A Local Habitation and a Name : Imagining Histories in the Italian Renaissance

Focusing on major authors and problems from the Italian fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, from Petrarch and Boccaccio to Machiavelli, Ariosto and Tasso, A Local Habitation and a Name examines the unstable dialectic of GrealityG and Gimagination,G as well as of GhistoryG and Gliterature.G Albert Ascoli identifies and interprets the ways in which literary texts are shaped by and serve the purposes of multiple, intertwined historical discourses and circumstances, and he equally probes the function of such texts in constructing, interpreting, critiquing, and effacing the histories in which they are embedded. Throughout, he poses the theoretical and methodological question of how formal analysis and literary forms can at once resist and further the historicist enterprise. Along the way Ascoli interrogates the mechanisms of historical periodization that have governed for so long our study of what is sometimes called the GRenaissance,G sometimes the early modern period. He also addresses the periodGs own unstable version of the literature/history opposition, the place of gendered discourse in the construction of historical narratives (and vice versa), the elaborate formal strategies by which poets and intellectuals negotiate their relations to power, and, finally, the way in which proper names (of authors, works, and exemplary characters) serve as points of negotiation between individual identity and social order in the Renaissance. The book brings to culmination two decades of a major scholarGs thinking about some of the most important figures and questions that shaped the Renaissance, with emphasis on the question of history, both the historical context of literature and the writing of literary history. Focusing on major authors and problems from the Italian fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, from Petrarch and Boccaccio to Machiavelli, Ariosto and Tasso, this book examines the unstable dialectic of reality and imagination, as well as of history and literature. The author identifies and interprets the ways in which literary texts are shaped by and serve the purposes of multiple, intertwined historical discourses and circumstances, and he equally probes the function of such texts in constructing, interpreting, critiquing, and effacing the histories in which they are embedded. Throughout, he poses the theoretical and methodological question of how formal analysis and literary forms can at once resist and further the historicist enterprise. Additionally, he interrogates the mechanisms of historical periodization that have governed for so long our study of what is called the Renaissance, which is sometimes referred to as the early modern period. He also addresses the period's own unstable version of the literature/history opposition, the place of gendered discourse in the construction of historical narratives (and vice versa), the elaborate formal strategies by which poets and intellectuals negotiate their relations to power, and, finally, the way in which proper names (of authors, works, and exemplary characters) serve as points of negotiation between individual identity and social order in the Renaissance. This volume brings to culmination two decades of thinking about some of the most important figures and questions that shaped the Renaissance, with emphasis on the question of history, including both the historical context of literature and the writing of literary history. -- from Back Cover Focusing on major authors and problems from the Italian fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, from Petrarch and Boccaccio to Machiavelli, Ariosto and Tasso, this book examines the unstable dialectic of “reality” and “imagination,” as well as “history” and “literature.” The book identifies and interprets the ways in which literary texts are shaped by and serve the purposes of multiple, intertwined historical contexts, and it equally probes the function of such texts in constructing, interpreting, critiquing, and effacing the histories in which they are embedded. Throughout, the book poses the theoretical and methodological question of how formal analysis and literary forms can at once resist and further the historicist enterprise. Along the way the book interrogates the mechanisms of historical periodization that have governed for so long our study of what is sometimes called the “Renaissance,” sometimes the early modern period. It also addresses the period's own unstable version of the literature/history opposition, the place of gendered discourse in the construction of historical narratives (and vice versa), the elaborate formal strategies by which poets and intellectuals negotiate their relations to power, and, finally, the way in which proper names (of authors, works, and exemplary characters) serve as points of negotiation between individual identity and social order in the Renaissance Petrarch's middle age: memory, imagination, and history in the 'Ascent of Mt. Ventoux' Boccaccio's Auerbach: holding the mirror up to mimesis Pyrrhus's rules: playing with power in Boccaccio's Decameron Petrarch's private politics: Familiares, book 19 Machiavelli's gift of counsel Ariosto's 'Fier pastor': form and history in Orlando Furioso Ericthonius's secret: body politics in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso Clizia's histories Liberating the tomb: difference and death in Gerusalemme Liberata. Focusing on major authors and problems from the Italian 14th and 16th centuries, this work examines the unstable dialectic of 'reality' and 'imagination', as well as of 'history' and 'literature'