Guilty Creatures Renaissance Poetry and the Ethics of Authorship [Paperback]

This study examines how Renaissance poets conceive the theme of killing as a specifically representational and interpretive form of violence. Closely reading both major poets and lesser known authors, Dennis Kezar explores the ethical self-consciousness and accountability that attend literary killing, paying particular attention to the ways in which this reflection indicates the poet's understanding of his audience. Kezar explores the concept of authorial guilt elicited by violent representation in poems including Skelton'sPhyllyp Sparowe, Spenser'sFaerie Queene, Shakespeare'sJuliusCaesar, the multi-authoredWitch of Edmonton, and Milton'sSamson Agonistes. In each case, he reflects on the poetic process and explores the ethical ramifications for both author and audience. In emphasizing the social, literary, and historical consequences of 'killing poems,' this volume further advances scholarship in historicist and speech-act theories of the early modern period.

Introduction

1 Courting Heresy and Taking the Subject: John Skelton's Precedent

2 Spenser and the Poetics of Indiscretion

3 The Properties of Shakespeare's Globe

4 The Witch of Edmonton and the Guilt of Possession

5 Samson's Death by Theater and Milton's Art of Dying

6 Guilt and the Constitution of Authorship in Henry V and the Antitheatrical Elegies of W.S. and Milton

Index

[Suggests] that Renaissance artists were often conscious of the potentially destructive powerof art, and that this self-consciousness shapes their work and understanding of their own social roles as artists. This attention to the 'responsibility for the other' provides us with a new understanding that brings us closer in sensibility to the early modern period than we have been in recent years. --Shakespeare Quarterly

Guilty Creatures, a courageous exercise in criticism, is indeed . . . ecleclD