Domestic georgic : labors of preservation from Rabelais to Milton / Katie Kadue.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kadue, Katie, author.

Contributor:

Rosengarten Family Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

European literature--Renaissance, 1450-1600--History and criticism.

European literature.

Literature, Modern--15th and 16th centuries--History and criticism.

Literature, Modern.

English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and criticism.

English literature.

Literature, Modern--17th century--History and criticism.

Work in literature.

Housekeeping in literature.

English literature--Early modern.

European literature--Renaissance.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

227 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2021.

Summary:

"When is writing poetry more labor than inspiration, more like housework than heroics of the mind? In this revisionist study, Katie Kadue shows that some of the authors we credit with groundbreaking literary feats--including Michel de Montaigne and John Milton--conceived of their writing in notably domestic and modest terms, more like putting up preserves than creating something new. In contrast to the vigorous civilizing work associated with the literature of the age and inspired by Virgil's "Georgics," poetic labor of the Renaissance emerges here as more often aligned with women's work. Kadue reveals male authors' surprising engagements with a feminized georgic mode and shows how it became central to their conceptions of what literature is and could be. This other georgic strain in literature shared the same primary concern as housekeeping: the necessity of constant, almost invisible labor in order to keep the things of the world intact. "Domestic Georgic" brings into focus a conception of literary--as well as scholarly and critical--labor not as a striving for originality and fame but as a form of maintenance work that aims at preserving individual and collective life"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. Rabelais in a Pickle

Fixing Flux in Le Quart Livre

2. Spenser's Secret Recipes

Life Support in The Faerie Queene

3. Correcting Montaigne

Agitation and Care in the Essais

4. Marvell in the Meantime

Preserving Patriarchy in Upon Appleton House

5. Milton's Storehouses

Tempering Futures in Areopagitica, Paradise Lost, and Paradise Regain'd.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.

ISBN:

9780226797359

022679735X

9780226797496

022679749X

OCLC:

1240772697