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The Performance of Conviction : Plainness and Rhetoric in the Early English Renaissance / Kenneth J. E. Graham.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextSeries: Rhetoric and SocietyPublisher: Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2019]Copyright date: ©1994Description: 1 online resource (240 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9781501738616
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 820.9/003 20/eng/20230216
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Preface -- Introduction. Captive to Truth: Rethinking Renaissance Plainness -- 1. Wyatt's Antirhetorical Verse: Privilege and the Performance of Conviction -- 2. Educational Authority and the Plain Truth in the Admonition Controversy and The Scholemaster -- 3. Peace, Order, and Confusion: Fulke Greville and the Inner and Outer Forms of Reform -- 4. The Mysterious Plainness of Anger: The Search for Justice in Satire and Revenge Tragedy -- 5. The Performance of Pride: Desire, Truth, and Power in Coholanus and Timon of Athens -- 6. "Without the form of justice": Plainness and the Performance of Love in King Lear -- Epilogue: A Precious Jewel? -- Index
Summary: Belief or skepticism, obedience or resistance to authority, theatricality or stoic self-possession—Kenneth J. E. Graham explores these alternatives in the culture of early modern England. Focusing on plainness—a stylistic feature of much Renaissance writing-he surveys texts including Wyatt's anti-courtly verse, the Puritan Admonition to Parliament, Ascham's Scholemaster, Greville's non-dramatic writings, and works of Shakespearean tragedy, revenge tragedy, and verse satire. Graham shows how plainness functions not only as a literary style, but also as a mode of political and religious rhetoric that reflects powerful historical currents.Plainness is a result of the claim to possess the plain truth-a self-evident, absolute truth. In the absence of rhetorical criteria for truth, however, plainness registers a conviction that is plain to those who share it but opaque to those who don't. The plain truth can denote either the truth proclaimed and enforced by a public authority, whether liberal or conservative, or the truth of private conviction. According to Graham, the pervasive ness of plainness in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is evidence of a failure of consensus. The rhetoric of plainness, he asserts, reveals a profound opposition between the attitude of persuasion, a moderately skeptical and inclusive outlook characteristic of Erasmian humanism, and a stance of conviction, an absolutist and exclusive attitude more typical of Neostoicism and political and moral conservatism.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781501738616

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Preface -- Introduction. Captive to Truth: Rethinking Renaissance Plainness -- 1. Wyatt's Antirhetorical Verse: Privilege and the Performance of Conviction -- 2. Educational Authority and the Plain Truth in the Admonition Controversy and The Scholemaster -- 3. Peace, Order, and Confusion: Fulke Greville and the Inner and Outer Forms of Reform -- 4. The Mysterious Plainness of Anger: The Search for Justice in Satire and Revenge Tragedy -- 5. The Performance of Pride: Desire, Truth, and Power in Coholanus and Timon of Athens -- 6. "Without the form of justice": Plainness and the Performance of Love in King Lear -- Epilogue: A Precious Jewel? -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Belief or skepticism, obedience or resistance to authority, theatricality or stoic self-possession—Kenneth J. E. Graham explores these alternatives in the culture of early modern England. Focusing on plainness—a stylistic feature of much Renaissance writing-he surveys texts including Wyatt's anti-courtly verse, the Puritan Admonition to Parliament, Ascham's Scholemaster, Greville's non-dramatic writings, and works of Shakespearean tragedy, revenge tragedy, and verse satire. Graham shows how plainness functions not only as a literary style, but also as a mode of political and religious rhetoric that reflects powerful historical currents.Plainness is a result of the claim to possess the plain truth-a self-evident, absolute truth. In the absence of rhetorical criteria for truth, however, plainness registers a conviction that is plain to those who share it but opaque to those who don't. The plain truth can denote either the truth proclaimed and enforced by a public authority, whether liberal or conservative, or the truth of private conviction. According to Graham, the pervasive ness of plainness in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is evidence of a failure of consensus. The rhetoric of plainness, he asserts, reveals a profound opposition between the attitude of persuasion, a moderately skeptical and inclusive outlook characteristic of Erasmian humanism, and a stance of conviction, an absolutist and exclusive attitude more typical of Neostoicism and political and moral conservatism.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Apr 2024)