American & Canadian Literature, General & Miscellaneous European History, Intellectual Movements, Literary Movements, Medieval History, English Literature

The Challenge of Periodization

Name: The Challenge of Periodization
Author: Lawrence Besserman
ISBN: 9780815321033

by Lawrence Besserman

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Overview

In these essays some of today's leading literary scholars and cultural critics re-examine major writers, genres, and themes in relation to their traditional period affiliations. The essays cover a broad range of writers and periods from the Middle Ages to the present, grouped in two main areas: Chaucer and Medieval and Renaissance studies (Larry D. Benson, Heiko A. Oberman, Lee Patterson, and Aldo Scaglione), and English and American literary history (Sanford Budick, H. M. Daleski, Denis Donoghue, Robert J. Griffin, Geoffrey Hartman, J. Hillis Miller, Jerome McGann, and Helen Vendler). In addition to shedding new light on a specific author, each essay also refines or reinvigorates critical approaches to specific periods. The analyses illuminate and clarify our understanding of what are traditionally but problematically called the Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Romantic, Modern, and Postmodern eras in European cultural history.

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Booknews

Literary scholars and cultural critics re-examine major writers, genres, and themes in terms of their traditional period affiliations from the Middle Ages to the present. They illuminate both the specific works and some problems with what have become the conventional temporal categories. Among the 13 perspectives are the beginnings of Chaucer's English style, a critique of Romantic periodization, Thomas Hardy, Wallace Stevens, and the question of a perennial literature. No index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)