| Description |
viii, 429 pages ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
1. A Writer Reading: The Theories of a "Sinner with a Melancholic Humor," -- 2. Armida's Lap, Erminia's Tears: In the Wake of Paternity and Figuration in the Gerusalemme liberata -- 3. The Mirror and the Snake: The Case of Marvell's "Unfortunate Lover," -- 4. Errors and Dam(n)'d Confusions: Shakespearean Subjects on Trial -- 5. "Hairy on the In-side": The Duchess of Malfi and the Body of Lycanthropy |
| Summary |
By carefully reading the linguistic, poetic, and rhetorical problems that characterize early modern representations of "male" melancholia, the book helps specify precisely what difference the intersection between psychoanalysis and semiotics makes for understanding the elusive relationship between historically variable representations of identity, aesthetic activity, and sexuality. It studies various disruptive encounters with a mirror image in epic, lyric, and drama, analyzing each text's representation of what counts as a "male" self according to the formal and rhetorical problems raised by its own language. It does so in order to interrogate anew the complex, and not always intuitive, relationship between subjectivity, eros, and literary form |
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This book offers new readings of several prominent early modern texts, examining the connection between melancholia, narcissism, sexual difference, and literary form in works by Tasso, Marvell, Shakespeare, and Webster. Reading each work in light of contemporary psychoanalytic theory, the book demonstrates that the figural language of melancholia fractures and dislocates masculine identity in the very movement that gives it shape |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [405]-421) and index |
| Subject |
Narcissus (Greek mythological character) -- In literature.
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Authors, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Psychology.
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Crying in literature.
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English literature -- Male authors -- History and criticism.
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English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism.
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Male authors, English -- Psychology.
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Male authors, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Psychology.
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Masculinity in literature.
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Melancholy in literature.
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Narcissus (Greek mythology) in literature
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Psychoanalysis and literature -- England.
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Psychoanalysis and literature.
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Self in literature.
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Men in literature.
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Tears in literature.
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| LC no. |
94040432 |
| ISBN |
0804723974 |
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