Description

By (author) Stephen Greenblatt; By (author) Greenblatt, Stephen

Short /annotation:
A study of sixteenth-century life and literature that spawned an era of scholarly inquiry. The author examines the structure of selfhood as evidenced in major literary figures of the English Renaissance and finds that in the early modern period new questions surrounding the nature of identity heavily influenced the literature of the era.

:
“Renaissance Self-Fashioning” is a study of sixteenth-century life and literature that spawned a new era of scholarly inquiry. Stephen Greenblatt examines the structure of selfhood as evidenced in major literary figures of the English Renaissance – More, Tyndale, Wyatt, Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare – and finds that in the early modern period new questions surrounding the nature of identity heavily influenced the literature of the era. Now a classic text in literary studies, “Renaissance Self-Fashioning” continues to be of interest to students of the Renaissance, English literature, and the new historicist tradition, and this new edition includes a preface by the author on the book”s creation and influence.

Review quote:
“No one who has read [Greenblatt”s] accounts of More, Tyndale, Wyatt, and others can fail to be moved, as well as enlightened, by an interpretive mode which is as humane and sympathetic as it is analytical. These portraits are poignantly, subtly, and minutely rendered in a beautifully lucid prose alive in every sentence to the ambivalences and complexities of its subjects.” – Harry Berger Jr., University of California, Santa Cruz”

Biographical note:
Stephen Greenblatt is the Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including, with Catherine Gallagher, Practicing New Historicism, published by the University of Chicago Press, and the recent Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare.