Genius To Improve An Invention [Hardcover]

The Genius to Improve an Inventionderives its title from John Drydens phrase for the British tendency to take up literary masterpieces from the past and perfect them. Distinguished literary scholar Piero Boitani adopts Drydens notion as a framework for exploring ways in which classical and medieval texts, scenes, and themes have been rewritten by modern authors.

Boitani focuses on a concept of literary transition that takes into account both T.S. Eliots idea of tradition and individual talent and Harold Blooms anxiety of influence. In five elegant essays he examines a wide range of authors and texts, including Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Voltaire, Goethe, Sartre, Dante, and Keats. Appearing for the first time in an English translation,The Genius to Improve an Inventionwill appeal to anyone interested in the Western literary tradition.

Piero Boitani is professor of comparative literature at the University of Rome, La Sapienza. He is the founding president of the European Society for English Studies and a fellow of the British Academy. In 2002, he was awarded the Feltrinelli Prize for Literary CriticismItalys most prestigious literary award. Boitani is the author of numerous books, includingThe Shadow of UlyssesandThe Bible and Its Rewritings.

The Genius to Improve an Inventionis supported with a thorough theoretical awareness and a flexible intelligence enabling Boitani to move comfortably within a vast array of texts and thus take the reader on a fascinating literary journey. Through his pressing and detailed arguments, the author suggests original approaches to some of the great works of European literatureeach of them is considered as a solution to a specific problem and, at the same time, as a probative argument in favor of applied rationality. Reading these essays calls to mind what Henry James once said: All the pieces of the game [are] on the table tlS¶