The Cambridge Companion to Rabelais PDF Download

Author: John O'Brien
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 052186786X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
An accessible, readable account of Rabelais, his work, his thought and his world.

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Publisher: Odile Jacob
ISBN: 2738187366
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Author: George Mallary Masters
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780873950398
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
In this study, Professor Masters looks beyond the few critical attempts that heretofore have analyzed only isolated aspects of Platonism and Hermetism in Rabelaisian literature. He examines the closely related themes of Platonism, the Dionysian mysteries, and the Hermetic sciences in Rabelais's work and concludes that Rabelais shared with the Platonic-Hermetic tradition both its dialectic and perception of man's position in the universe. In the perspective of Platonic dialectic, Professor Masters analyzes Rabelaisian allegory, symbolism, and imagery as a play on appearance and reality. Through the allegorical myths of Gargantua and Pantagruel, Rabelais rejects the seemingly dichotomous extremes of materialism and ascetic spiritualism, while his philosophy of Pantagrue?lisme shows a positive acceptance of both the physical world and contemplative thought. Through the symbolism of wine, Rabelais manifests the Platonic ideal of Love-Harmony-Order on the literal level of conviviality, in the philosophical dialogue of the symposium, and in the intuitive dialectic of Socratic contemplation. In Rabelais's view, man can achieve self-knowledge only through reasonable control and by actively establishing a balance with society, nature, and God. The magus may diabolically use the "sciences" of astrology, magic, alchemy, and the Cabala in an attempt to subject the world to his own will, or he may achieve unity with himself and his total environment by restoring in himself the harmonious order he finds in the cosmos. In an appendix, Professor Masters examines the continuity of the several themes of the Platonic-Hermetic tradition as they occur in the five books of the Rabelaisian corpus. He concludes, as two corollaries of the main thesis, that their constant recurrence demonstrates the thematic unity of the five books and the authenticity of Book Five.

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Publisher: Librairie Droz
ISBN: 9782600031646
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Author: Joan Fitzpatrick
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317066545
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
Providing a unique perspective on a fascinating aspect of early modern culture, this volume focuses on the role of food and diet as represented in the works of a range of European authors, including Shakespeare, from the late medieval period to the mid seventeenth century. The volume is divided into several sections, the first of which is "Eating in Early Modern Europe"; contributors consider cultural formations and cultural contexts for early modern attitudes to food and diet, moving from the more general consideration of European and English manners to the particular consideration of historical attitudes toward specific foodstuffs. The second section is "Early Modern Cookbooks and Recipes," which takes readers into the kitchen and considers the development of the cultural artifact we now recognize as the cookbook, how early modern recipes might "work" today, and whether cookery books specifically aimed at women might have shaped domestic creativity. Part Three, "Food and Feeding in Early Modern Literature" offers analysis of the engagement with food and feeding in key literary European and English texts from the early sixteenth to the early seventeenth century: François Rabelais's Quart livre, Shakespeare's plays, and seventeenth-century dramatic prologues. The essays included in this collection are international and interdisciplinary in their approach; they incorporate the perspectives of historians, cultural commentators, and literary critics who are leaders in the field of food and diet in early modern culture.

Author: Eric M. MacPhail
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004277153
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
This study examines the transmission and transformation of commonplace wisdom in Renaissance humanism by tracing a series of filiations between classical sayings, anecdotes, and exampes and Renaissance poems, essays, and fictions. The circulation of commonplaces can be understood either as a process of reanimation and revitalization, where frozen sayings thaw out and come to life, or conversely as a process of immobilization and incrustation that petrifies tradition. The paradigmatic figure for this process is the proverbial dance around the well, which expresses both the danger and the compulsion of borrowed speech.

Author: Grahan Orton
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Author: Michael Randall
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 144269274X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Critics and scholars have long argued that the Renaissance was the period that gave rise to the modern individual. The Gargantuan Polity examines political, legal, theological, and literary texts in the late Middle Ages, to show how individuals were defined by contracts of mutual obligation, which allowed rulers to hold power due to approval of their subjects. Noting how the relationship between rulers and individuals changed with the rise of absolute monarchy, Michael Randall provides significant insight into Renaissance culture and politics by showing how individuals went from being understood in terms of their objective relations with the community to subjective beings. By studying this evolution, he challenges the argument that subjectivity enabled modern political autonomy to come into existence, and instead argues that subjectivity might have disempowered the outwardly directed and highly political individuals of the late Middle Ages. A profound and detailed study of one of the most drastic periods of change, The Gargantuan Polity will be of interest to scholars of French literature, the Renaissance, and intellectual history.

Author: Karine Zbinden
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351196332
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
"Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) has had an enormous influence on literary studies and cultural theory. Bakhtin between East and West: Cross-Cultural Transmission looks beyond the concepts of carnival and dialogue and traces for the first time the transformation of the Bakhtin Circle's thought from its introduction to the West in Julia Kristeva's seminal late-1960s theory of intertextuality, through Tzvetan Todorov's landmark study and on to contemporary interpretations. The notion of sociality in all its problematic complexity provides the red thread guiding us through this historical and thematic examination of Western and Russian Bakhtin studies. As a critical evaluation of Bakhtin scholarship across various cultures and a celebration of the vigour of the Circle's legacy, this is an invaluable resource for scholars and students with an interest in Bakhtin and critical theory."

Author: Vincent Robert-Nicoud
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004381821
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
In The World Upside Down in 16th Century French Literature and Visual Culture Vincent Robert-Nicoud offers an interdisciplinary account of the topos of the world upside down in early modern France. To call something ‘topsy-turvy’ in the sixteenth century is to label it as abnormal. The topos of the world upside down evokes a world in which everything is inside-out and out of bounds: fish live in trees, children rule over their parents, and rivers flow back to their source. The world upside down proves to be key in understanding how the social, political, and religious turmoil of sixteenth-century France was represented and conceptualised, and allows us to explore the dark side of the Renaissance by unpacking one of its most prevalent metaphors.