Miscellanea Moreana

A special double issue of Moreana.

A special double issue of Moreana.

Recent writings about Thomas More have questioned his integrity and motivation and have challenged the long-held view of him as a humane, wise, and heroic "man for all seasons." This new book responds to these revisionist studies by closely and persuasively analyzing More's writings as well as Holbein's portraits of More and his family. "Martz cuts down the revived charge of More as a bloodthirsty hunter of heretics, a furious, sexually repressed, and frustrated man. . . . This penetrating rebuttal of the revisionists deserves high commendation."--Choice "Martz draws a compelling picture of More's attempts during his lonely imprisonment to adjust to his human fear of death and to see his own plight in the perspective of the universal human condition. In these essays More's voice and personality speak to us from his own literate and humorous prose."--M. Edmund Hussey, Antioch Review "In his gracefully written Thomas More: The Search for the Inner Man, Louis L. Martz provides a sharply different account of the 'dark side' of More. . . . He] lays out the case for a more complex, ironic construction of More's texts."--Stanley Stewart, Studies in English Literature "This . . . book is a gemstone."--Terence R. Murphy, History: Reviews of New Books "Correcting the view of Thomas More as a cold-blooded prosecutor of heresy, Martz here considers the gentle, affectionate, yet upright man pictured in Holbein's family portraits and implicit in More's prose."--Judith Fair, Theological Studies

First published in 1516, during a period of astonishing political and technological change, Sir Thomas More's Utopia depicts an imaginary society free of private property, sexual discrimination, violence, and religious intolerance. Raphael Hythloday, a philospher and world traveler, describes to the author and his friend an island nation he has visited called Utopia (combining the Greek ou-topos and eu-topos, for "no place" and "good place," respectively). Hythloday believes the rational social order of the Utopians is far superior to anything in Europe, while his listeners find many of their customs appealing but absurd. Given the enigmatic ambivalence of the character that More named after himself and the playful Greek puns he sprinkled throughout (including Hythloday's name, which means "knowing nonsense"), it is difficult to know what precisely More meant his readers to make of all the innovations of his Utopia. But its radical humanism has had an incalculable effect on modern history, and the callenge of its vision is as insistent today as it was in the Renaissance. With an introduction by Jenny Mezciems. (Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)

This book testifies to the growing interest in the many spaces of utopia. It intends to 'map out' on utopian and science-fiction discourses some of the new and revisionist models of spatial analysis applied in Literary and Cultural Studies in recent years. The aim of the volume is to side-step the established generic binary of utopia and dystopia or science fiction and thus to open the analysis of utopian literature to new lines of inquiry. The essays collected here propose to think of utopias not so much as fictional texts about future change and transformation but as vital elements in a cultural process through which social, spatial and subjective identities are formed. Utopias can thus be read as textual systems implying a distinct spatial and temporal dimension; as 'spatial practices' that tend to naturalize a cultural and social construction - that of the 'good life', the radically improved welfare state, the Christian paradise, the counter-society, etc. - and make that representation operational by interpellating their readers in some determinate relation to their givenness as sites of political and individual improvement. This volume is of interest for all scholars and students of literature who wish to explore the ways in which utopias of the past and recent present have circulated as media of cultural exchange and homogenization, as sites of cultural and linguistic appropriation and as foci for the spatial formation of national and regional identities in the English-speaking world.

In the Tudor struggle for Reformation and Catholic Reformation, for power and for souls, Richard Smyth, theologian and educator, refined the art of polemicism to fight against the advance of heresy at home and abroad, both in the lingua franca of academic circles and the language of his own people. A much neglected voice today, Smyth spoke passionately and influentially on justification, monastic vows, and the Eucharist. He clashed with leading reformers such as Bucer, Cranmer, Jewel and Vermigli in verbal debates and in print. New evidence from Douai shows how he trained and equipped a younger generation to continue the fight. A fascinating and enlightening work for the interested layperson and the expert alike, Dr. Loewe’s scholarly and readable study dissects catholic reactions to the religious upheaval in England during the reigns of three successive Tudor monarchs.

This is the first comprehensive account of English Renaissance literature in the context of the culture which shaped it: the courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, the tumult of Catholic and Protestant alliances during the Reformation, the age of printing and of New World discovery. In this century courtly literature under Henry VIII moves toward a new, more personal poetry of sentiment, narrative and romance. The development of English prose is seen in the writing of More, Foxe and Hooker and in the evolution of satire and popular culture. Drama moves from the churches to the commercial playhouses with the plays of Kyd, Marlowe and the early careers of Shakespeare and Jonson. The Companion tackles all these subjects in fourteen newly-commissioned essays, written by experts for student readers. A detailed chronology of major literary achievements concludes with a list of authors and their dates.

Erasmus’ Adages—a vast collection of the proverbial wisdom of Greek and Roman antiquity—was published in 1508 and became one of the most influential works of the Renaissance. It also marked a turning point in the history of Western thinking about literary property. At once a singularly successful commercial product of the new printing industry and a repository of intellectual wealth, the Adages looks ahead to the development of copyright and back to an ancient philosophical tradition that ideas should be universally shared in the spirit of friendship. In this elegant and tightly argued book, Kathy Eden focuses on both the commitment to friendship and common property that Erasmus shares with his favorite philosophers—Pythagoras, Plato, and Christ—and the early history of private property that gradually transforms European attitudes concerning the right to copy. In the process she accounts for the peculiar shape of Erasmus’ collection of more than 3,000 proverbs and provides insightful readings of such ancient philosophical and religious thinkers as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Iamblichus, Tertullian, Basil, Jerome, and Augustine.