Sign-In
Cart
Jonsonian Discriminations: The Humanist Poet and the Praise of True Nobility
Paperback
Series: Heritage
Literary CriticismPoetry Criticism
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 1487578679
ISBN13: 9781487578671
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: Dec 15 1992
Pages: 320
Weight: 0.98
Height: 0.67 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781487578671
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: Dec 15 1992
Pages: 320
Weight: 0.98
Height: 0.67 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
At the heart of all Ben Jonson's nondramatic poetry, argues Michael McCanles, lies the concept of true nobility. Jonson sought to transform the inherited aristocracy of England into an aristocracy of humanist virtue in which he could claim a place through his achievement of true nobility by the merits of his own intellectual labours. In this survey of all Jonson's non-dramatic poetry, McCanles identifies a range of dialectical and contrastive forms through which this concern was rendered poetically.
He analyses the contrastive forms in discussion of Jonson's prosody, his uses of homonymy and synonymy, and of metaphor. He coins the term 'contrastivity' to encompass the play of semantic choices directed by Jonson's use of suprasegmentals at the local level of poetic technique, and the reader's process of reading wherein he or she confirms the validity of a poem's statement by recreating the process of selection/rejection that went into its creation.
Thematically, McCanles suggests that the vera nobilitas argument is in fact four distinct arguments in various ways mutually contradictory, collectively both supporting and subverting aristocratic and monarchical hierarchies. Thus he finds Jonson constrained to employ this argument in addressing aristocratic friends, patrons, and the monarch himself, with careful diplomacy in order to negate the subversive dimensions of his own advice and praise.
Employing the resources generated by the theoretical analysis of contrasivity in the first chapter, McCanles demonstrates the considerable complexity of Jonson's poetry, generally underestimated in current scholarship.
Thematically, McCanles suggests that the vera nobilitas argument is in fact four distinct arguments in various ways mutually contradictory, collectively both supporting and subverting aristocratic and monarchical hierarchies. Thus he finds Jonson constrained to employ this argument in addressing aristocratic friends, patrons, and the monarch himself, with careful diplomacy in order to negate the subversive dimensions of his own advice and praise.
Employing the resources generated by the theoretical analysis of contrasivity in the first chapter, McCanles demonstrates the considerable complexity of Jonson's poetry, generally underestimated in current scholarship.
Also in
Poetry Criticism
The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry
Addonizio, Kim
Laux, Dorianne
Paperback
$17.05
Letters to a Young Poet: With the Letters to Rilke from the ''Young Poet''
Searls, Damion
Rilke, Rainer Maria
Kappus, Franz Xaver
Hardcover
$17.05
Economy of the Unlost: (Reading Simonides of Keos with Paul Celan) (Nobel Prize Winner)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
$18.95
Faeries, Sprites & Malevolent Spirits: An Anthology of Classic Poetry & Stories
Thorne, Aurora
Hardcover
$10.44
A Literary Dog for Every Day of the Year: Mischievous Mutts and Faithful Friends - Literature's Waggiest Tales
Richardson, Tara
Hardcover
$18.04
Poem a Day: 366 Poems, Old and New - One for Each Day of the Year
McCosker, Karen
Albery, Nicolas
Paperback
$20.66
Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag: And Other Intimate Literary Portraits of the Bohemian Era
Rosebrough, Amy L.
Field, Edward
Paperback
$21.95
Leaves of Grass: The Complete 1855 and 1891-92 Editions: A Library of America Paperback Classic
Whitman, Walt
Paperback
$18.95
Three Simple Lines: A Writer's Pilgrimage Into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku
Goldberg, Natalie
Hardcover
$21.80
Poetry from Spaceship Earth: Empire and Ecology in Post-1945 American Poetry
Rahimtoola, Samia
Paperback
$133.00
Haiku: How the Modern World Came to Fall in Love with Small Poems from Japan
Crawford, Robert
Hardcover
$52.50