Description
Book SynopsisExamining figures from Thomas More to Stephen Greenblatt, from George Hickes to Seamus Heaney, from George Eliot to Paul de Man, this book illuminates the wanderings of exiles, emigres, dissenters, and the socially estranged as they helped form the modern university disciplines of philology and rhetoric, literary criticism and literary theory.
Trade ReviewWriting in a lively, engaging, and sometimes humorous manner, Lerer (Stanford Univ.) fills this book with intricate reasoning about the profession of scholarship and thus provides a unique approach to the study of textual criticism over the ages... a dizzying but enjoyable romp over a road not taken before. Choice A lively historical survey of how people discovered and developed new forms of expression bundled into the English language. -- James A. Cox The Midwest Book Review
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Pursuit of Error: Philology, Rhetoric, and the History of Scholarship 1. Errata: Mistakes and Masters in the Early Modern Book 2. Sublime Philology: An Elegy for Anglo-Saxon Studies 3. My Casaubon: The Novel of Scholarship and Victorian Philology 4. Ardent Etymologies: American Rhetorical Philology, from Adams to de Man 5. Making Mimesis: Exile, Errancy, and Erich Auerbach Epilogue: Forbidden Planet and the Terrors of Philology
