The Poetics of Literary Transfer in Early Modern France and England

"Examining both familiar and under appreciated texts, Hassan Melehy foregrounds the relationships that early modern French and English writers conceived with both their classical predecessors and authors from flourishing literary traditions in neighboring countries. In order to present their own avowedly national literatures as successfully surpassing others, they engaged in a paradoxical strategy of presenting other traditions as both inspiring and dead. Each of the book's four sections focuses on one early modern author: Joachim Du Bellay, Edmund Spenser, Michel de Montaigne, and William Shakespeare. Melehy details the elaborate strategies that each author uses to rewrite and overcome the work of predecessors. His book touches on issues highly pertinent to current early modern studies: among these are translation, the relationship between classicism and writing in the vernacular, the role of literature in the consolidation of the state, attitudes toward colonial expansion and the 'New World', and definitions of modernity and the past." --book cover Cover 1 Half Title 2 Dedication 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 6 Acknowledgements 8 Epigraph 10 Notes on Text 12 Introduction 14 Part 1 Du Bellay 28 1 Defending the Space of Early Modern Culture 30 2 Time in Rome 44 3 A Dream Language 64 Part 2 Spenser 86 4 Translation, Imitation, Ruin 88 5 Visions of Spenser 108 6 Antiquities of Britain 132 Part 3 Montaigne 150 7 Institutional Authority 152 8 The Words of Vanity 174 9 America, the End of Western Dreaming 192 Part 4 Shakespeare 216 10 The Sonnets and Time 218 11 Old and New Roman Times 234 12 The Representation of the Other 250 Works Cited 270 Index 286 Examining both familiar and underappreciated early modern texts, Hassan Melehy foregrounds the relationships that four writers - Joachim Du Bellay, Edmund Spenser, Michel de Montaigne, and William Shakespeare - conceived with both their classical and modern predecessors. Melehy sheds new light on pertinent issues in early modern studies, including translation, the relationship between classicism and writing in the vernacular, attitudes toward colonial expansion and the "New World," and definitions of modernity and the past.