Description
Book SynopsisThe cultural forms often referred to as ‘baroque’ are the most spectacular expressions of early modern Europe’s effort to mediate between knowledge and power at a time when political authority was being centralized, the authority of religion undermined by the division of Christianity, and science and poetry were seen increasingly as rival forms of intellectual authority. Culture and Authority in the Baroque explores the baroque across a wide range of disciplines, from poetics to politics, to the rituals of musical, dramatic, and religious performance.
The essays in this collection span what has been called the ‘baroque crescent’ stretching from Spain through Italy to Russia, but they also bring Shakespeare and English cosmological poetry into productive dialogue with continental Europe in the reinterpretation of baroque world-views. The editors, Massimo Ciavolella and Patrick Coleman, along with a group of eminent scholars from across the
Table of Contents
Introduction MASSIMO CIAVOLELLA AND PATRICK COLEMAN Believing and Not Believing': Shakespeare and the Archaeology of Wonder PETER G. PLATT Philosophical Tours of the Universe in British Poetry, 1700-1729, Or, The Soaring Muse LORNA CLYMER Marino and the Meraviglia PAOLO CHERCHI I Would Rather Drown, Than Not Find New Worlds PAOLO FASOLI Truth and Wonder in Naples circa 1640 JON R. SNYDER 'Particolar gusto e diletto alle orecchie': Listening in the Early Seicento ANDREW DELL'ANTONIO From Liturgy to Literature: Prayer and Play in the Early Russian Baroque RONALD VROON Reconciling Divine and Political Authority in Racine's Esther ANN DELEHANTY Apostles and Apostates: The Court of Peter the Great as a Chivalrous Religious Order ERNESTA ZITSER Self-Knowledge and the Advantages of Concealment: Pierre Nicole's 'On Self-Knowledge' JOHN D. LYONS The Baroque Social Bond in the Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz MALINA STEFANOVSKA A Different Kind of Wonder? Women's Writing in Early Modern Spain LISA VOLLENDORF Contributors Index
