Classics, Medieval & Renaissance 2012 - University of Toronto ...

LITERATURE
Looking into Providences
Designs and Trials in Paradise Lost
NEW
Raymond B. Waddington
What is the role of providence in Paradise Lost In
Looking into Providences, Raymond B. Waddington
provides the first examination of this engaging
subject. He explores the variety of implicit organizational
structures or ‘designs’ that govern Paradise
Lost, and looks in-depth at the ‘trials,’ or testing
situations, which require interpretation, choice, and
action from its characters.
Waddington situates the poem within the context
of providentialism’s centrality to seventeenth-century
thought and life, arguing that Milton’s own conception
of providence was deeply influenced by the theology
of Jacob Arminius. Using Milton’s Arminian conception
of free will, he then looks at the providential trials
experienced by angels and humans. Finally, the
work explores the ways in which providentialism
infiltrates various kinds of discourse, ranging from
military to medical, and from political to philosophical.
Raymond B. Waddington is a professor emeritus
in the Department of English at the University of
California, Davis.
Approx. 312 pp / 10 illustrations / 6 x 9 / September 2012
Cloth 978-1-4426-4342-0 $65.00 (£45.99)
Milton and Questions of History
Essays by Canadians Past and Present
NEW
Edited by Feisal G. Mohamed and Mary Nyquist
Milton and Questions of History considers the contribution
of several classic studies of Milton written by
Canadians in the twentieth century. It contemplates
whether these might be termed a coherent ‘school’
of Milton studies in Canada and it explores how
these concerns might intervene in current critical and
scholarly debates on Milton and, more broadly, on
historicist criticism in its relationship to renewed
interest in literary form.
The volume opens with a selection of seminal
articles by noted scholars including Northrop Frye,
Hugh McCallum, Douglas Bush, Ernest Sirluck, and
A.S.P. Woodhouse. Subsequent essays engage and
contextualize these works while incorporating fresh
intellectual concerns. The Introduction and Afterword
frame the contents so that they constitute a
dialogue between past and present critical studies
of Milton by Canadian scholars.
Feisal G. Mohamed is an associate professor in the
Department of English at the University of Illinois.
Mary Nyquist is a professor in the Department of
English at the University of Toronto.
Approx. 424 pp / 6 x 9 / June 2012
Cloth 978-1-4426-4392-5 $75.00 (£50.99)
Spenser’s Ruins and the Art of Recollection
NEW
Rebeca Helfer
What is the art of memory Rebeca Helfer’s intertextual
study Spenser’s Ruins and the Art of Recollection
offers a fresh perspective on the significance of this
ancient mnemonic technique to Edmund Spenser’s
writing and, through this lens, explores the art’s
complex historical and literary reception.
Beginning with the origins of mnemonic strategies
in epic tales, Helfer examines how the art of memory
speaks to debates about poetry and its place in
culture from Plato to Spenser’s present day. As Helfer
argues, ruins provide memorial spaces for an ongoing
dialogue about how story relates to history, and
how both relate to edification and empire-building.
Through detailed, intertextual readings of The
Shepheardes Calender, The Faerie Queene, the
Complaints, and other Spenserian works, Helfer
demonstrates how the art of memory shapes
Spenser’s theory and practice of poetry as well as
his political view, throughout his career. More
broadly, Spenser’s Ruins and the Art of Recollection
points to new ways of understanding the importance
of this art within literary studies.
Rebeca Helfer is an associate professor in the
Department of English at the University of California,
Irvine.
Approx. 360 pp / 6 x 9 / June 2012
Cloth 978-0-8020-9067-6 $85.00 (£57.99)
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