History Commons^™

Exemplarity And The Interpretive Frame In Marguerite De Navarre's Heptaméron, V. Stanley Benfell

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Marguerite de Navarre's Heptaméron is one of the many works that have fallen prey to the contemporary fascination with indeterminacy and the poetics of failure. Increasingly, critics are writing of the "ambiguity" of the novella collection and the lack of narrative resolve that seems to characterize both the novellas and the discussions by the "devisants" that surround the novellas. My purpose in this essay is to contest this view. I intend to show that from a historical perspective, when the Heptaméron is seen in the light of the pervasive rhetorical concerns of late Renaissance writers, the prevailing critical view is …

Review Essay: John Cummins, The Hound And The Hawk: The Art Of Medieval Hunting, Melanie V. Shirk

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John Cummins, The Hound and the Hawk: The Art of Medieval Hunting, St. Martin's Press, 1988.

Review Essay: David Nicholas, The Van Arteveldes Of Ghent: The Varieties Of Vendetta And The Hero In History, Kelly Devries

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David Nicholas, The Van Arteveldes of Ghent: The Varieties of Vendetta and the Hero in History, Cornell University Press, 1988.

Review Essay: Michael Richter, Medieval Ireland: The Enduring Tradition, Kristine T. Utterback

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Michael Richter, Medieval Ireland: The Enduring Tradition, St. Martin's Press, 1988.

Universal Writing Systems: Philosophical Languages And Humanist Rhetoric In Seventeenth-Century England, Grant M. Boswell

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The early Renaissance, like the Hellenic Age and the Golden Age of Roman literature, was epistemologically oriented to the discursory practices of rhetoric rather than to the rational methods of philosophy. This preference resulted from the widespread adoption of linguistic presuppositions upon which humanist rhetoric is based. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, the underlying principles of humanism had been replaced. The discursory competence that humanism had sought to develop had become devalued, and in its place other epistemological systems had arisen. Francis Bacon, the Royal Society, René Descartes, Isaac Newton, and John Locke all offered epistemological principles …

Review Essay: A. J. Pollard, The Wars Of The Roses, K. G. Madison

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A. J. Pollard, The Wars of the Roses, St. Martin's Press, 1988.

Review Essay: Suzanne Noffke, O.P., Trans., The Letters Of St. Catherine Of Sienna, Vol. 1, Francis X. Hartigan

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Suzanne Noffke, O.P., trans., The Letters of St. Catherine of Siena, Vol. 1, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1988.

Review Essay: Julian N. Wasserman And Lois Roney, Eds., Sign Sentence Discourse: Language In Medieval Thought And Literature, John R. Rosenberg

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Julian N. Wasserman and Lois Roney, eds., Sign Sentence Discourse: Language in Medieval Though and Literature, Syracuse University Press, 1989.

The Similar Complementarity Of Othello, Maurice Hunt

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Certainly the argument that the principle of complementarity illuminates Othello is nothing new in Shakespeare studies. Over twenty years ago, Norman Rabkin, using an analogy from modern physics, described Shakespeare's characters and motifs as composing complementary wholes. The following excerpt accurately represents his reading of Othello's character: "He is what he is by virtue of what he is not. And what he is not, what he excludes from himself, rises quickly to the surface in the person of Iago. Whatever formulations we make about it, each reader senses the intimacy of the relationship between these mighty opposites, the degree to …

Review Essay: James R. Banker, Death In The Community: Memorialization And Confraternities In An Italian Commune In The Late Middle Ages, Dennis Romano

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James R. Banker, Death in the Community: Memorialization and Confraternities in an Italian Commune in the Late Middle Ages, University of Georgia Press, 1988.

Review Essay: John Onians, Bearers Of Meaning: The Classical Orders In Antiquity, The Middle Ages, And The Renaissance, John F. Moffitt

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John Onians, Bearers of Meaning: The Classical Orders in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, Princeton University Press, 1988.

Review Essay: Thomas P. Roche, Jr., Petrarch And The English Sonnet Sequences, David R. Shore

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Thomas P. Roche, Jr., Petrarch and the English Sonnet Sequences, AMS Press, 1989.

Review Essay: Guillaume De Machaut, Le Jugement Du Roy De Brehaigne And Remède De Fortune, Josette Britte-Ashford

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Guillaume de Machaut, Le jugement du roy de Brehaigne and Remède de fortune, ed. James I. Wimsatt and William W. Kibler, The Chaucer Library, University of Georgia Press, 1988.

Review Essay: Christine Weightman, Margaret Of York: Duchess Of Burgundy, 1446-1503, Retha M. Warnicke

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Christine Weightman, Margaret of York: Duchess of Burgundy, 1446-1503, St. Martin's Press, 1989.

Review Essay: Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death And Eternal Life, Vol. 9 Of Dogmatic Theology, Janine Marie Idziak

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Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, Vol. 9 of Dogmatic Theology, by Johann Auer and Joseph Ratzinger, trans. Michael Waldstein, Catholic University of America Press, 1988.

Review Essay: Sandro Sticca, The "Planctus Mariae" In The Dramatic Tradition Of The Middle Ages, Robert Edgar Day

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Sandro Sticca, The "Planctus Mariae" in the Dramatic Tradition of the Middle Ages, trans. Joseph R. Berrigan, University of Georgia Press, 1988.

Review Essay: Christopher Haigh, Ed., The Reign Of Elizabeth I, F. J. Platt

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Christopher Haigh, ed., The Reign of Elizabeth I, University of Georgia Press, 1987.

Review Essay: John N. Wall, Transformations Of The World: Spenser, Herbert, Vaughan, Wilson G. Baroody

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John N. Wall, Transformations of the Word: Spenser, Herbert, Vaughan, University of Georgia Press, 1988.

Review Essay: Roger Chartier, Ed., A History Of Private Life: Passions Of The Renaissance, Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier

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Roger Chartier, ed., A History of Private Life: Passions of the Renaissance, Harvard University Press, 1989.

Review Essay: Frances A. Yates, The French Academies Of The Sixteenth Century, De Lamar Jensen

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Frances A. Yates, The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century, Routledge, 1988.

Review Essay: Andrew Burr And John Orrell, Rebuilding Shakespeare's Globe, Timothy P. Bryson

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Andrew Burr and John Orrell, Rebuilding Shakespeare's Globe, Routledge, Chapman & Hall, 1989.

Review Essay: Michael Hattaway, Ed., The New Inn: Ben Jonson, Nancy A. Gutierrez

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Michael Hattaway, ed., The New Inn: Ben Jonson, Manchester University Press, 1984.

Review Essay: E. A. J. Honigmann, Myriad-Minded Shakespeare: Essays, Chiefly On The Tragedies And Problem Comedies, Paul R. Thomas

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E. A. J. Honigmann, Myriad-Minded Shakespeare: Essays, Chiefly on the Tragedies and Problem Comedies, St. Martin's Press, 1989.

Review Essay: A. F. Allison And D. M. Rogers, The Contemporary Printed Literature Of The English Counter-Reformation Between 1558 And 1640, Vol. 1 Of Works In Languages Other Than English, Eugene R. Cunnar

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A. F. Allison and D. M. Rogers, The Contemporary Printed Literature of the English Counter-Reformation between 1558 and 1640, Vol. 1 of Works in Languages Other Than English, Gower Publishing/Scholar Press, 1989.

John O'Malley, ed., Catholicism in Early Modern History: A Guide to Research, Center for Reformation Research, 1988.

Review Essay: David Riggs, Ben Jonson: A Life, W. Scott Blanchard

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David Riggs, Ben Johnson: A Life, Harvard University Press, 1989.

Full Issue

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No abstract provided.

Front Matter

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No abstract provided.

Narrative Description In Marco Polo's Travels: A Nonfictional Application Of Bakhtin's Chronotope, Ute Margarete Saine

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Throughout the text of Marco Polo's Devisement du monde, the reader is repeatedly enjoined to believe the narration. Such a captatio benevolantiae – the rhetorical convention inviting reader interest – typically takes the form of assertions, such as "I am telling nothing but the truth"; "Everybody ought too believe this"; "This is how it was"; "This is how Marco Polo saw it," and the like. The narrator even proposes to uphold the sophisticated distinction between eyewitness information, gathered firsthand, and accounts obtained from others:

We will set down things seen as seen, things heard as heard, so that our …

Chaucer's Sense Of An Ending, Colleen Donnelly

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The problem of closure plagued Chaucer throughout his career, and critics have continued to point out his 'inability" to end or finish many of his poems. This lack of closure often frustrates the casual reader and perplexes the serious scholar, leaving both to wonder if Chaucer was incapable of bringing his poems to an end or if he simply intended to tease his audience with such inconclusiveness. Neither answer is quite satisfactory. To understand that this inconclusiveness was deliberately created by Chaucer the master poet, and not by Chaucer resignedly handing the pen over to the befuddled persona whoo records …

Three Forged Letters Of Anne Boleyn: Their Implications For Reformation Politics And Women's Studies, Retha M. Warnicke

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The controversy in 1983 over the validity of the Hitler diaries publicized once again the need to authenticate historical and literary documents with great care. The problem of verification has existed since the classical period of history, probably the most famous forgery of all time being the Donation of Constantine, which secured Western Europe for Christendom. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era, the Christian faith has been plagued by charges that many of its holy works and relics are nothing more than fakes or fabrications. Three forged letters of Anne Boleyn, which will be examined here, can …