Renaissance Literature and Its Formal Engagements

After theory and the new historicism, what might a self-conscious turn to formal analysis in Renaissance literary studies look like today? The essays address this question from a variety of critical perspectives, embodying a renewed engagement with questions of form.

Mark David Rasmussen is Associate Professor and Chair of English at Centre College.

Introduction * New Formalisms?—Mark David Rasmussen * Part I: Toward a Historical Formalism * Between Form and Culture: New Historicism and the Promise of a Historical Formalism—Stephen Cohen * Shakespeare and the Composite Text—Douglas Bruster * The Politics of Aesthetics: Recuperating Formalism and the Country House Poem—Heather Dubrow * Marston’s Gorge and the Question of Formalism—Joseph Loewenstein * Part II: Renewing the Literary * Learning from the New Criticism: The Example of Shakespeare’s Sonnets—Paul Alpers * The Aesthetics of Shakespearean Wordplay—Mark Womack * The Poetics of Speech Tags—William Flesch * Flirting with Eternity: Teaching Form and Meter in a Renaissance Poetry Class—Elizabeth Harris Sagaser * Afterword: How Formalism Became a Dirty Word, and Why We Can’t Do Without It—Richard Strier
Introduction * New Formalisms?—Mark David Rasmussen * Part I: Toward a Historical Formalism * Between Form and Culture: New Historicism and the Promise of a Historical Formalism—Stephen Cohen * Shakespeare and the Composite Text—Douglas Bruster * The Politics of Aesthetics: Recuperating Formalism and the Country House Poem—Heather Dubrow * Marston’s Gorge and the Question of Formalism—Joseph Loewenstein * Part II: Renewing the Literary * Learning from the New Criticism: The Example of Shakespeare’s Sonnets—Paul Alpers * The Aesthetics of Shakespearean Wordplay—Mark Womack * The Poetics of Speech Tags—William Flesch * Flirting with Eternity: Teaching Form and Meter in a Renaissance Poetry Class—Elizabeth Harris Sagaser * Afterword: How Formalism Became a Dirty Word, and Why We Can’t Do Without It—Richard Strier