of power under Louis XIV.Trade Review“Eschewing the comfort of critical distance for the disarming rapture of intimacy, this book immerses us in the dream of absolutism. In this endlessly evocative tour of political theology at Versailles, Bjørnstad guides us through a virtual hall of mirrors composed of the texts, images, and environments that reflected and magnified the glory of Louis XIV. Practicing a form of reading backlit by the premodern virtues of dignity and decorum, Bjørnstad asks us to face the past in the originality of its most intense and disturbing commitments and he urges us to recognize our own captivation by a fantasy of power that remains with us today.” * Julia Reinhard Lupton, author of 'Shakespeare Dwelling: Designs for the Theater of Life' *“With grace and humor to match its inventiveness and deep learning, Bjørnstad’s new book turns scholarly consensus about the absolutist culture of the age of Louis XIV on its head. We have grown used to mining the art, literature, and philosophy of the period for critical awareness of absolutism’s inevitable defeat. Bjørnstad demonstrates that, on the contrary, absolutism was the self-defeating dream of elite culture as a whole, a fantasy of unequaled national as well as royal glory that planted the seeds for absolutism’s overthrow less by exposing its irrationality than by nourishing collective delusions of grandeur that could never be realized.” * Christopher Braider, University of Colorado Boulder *“The Dream of Absolutism is a probing, innovative, scintillating, and daring anthropology of seventeenth-century French political aesthetics. It advocates for a specific way of reading texts, images, and archives in order to apprehend what monarchy, representation, and politics might have meant when understood on their own terms, stripped of all the ideological freight laid upon these concepts in the aftermath of the eighteenth century. By reading texts that are both at the center of seventeenth-century monarchical design and yet either neglected, forgotten, misread, or newly uncovered by scholars, Bjørnstad’s excavates a new seventeenth-century monarchism.” * Juliette Cherbuliez, University of Minnesota *"This book is not about Louis XIV nor even about one man’s unquenchable thirst for power centuries ago. It is, rather, an analysis of a dream culture driven by its own logic and frighteningly relevant today. . . . This is a remarkable study of an important subject." * Choice *"In showing us a dream that renders uninterpretable objects the objects of interpretation, in offering a language of absolutism at once private and participatory, Bjørnstad gives his reader the equipment to notice something new about mere propaganda, regardless of the century in which one observes it. For this illuminating book impels its reader not to take such a dismissal at face value; it permits us to think anew about what mere propaganda contains within it." -- Andrea Gadberry * H-France Forum *"In his erudite and exciting new book, Bjørnstad urges those of us who study premodern France and its afterlives to take another look at absolutism. . . . Although The Dream of Absolutism is most explicitly a book about the past, the present lurks behind every gilded corner. Incisive and capacious, Bjørnstad’s book should be read widely, by specialists of early modern France, of course, but also by intellectual historians, political theorists, and students of contemporary politics." * L’Esprit Créateur *"Bjørnstad’s important study thus intersects in thought-provoking ways with eighteenth-century and modern accounts of civil society, sociability, and sovereignty, and opens potential new areas for inquiry. . . . It will become an important contribution to our understanding of French culture and politics at the intersection of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and beyond." * Eighteenth-Century Studies *"A new, thoroughly refreshing look at the complex topic of absolutism." * Sehepunkte (translated from German) *"The Dream of Absolutism brings the reader to a number of exciting 'aha' moments . . . This smart book will inform how I teach seventeenth-century literature and culture; I highly recommend it." * The French Review *"Rather than focusing on Louis XIV per se, Bjørnstad examines instead the dream or manifestation of absolutism that the king, together with his 'image-makers, the court, if not the whole nation, dreamt together collectively and that perhaps remains latent in the collective political imaginary today' . . . The visual element of Bjørnstad’s analysis not only makes for a fitting introduction to his work but also generates a most convincing, clear-cut, and illustrative discussion of the dream of absolutism, which functions concurrently as a reflection of modernity." * Seventeenth Century News *"This book is of great importance for scholars and students invested in the reign of Louis XIV and early modern history and ideas, and it serves as a model of close textual analysis." * Renaissance Quarterly *"Bjørnstad’s compelling book is not yet another study of Louis XIV; instead, via a careful examination of various representations and productions of absolutism, Bjørnstad enquires into the sometimes irrational underpinnings of what he terms ‘A dream propelled by its own logic’ . . . This thoughtful and provocative book should be read by scholars of the period in literature, art history, and political theory." * French Studies *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations A Note on Translations and Spelling Preface Introduction 1. The Problem with Absolutism 2. Beyond Mere Propaganda 3. Approaching Absolutism Differently: Royal Glory and Royal Exemplarity 4. The Dream of Absolutism Chapter 1: The Grammar of Absolutism 1. Introduction: The Dream of a Book Like No Other 2. Taking Louis XIV’s Mémoires Seriously 3. Absolutism, Explained to a Child: “The first and most important part of our entire politics” 4. The Utility of “These Mémoires” 5. The Paradoxes of Absolutist Exemplarity 6. Conclusion: “So many ghastly examples” Chapter 2: Mirrors of Absolutism 1. Introduction: Our Body in This Space 2. An Age of Mirrors 3. A Gallery Celebrating Greatness 4. Making the King See What He Felt 5. A Mirror for One 6. In Lieu of Conclusion: Mirrors for a Future without a Past Chapter 3: Absolutist Absurdities Exhibit A: The Royal Historiographer and the Unparalleled Greatness of Louis XIV Exhibit B: Absolutism from the Cabinet of Fairies to the Cabinet of the King Conclusion: Seven Theses on the Dream of Absolutism Acknowledgments Bibliography Index
£27.00
The University of Chicago Press Imagining Monsters Miscreations of the Self in
Book SynopsisIn 1726, an illiterate woman from Surrey named Mary Toft announced that she had given birth to 17 rabbits. This study recreates the story of this incident and shows how it illuminates 18th-century beliefs about the power of imagination and the problems of personal identity.
£30.40
The University of Chicago Press A Probable State The Novel the Contract and the
Book SynopsisThis work builds an argument about liberalism and the realist movement by shifting the focus from the rise of both in the 18th century, to their breakdown at the end of the 19th century. The decline of realism and the eroding logic of liberalism is related to the question of Jewish characters.
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press The Inner Sea
Book SynopsisTrade Review“The Inner Sea makes a singular and original contribution by surveying the contours of a maritime literary consciousness, testing both its temporal and expressive limits. Blackmore reads with a rare sensitivity for poetic texts, as he patiently and carefully unfolds the various layers of what it means for Portuguese writers such as Luís de Camões to ‘stand in the middle of the sea.’ The results of Blackmore’s exploration are impressive and convincing.” -- Vincent Barletta, author of Rhythm: Form and Dispossession“In our fruitful age of global studies and the West’s fascination with Africa and India, The Inner Sea could not be more timely. Blackmore offers readers a stunning account of Da Gama’s unprecedented voyages from Portugal to Africa in 1497, reaching India in 1498, and their profound meaning. These journeys for the first time transformed a world divided by the seas into an interconnected one, not only reaching South Africa, but India as well. The Inner Sea is richly documented by many sources that the author has chosen to accompany his dazzling readings of Camões’s extraordinary maritime epic adventure, Os Lusíadas.” -- Marina S. Brownlee, Robert Schirmer Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and Comparative Literature, Princeton University“Blackmore is already well known for his work on maritime topics in Portuguese literature. Tacking slightly from his earlier scholarly books, his beautifully written The Inner Sea focuses on some of the profound cultural consequences of Portuguese dominance on the global ocean during the early modern period. Blackmore documents a process of internalization of the sea in Portuguese daily life that is evident in many kinds of documents of the times, including literary texts. He asserts that ‘ships wield subject-forming power’ and he proceeds to show his reader how the multiple subjectivities formed in the effort to tame the sea flourish in the literary world of Luís Vaz de Camões and others. Blackmore provides excellent English translations for the Portuguese texts he cites, many of which are his own, and the figures that illustrate his book are splendid.” -- Elizabeth B. Davis, The Ohio State University
£26.60
The University of Chicago Press My Dark Room Spaces of the Inner Self in
Book SynopsisTrade Review“A beautiful book on the privacies of writing, the rapt silences of the mind’s darkened room, lit by rays of the everyday: the habitations of thought that those before Proust conceived. My Dark Room answers to my sensibility; it teaches me who I am and where I come from, providing new coordinates and new darknesses between the points of light.” * Alexander Nemerov, author of 'The Forest: A Fable of America in the 1830s' *“My Dark Room explores the ways in which the camera obscura, both materially and conceptually, provided the corridor through which the interior lives of eighteenth-century subjects passed. In a dazzling sequence of chapters Julie Park captures the excitements and tensions that emerged as imaginative private worlds were projected on real geographies and spaces. My Dark Room will unsettle the now very long-standing assumptions about the primacy of fiction and the novel in the construction of eighteenth-century subjectivities, as it makes a compelling case for the subject in space created through interior projections.” * Peter de Bolla, University of Cambridge *“Park animates the camera obscura trope as a perceptual dynamic for which, until now, we've had so few words. She interweaves a material history of the camera obscura with several disciplines until it becomes possible to reenvision eighteenth-century literary fiction as a transhistorical and intermedial home for the psyche. My Dark Room opens interiors we once assumed were shut, unsettling familiar narratives about the post-Enlightenment mind. This lucidly dreamed study is a feat of the critical imagination to be experienced as well as read. It will be admired and referenced for years to come.” * Jayne Lewis, University of California, Irvine *"My Dark Room is a wonderful mix of discovery and analysis. With an impressive range of historical and philosophical contexts and delightful close readings of architectural and literary works, Park reveals the camera obscura modelling the spatial relationship between mind, landscape, and narrative." * Cynthia Wall, University of Virginia *"Park is a tireless scholar; she clearly loves what she's discovering spirited away in the archives, and her sense of wonder and delight can be contagious." * Book Post *“In a book that takes illumination and insight as its subject, [Park’s] meticulous close readings and case studies open up rich possibilities for future work.” * Times Literary Supplement *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Country House: Making Storylines at Nun Appleton 2. Closet: Margaret Cavendish’s Writing Worlds 3. Grotto: Design and Projection in Alexander Pope’s Garden 4. Pocket: Pamela’s Mobile Settings and Spatial Forms 5. Folly: Fictions of Gothic Space in Eighteenth-Century Landscapes Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
£85.00
The University of Chicago Press John Donnes Physics
Book Synopsis
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press The Accommodated Animal
Book SynopsisShakespeare used the word 'animal' only eight times in his work - which was typical for the sixteenth century, when the word was rarely used. The author reveals that the animal-human divide first came strongly into play in the seventeenth century, with Descartes' formulation that reason sets humans above other species: 'I think, therefore I am'.
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press The Accommodated Animal
Book SynopsisShakespeare used the word 'animal' only eight times in his work - which was typical for the sixteenth century, when the word was rarely used. The author reveals that the animal-human divide first came strongly into play in the seventeenth century, with Descartes' formulation that reason sets humans above other species: 'I think, therefore I am'.
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press Shakespeare and the Law
Book SynopsisDemonstrates that Shakespeare's thinking about legal concepts points to a deep engagement with the law's technical workings, its underlying premises, and its social effects. This book considers Shakespeare's awareness of common law thinking and practice through examinations of Measure for Measure and Othella.
£76.00
Columbia University Press From Gesture to Idea Molières Comedy Esthetics
Book Synopsis'
£70.40
Columbia University Press Donnes Idea of a Woman Structure and Meaning in
Book Synopsis'
£70.40
Columbia University Press Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees
Book SynopsisThis book carefully translates a seminal work of Japanese puppet theater, written in 1747, during the the genre's golden age. The editor includes background information on the play and a bibliography.Trade ReviewThoroughly researched and elegantly written... an excellent text for inclusion in a survey course of Japanese theatre. Asian Theatre Journal A good translation of this magnificent play. Monumenta NipponicaTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees Dramatis Personae Prologue Act One Scene 1. The Imperial Palace Scene 2. The Hermitage at North Saga Village Scene 3. The Horikawa Mansion Scene 4. Kawagoe Taro Comes as Envoy Act Two Scene 1. Before the Fushimi Inari Shrine Scene 2. The Tokaiya Act Three Scene 1. The Pasania Tree Scene 2. The Death of Kokingo Scene 3. The Sushi Shop Act Four Scene 1. Michiyuki: The Journey with the Drum Scene 2. The Zao Hall Scene 3. The Conference at the Zao Hall Scene 4. The Mansion of Kawatsura Hogen Scene 5. The Fox Act Five Scene 1. In the Mountains of Yoshino Bibliography
£25.20
Columbia University Press Wrinkled Deep in Time
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOffers insights about Shakespeare's attitude toward aging and his own growing old...highly recommended. ChoiceTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. King Lear, Titus Andronicus, and Cymbeline 2. The Aging Process, with Special Reference to Macbeth 3. Time the Destroyer in the Sonnets and The Rape of Lucrece 4. "Heavy" Fathers 5. Politic Old Men: Polonius, Nestor, and Menenius 6. Wise Old Men 7. Falstaff 8. Jealous Old Men: Othello and Leontes 9. Old Warriors and Statesmen in the English History Plays 10. Fatal Attraction: Antony and Cleopatra 11. Powerful Older Women 12. Loving Older Women 13. Lusty Older Women Conclusion Notes Index
£28.80
Columbia University Press Chinese Shakespeares
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe best of a new generation of scholarship based on rigorous archival research that moves the field in significant new directions. The China Quarterly Among the most innovative monographs this year is Chinese Shakespeares. Particularly exciting is Huang's emphasis on the two-way exchange between Shakespeare and China. His examples are temporally, geographically, and ideologically diverse. By looking to the local, Huang is able to question the terms of current cross-cultural discourse-to ask whether hybridity is necessarily progressive, to make an important distinction between universalizing and globalizing impulses, to insist on the plurality and individuality of any given audience. SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 In the recent spate of scholarship on Shakespeare... Huang's volume stands out as being particularly valuable,... offering a model for theorizing cross-cultural entanglements that goes beyond its specific subject matter. Choice A splendid book,... well written and illustrated. Highly infused with theory, it adds to our understanding of the ways in which great cultures interpenetrate and enrich each other. It is a truly path-breaking book. I recommend it strongly not only to all those interested in Chinese culture but those interested in theatre and drama and the many ways in which the performing arts inform societies and cultures. MCLC: Modern Chinese Literature and Culture This book maps new territory for the most promising project in comparative literature today... Remarkable not only for its sophistication but also for its scholarly depth, Chinese Shakespeares is a landmark in the renewal of comparative literature as a discipline. citation from the Modern Language Association's Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary studies Chinese Shakespeares is a critically sophisticated study that is grounded in firsthand knowledge of every major stage production, film, and critical article on the subject of Shakespeare in China. -- Charles Ross Comparative Literature Studies A fascinating and important study The Year's Work in English Studies His keen observations on intercultural exchange and critique of prevailing discourses make the book relevant not only to scholars and students of sinophone Shakespeare but also to Shakespeareans exploring the Bard's afterlife in various fields: dissemination, modernization, localization, translation, transplantation, appropriation, and intercultural or cross-media adaptation. -- Bi-qi Beatrice Lei Modern Language Quarterly His scholarship is meticulous, wide-ranging, and very well presented. Theatre Journal Alexander Huang has done a masterly job... The book gives us an excellent picture of the various takes on Shakespeare, as well as inroads to understanding the complicated national, global, and personal meanings that are part of the Shakespeare phenomenon. -- Wendy Larson Modern PhilologyTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments A Note on Texts and Translation Prologue Part I. Theorizing Global Localities 1. Owning Chinese Shakespeares Part II. The Fiction of Moral Space 2. Shakespeare in Absentia: The Genealogy of an Obsession 3. Rescripting Moral Criticism: Charles and Mary Lamb, Lin Shu, and Lao She Part III. Locality at Work 4. Silent Film and Early Theater: Performing Womanhood and Cosmopolitanism 5. Site-Specific Readings: Confucian Temple, Labor Camp, and Soviet-Chinese Theater Part IV. Postmodern Shakespearean Orients 6. Why Does Everyone Need Chinese Opera? 7. Disowning Shakespeare and China Epilogue Select Chronology Notes Select Bibliography Index
£82.80
Columbia University Press Plots
Book SynopsisLiterary narrative enchants us through its development of plot, but plot tells its own story about the making of narrative. Through readings of King Lear and Crime and Punishment, Robert L. Belknap explores the spatial, chronological, and causal aspects of plot, arguing that plots teach us novelistic rather than poetic justice.Trade ReviewPlots is an almost perfect book by one of this country's great scholar-teachers on why the literary art of arranging episodes matters to us. Not only luminously smart but also perfectly plotted (Robert L. Belknap's model plot-mongers are Shakespeare and Dostoevsky), each detail of the book's structure, chronological argument, and diction conspire to create that rare work of criticism: a story we cannot put down. -- Caryl Emerson, Princeton University Plots is a brilliant piece of work, well-written, and insightful-a sheer pleasure to follow. Belknap's definitions of the terms of Russian formalism are clearer than anyone else's, and his sense of what they suggest is richer. -- Gary Morson, Northwestern University Plots has an adamantine quality, as if decades of thought and teaching were being crystallized and enormously compressed... Plots reveals that with Belknap's death, we lost a critic and literary historian of great power and considerable ingenuity. -- Scott McLemee Inside Higher Ed You may never look at a story the same way again after reading Robert Belknap's incisively clear and illuminating book, titled simply, Plots. The Fictional 100 A valuable addition to the scholarship on plot and narration ChoiceTable of ContentsPreface Introduction, by Robin Feuer Miller Part I. Literary Plots Deserve Still More Study 1. Plots Arrange Literary Experience 2. Plot Summaries Need More Serious Study 3. The Fabula Arranges the Events in the World the Characters Inhabit; the Siuzhet Arranges the Events in the World the Reader Encounters in the Text 4. Authors Can Relate One Incident to Another Only Chronologically, Spatially, Causally, Associatively, or Narratively 5. Plots are Fractal, Formed from Incidents That Are Formed from Smaller, Similarly Shaped Incidents 6. The Best Authorities Consider Plots and Incidents to Be Tripartite, with a Situation, a Need, and an Action 7. But Siuzhets and the Incidents That Form Them Have Two Parts: An Expectation and Its Fulfillment or Frustration Part II. The Plot of King Lear Operates Purposefully But Also Reflects the Creative Process 8. For Integrity of Impact, Stages, Actors, and the Audience Need a Unity of Action 9. Shakespeare Replaced the Greek Unity of Action with a New Thematic Unity Based on Parallelism 10. Shakespeare Uses Conflict, the Righting of Wrongs, the Healing of an Inruption or Disruption, and Other Standard Plotting Devices, But His Recognition Scenes Move Us Most 11. Shakespeare Prepares for His Recognition Scenes with Elaborate Lies 12. In King Lear, Shakespeare Uses Elaborated Lies to Psychologize the Gloucester Subplot 13. Tolstoy and Tate Preferred the Comforting Plots of Lear's Sources to Shakespeare's, But Shakespeare Had Considered That Variant and Rejected It Part III. The Plot of Crime and Punishment Draws Rhetorical and Moral Power from the Nature of Novel Plots and from the European and Russian Tradition Dostoevsky Inherited and Developed 14. European Novelists Elaborated or Assembled Incidents into Plots Long Before Critics Recognized the Sophistication of the New Genre in Plotting Such Subgenres as the Letter Novel and the Detective Novel 15. Dostoevsky Shaped and Was Shaped by the Russian Version of the Nineteenth-Century Novel 16. In Reinventing the Psychological Plot, Dostoevsky Challenged the Current Literary Leaders 17. The Siuzhet of Part 1 of Crime and Punishment Programs the Reader to Read the Rest and to Participate Actively in a Vicious Murder 18. The One-Sidedness of Desire and Violence in Crime and Punishment Is More Peculiar to Dostoevsky's Plotting Than Dostoevshchina 19. Critics Often Attack Crime and Punishment for a Rhetoric That Exploits Causality in Ways They Misunderstand 20. The Epilogue of Crime and Punishment Crystallizes Its Ideological Plot 21. The Plots of Novels Teach Novelistic Justice, Not Poetic Justice Bibliography Index Works by Robert Belknap
£19.80
Columbia University Press The Spatiality of Emotion in Early Modern China
Book SynopsisLing Hon Lam gives a deeply original account of the history of emotions in Chinese literature centered on the idea of emotion as space. Tracing how the emotion-realm underwent significant transformations from the dreamscape to theatricality in sixteenth- to eighteenth-century China, this book is a major rethinking of key terms in Chinese culture.Trade ReviewThrough the analytical prism opened up by the concept of emotion-realm (qingjing), Lam provides a refreshing reading and interpretation of many critical thinkers, including Heidegger, Foucault, and Rancière, as well as psychology and affect theory. . . . Because of its scope of coverage, the book can serve as a reference source for rethinking Chinese literature in relation to modern critical theories. -- GUOJUN WANG, Vanderbilt University * Journal of Asian Studies *Lam’s vaulting ambition to retell the story of just about every topic near and dear to the heart of a literary scholar: representation, fictionality, theatricality, emotion, and performance, among others. Amazingly, this tall order is pulled off via an even taller order—a counterintuitive thesis that Lam presents at the outset and defends strenuously and successfully throughout the book: that emotion is less an inside-out psychological or neuro-chemical process than an outside-in spatial process. -- Haiyan Lee * Modern Chinese Literature and Culture *Simultaneously engaging Chinese literary history “on its own terms” and on someone else’s terms (Michel Foucault, Martin Heidegger, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emmanuel Levinas, Slavoj Žižek, to name a few), [Lam's] The Spatiality of Emotion in Early Modern China offers equally close encounters with both, all the while giving trenchant critique of the very “terms” themselves. -- Hu Ying * Critical Inquiry *Ambitiously drawing upon the studies of literature, philosophy, and anthropology/ritual studies, Lam successfully brings the literary representation of emotion in premodern Chinese literature and theater to the fore, highlighting the spatializedcharacter of emotion in both print and theatricality and the dynamics between performers and spectators. The book enormously contributes to the reader’s understanding of traditional Chinese aesthetics, its cultural production, and theimportance of spatialized emotion in Chinese cultural representation -- GUO WU, Allegheny College * The Chinese Historical Review *Spatiality of Emotion in Early Modern China is a heavy read with rewarding and informative rabbit holes into the development of essential aspects of Chinese drama in comparison with their European counterparts. * Asian Review of Books *Ling Hon Lam’s book opens new dimensions for studying emotion by reaching beyond the well-trodden paths of late imperial China. -- Chen Kaijun, Brown University * Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews *The Spatiality of Emotion in Early Modern China: From Dreamscapes to Theatricality is a bold reconceptualization of fundamental questions in ontology, epistemology, and ethics. -- S. E. KILE, University of Michigan * Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature *Ling Hon Lam has written a book that makes important contributions both to the study of early modern Chinese drama and to broader discussions of affect theory by adding Chinese studies to this scope. -- JASMINE YU-HSING CHEN, Utah State University * Asian Theatre Journal *Ling Hon Lam’s book is a major breakthrough in early modern Chinese literary and theater studies. Lam challenges conventional wisdom that sees emotion as an expression of inner faculties, and seeks to reframe emotion as affective performativity, theatrical manifestation, and above all, spatial construct. He draws from performing arts and media studies, identifies philosophical and psychological contestations, and ponders the power of the theatrics of emotion both on the stage and in everyday life. Historically informed and theoretically provocative, Lam’s book will set a new standard for Chinese theater studies and cultural and spatial history. -- David Der-wei Wang, Harvard UniversityBrilliantly written and boldly conceptualized. -- Wei Shang, Columbia UniversityThe Spatiality of Emotion in Early Modern China is a daring rethinking of emotion as it was conceptualized in early modern China. Up-ending the dominant characterization of emotions, Ling Hon Lam shows that emotions were implicitly situations of space, conceived of and perceived in spatial terms. Challenging expectations and rectifying suppositions about the most basic level of human interaction with the environment and culture, Lam elucidates questions central to the philosophy of affect and to ontology from an unprecedented comparative perspective. -- William Egginton, Johns Hopkins UniversityLam argues with verve that the vocabulary of spatiality and theatricality is crucial for understanding emotions in the Chinese tradition. From the earliest formulations of the functions of poetic articulation as a space of social, political, and cosmic resonance to the logic of self-division and of being a spectator to one's emotions in Ming fiction, Lam offers new and interesting perspectives on Chinese literature. -- Wai-yee Li, Harvard UniversitySounds, including words, reverberate in spaces, including the “inch-space” of the heart. Framing the history of the emotions in original and surprising ways and undoing traditional oppositions between “inside” and “outside” through attention to the spaces that nurture or limit feeling, Ling Hon Lam puts Chinese vernacular literature in a new place and gives us the sensation of belonging to a continuous, centuries-long community of spectators. This is cultural history of astonishing scope and imagination. -- Haun Saussy, University of ChicagoA provocative, profound, and profoundly original rethinking of the history of Chinese literary thought and its literary manifestations in imperial and modern China, whose repercussions will be felt within Chinese studies and within world literary circles for a long time to come. -- Patricia Sieber, Ohio State UniversityProvocative and ambitious. * China Review International *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsPrologue: Weather and Landscape 1. Winds, Dreams, Theater: A Genealogy of Emotion-Realms2. The Heart Beside Itself: A Genealogy of Morals3. What Is Wrong with The Wrong Career?: A Genealogy of Playgrounds4. “Not Even Close to Emotion”: A Genealogy of Knowledge5. Time-Space Is EmotionNotesIndex
£80.39
Columbia University Press A Couple of Soles
Book SynopsisA Couple of Soles is a classic comedic romance by the seventeenth-century playwright Li Yu. The first major comedy from late imperial China to appear in English translation, it provides an unparalleled view of the theater in seventeenth-century China.Trade Review[A] masterful translation. . . . Highly recommended. * Choice *A Couple of Soles is an entertaining example of seventeenth century Chinese drama made quite accessible to English-reading audiences. Of both literary and historical interest, and offering quite enjoyable drama, comedy, and romance, it's well worth a look. * Complete Review *Li Yu ranks among China's finest wits, yet none of his ten comedies had been translated into English. This masterful yet accessible rendition of A Couple of Soles makes, at long last, Li Yu's comic genius and theatrical ingenuity visible to students, readers, theater practitioners, and drama scholars around the world. -- Patricia Sieber, The Ohio State UniversityA Couple of Soles displays to the Anglophone world the masterful craft of the Chinese dramatist Li Yu—worthy statesman of the theater, as he was called by admirers. Sustained by extensive commentaries, informative notes, and contemporary wood-block illustrations, this edition by Jing Shen and Robert E. Hegel exemplifies the very best of translation-in-research. An excellent addition to the Asian Classics library. -- Vibeke Børdahl, Copenhagen UniversityLi Yu and his work are critical to understanding Chinese theater of his day because he insisted on writing against established conventions and wrote the single most complete guide to playwriting before the end of the imperial period in China. We should all be very grateful to the translators for their effort and care in translating this fascinating example of chuanqi drama. -- David Rolston, University of MichiganThis brilliant book combines excellent scholarship about the innovative seventeenth-century dramatist Li Yu, noted for his unrestrained speech and behavior, with a wonderful translation of one of his comedies. Both translators have established reputations in the field of Chinese drama and literature, which this book will certainly enhance. -- Colin Mackerras, Griffith UniversityAn accessible new translation of an important comic work . . . This translation would be of interest to students of Sinophone studies, dramatic literature, comparative literature, and scholars of Asian performing arts. The play serves as a welcome new resource that could be used in courses on premodern Chinese dramatic literature, comparative literature, and Asian studies, as well as for theatre artists seeking inspiration. * Asian Theatre Journal *A bold and boisterous celebration of theatricality that challenges preconceptions about traditional Chinese theater today with the same panache that it overturned widespread prejudice against actors in the seventeenth century . . . [This translation] inaugurates a host of new possibilities for the study of Chinese theater in the university classroom and beyond, and, with its emphasis on performance, adds considerable diversity to the range of chuanqi available in translation. * Journal of the American Oriental Society *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsNote on the TranslationIntroduction, by Jing ShenDramatis Personae and Their Role CategoriesPreface, by Wang DuanshuScenesA Couple of SolesAppendix: The Playwright and His Art, by Jing ShenNotesBibliography
£58.90
Columbia University Press A Couple of Soles
Book SynopsisA Couple of Soles is a classic comedic romance by the seventeenth-century playwright Li Yu. The first major comedy from late imperial China to appear in English translation, it provides an unparalleled view of the theater in seventeenth-century China.Trade Review[A] masterful translation. . . . Highly recommended. * Choice *A Couple of Soles is an entertaining example of seventeenth century Chinese drama made quite accessible to English-reading audiences. Of both literary and historical interest, and offering quite enjoyable drama, comedy, and romance, it's well worth a look. * Complete Review *Li Yu ranks among China's finest wits, yet none of his ten comedies had been translated into English. This masterful yet accessible rendition of A Couple of Soles makes, at long last, Li Yu's comic genius and theatrical ingenuity visible to students, readers, theater practitioners, and drama scholars around the world. -- Patricia Sieber, The Ohio State UniversityA Couple of Soles displays to the Anglophone world the masterful craft of the Chinese dramatist Li Yu—worthy statesman of the theater, as he was called by admirers. Sustained by extensive commentaries, informative notes, and contemporary wood-block illustrations, this edition by Jing Shen and Robert E. Hegel exemplifies the very best of translation-in-research. An excellent addition to the Asian Classics library. -- Vibeke Børdahl, Copenhagen UniversityLi Yu and his work are critical to understanding Chinese theater of his day because he insisted on writing against established conventions and wrote the single most complete guide to playwriting before the end of the imperial period in China. We should all be very grateful to the translators for their effort and care in translating this fascinating example of chuanqi drama. -- David Rolston, University of MichiganThis brilliant book combines excellent scholarship about the innovative seventeenth-century dramatist Li Yu, noted for his unrestrained speech and behavior, with a wonderful translation of one of his comedies. Both translators have established reputations in the field of Chinese drama and literature, which this book will certainly enhance. -- Colin Mackerras, Griffith UniversityAn accessible new translation of an important comic work . . . This translation would be of interest to students of Sinophone studies, dramatic literature, comparative literature, and scholars of Asian performing arts. The play serves as a welcome new resource that could be used in courses on premodern Chinese dramatic literature, comparative literature, and Asian studies, as well as for theatre artists seeking inspiration. * Asian Theatre Journal *A bold and boisterous celebration of theatricality that challenges preconceptions about traditional Chinese theater today with the same panache that it overturned widespread prejudice against actors in the seventeenth century . . . [This translation] inaugurates a host of new possibilities for the study of Chinese theater in the university classroom and beyond, and, with its emphasis on performance, adds considerable diversity to the range of chuanqi available in translation. * Journal of the American Oriental Society *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsNote on the TranslationIntroduction, by Jing ShenDramatis Personae and Their Role CategoriesPreface, by Wang DuanshuScenesA Couple of SolesAppendix: The Playwright and His Art, by Jing ShenNotesBibliography
£19.00
Columbia University Press The Substance of Fiction Literary Objects in
Book SynopsisSophie Volpp considers fictional objects of the late Ming and Qing that defy being read as illustrative of historical things. Instead, she argues, fictional objects are often signs of fictionality themselves, calling attention to the nature of the relationship between literature and materiality.Trade ReviewThrough sophisticated and brilliant close reading of selected texts, Sophie Volpp illuminates the significance of objects for early modern Chinese fiction from the point of view of material and visual culture. The Substance of Fiction is a must-read for students in early modern Chinese literature and culture. -- Shang Wei, coeditor of Dynastic Crisis and Cultural Innovation: From the Late Ming to the Late Qing and BeyondThis is the most sophisticated engagement to date with the ‘material turn’ in literary studies as it applies to classic Chinese fiction. In its elegant exposition of how fictional objects are not literary instantiations of historical objects, The Substance of Fiction makes a significant intervention in current debates about textuality and materiality. -- Craig Clunas, author of Empire of Great Brightness: Visual and Material Cultures of Ming China, 1368–1644Through a persistent excavation of the rich and often paradoxical meaning of fictional objects, Volpp reveals a previously neglected aspect of the vernacular fiction of late imperial China. She reminds us that far from illustrating reality, fictional objects acquire power and life from engendering unfamiliarity and confusion, thereby fashioning a material world interior to the text. A marvelous book. -- Wu Hung, author of The Full-length Mirror: A Global Visual HistoryThe Substance of Fiction adroitly navigates the material and literary worlds of Ming-Qing China to explore the centrality of things in vernacular writing. Examining new techniques of description and depiction, purposefully designed to question the nature of the “real” world and its unstable reflection in fiction, this book is a major contribution to scholarship on a transformative period. -- Patricia Berger, author of Empire of Emptiness: Buddhist Art and Political Authority in Qing ChinaA pioneering work that firmly brings the study of things into the fold of Chinese literary studies. Volpp’s ability to read literary text with an eye for the material detail is unmatched. Moving through a rich host of late imperial texts, Volpp offers new and startling insights into texts we thought we already knew. -- Paize Keulemans, author of Sound Rising from the Paper: Nineteenth-Century Martial Arts Fiction and the Chinese Acoustic Imagination[Volpp's] successful reexamination of canonical literary texts demonstrates the possibility of yielding exciting findings even in frequently discussed fields, not only by engaging in dialogue with previous scholarship but also through meticulous observations guided by new perspectives. -- Wenting Ji * Journal of Chinese History *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Substance of Fiction1. The Python Robe of The Plum in the Golden Vase2. Ling Mengchu’s Shell3. Du Shiniang’s Jewel Box4. Li Yu’s Telescope5. The Plate-Glass Mirror in The Story of the Stone6. Historicizing Recession via The Story of the Stone and the JuanqinzhaiConclusion: Literary ObjectsNotesBibliographyIndex
£93.60
Columbia University Press The Substance of Fiction
Book SynopsisSophie Volpp considers fictional objects of the late Ming and Qing that defy being read as illustrative of historical things. Instead, she argues, fictional objects are often signs of fictionality themselves, calling attention to the nature of the relationship between literature and materiality.Trade ReviewThrough sophisticated and brilliant close reading of selected texts, Sophie Volpp illuminates the significance of objects for early modern Chinese fiction from the point of view of material and visual culture. The Substance of Fiction is a must-read for students in early modern Chinese literature and culture. -- Shang Wei, coeditor of Dynastic Crisis and Cultural Innovation: From the Late Ming to the Late Qing and BeyondThis is the most sophisticated engagement to date with the ‘material turn’ in literary studies as it applies to classic Chinese fiction. In its elegant exposition of how fictional objects are not literary instantiations of historical objects, The Substance of Fiction makes a significant intervention in current debates about textuality and materiality. -- Craig Clunas, author of Empire of Great Brightness: Visual and Material Cultures of Ming China, 1368–1644Through a persistent excavation of the rich and often paradoxical meaning of fictional objects, Volpp reveals a previously neglected aspect of the vernacular fiction of late imperial China. She reminds us that far from illustrating reality, fictional objects acquire power and life from engendering unfamiliarity and confusion, thereby fashioning a material world interior to the text. A marvelous book. -- Wu Hung, author of The Full-length Mirror: A Global Visual HistoryThe Substance of Fiction adroitly navigates the material and literary worlds of Ming-Qing China to explore the centrality of things in vernacular writing. Examining new techniques of description and depiction, purposefully designed to question the nature of the “real” world and its unstable reflection in fiction, this book is a major contribution to scholarship on a transformative period. -- Patricia Berger, author of Empire of Emptiness: Buddhist Art and Political Authority in Qing ChinaA pioneering work that firmly brings the study of things into the fold of Chinese literary studies. Volpp’s ability to read literary text with an eye for the material detail is unmatched. Moving through a rich host of late imperial texts, Volpp offers new and startling insights into texts we thought we already knew. -- Paize Keulemans, author of Sound Rising from the Paper: Nineteenth-Century Martial Arts Fiction and the Chinese Acoustic Imagination[Volpp's] successful reexamination of canonical literary texts demonstrates the possibility of yielding exciting findings even in frequently discussed fields, not only by engaging in dialogue with previous scholarship but also through meticulous observations guided by new perspectives. -- Wenting Ji * Journal of Chinese History *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Substance of Fiction1. The Python Robe of The Plum in the Golden Vase2. Ling Mengchu’s Shell3. Du Shiniang’s Jewel Box4. Li Yu’s Telescope5. The Plate-Glass Mirror in The Story of the Stone6. Historicizing Recession via The Story of the Stone and the JuanqinzhaiConclusion: Literary ObjectsNotesBibliographyIndex
£27.00
Columbia University Press On Mary Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the
Book SynopsisMary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) made a pioneering and durably influential argument for women's equality. Drawing on extensive experience teaching and writing about Wollstonecraft, Susan J. Wolfson provides fresh perspectives both for first-time readers and those seeking a nuanced appreciation of her achievements.Trade ReviewMary Wollstonecraft helped us to understand how easily the rights of women can vanish from the political and social scene and how ‘natural’ it can seem for men and women to ignore them. This remarkable book not only situates Wollstonecraft in history but also shows in detail how she altered history by writing so well. -- Michael G. Wood, author of The Habits of DistractionThis book is memorable, educational, and enjoyable, exploring Wollstonecraft’s life and thought with brio and unrestrained pleasure. Wolfson's understanding of the subject is second to none—there is no one more authoritative or more learned. -- Duncan Wu, editor of Romanticism: An AnthologySusan Wolfson’s engaged and engaging account of Mary Wollstonecraft illuminates the creative intellectual energies that drove Wollstonecraft’s prodigious achievement: nothing less than an analysis of women’s situation in the context of a larger political system. Wolfson’s exposition is dazzling. -- Frances Ferguson, author of Solitude and the Sublime: The Romantic Aesthetics of IndividuationWolfson provides a compelling and classroom-friendly introduction to the troubled private life, flamboyant public career, and charged political afterlife of Mary Wollstonecraft. Her writing is scintillating, with vernacular verve and unflagging narrative drive. This book has everything—point, polish, and an accessibly gripping tale to tell. -- Garrett Stewart, James O. Freedman Professor of Letters, University of IowaAn admirably witty, informative, and succinct new guide to Wollstonecraft's most famous book. -- Miranda Seymour * New York Review of Books *[An] excellent study of A Vindication. -- Elaine Showalter * Times Literary Supplement *This book provides fresh perspectives both for first-time readers and those seeking a nuanced appreciation of her achievements. * Discovery *An exciting supplement to the ever-growing list of books on Wollstonecraft and her work...Wolfson’s book works as both an introduction for undergraduate students and an engaging read for feminist and literary scholars. * Tulsa Studies on Women's Literature *Table of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsMy Texts, Abbreviations, and Short TitlesPrologue: Why Mary Wollstonecraft? Why A Vindication?1. How Mary Wollstonecraft Became “the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman”2. Picturing Mary Wollstonecraft: The Right Woman3. “An Amazon stept out”: A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)4. “Revolution in female manners”: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (1792)5. Dystopian Nightmare: Paris, December 26, 17926. “Bastilled . . . for life”: The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria; a Fragment (1798)Epilogue: “we hear her voice”Brief Glossary of Recurring NamesNotesFurther Reading and BibliographiesIndex
£42.50
Columbia University Press On Mary Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the
Book SynopsisMary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) made a pioneering and durably influential argument for women’s equality. Drawing on extensive experience teaching and writing about Wollstonecraft, Susan J. Wolfson provides fresh perspectives both for first-time readers and those seeking a nuanced appreciation of her achievements.Trade ReviewMary Wollstonecraft helped us to understand how easily the rights of women can vanish from the political and social scene and how ‘natural’ it can seem for men and women to ignore them. This remarkable book not only situates Wollstonecraft in history but also shows in detail how she altered history by writing so well. -- Michael G. Wood, author of The Habits of DistractionThis book is memorable, educational, and enjoyable, exploring Wollstonecraft’s life and thought with brio and unrestrained pleasure. Wolfson's understanding of the subject is second to none—there is no one more authoritative or more learned. -- Duncan Wu, editor of Romanticism: An AnthologySusan Wolfson’s engaged and engaging account of Mary Wollstonecraft illuminates the creative intellectual energies that drove Wollstonecraft’s prodigious achievement: nothing less than an analysis of women’s situation in the context of a larger political system. Wolfson’s exposition is dazzling. -- Frances Ferguson, author of Solitude and the Sublime: The Romantic Aesthetics of IndividuationWolfson provides a compelling and classroom-friendly introduction to the troubled private life, flamboyant public career, and charged political afterlife of Mary Wollstonecraft. Her writing is scintillating, with vernacular verve and unflagging narrative drive. This book has everything—point, polish, and an accessibly gripping tale to tell. -- Garrett Stewart, James O. Freedman Professor of Letters, University of IowaAn admirably witty, informative, and succinct new guide to Wollstonecraft's most famous book. -- Miranda Seymour * New York Review of Books *[An] excellent study of A Vindication. -- Elaine Showalter * Times Literary Supplement *This book provides fresh perspectives both for first-time readers and those seeking a nuanced appreciation of her achievements. * Discovery *An exciting supplement to the ever-growing list of books on Wollstonecraft and her work...Wolfson’s book works as both an introduction for undergraduate students and an engaging read for feminist and literary scholars. * Tulsa Studies on Women's Literature *Table of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsMy Texts, Abbreviations, and Short TitlesPrologue: Why Mary Wollstonecraft? Why A Vindication?1. How Mary Wollstonecraft Became “the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman”2. Picturing Mary Wollstonecraft: The Right Woman3. “An Amazon stept out”: A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)4. “revolution in female manners”: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (1792)5. Dystopian Nightmare: Paris, December 26, 17926. “bastilled . . . for life”: The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria; a Fragment (1798)Epilogue: “we hear her voice”Brief Glossary of Recurring NamesNotesFurther Reading and BibliographiesIndex
£12.34
Columbia University Press Leibnizing A Philosopher in Motion Columbia
Book SynopsisRichard Halpern argues that Leibniz offers a powerful, productive model for transdisciplinary thinking that can push back against the narrowness of the humanities today.Trade ReviewThis engaging and highly original book welcomes the reader into the experience of meeting Leibniz with Richard Halpern as our guide. Proceeding little by little—monad by monad as it were—we go on a journey that is unexpectedly festive, funny, and full of surprises. By carefully selecting themes and passages and providing occasional illustrations from Leibniz’s papers, Halpern has deftly created a dazzling series of windows into the world of Leibniz. -- Julia Reinhard Lupton, author of Shakespeare Dwelling: Designs for the Theater of LifeIn this brilliant and sprightly book, Richard Halpern reinvents the philosopher and polymath G. W. Leibniz for the twenty-first century. For Halpern, Leibniz is both a proto-science fiction writer and a mad tinkerer who invents a perpetual-motion machine. Speculative thought in the manner of Halpern’s Leibniz leads us to continually new insights and offers us continually new occasions of delight. -- Steven Shaviro, author of The Universe of Things: On Speculative RealismRichard Halpern's Leibnizing is a thrilling and original investigation of the work of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz from an angle that will be completely unfamiliar to most philosophers: the angle of style. But the philosophers' Leibniz is a mere shadow of the hot-blooded Leibniz that comes through in Halpern's masterful treatment, which shows that there can be no easy distinction between style and substance. This work both stands apart from the past several centuries of Leibniz scholarship, and at the same time holds the rare promise of renewing this field, and causing us to see the object of our scholarly interest in a fundamentally new way. -- Justin E. H. Smith, coeditor of Scenes of Attention: Essays on Mind, Time, and the SensesTable of ContentsPreface: Leibniz Among the Disciplines1. Leibniz in Motion2. Tinkering3. How to Read a Leibnizian Sentence4. Metaphorical Clumping5. The Mathematics of Resemblance6. Cognitive Mapping and Blended Spaces7. Chemical Wit8. Perspective9. Expression10. How to Build a Monad11. Monadic Politics12. The Mind-Body Problem13. Microperceptions14. The Je Ne Sais Quoi and the Leibnizian Unconscious15. Mind Is a Liquid16. The Confused and the Distinct17. Philosophy as Aesthetic Object18. Blind Thought19. Dark Leibniz20. Things Fall Apart21. The Monad as Event: Alfred North Whitehead22. The Monad as Strange Loop: Douglas Hofstadter23. The Godless Monad: Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela24. The Quantum Monad: David Bohm25. Afterword: Leibniz in My LatteAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£90.00
Columbia University Press Leibnizing A Philosopher in Motion Columbia
Book SynopsisRichard Halpern argues that Leibniz offers a powerful, productive model for transdisciplinary thinking that can push back against the narrowness of the humanities today.Trade ReviewThis engaging and highly original book welcomes the reader into the experience of meeting Leibniz with Richard Halpern as our guide. Proceeding little by little—monad by monad as it were—we go on a journey that is unexpectedly festive, funny, and full of surprises. By carefully selecting themes and passages and providing occasional illustrations from Leibniz’s papers, Halpern has deftly created a dazzling series of windows into the world of Leibniz. -- Julia Reinhard Lupton, author of Shakespeare Dwelling: Designs for the Theater of LifeIn this brilliant and sprightly book, Richard Halpern reinvents the philosopher and polymath G. W. Leibniz for the twenty-first century. For Halpern, Leibniz is both a proto-science fiction writer and a mad tinkerer who invents a perpetual-motion machine. Speculative thought in the manner of Halpern’s Leibniz leads us to continually new insights and offers us continually new occasions of delight. -- Steven Shaviro, author of The Universe of Things: On Speculative RealismRichard Halpern's Leibnizing is a thrilling and original investigation of the work of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz from an angle that will be completely unfamiliar to most philosophers: the angle of style. But the philosophers' Leibniz is a mere shadow of the hot-blooded Leibniz that comes through in Halpern's masterful treatment, which shows that there can be no easy distinction between style and substance. This work both stands apart from the past several centuries of Leibniz scholarship, and at the same time holds the rare promise of renewing this field, and causing us to see the object of our scholarly interest in a fundamentally new way. -- Justin E. H. Smith, coeditor of Scenes of Attention: Essays on Mind, Time, and the SensesTable of ContentsPreface: Leibniz Among the Disciplines1. Leibniz in Motion2. Tinkering3. How to Read a Leibnizian Sentence4. Metaphorical Clumping5. The Mathematics of Resemblance6. Cognitive Mapping and Blended Spaces7. Chemical Wit8. Perspective9. Expression10. How to Build a Monad11. Monadic Politics12. The Mind-Body Problem13. Microperceptions14. The Je Ne Sais Quoi and the Leibnizian Unconscious15. Mind Is a Liquid16. The Confused and the Distinct17. Philosophy as Aesthetic Object18. Blind Thought19. Dark Leibniz20. Things Fall Apart21. The Monad as Event: Alfred North Whitehead22. The Monad as Strange Loop: Douglas Hofstadter23. The Godless Monad: Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela24. The Quantum Monad: David Bohm25. Afterword: Leibniz in My LatteAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£23.75
University of Illinois Press English in Print from Caxton to Shakespeare to
Book SynopsisA landmark collection of early English books, with many gorgeous illustrationsTrade Review"English in Print from Caxton to Shakespeare to Milton is a twice-welcome addition to the book lover's shelves. It provides a succinct and clear introduction to the history of printing in English, including such neglected topics as the interaction between printing and language and the religio-political implications of this seminal technological development. And it introduces to a wider audience the riches of two distinguished collections of early English printed materials."--Milton Gatch, author of The Library of Leander van Ess and the Earliest American Collections of Reformation Pamphlets"We should be grateful to Valerie Hotchkiss and Fred C. Robinson for providing a widely accessible but academically rigorous review of probably the most important period of printing in England. Although there is a grand sweep of two hundred years of history, the individual stories are not ignored, and the authors and printers are brought to light with well-chosen biographical details and vignettes. Many of the books in this catalogue are visually simply delicious, and together they provide a feast to anyone who enjoys books and their history."--Stella Butler, Deputy University Librarian and Associate Director of the John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester"Stimulating from start to finish, enjoyable for the diversity of materials and the strong unity of the presentation, this volume reminds one of precisely why we are attracted to these rare books in the first place: they enliven and invigorate, as much as they record and represent, the distant past immediately before our eyes. As a historian of the book and a curator of rare books and manuscripts, I would not consider my own reference library complete without a copy of English in Print from Caxton to Shakespeare to Milton."--Earle Havens, author of Commonplace Books: A History of Manuscripts and Printed Books from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century
£27.90
University of Notre Dame Press Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Book SynopsisThis edition focuses on the Middle English text, with a Modern English Verse translation on facing pages and extensive notes at the bottom of the pages. It discusses the manuscript, the anonymous poet and his other poems, and the structure of the poem and its audience, themes and characterization.Trade Review“Vantuono’s methodology is highly successful, for the pulsating beat and the exuberant spirit of Gawain are recreated in his translation.” —Speculum
£20.69
University of Notre Dame Press Vita nuova
Book SynopsisWritten between 1292 and 1295, the Vita Nuova consists of 31 poems inspired by the historical but idealised and mythologised Lady Beatrice. This bi-lingual edition contains Michael Barbi's 1932 Italian edition plus an English translation.Trade Review“Cervigni and Vasta are to be complimented for their laborious and successful undertaking. This edition will be extremely useful, for it presents us with a version of the Vita nuova that will open up new interpretive and pedagogical avenues.” —Italica“Whatever reputation this translation will gain for its scholarly accomplishments, its excellent overall design, and general ease of use is sure to reclaim a large body of lay readers and experts alike to this lesser known of Dante’s major works.” —Crisis“An important contribution for Dante specialists.” —Library Journal“Students and scholars of Dante and medieval philology will find much to ponder in the material so painstakingly assembled here.” —Choice
£21.84
University of Notre Dame Press Writing Faith and Telling Tales
Book SynopsisThomas More is a complex and controversial figure who has been regarded as both saint and persecutor, leading humanist and a representative of late medieval culture. His religious writings, with their stark and at times violent attacks on what More regarded as heresy, have been hotly debated. In Writing Faith and Telling Tales, Thomas Betteridge sets More''s writings in a broad cultural and chronological context, compares them to important works of late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century vernacular theology, and makes a compelling argument for the revision of existing histories of Thomas More and his legacy. Betteridge focuses on four areas of More''s writings: politics, philosophy, theology, and devotion. He examines More''s History of King Richard III as a work of both history and political theory. He discusses Utopia and the ways in which its treatment of reason reflects More''s Christian humanism. By exploring three of More''s lesser known works, The SupplTrade Review“In scarcely two hundred pages, Betteridge attempts to weave together several generations of literature, exploring the English writings of Sir Thomas More (as well as the Latin Utopia) through comparison and contrast with over a dozen vernacular authors from the previous two centuries, including Chaucer, Langland, and Skelton. . . . Students of the English authors discussed here will take pleasure in the juxtaposition of familiar texts, while those who have known More through his engagement with Renaissance humanism will find that it enriches and deepens their understanding of the influences behind his work.” —The Medieval Review“Presenting numerous examples of More’s own writings on philosophy, politics, theology, and the practices of affective faith, Betteridge places them alongside theological and literary texts, mostly in the vernacular English, from the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to demonstrate their cultural and religious continuity with those medieval works . . . Writing Faith and Telling Tales will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate university libraries, especially those concentrating on late medieval and early Renaissance English literature, and on sixteenth-century English political and ecclesial history.” —Catholic Library World“Writing Faith and Telling Tales argues that the writings of Thomas More should be read as part of ‘a tradition of late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century vernacular literature.’ This tradition extends back to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, but includes other well-known texts such as Piers Plowman, as well as less-studied texts such as Reginald Pecock’s The Repressor of Over Much Blaming of the Clergy. Between a thirty-seven-page introduction and a fourteen-page conclusion, Betteridge offers four thematically organized chapters, respectively entitled ‘Politics,’ ‘Reason,’ ‘Heresy,’ and ‘Devotion.’” —Sixteenth Century Journal“When Betteridge is at his best, his parallels are striking, and readers will be glad to have his suggestive run at More’s telling tales and striking arguments against the early English evangelicals . . . . Betteridge’s careful handling of More’s polemic works will be especially appreciated.” —The Catholic Historical Review“This book covers a vast expanse of English vernacular writing, comparing More to Chaucer and Lydgate, to anti-Lollard tracts and plays such as Everyman, N-Town Play, and the Digby Mary Magdalene, devotional literature . . . . Writing Faith is a valuable addition to scholarship on More, written from a perspective that is rare in recent studies of his work.” —SHARP News“In this fresh, thoughtful, and engaging study, Thomas Betteridge aims to free Thomas More from a weight of scholarship which has tended either to condemn him as a persecutor of heretics or revere him as a saint, and which has judged the significance of his literary output to be its contradictory position somewhere between the binary poles of the ‘medieval’ and the ‘modern.’ . . . Writing Faith and Telling Tales is an important and compelling book that not only enhances our understanding of More as an intellectual and writer but of the whole practice and meaning of writing, and not just in late medieval England.” —English Historical Review“The achievements of Writing Faith are considerable. Betteridge has provided a much-needed complement to studies of More that emphasize the Continental aspects of his humanism, and he has also presented us with a version of More as a truly Literary writer, one whose investment in so many different genres derives equally from his varied philosophical commitments and from his abiding interest in storytelling.” —Renaissance and Reformation“Thomas Betteridge’s desire to break down these [humanist writer, Lord Chancellor, and saintly martyr] divides in Writing Faith and Telling Tales is to be fulsomely lauded. . . His analysis of More often reveals intriguing insights, especially as to More’s view of the relationship between truth and fiction.” —Modern Philology“Thomas Betteridge critiques previous assessments of Sir Thomas More . . . as oversimplifying the complexity of More’s medieval heritage. . . . Betteridge reads primary texts closely, finding nuanced relationships between them and More’s work and his complex literary persona.” —Choice“What Betteridge has given us is something remarkably different, something both analytical and speculative that can be thoughtful, inquiring, and at times provocative. It is nothing short of an anatomy of More’s mind that manages to incorporate both the spiritual and the secular as it reaches toward an inclusive poetics of acculturated faith.” —Renaissance Quarterly
£26.99
University of Notre Dame Press Whores of Babylon
Book SynopsisIn Whores of Babylon, Frances E. Dolan offers a perceptive study of the central role that Catholics and Catholicism played in early modern English law, literature, and politics. She contends that despite sharing the same blood, origins, and history as their Protestant antagonists, Catholics provoked more prolific and intemperate visual and verbal representation, and more elaborate and sustained legal regulation, than any other marginal group in seventeenth-century England. This careful and thorough study examines legal and literary representations of the Catholic menace during three crises in Protestant/Catholic relations, from the Gunpowder Plot (1605) to the Popish Plot and Meal Tub Plot (1678-80). It also offers the first sustained analysis of the extent to which gender issues informed both Catholicism and anti-Catholicism in the early modern period. Available for the first time in paperback, this book will appeal to scholars and students of early modern England, Catholic Trade Review“[Dolan] reveals a historical picture that theorizes the interaction between religion, politics, and gender. For scholars who study other religions and time periods, Dolan’s book usefully demonstrates how and why closely-related religious groups deploy gender to mark difference. For specialists in early modern Christianity, Whores of Babylon provides convincing arguments about why Catholic women and (even more surprisingly) the Catholic couple so fascinated pamphleteers, preachers, playwrights, and polemicists as they promoted a white, Protestant, masculine, English national identity.” —Journal of the American Academy of Religion“Whores of Babylon is essential reading for scholars working on the intersections of gender, religion, law, and nationalism in early modern England. Dolan’s scholarship combines meticulous historical research and textual analysis with a sophisticated grasp of theoretical and historiographical questions. Moreover, Dolan’s lucid prose makes her exemplary form of cultural criticism a pleasure to read.” —Sixteenth Century Journal“This is an excellent book, one that painstakingly yet engagingly illuminates the bifurcated social and discursive positions of Catholic women in early modern England.” —Albion“Whores of Babylon is not about religion, as the term has been understood by many scholars who study early modern Catholicism. Religion is not the main concern of this book; religion serves instead mainly to highlight and underline points made about some ways seventeenth-century Englishwomen were valued and employed, used and abused, in print.” —Archivum Historicum
£22.79
