Mania and Literary Style: The Rhetoric of Enthusiasm from the Ranters to Christopher Smart: 29 (Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought, Series Number 29) - Softcover

Hawes, Clement

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521022029 ISBN 13: 9780521022026

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2008

Synopsis

This study analyzes 'enthusiastic' writing from the Ranters to Swift, and explores madness and sanity in literature.

About this title

Review

"The approach is lively and engaging, context-rich and historically immersed, imaginative and responsive to the realities of the discourse community." Choice

"Hawes' sensitive reading of enthusiastic language and his obvious pleasure in its iconoclastic mania to loosen and unsettle, to fragment and recombine, deepens our understanding of early modern literary culture." Anne L. Cotterill, Albion

"...Mania and Literary Style buzzes with interest...This book should be read..." Nigel Smith, Modern Philology

"Clement Hawes's outstanding new book on the history of literary enthusiasm has arrived. Mania and Literary Style is a provocative and exciting account." Studies in Romanticism

Book Description

This highly original study identifies a line of influence running from the radical visionary and prophetic writing of the Ranters and their fellow enthusiasts to the work of Jonathan Swift and Christopher Smart, and offers a powerful critique of pervasive assumptions about madness and sanity in literature.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521022029
• ISBN 13: 9780521022026
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256