Description:
The Renaissance and the Postmodern reconsiders postmodern readings of Renaissance texts by engaging in a dialectics the authors call comparative critical values. Rather than concede the contemporary hierarchy of theory over literature, the book takes the novel approach of consulting major Renaissance writers about the values at work in postmodern representations of early modern culture.
Review Quotes:
"This is a welcome contribution to the discussion of the explanatory capacity of postmodern vocabulary, which has come to be accepted in professional criticism of Early Modern literature. Here, the authors investigate the (perhaps unwitting) literal application of the "metaphors" of once-fashionable postmodern critics (Derrida, Foucault, and Lacan) to the texts of Spenser, Milton, and (especially) Shakespeare. This book is learned, clearly-written, and fair."
- Stanley Stewart, Department of English, University of California, Riverside