Renaissance Books

MagicBeanDip.com

Page 1 of 38 - Go to page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 12

Oroonoko, The Rover, and Other Works (Penguin Classics)

Aphra Behn

Oroonoko, The Rover, and Other Works (Penguin Classics) Aphra Behn Amazon Price: $9.60
List Price: $12.00
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: Penguin Classics
Amazon Marketplace: 92 new & used starting at $4.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( B ) -> Behn, Aphra
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Foreign Language Fiction -> French

Editorial Review:

When Prince Oroonoko's passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko's noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behn's visit to Surinam, Oroonoko (1688) reflects the author's romantic view of Native Americans as simple, superior peoples 'in the first state of innocence, before men knew how to sin'. The novel also reveals Behn's ambiguous attitude to African slavery - while she favoured it as a means to strengthen England's power, her powerful and moving work conveys its injustice and brutality.

The Blazing World and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)

Margaret Cavendish

The Blazing World and Other Writings (Penguin Classics) Margaret Cavendish Amazon Price: $10.20
List Price: $15.00
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: Penguin Classics
Amazon Marketplace: 59 new & used starting at $4.21

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Historical
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> History & Criticism -> Criticism & Theory -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Not quite a forgotten classic, but deserves more attention 4 out of 5 stars.
19 of 23 people found this review helpful.

Margaret Cavendish was the first woman to publish prolifically under her own name, but has been largely forgotten until very recently, with certain of her works coming back in to print for almost the first time since their release in the 17th century. Among them is The Blazing World, one of the most diverse works I have ever read, especially from a 17th century writer. Cavendish throws in practically every genre of her day into one book (barring drama and poetry), making for a unique read. Adventure/sci fi blends into a scientific Utopia a la Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, and moves further into classical and modern philosophy before finally returning to adventure/fantasy, and even autobiography as the author introduces herself as a character. Some of these concepts work better than others, with the more scientific sections being quite tedious at times (again a la Bacon), but also makes for interesting combinations, as she explores Neo Platonism in a fantasy context, with the souls of "Platonic friends" travelling freely of their bodies to visit friends in other worlds, a la Obi Wan Kenobi in The Empire Strikes Back. Most of Cavendish's ideas on their own are not particularly original, but come together in entertaining ways in this book. Perhaps the concept that worked best here is the overall theme of writing as wish fulfillment, as Cavendish creates a world where her personal wishes and fantasies come true in a light hearted way. This is the earliest novel in which I have felt a great sense of the author looking back out at the reader in a Ferris Bueller, tongue in cheek fashion, much like Virginia Woolf's Orlando, a novel written by an author who was certainly familiar with, and influenced by, Cavendish's work. And yes, this is definitely a novel, just as much as Defoe's dreary Robinson Crusoe is a novel, if not more so. And a much wittier novel at that.

Editorial Review:

Flamboyant, theatrical and ambitious, Margaret Cavendish was one of the seventeenth century's most striking figures: a woman who ventured into the male spheres of politics, science, philosophy and literature. The Blazing World is a highly original work: part Utopian fiction, part feminist text, it tells of a lady shipwrecked on the Blazing World where she is made Empress and uses her power to ensure that it is free of war, religious division and unfair sexual discrimination. This volume also includes The Contract, a romance in which love and law work harmoniously together, and Assaulted and Pursued Chastity, which explores the power and freedom a woman can achieve in the disguise of a man.

This Stage-Play World: Texts and Contexts, 1580-1625 (OPUS)

Julia Briggs

This Stage-Play World: Texts and Contexts, 1580-1625 (OPUS) Julia Briggs Amazon Price: $35.12
List Price: $35.12
Usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks
By: Oxford University Press, USA
Amazon Marketplace: 18 new & used starting at $12.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> History & Criticism -> Criticism & Theory -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> History & Criticism -> Criticism & Theory -> General AAS

Editorial Review:

The later years of Elizabeth and the reign of James I were the age of Shakespeare, but the age also of Sidney, Spenser, and Donne, of fellow dramatists Marlowe, Jonson, and Webster, and of the prose writers Nashe, Bacon, and Burton. This book examines the social conditions that produced this uniquely dazzling array of talent, and relates them closely to the literature of the period. In this extensively revised new edition, Julia Briggs has included two new chapters which examine the role of women, the family, travelers and `outsiders' within the social and literary contexts of the period.

Literature and Revolution in England, 1640-1660

Nigel Smith

Literature and Revolution in England, 1640-1660 Nigel Smith Amazon Price: $24.00
List Price: $24.00
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: Yale University Press
Amazon Marketplace: 19 new & used starting at $9.25

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> General
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

An Exceptional Book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is a brilliant and original book, a magnificent synthesis of 17th-century literary scholarship and historical insights. Prof. Smith shows the importance of revolutionary literature to the English Civil War and Interregnum. Writers of pamphlets, plays, epics, lyrics, and even fishing manuals were all influencing history in exciting ways. The many great authors of the period are eloquently discussed in this text, including Milton, Marvell, and Hobbes. If you are interested in English literature, you will want to have Nigel Smith's book in your collection.

Editorial Review:

The years of the British Civil War and Interregnum constituted a turning point not only in the political, social, and religious history of seventeenth-century England but also in the use and meaning of English language and literature. Smith examines literary output from the age from Milton`s Paradise Lost to epics and romances, to psalms and hymns. This highly original book explores the effect of politics on the practice of writing and the impact of literature on patterns of historical change.

The Key of Green: Passion and Perception in Renaissance Culture

Bruce R. Smith

The Key of Green: Passion and Perception in Renaissance Culture Bruce R. Smith Amazon Price: $31.30
List Price: $39.00
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: University Of Chicago Press
Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $31.29

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> World -> Renaissance
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> History & Criticism -> Criticism & Theory -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> History & Criticism -> Criticism & Theory -> General AAS

Editorial Review:

From Shakespeare’s “green-eyed monster” to the “green thought in a green shade” in Andrew Marvell’s “The Garden,” the color green was curiously prominent and resonant in English culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Among other things, green was the most common color of household goods, the recommended wall color against which to view paintings, the hue that was supposed to appear in alchemical processes at the moment base metal turned to gold, and the color most frequently associated with human passions of all sorts. A unique cultural history, The Key of Green considers the significance of the color in the literature, visual arts, and popular culture of early modern England.
Contending that color is a matter of both sensation and emotion, Bruce R. Smith examines Renaissance material culture—including tapestries, clothing, and stonework, among others—as well as music, theater, philosophy, and nature through the lens of sense perception and aesthetic pleasure. At the same time, Smith offers a highly sophisticated meditation on the nature of consciousness, perception, and emotion that will resonate with students and scholars of the early modern period and beyond. Like the key to a map, The Key of Green provides a guide for looking, listening, reading, and thinking that restores the aesthetic considerations to criticism that have been missing for too long.

Enclosure Acts: Sexuality, Property, and Culture in Early Modern England

Enclosure Acts: Sexuality, Property, and Culture in Early Modern England List Price: $62.95
By: Cornell University Press
Amazon Marketplace: 12 new & used starting at $9.97

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> History & Criticism -> Criticism & Theory -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> History & Criticism -> Criticism & Theory -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Wonderful essays on great topic! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

bURT AND ARCHER HAVE ASSEMBLED A DISTINGUISHED GROUP OF CONTRIBUTORS ON THE WAY SEXUALITY AND PROPERTY CAME TO BE LINKED IN THE LITERARY PRCTICES OF EARLY MODERN ENGLAND. A HIGHLY INFOMRATIVE COLLECTION OF SURPERBLY WRITTEN ESSAYS.

Editorial Review:

This collection of essays, by theorists and scholars representing a wide range of critical orientations, focuses not only on land enclosure as a historical fact, but also on the symbolic containment of sexuality in Elizabethan and Jacobean literature.

Mad Madge: The Extraordinary Life of Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, the First Woman to Live by Her Pen

Katie Whitaker

Mad Madge: The Extraordinary Life of Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, the First Woman to Live by Her Pen Katie Whitaker List Price: $31.00
By: Basic Books
Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $5.25

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Specific Groups -> Women

Editorial Review:

For a seventeenth-century Englishwoman, Margaret (Lucas) Cavendish did the unprecedented --she published her writing. Her extraordinary life unfolded during the English Civil Wars, when she was exiled to Paris and Antwerp as a Royalist seeking refuge from Cromwell's England, and later as mistress of her husband's estate in Newcastle after the restoration of the monarchy. In exile, she began to write and publish her poetry and essays, influenced by a Royalist cultural world that included Hobbes and Descartes. Despite the scandal her writing life caused, she eventually brought out thirteen books, ranging from Poems and Fancies, the first book of poetry published by a woman under her own name, to Blazing World, the first science fiction by a woman.A lively biography and a window on the tumultuous cultural life of the seventeenth century, Mad Madge reveals there may well have been a "Judith Shakespeare" centuries before Virginia Woolf exhorted women to find "a room of one's own." Katie Whitaker draws on the extensive collection of Margaret's letters and legal papers to draw a vibrant and complete picture of the pioneering "Mad Madge."

The Matter of Revolution: Science, Poetry, and Politics in the Age of Milton

John Rogers

The Matter of Revolution: Science, Poetry, and Politics in the Age of Milton John Rogers Amazon Price: $24.95
List Price: $24.95
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: Cornell University Press
Amazon Marketplace: 5 new & used starting at $17.97

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> General
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Ireland -> Medieval

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

A masterful study of how the novel ideas of Milton's time inform his vocabulary and thought. Rogers is especially attentive to the differences between our notions of "science" and those of the early Enlightenment. Essential.

Between the Ancients and Moderns: Baroque Culture in Restoration England

Joseph M. Levine

Between the Ancients and Moderns: Baroque Culture in Restoration England Joseph M. Levine Amazon Price: $55.00
List Price: $55.00
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: Yale University Press
Amazon Marketplace: 19 new & used starting at $11.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> Ancient
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> Tudor & Stuart
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> General

Editorial Review:

In the later seventeenth century, writers and artists engaged in ferocious debate over how far to imitate the classics and how far to risk the freedom to innovate. This book examines the careers and ideas of four prominent individuals-John Evelyn, John Dryden, Sieur de Saint-Evremond, and Christopher Wren-to illuminate the tension between ancients and moderns that characterized the cultural and intellectual life of the period.

New Latitudes: Theory and English Renaissance Literature

Thomas Healy

New Latitudes: Theory and English Renaissance Literature Thomas Healy List Price: $16.95
By: Edward Arnold
Amazon Marketplace: 1 new & used starting at $1.88

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> History & Criticism -> Criticism & Theory -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> History & Criticism -> Criticism & Theory -> General AAS

Editorial Review:

Through a series of readings of many key 16th- and 17th-century writers, including Shakespeare, Milton, Marlowe and Spenser, Thomas Healy shows how recent theoretical ideas have influenced our appreciation of different types of texts and of Renaissance culture in general.

Page 1 of 38 - Go to page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 12

Return to MagicBeanDip.com

This page was created in 1.5269 seconds.