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

LITERATURE
NEW
The Emblematics of the Self
Ekphrasis and Identity in Renaissance Imitations of Greek Romance
Elizabeth B. Bearden
The ancient Greek romances of Achilles Tatius and
Heliodorus were widely imitated by early modern
writers such as Miguel de Cervantes, Philip Sidney,
and Mary Wroth. Like their Greek models, Renaissance
romances used ekphrasis, or verbal descriptions of
visual representation, as a tool for characterization.
The Emblematics of the Self shows how the women,
foreigners, and non-Christians of these tales reveal
their identities and desires in their responses to the
‘verbal pictures’ of romance.
Engaging and rigorous, The Emblematics of the
Self breaks new ground in understanding hegemonic
and cosmopolitan European conceptions of the
‘other,’ as well as new possibilities for early modern
identities, in an increasingly global Renaissance.
Elizabeth B. Bearden is an assistant professor in
the Department of English at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison.
‘This rigorous comparative study of the “emblematics
of the self” is poised to make a major contribution
to the fields of Renaissance studies, rhetorical studies,
gender studies, and postcolonial studies.’
Bernadette Andrea, University of Texas at San Antonio
272 pp / 8 illustrations / 6 x 9 / January 2012
Cloth 978-1-4426-4346-8 $65.00 (£42.00)
NEW
Colonial Virtue
The Mobility of Temperance in Renaissance England
Kasey Evans
Colonial Virtue is the first study to focus on the role
played by the virtue of temperance in shaping ethical
debates about early English colonialism. Kasey Evans
tracks the migration of ideas surrounding temperance
from classical and humanist writings through to sixteenth-
and seventeenth-century applications,
emphasizing the ways in which they have transcended
the vocabularies of geography and time.
Colonial Virtue offers fresh insights into how
English Renaissance writers used temperance as a
privileged lens through which to view New World
morality and politically to justify colonial practices in
Virginia and the West Indies. Beautifully written and
deeply engaging, Colonial Virtue also models an
expansive methodology for literary studies through
its close readings and rhetorical analyses.
Kasey Evans is an assistant professor in the Department
of English at Northwestern University.
‘Colonial Virtue has changed the way that I read
texts that focus on, or even invoke, the virtue of
temperance. Kasey Evans’s analyses are detailed
and thoughtful, and her close readings are both
deeply engaged and deeply engaging.’
Valerie Forman, New York University
264 pp / 15 illustrations / 6 x 9 / January 2012
Cloth 978-1-4426-4359-8 $60.00 (£40.00)
NEW
Magical Imaginations
Instrumental Aesthetics in the English Renaissance
Genevieve Guenther
In the English Renaissance, poetry was imagined to
inspire moral behaviour in its readers, but the efficacy
of poetry was also linked to ‘conjuration,’ the theologically
dangerous practice of invoking spirits with
words. Magical Imaginations explores how major
writers of the period – including Spenser, Marlowe,
and Shakespeare – negotiated this troubling link
between poetry and magic in their attempts to
transform readers and audiences with the power of art.
Through analyses of texts ranging from sermons
and theological treatises to medical tracts and legal
documents, Genevieve Guenther sheds new light on
magic as a cultural practice in early modern England.
With this new understanding of early modern magic
– a fresh context for compelling readings of classic
literary works – Magical Imaginations reveals the
central importance of magic to English literary history.
Genevieve Guenther is an independent scholar with
a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.
‘I recommend this book highly for its incisiveness
and extraordinary scholarship.’
John D. Cox, Hope College
Approx. 184 pp / 6 x 9 / March 2012
Cloth 978-1-4426-4241-6 $60.00 (£40.00)
26 University of Toronto Press