The Reception of Aristotle’s Poetics in the Italian Renaissance and Beyond: New Directions in Criticism(Bloomsbury Studies in the Aristotelian Tradition)

Using new and cutting-edge perspectives, this book explores literary criticism and the reception of Aristotle's Poetics in early modern Italy. Written by leading international scholars, the chapters examine the current state of the field and set out new directions for future study. The reception of classical texts of literary criticism, such as Horace’s Ars Poetica, Longinus's On the Sublime, and most importantly, Aristotle’s Poetics was a crucial part of the intellectual culture of Renaissance Italy. Revisiting the translations, commentaries, lectures, and polemic treatises produced, the contributors apply new interdisciplinary methods from book history, translation studies, history of the emotions and classical reception to them. Placing several early modern Italian poetic texts in dialogue with twentieth-century literary theory for the first time, The Reception of Aristotle’s Poetics in the Italian Renaissance and Beyond models contemporary practice and maps out avenues for future study.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures List of Contributors Acknowledgements 1. Introduction, Bryan Brazeau (University of Warwick, UK) Part I. Mapping the Field and Retracing Boundaries 2. A Scholar-Collector in Mid-Century Chicago: The Books of Bernard Weinberg, Eufemia Baldassarre (University of Chicago, USA), Paul F. Gehl (Newberry Library, USA) and Lia Markey (Newberry Library, USA) 3. Sound Aristotelians and How They Read, Micha Lazarus (Cambridge University, UK) 4. Inventing a Renaissance: Modernity, Allegory, and the History of Literary Theory, Vladimir Brljak (University of Cambridge, UK) Part II. Case Studies: Critical Quarrels and Readings 5. From Manuscript Studies to the Social and Political History of Aesthetics: Shedding Light on the Readings of Aristotle’s Poetics developed within the Alterati of Florence (1569-ca. 1630), Déborah Blocker (U.C. Berkeley, USA) 6. Quarrelling over Dante: Revisiting Weinberg on The First Phase of the Quarrel and on Sperone Speroni’s Second Discorso sopra Dante, Simon Gilson (University of Oxford, UK) 7. Poetics in Practice: How Orazio Lombardelli Read his Homer, Sarah Van Der Laan (Indiana University Bloomington, USA) Part III. New Theoretical Frontiers 8. Epic (In)hospitality: The Case of Tasso, Jane Tylus (Yale University, USA) 9. Soul to Squeeze: Emotional History and Early Modern Readings of Aristotle’s Poetics, Bryan Brazeau (University of Warwick, UK) 10. Critical Imitatio: Renaissance Literary Theory and its Postmodern Avatars, Ayesha Ramachandran (Yale University, USA) Appendix: Early Modern Books in the Library of Bernard Weinberg, Paul F. Gehl (Newberry Library, USA), Lia Markey (Newberry Library, USA), and Eufemia Baldassare (University of Chicago, USA) Index

About the Author :
Bryan Brazeau is Senior Teaching Fellow in Liberal Arts, University of Warwick, UK.

Review :
A tool kit to be used by poets working to build new forms and by readers working to make sense of them. The volume constitutes a major step forward in the study of early modern poetics, offering not only fresh insight into the intellectual world of the Renaissance but also a productive (and long overdue) reassessment of modern scholarly approaches to the field. By tackling Renaissance poetics from a variety of cross-disciplinary perspectives, this book redefines the place of literary criticism in early modern culture and sheds light on its relevance to the making of modern discourses about the interplay of literature and the world. A timely and significant reengagement with Renaissance poetic theory in Italy, this volume offers a fresh and genuinely interdisciplinary take on a constituent element of early modern culture. The volume’s three main sections offer readers a series of engaging case studies which put early modern critical materials and contemporary theories and methodologies into direct conversation with each other. The collection as a whole relaunches the critical conversation on Renaissance Italy’s poetic theory, moving it beyond where Bernard Weinberg left it, with vision and ambition.