Renaissance Studies Commons^™

The Syllables Of Time: An Augustinian Context For Macbeth 5.5, John S. Tanner

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Among the most familiar lines in all Shakespeare are these Macbeth utters upon hearing the Lady Macbeth's death:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

(5.5.19-28)

So familiar, indeed, is this speech …

Review Essay: Bernard Guenée, States And Rulers In Later Medieval Europe, De Lamar Jensen

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Bernard Guenée, States and Rulers in Later Medieval Europe, trans. Juliet Vale, Basil Blackwell, 1985.

Review Essay: Rowland Wymer, Suicide And Despair In The Jacobean Drama, William Mccarron

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Rowland Wymer, Suicide and Despair in the Jacobean Drama, St. Martin's Press, 1986.

Catherine Des Roches (1542-1587): Humanism And The Learned Woman, Anne R. Larsen

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Catherine des Roches has long been familiar to Renaissance social historians for the incongruous flea that alighted one day on her bosom as she was conversing with the humanist lawyer Estienne Pasquier. Pasquier, who was beginning to run out of propos, as he tells his correspondent Pierre Pithou, nimbly seized upon this unexpected diversion, suggesting that he and des Roches immortalize the event in a contest of versified wit. The habitués of the salon of the Dames des Roches soon joined the gallant exchange and produced a collection of ninety-three folios entitles La Puce de Madame des Roches (1582).

Redemption Typology In John Donne's "Batter My Heart", Raymond-Jean Frontain

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In the seventeenth century, notes Barbara K. Lewalski, typological symbolism came to be considered a way for the individual to explore one's own spiritual state and to discover "the workings of Divine Providence in one's own life."

[T]he shift in emphasis in reformation theology from quid agas to God's activity in us made it possible to assimilate our lives to the typological design, recognizing the biblical stories and events, salvation history, not merely as exemplary too us but as actually recapitulated in our lives. These various impulses led to a new, primary focus upon the individual Christian, whose life is …

Review Essay: Emile Mâle, Art And Artists Of The Middle Ages, James Finn Cotter

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Emile Mâle, Art and Artists of the Middle Ages, trans. Sylvia Stallings Lowe, Black Swan Books, 1986.

The Wilton Diptych And The Absolutism Of Richard Ii, Sumner Ferris

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The Wilton Diptych (in The National Gallery, London) may now, after some years of hesitation on the matter, be considered to be very probably the work of an English artist. Consequently, we may take the painting to be not simply a masterpiece of the International Style but a specifically English masterpiece of the age of Richard II, the kind whom it chiefly honors and depicts, and we may expect to find in it a specifically English meaning.

Review Essay: Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff, Medieval Woman's Visionary Literature, Richard J. Panofsky

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Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff, Medieval Woman's Visionary Literature, Oxford University Press, 1986.

Review Essay: Alan Macfarlane, Marriage And Love In England, Modes Of Reproduction, 1300-1840, J. B. Owens

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Alan Macfarlane, Marriage and Love in England, Modes of Reproduction, 1300-1840, Basil Blackwell, 1986.

Full Issue

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No abstract provided.

The 'Finiguerra' Venus And Her Children: The Iconology Of A Fifteenth-Century Florentine Engraving, Gwendolyn Bryant

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Interpreting Finiguerra's engraving of the planetary Venus and those born under her aegis not only entails an analysis of the engraving itself and other related images, but it calls for a reassessment of the work of Aby Warburg, whose research on this and other series of the planets cleared the way for many subsequent studies. Since Warburg's followers have consistently ignored many of his theoretical concerns, it is essential to outline them briefly if we are to understand his analysis of the 'Finiguerra' Venus.

Review Essay: Hans Baron, Petrarch's "Secretum": Its Making And Its Meaning, Ronnie H. Terpening

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Hans Baron, Petrarch's "Secretum": Its Making and Its Meaning, Medieval Academy of America, 1985. $22.00

Review Essay: V. A. Kolve, Chaucer And The Imagery Of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales, Charles R. Smith

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V. A. Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales, Stanford University Press, 1984. $39.50

The Wife Of Bath And The Scholastic Concept Of Operatio, Joseph E. Grennen

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The loathly lady of Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale delivers a lecture to her reluctant swain which is remarkably gracious and persuasive, although hardly unconventional. Her sentiments, which find a parallel in Dante's Convivio, may be summed up in a phrase: Virtue is the true nobility. True virtue, furthermore, is a legacy from Christ, not an inheritance passed on with titles and wealth. The chief difficulty facing a reader is to find a way of reconciling this view with the cynical, maverick personality established for Alice of Bath in her own prologue. We might suppose that Chaucer is here …

The Sense Of An Ending In Shakespeare's Early Comedies, Deborah T. Curren Aquino

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About Shakespeare's endings, Samuel Johnson wrote:

in many of his plays the latter part is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and in view of his reward, he shortened the labor to snatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly represented. (71-72)

In the twentieth century, Ernest Schanzer has echoed Dr. Johnson's opinion in his commentary on A Midsummer Night's Dream: "For sheer economy and multiplicity of effect it [the first scene] has no equal in any of …

Tasso's First Discourse On The Art Of Poetry As A Guide To The Gerusalemme Liberata, Lawrence F. Rhu

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The relationship between Tasso's early Discorsi dell'arte poetica and his Gerusalemme liberata needs clarification for a variety of reasons. The existence of a later poetics – the Discorsi del poema eroico, which modifies and expands the earlier version – has frequently side-tracked readers into a text that more properly pertains to Tasso's later version of his epic, the Gerusalemme conquistata. The availability of the second poetics in English, while the first remains inaccessible to readers without Italian, has also encouraged this inappropriate pairing. Further, the current vogue of literary theory tends to promote a view of Tasso's poetics …

Front Matter

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No abstract provided.

Constantinian Coin Motifs In Ancient Literary Sources, Charles Odahl

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Classical numismatists have long assumed that Roman emperors used the imperial coinage as a medium of propaganda. The obverses advertised the emperor's visages and titles, while the frequently changed reverses announced military victories, peace and prosperity, imperial beneficence and building programs, or religious beliefs, etc. Often beautifully designed, stamped with a much higher and more vivid relief than modern coins, and spread throughout the empire, Roman coins and medallions certainly seem to have been minted and disseminated with the intention that the imperial populace would note the figures and read the inscriptions thereon – not merely exchange them in economic …

Gastronomy And Sexuality: "Table Language" In The Heptaméron, Colette H. Winn

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In his penetrating study on Marguerite de Navarre, Themes, Language and Structure, Marcel Tetel calls attention to the metaphoric usage of food in the Heptaméron. Critics, to date, have failed to pursue this line of inquiry. Readers accustomed to Rabelais's elaborate gastronomic depictions may be disappointed by the extreme sobriety of corresponding scenes in the Hemptaméron. Marguerite eschews the picturesque description of a generously laden table, the exuberance associated with this traditionally jovial event and the gigantism required by the Gargantuan legend in favor of briefer and often less colorful table encounters. Yet relegating these scenes to …

The Anglo-Norman Courtly Lyric, Carol J. Harvey

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Whereas many works of a religious or moral nature survive from the Anglo-Norman era, secular lyric poetry was until quite recently virtually unknown. Isabel S. T. Aspin's Anglo-Norman Political Songs provided the first, and to date the only, readily-accessible modern edition of secular lyrics. This collection of political poems and satires shows that the author of occasional verse is not only interested in singing the praises of the Blessed Virgin Mary or adapting parts of the liturgy into the vernacular; he is moved also to sing of the corruption of state or church, to lament the death of the noble …

Review Essay: David Nicholas, The Domestic Life Of A Medieval City, Francis X. Hartigan

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David Nicholas, The Domestic Life of a Medieval City, University of Nebraska Press, 1985. $26.50

On Ferrera And Chivalric/Epic Poetry In Italian Criticism Today, Maristella De P. Lorch

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Gennaro Savarse, Il "Furioso" e la cultura del Rinascimento. Letteratura italiana: Studi e testi 10. Roma: Bulzoni, 1984. 94 p. Lire 7,000.

Riccardo Bruscagli, Stagioni della civiltà estense. Saggi di varia umanità, 25. Pisa: Nistri-Lischi, 1982. 236 p. Lire 15,000.

Rosanna Alhaique Pettinelli, L'immaginario cavalleresco nel Rinascimento ferrarese. L'Ippogrifo, 29. Roma: Bonacci, 1983. 301 p. Lire 16,000.

Review Essay: David C. Fowler, The Bible In Middle English Literature, Donald Sullivan

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David C. Fowler, The Bible in Middle English Literature, University of Washington Press, 1984. $25.00

Full Issue

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No abstract provided.

Review Essay: James Weisheipl, Nature And Motion In The Middle Ages, Richard Harper

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James Weisheipl, Nature and Motion in the Middle Ages, Catholic University of America Press, 1985. $31.95

Review Essay: Warren Threadgold, Renaissances Before The Renaissance, Gunar Freibergs

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Warren Threadgold, Renaissances Before the Renaissance, Stanford University Press, 1984. $28.50

Review Essay: David Bergeron, Shakespeare's Romances And The Royal Family, Dorothy C. Jones

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David Bergeron, Shakespeare's Romances and the Royal Family, University of Kansas Press, 1985. $25.00

Review Essay: Stephen C. Ferruolo, The Origins Of The University: The Schools Of Paris And Their Critics, 1100-1215, Donald Sullivan

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Stephen C. Ferruolo, The Origins of the University: The Schools of Paris and Their Critics, 1100-1215, Stanford University Press, 1985. $45.00

Barnabe Googe's Zodiake Of Life: A Translation Reconsidered, Marc Beckwith

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Marcellus Palingenius' Zodiacus Vitae in twelve books (Venice [1535?]) was exceedingly popular in Reformation Europe. In nearly 10,000 lines of Latin hexameters

are conteined twelue seuerall labours, painting out moste liuely, the whole compasse of the world, the reformation of manners, the miseries of mankinde, the pathway to vertue and vice, the eternitie of the Soule, the course of the Heavens, the mysteries of nature, and diuers other circumstances of great learning, and no lesse judgement,

as Barnabe Googe summarized it on the title page of his translation in 1576. The ZV saw over sixty editions as well as translations …

A Moral Voice For The Restoration Lady: A Comparative View Of Allestree And Vives, John A. Thomas

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Following the civil strife of the 1640s and the Interregnum of the 1650s, Anglican England felt the necessity of spiritual housecleaning to tighten its hold on the godly and to ferret out dissenting influences. Evidence of renewed authoritarianism is seen in Richard Allestree's early appointment in the 1660s as a lecturer for the city of Oxford, where his task was to establish the faith and to root out schismatical opinions propagated by "false" teachers of the Interregnum. In 1662 Charles was to pass measures, albeit reluctantly, requiring strict conformity concerning practices in the church not unlike those enforced by Laud. …