Renaissance Literature and its Formal Engagements [Paperback]

What might a self-conscious turn to formal analysis look like in Renaissance literary studies today, after theory and the new historicism? The essays collected here address this question from a variety of critical perspectives, as part of a renewed willingness within literary and cultural studies to engage questions of form. Essays by Paul Alpers, Douglas Bruster, Stephen Cohen, Heather Dubrow, William Flesch, Joseph Loewenstein, Elizabeth Harris Sagaser, and Mark Womack, together with an introduction of Mark David Rasmussen and an afterword by Richard Strier.Introduction New Formalisms?; M.D.Rasmussen PART I: TOWARD A HISTORICAL FORMALISM Between Form and Culture: New Historicism and the Promise of a Historical Formalism; S.Cohen Shakespeare and the Composite Text; D.Bruster The Politics of Aesthetics: Recuperating Formalism and the Country House Poem; H.Dubrow Marston's Gorge and the Question of Formalism; J.Loewenstein PART II: RENEWING THE LITERARY Learning from the New Criticism: The Example of Shakespeare's Sonnets; P.Alpers The Aesthetics of Shakespearean Wordplay; M.Womack The Poetics of Speeck Tags; W.Flesch Flirting with Eternity: Teaching from a Meter in a Renaissance Literature Class; E.H.Sagaser Afterword: How Formalism Became a Dirty Word, and Why We Can't Do Without It; R.Strier

These essays brilliantly display the pleasures offormalism and constitute a rigorous and thrilling demonstration of its indispensability. - Stanley Fish, Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago.

PAUL ALPERS Class of 1942 Professor of English Emeritus, University of CaliforniaDOUGLAS BRUSTER Assistant Professor of English, University of Texas, AustinSTEPHEN COHEN Assistant Professor of English, University of South AlabamaHEATHER DUBROW Tighe-Evans Professor and John Bascom Professor, University of Wisconsin-MadisonWILLIAM FLESCH Lecturer in English, Brandeis UniversityJOSEPH LOEWENSTEIN Lecturer, Washington UniversityELIZABlÓ^