Metaphysical wit
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Bibliographic Information
Metaphysical wit
Cambridge University Press, 2006
- : pbk
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Note
Repirint. Originally published: Cambridge [England] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1991
"This digitally printed first paperback version 2006"--T.p. verso
Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-266) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
English metaphysical poetry, from Donne to Marvell, is notoriously witty. In this 1992 book, A. J. Smith seeks the reason for the central importance of wit in the thinking of the metaphysical poets and argues that metaphysical wit is essentially different from other modes of wit current in Renaissance Europe. Formal theories and rhetorics of wit are considered both for their theoretical import and their appraisals of wit in practice. Prevailing fashions of witty invention are scrutinized in Italian, French and Spanish writings, so as to bring out the nature and effect of various forms of wit: conceited, hieroglyphic, transformational and others from which the metaphysical mode is distinguished. He locates the basis of Renaissance wit in the received conception of the created order and a theory of literary innovation inherent in Humanist belief, which led to novel couplings of time and eternity, body and soul, man and God.
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1. Drastic devices
- 2. Mirror of creation
- 3. Courtly conceits
- 4. Intelligible images
- 5. Arts of ingenuity
- 6. Metaphorical wit
- 7. Metaphysical wit
- 8. Sacred earth
- Notes
- Index.
by "Nielsen BookData"
