Overview
Through the inclusion of essays by leading Restoration scholars from around the world, this book attempts to fulfill a much-needed function for serious students of the period and uses a culture-based approach to offer a general theory regarding the Restoration mentality. The editor, W. Gerald Marshall, addresses the serious lack of an interdisciplinary, culture-based study of this important era. Though the essays are wide-ranging, Marshall has perceived a common thread that serves as the basis for his general theory. He argues that perhaps the most effective way to define the Restoration mentality is that it reflects a deep need to create order and centrality in art - indeed in all cultural artifacts - at the same time that it reflects the loss of a unified, substantial sense of personal identity. In developing and supporting this approach, Marshall traces the notion of personal identity through medieval and Renaissance sources, focusing upon such writers as John Locke and the notion of the fragmented or insubstantial self that differs profoundly from the traditional Renaissance notion of a vertically transforming self.Synopsis
Through the inclusion of essays by leading Restoration scholars from around the world, this book attempts to fulfill a much-needed function for serious students of the period and uses a culture-based approach to offer a general theory regarding the Restoration mentality. The editor, W. Gerald Marshall, addresses the serious lack of an interdisciplinary, culture-based study of this important era. Though the essays are wide-ranging, Marshall has perceived a common thread that serves as the basis for his general theory. He argues that perhaps the most effective way to define the Restoration mentality is that it reflects a deep need to create order and centrality in art - indeed in all cultural artifacts - at the same time that it reflects the loss of a unified, substantial sense of personal identity. In developing and supporting this approach, Marshall traces the notion of personal identity through medieval and Renaissance sources, focusing upon such writers as John Locke and the notion of the fragmented or insubstantial self that differs profoundly from the traditional Renaissance notion of a vertically transforming self.