Versions of Antihumanism
Versions of Antihumanism
Stanley Fish, one of the foremost critics of literature working today, has spent much of his career writing and thinking about Milton. This book brings together his finest published work with brand new material on Milton and on other authors and topics in early modern literature. In his analyses of Renaissance texts, he meditates on the interpretive problems that confront readers and offers a sustained critique of historicist methods of interpretation. Intention, he argues, is key to understanding which pieces of historical data are relevant to literary criticism. Lucid, provocative, direct and inimitable, this new book from Stanley Fish is required reading for anyone teaching or studying Milton and early modern literary studies.
- A major contribution to early modern literature by one of America's best known critics
- Collects his most important essays together with new, previously unseen work
- Essential reading for scholars and graduate students of Renaissance literature
Reviews & endorsements
'Fish can be distinctive, absorbing and powerful.' The Times Literary Supplement
'… not to be missed by anyone who aspires to be a better reader of Milton …' William H. Pritchard, The Hudson Review
Product details
April 2012Paperback
9780521176248
300 pages
228 × 152 × 14 mm
0.49kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Part I. Milton:
- 1. The Brenzel lectures
- 2. To the pure all things are pure: law, faith and interpretation in the prose and poetry of John Milton
- 3. 'There is nothing he cannot ask': Milton, liberalism, and terrorism
- 4. Why Milton matters, or against historicism
- 5. Milton in popular culture
- 6. How the reviews work
- 7. The New Milton criticism
- Part II. Early Modern Literature:
- 8. Void of storie: the struggle for insincerity in Herbert's prose and poetry
- 9. Authors-readers: Jonson's community of the same
- 10. Marvell and the art of disappearance
- 11. Masculine persuasive force: Donne and verbal power
- 12. How Hobbes works
- Index.
