French Connections in the English Renaissance

The study of literature still tends to be nation-based, even when direct evidence contradicts longstanding notions of an autonomous literary canon. In a time when current events make inevitable the acceptance of a global perspective, the essays in this volume suggest a corrective to such scholarly limitations: the contributors offer alternatives to received notions of 'influence' and the more or less linear transmission of translatio studii, demonstrating that they no longer provide adequate explanations for the interactions among the various literary canons of the Renaissance. Offering texts on a variety of aspects of the Anglo-French Renaissance instead of concentrating on one set of borrowings or phenomena, this collection points to new configurations of the relationships among national literatures. Contributors address specific borrowings, rewritings, and appropriations of French writing by English authors, in fields ranging from lyric poetry to epic poetry to drama to political treatise. The bibliography presents a comprehensive list of publications on French connections in the English Renaissance from 1902 to the present day.

Catherine Gimelli Martin teaches at the University of Memphis, USA, where she has been the recipient of a Dunavant Professorship and several distinguished research awards. The Milton Society of America and the John Donne Society have similarly honored her with essay and book awards. Hassan Melehy teaches in the Department of Romance Languages at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. He has published widely on early modern literature and philosophy, critical theory, and cinema studies.