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Cosmos and Image in the Renaissance: French Love Lyric and Natural-Philosophical Poetry

Banks, Kathryn

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Abstract

Renaissance images could be real as well as linguistic. Human beings were often believed to be an image of the cosmos, and the sun an image of God. With Cosmos and Image in the Renaissance, Kathryn Banks explores the implications of this for poetic language and argues that linguistic images were a powerful tool for rethinking cosmic conceptions. She reassesses the role of natural-philosophical poetry in France, focusing upon its most well-known and widely-read exponent, Guillaume de Saluste Du Bartas. Through a sustained analysis of Maurice Sceve's delie, Banks also rethinks love lyric's oft-noted use of the beloved as image of the poet. Cosmos and Image makes an original contribution to our understanding of Renaissance thinking about the cosmic, the human, and the divine. It also proposes a mode of reading other Renaissance texts, and reflects at length upon the relation of 'literature' to history, to the history of science, and to political turmoil.

Citation

Banks, K. (2008). Cosmos and Image in the Renaissance: French Love Lyric and Natural-Philosophical Poetry. Legenda

Book Type Authored Book
Publication Date Jan 1, 2008
Deposit Date Nov 24, 2011
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Publisher Legenda
Keywords Poetry, Renaissance, French.
Publisher URL http://www.mhra.org.uk/cgi-bin/legenda/legenda.pl?catalogue=b9781905981922

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Copyright Statement
Extract deposited: Introduction, pp.1-28
; Introduction to Part I : 'The cosmos in Du Bartas's Sepmaine: Images of God and of War' pp.30-35 ; Chapter 1: 'Poetry and theology: images of the divine', pp.36-60.




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