Paradoxia Epidemica

Paradoxia Epidemica is a broad-ranging critical study of Renaissance thought, showing how the greatest writers of the period from Erasmus and Rabelais to Donne, Milton, and Shakespeare made conscious use of paradox not only as a figure of speech but as a mode of thought, a way of perceiving the universe, God, nature, and man himself. The book consists of an introduction (historical and topological) and sixteen chapters grouped according to broad types of paradox: rhetorical, theological, ontological, epistemological. Within this framework the author interprets individual writings or art forms as parts of a rich tradition. Originally published in 1966. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Exploring Shakespeare's intellectual interest in placing both characters and audiences in a state of uncertainty, mystery, and doubt, this book interrogates the use of paradox in Shakespeare's plays and in performance. By adopting this discourse-one in which opposites can co-exist and perspectives can be altered, and one that asks accepted opinions, beliefs, and truths to be reconsidered-Shakespeare used paradox to question love, gender, knowledge, and truth from multiple perspectives. Committed to situating literature within the larger culture, Peter Platt begins by examining the Renaissance culture of paradox in both the classical and Christian traditions. He then looks at selected plays in terms of paradox, including the geographical site of Venice in Othello and The Merchant of Venice, and equity law in The Comedy of Errors, Merchant, and Measure for Measure. Platt also considers the paradoxes of theater and live performance that were central to Shakespearean drama, such as the duality of the player, the boy-actor and gender, and the play/audience relationship in the Henriad, Hamlet, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest. In showing that Shakespeare's plays create and are created by a culture of paradox, Platt offers an exciting and innovative investigation of Shakespeare's cognitive and affective power over his audience.

00 Fineman argues that in the sonnets Shakespeare developed an unprecedented poetic persona, one that subsequently became the governing model of all literary subjectivity. Fineman argues that in the sonnets Shakespeare developed an unprecedented poetic persona, one that subsequently became the governing model of all literary subjectivity.

Presents a collection of critical essays on the works of William Shakespeare.

This book focuses on the question of theological paradox, exploring what it means and its place in theological method from a Christian perspective. Just as paradoxes are unavoidable in logic and mathematics, paradoxes are inevitable in religious and theological discourses. The chapters in this volume examine a number of cases, including the ‘Red Heifer paradox’, the ‘liar paradox’, and the ‘paradox of omnipotence’, and attention is given to Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. Arguing for a renewed understanding and appreciation of the role of paradox, this study will be of interest to scholars of theology and the philosophy of religion.

This book undertakes a critical analysis of some central problems in Hegel scholarship. It is concerned with clarifying the theoretical underpinnings of paradox, the possible relationship of paradox to a dialectic logic, and the possibilities of systematization of dialectic and/or paradox. The author begins with a discussion of current attitudes toward paradox in mathematics, science, and logic, and then moves gradually toward a differentiation of philosophical paradox in the strict sense from literary, religious, and logic paradox. The relationship of dialect to paradox is elucidated by means of a phenomenological analysis of self-consciousness. Finally, possible approaches to the systematization of dialectic are considered. Analyzing and evaluating Hegel's dialectical-paradoxical system in particular, Dr. Kainz also addresses the question of viable alternatives to Hegel's approach. While paradox is generally considered by philosophers and logicians as something to be avoided, Kainz's study investigates the possibility that it is an important and even indispensable element of constructive thinking in philosophy as well as other disciplines. Paradox, Dialect, and System is this a contribution not only to Hegel scholarship but to philosophy itself. It will be of particular interest to this concerned with the differentiation of dialectical and nondialectical philosophical systems and with the prevalence of paradox in literature, religion, and contemporary physics.

A collection of new essays exploring all aspects of one of the most intriguing and controversial English poets, the seventeenth-century libertine the Earl of Rochester. Different sections focus on sexual politics, on the poetry of intellect, and on Rochester and his contemporaries. The aim of the book is to read Rochester and to open up the poems to further reading. Rochester's personal notoriety is in a complex relationship to his writing and to the personality he created for himself through that writing. These essays offer a fresh reassessment of the range and quality of a writer only recently widely available, who is currently becoming visible as one of the great writers of his century.

Adult survivors of children's stories can be forgiven for thinking the only function of medieval monsters was to fail, just barely, to eat virgins and to die, just barely, under the hero's ministrations. Williams (English, McGill U.) enlarges the view, tracing the poetics of teratology, the study of monsters, to Christian neoplatonic theology, especially the concept that God cannot be known except by knowing what he is not. He also provides a taxonomy of monsters with glosses, and examines the monstrous and deformed in three heroic sagas and three saints' lives. Includes many reproductions. Canadian card order number: C96-900457-5. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR