Elizabethan Humanism: Literature and Learning in the Later Sixteenth Century - Softcover

Pincombe, Mike

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0582289807 ISBN 13: 9780582289802

Publisher: Routledge, 2001

Synopsis

The term 'humanist' originally referred to a scholar of Classical literature. In the Renaissance and particularly in the Elizabethan age, European intellectuals devoted themselves to the rediscovery and study of Roman and Greek literature and culture. This trend of Renaissance thought became known in the 19th century as 'humanism'. Often a difficult concept to understand, the term Elizabethan Humanism is introduced in Part One and explained in a number of different contexts. Part Two illustrates how knowledge of humanism allows a clearer understanding of Elizabethan literature, by looking closely at major texts of the Elizabethan period which include Spenser's, 'The Shepherd's Calendar'; Marlowe's 'Faustus' and Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Pincombe

From the Back Cover

'This book is written with refreshing lucidity, and is very well organized....a really excellent piece of work which should be part of every university library, and which should be required reading for Renaissance scholars'.
Dr. Rob Maslen, University of Glasgow It is impossible to understand Elizabethan literature without a general concept of the all-important term humanism. This book offers a new perspective on the term and its application to Elizabethan literary culture, one which will help students at all levels to grasp the relationship between the texts they study and the complex group of ideas surrounding the word humanity. The opening chapter provides a comprehensive introduction to the intellectual background to Elizabethan humanism. The book then proceeds to investigate certain key ideas in greater detail, such as Ciceronian humanism and myths of cultural transfer, before moving on to a series of chapters devoted to important individual works dating from the late 1570's, including John Lyly, Edmund Spenser, and Philip Sidney, and concluding with studies of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Shakespeare's Hamlet. Written in a lucid and informal manner, Elizabethan Humanism provides an accessible guide to the basic principles underlying Elizabethan Humanism, and also equips the reader with the means of making their own informed analyses of other late sixteenth-century texts. Mike Pincombe is a Lecturer in the Department of English Literary and Linguistic Studies at the University of Newcastle.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0582289807
• ISBN 13: 9780582289802
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256