Incomplete Fictions: The Formation of English Renaissance Dialogue - Hardcover

Wilson, K. J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813205980 ISBN 13: 9780813205984

Publisher: The Catholic University of America Press, 1985

Synopsis

The English Renaissance writers believed that in the deepest reaches of the self or soul were what they read. Erasmus, using the metaphor of literature as food, said that we must become what we learn. Thomas More complained in a letter, "I have no time for myself, that is, for literature." Incomplete Fictions traces the development of the preeminent literary form in the English humanists - dialogue - and its impact on the consciousness of these writers.

By describing dialogue as a "medial art," thus emphasizing the role of the humanists as mediators between the ideas of antiquity and their own sensory world, Wilson is able to focus both classical theory and biographical information on each text and on its central topic. His analysis includes the dialogues of Ficino, Bembo, and Erasmus, Elyot, Ascham, and More.

Through the combined influences of classical (Platonic and Ciceronian) dialogue, the unique personalities of these Renaissance humanists, and the culture of humanism as a movement, Tudor dialogue evolved into an expressed mode for imitating the interior world of thought and emotion. Incomplete Fictions is the first book-length study of this evolution.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Catholic University of America Press
• Publication date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813205980
• ISBN 13: 9780813205984
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 198